Dwindling Inferno

The baby wailed. He screamed and cried and reached grabby little hands towards the front door where Suigetsu had left just under an hour ago. The blonde knew he should have probably moved or tried to console the pup, but he was frozen. His brain was running faster than his body was, which wasn’t to say much as he stared dumbfounded at the door.

Naruto hadn’t even felt himself blink in probably ten minutes.

There was a lump in his throat when he swallowed a harsh breath laced with uncertainty. “Hey, it’ll be okay little guy.” He murmured gently, not quite sounding like himself. “I’m here- your- your daddy’s here now.”.

His voice caught in his throat, choking on a deeply emotional feeling that he didn’t know if he’d be ever to give a proper name to. Naruto had wanted this for so long. And now that his perfect little family was so close to being completed, he’d frozen up like a newbie genin in their first real battle.

His son kept crying. The sounds coming from such small lungs were loud and hoarse. So raw and needlessly anguished. It was messing with Naruto’s instincts that were already going haywire at the new addition to the Uzumaki’s previous family of one. He needed to do something- either get the pup to calm down, or get himself to calm down. Preferably both.

He swiveled his head around to try and see if anything to distract the pup from his crying was laying around. He vaguely remembered small moments when Konohamaru was beside himself when he was younger and how familiar scents and Sasuke’s nests had helped soothe him.

Maybe-

No. The phantom sensations of Sasuke’s nests enveloped every nerve ending in his body. How soft and warm they’d been. How orderly yet cozy, built with a pattern that only Sasuke would have been privy to. Created with finer fabrics than Naruto had ever been given the opportunity to even try and buy for himself back then, let alone allowed entry to the kinds of high end shops where those types of things were sold.

Naruto couldn’t even try and entertain the idea of being good enough to try and make a nest for their son. He didn’t have the instinct, nor the skill or materials. He’d probably end up making the baby wail even louder by making a mess of things.

“Don’t worry, okay? I’m gonna take care of you.” Naruto whispered wetly into the dark, wild strands of his little boy’s hair.

The alpha would figure it out. He’d just have to cuddle the dark haired Uzumaki close instead and hope he could keep his baby cozy and warm and scent him until there was not a single inch of the pup that wasn’t doused in his protective scent. He’d do everything for this small, ethereal creature that Naruto had always dreamed that someone would do for him.

He would love him so eternally that it would shatter the confines of time. So endlessly, that not even for a second, would this small, red faced thing ever have to become friends with loneliness itself.

And if Naruto joined his son in his crying, for completely different reasons, well, who could blame him?

~~~

Around four hours later, night had fallen. A soft glow from the twinkling stars in the sky outside the windows cast small highlights across his menagerie of plants that decorated his windowsill.

The blonde didn’t want to move from his spot on the couch. He was too scared to jostle the pup and wake him up- or worse, drop him. He was so small and fragile that the alpha could feel his heart beating as he rubbed his back in what he hoped to be a soothing gesture.

The pup was wrapped up in Naruto’s old jacket, still. The alpha thumbed lightly at the various patch jobs and singes that littered the orange fabric. Back then, it had been Naruto’s best and least tattered piece of clothing. That was why he’d chosen it out of his other ones to gift Sasuke that day at the lake. Sasuke had always worn pristine and proper clothing, and Naruto had so desperately wanted Sasuke to have only the best that the blonde could give him.

Looking at it now, though, he realized how pitiful the gesture had probably been to the omega. It paled in comparison to Sasuke’s high standards, that was certain. But, he’d taken it anyway. He’d nested with it-even taken it with him when he’d left the village. And, now here their son was, wrapped firmly in a swaddle of orange, as proof that Sasuke had treasured the thing, even now.

Sasuke was always terrible about communicating his feelings. Somehow, he put even Kakashi sensei to shame in that regard. But it was his actions that spoke for him. Like when they’d shared their mating cycles in that cave, and Sasuke hadn’t realized that Naruto had woken up yet, and the omega had brushed the blonde’s hair out of his face so gently. Or when Sasuke had first come over to his apartment, back when the scent bond was still new and they thought they could figure out a way to break it, and built a nest on Naruto’s bed and pretended that he hadn’t.

Sasuke hadn’t been able to have Naruto there for the birth, or even the pregnancy. But, he’d still given their baby the closest thing to a part of Naruto’s presence that he had. And that spoke far louder than any negative warnings Shikamaru or Kiba or even Neji and Shino could give him about his relationship with Sasuke.

The jacket was Sasuke forgiving him for the incident at Orochimaru’s hideout.

The baby sniffled in his sleep and Naruto almost hurt himself by how fast he’d shifted his neck to look at any signs of his son being uncomfortable.

When the pup woke up, he’d probably be hungry, the blonde realized with a gulp. He didn’t have any baby food in his cupboards- only cup ramen and a wilted head of cabbage that he’d bought to try and show Sakura that he was eating healthily. Of course, he obviously wasn’t, and the cabbage had nearly cemented that fact at the time, but he’d still tried to put effort into the farce.

A lightbulb went off inside his mind. The sealing scroll. Suigetsu had left it on the shelf- he’d said Sasuke had put a bunch of baby stuff inside of it. Maybe there would be food inside.

But the shelf was all the way across the room.

Naruto looked down at the sleeping little thing once more. He couldn’t jostle him by moving. He couldn’t wake him, either. As a shinobi, he had the reflexes of a cat more often than not. Theoretically, he would be able to move to a standing position and walk the couple feet over to the shelf with no trouble at all. But, there was a small sense of panic that wound itself through every muscle in his body, like an overly cautious invisible thread of twine.

What if the baby shifted in his sleep and rolled right out of Naruto’s hold? Or what if he woke up because he felt the slightest shifting of the air across his chubby little cheeks? This was the first night his son was spending with the alpha, Naruto had no idea if he was a light sleeper or a heavy one like himself. Besides, his poor little guy had been so distraught earlier that he’d cried himself to sleep.

Ultimately, he decided on gently moving the pup away from his chest and onto the cushion next to where they’d been sitting instead. Naruto had sat there, watching the even breaths of the sleeping infant before he forced himself away. He stood as silently and as slowly as he could. So slowly in fact, that his knees screamed at him for such a snail’s pace.

Walking to the shelf had proven more difficult than he’d thought. His floorboards were riddled with booby traps in the form of squeaky planks. He hopped around on his tippy toes like a drunken bunny rabbit for a good few minutes to avoid making so much noise. Once he’d made it to the end of his little jumping journey, though, he let out a deep-but quiet- sigh of relief.

For peace of mind, he turned around to reassure himself that no, the baby hadn’t disappeared or rolled in between the sagging couch cushions in the two minutes he’d been left by himself. He looked as still and comfortable as when he’d been safely secured within the alpha’s hold.

The weight of the sealing scroll was heavy in his hands as he pulled it off of the shelf slowly to not make even the slightest hint of a noise. Opening it was easy. He’d mastered manipulating small seals like this back when he was still barely a genin. A smile tugged at his lips, because he remembered starkly how Sasuke, who up until that point was perfect at everything, had struggled with sealing techniques. The blonde had rubbed it in his face, naturally, until Sasuke had singed his eyebrows off with a fireball jutsu.

He’d had to draw his eyebrows on for weeks and out there somewhere, floating around in a wholly embarrassing doom, was a series of pictures that Kakashi had captured of Naruto with black marker lines for eyebrows.

Realistically, he knew that to master half of what Sasuke had likely mastered by now, he had to develop a skill for sealing, but seeing it was different. His thumb traced the intricate design of the inked on seal with reverence. Pride surprised himself as he let a small amount of his chakra bypass it.

Once he’d opened it, a small vibration radiated along the paper as the ink ripped and folded in on itself before disappearing all together. It tickled the tips of his fingers as he pushed his hand through the invisible barrier and into the small dimension that the seal had created.

He cast another look at his son to make sure everything was okay, but found his feet walking of their own accord to stand over the shabby couch to inspect the small sleeping form. So far, these five minutes had been the longest Naruto had gone without holding or touching his baby since he’d been placed into his care.

Quietly, he eased himself down to sit on the floor with his legs crossed facing the couch to keep an eye on the pup. Then, he began to rummage his hand around inside of the scroll and silently pulled objects out and set them down gently along the floorboards next to him on either side.

A good thirty minutes went by as he pulled items out of the storage scroll. He wasn’t sure what all was in there, nor was he particularly sure what he was really feeling around for, so his only real bet had been to just take everything out and go from there. And so he had.

A stuffed orange fox stared at him as he pulled yet another blue onesie with the Uchiha crest sewn onto the back. When he finally got his hands on Sasuke, he was going to tell him that his sense of humor was NOT funny. A stuffed fox? Really?

And when had Sasuke found the time to sew a bunch of Uchiha fans onto all of their son’s clothing? Naruto wasn’t even aware that the omega could sew!

Soft blankets that had his lip quivering at their cuteness ended up folded neatly next to all of the clothes. Bibs and a weird strappy thing that looked like a modified dual sword harness had followed next. Then, he found the jackpot in the form of a disturbingly large stockpile of diapers. None of them were the kind he’d seen the children at the orphanage wearing. There were no soft plastic padding and weird sticky fastening strips on these. Instead, they were some sort of reinforced, thick cloth, with buttons and velcro for fastening. And, even weirder, some of them were like a whole two or three sizes larger than the others.

He pulled out a couple pacifiers next, and each one was more colorful than the last. One was orange, and Naruto couldn’t help himself from playing with it. The end was soft and rubbery in a way that piqued his curiosity. Naruto knew that they were supposed to go in babies’ mouths, but why? It seemed like a weird toy to have.

With no one to tell him no, the alpha plopped the orange plastic thing in his mouth to see what all the fuss was about. Only, he was met with confusion instead of an answer to his curiosity. What was the rubber part for? It just felt uncomfortable, blocking the center space of his mouth like that.

Was it a chew toy? Was that why the end was so pliable?

He bit it once, and then twice, only to find it kinda lame.

Naruto scratched at the top of his head in confusion. Maybe it was just something to shut babies up if they cried too much. Yeah. That had to be it.

With disgust, he spit the pacifier out of his mouth and watched with a frown as it landed on the ground. His pup would not be playing with such a dumb toy like a pacifier. Nope. he’d just throw them in a drawer somewhere and let them collect dust until Sasuke would come back and explain why they were important enough for the omega to store away for their son.

Next, something kind of heavy with very little give came to his attention as he began to feel around inside of the scroll. It had a strap with grooves in the weave pattern that felt almost like a standard issue ninja pack meant for long missions in far away lands. Those were often filled with lots of small compartments and zippers to hold as much equipment as possible.

Had Sasuke sent weapons too? Surely he hadn’t already tried to teach their son about kunai and ninja wire. Could a baby even lift a kunai?

He yanked the pack out with more force than was probably necessary. Proven right with his original assumption that it was a ninja pack, his fingers began to dumbly pull at the strings and zippers to check to make sure there were no ‘baby’s first shuriken’ sets hidden within the cloth pockets.

His pointer finger brushed against something cold and hard and his heart stopped. Sasuke wouldn’t have really given their baby a bunch of ninja tools to play with, right? He was so small and fragile and soft! He didn’t belong anywhere near the harsh, sharp edges and cold, unforgiving metal!

Naruto pulled the offending object out of the pack with an iron fisted grip. What his blue eyes laid themselves upon, however, shocked him. It wasn’t metal he’d felt- it had been glass! He ripped the pack open by the largest opening in the center of the pack to find even more bottles! And they were all filled with-

Milk! Sasuke had thought ahead! Naruto didn’t have to figure out what to feed him now!

The alpha had never before been more in love with Sasuke in his life than in that moment as relief flooded through his body. He checked each and every bottle, and boy were there a lot of filled bottles, to find a different type of seal placed on the bottoms of each one.

He’d seen the seal before, but his memory of it was foggy. The seals had to be meant to keep the milk inside of the bottles from spoiling by keeping them cold.

Naruto did his best to read some of the symbols within one of the seals to get a better idea of what its purpose was, only for the memory of one of Sakura’s medical jutsu textbooks to pop into his head. Of course! This was the seal that medical ninjas used to keep detached limbs cold enough for travel so that they could reattach body parts to a more sterile environment!

Naruto gulped and looked down at the bottles. It was kinda morbid, now that he thought about it. But, knowing Sasuke and his ingenuity, it actually probably would have surprised the blonde if the omega hadn’t misused some sort of jutsu to suit the needs of their baby’s care.

The teenager took it upon himself to empty out the rest of the compartments inside of the pack. Knick knacks or other various, but not as important items soon joined the rest of the baby supplies on the floor next to him. However, as he unzipped the last pocket inside the bag that hadn’t yet been emptied, he found a white envelope instead.

It was sealed with a sticky thing that implied that it had been sealed in a far away village with different customs of its own. The alpha wasted no time in ripping the letter open and cringing when he realized how loud the sound was. He whipped his head around to check and see if the noise had disturbed his pup at all, but found that the little guy was still out like a light. Naruto smiled when he spotted the streams of drool flowing from the corners of his son's mouth.

Breathing out a large but silent breath of relief, Naruto pulled a folded up piece of paper from the confines of the obliterated envelope. On the front were the kanji for his name labeled with great care.

Sasuke…Sasuke had left him a letter.

With a shaking hand and a shock of uncertainty to what he would find, the alpha unfolded the paper in what felt like slow motion. Sasuke’s neat handwriting stared up at him, but the words were surrounded by awkward smudges on the page, like a few drops of water had landed on it and blurred some of the ink.

Why would Sasuke decide to write a letter in the rain? Was it so pressing that he couldn’t wait for the weather to dry up before writing?

His lips moved to silently form the words on the page as he began to read:

‘Naruto.

He deserves more than I can give him,
Take care of him.

He’s ours.’.

Sasuke hadn’t even signed his name but he didn’t have to. Naruto could feel the love and remorse woven between the listed words. And, suddenly, dried raindrops from who knows how long ago weren’t the only cause for smudges on the paper. Naruto’s tears rained down, as if trying to nourish the seeds of hope and pain that had been sown along the parchment in dried, miserable ink.

Their baby was so small, but each and every ounce of his being was forged in Sasuke’s love for them both. Naruto would bring him back. He would. And when he did, he’d hold him so tightly in his arms and try to breathe every ounce of Sasuke’s love back into the complex omega.

Because this- what they’d created, whether intentionally or not- was theirs.

Their family.

Their bond.

Their future.

~~~

Karin watched her fellow omega from a distance. Juugo had gotten a campfire going about an hour ago, but Sasuke had made no move to come share the warmth with his packmates. No, instead, he continued to sit alone on the largest boulder surrounding their temporary campsite. His back was to them, but she could see the way his shoulders sagged ever so slightly, even from that distance.

He wasn’t doing well, even a moron like Suigetsu would be able to figure that out if the alpha was there. Sasuke hadn’t made a single sound since they’d parted ways with Otter and Suigetsu, and that had been days ago. He’d kept the pace with her and Juugo as they walked along the route the omegan pack leader had lined out a week ago, but his steps were robotic.

It was like grief personified had wrapped strings around his joints and had been puppeting the Uchiha around in a gruesome attempt at forcing him to live without living. Smokey aftershocks of electricity clung to Sasuke’s being in a painfully dangerous version of his usual scent. In her entire time of knowing Sasuke, she’d never found his scent to be so hard to choke down until now.

It had Juugo on edge constantly. The beta was always just one step away from the edge of going berserk again. Only his worry and concern for Sasuke was probably holding him back from leveling an entire forest right about now.

“Do you think we could get him to eat this time?” Juugo crouched beside her as he whispered.

Sasuke had amazing senses. He could no doubt hear the beta’s barely audible question, even from so far away. Perhaps if he weren’t mourning the distance between him and his baby, Sasuke would have snapped his head around to shoot them an icy glare.

Sasuke hadn’t even glared in days. That was how she and Juugo knew that Otter’s lacking presence was taking such a wounding blow to Sasuke’s sensibilities.

If she didn’t know better- if she didn’t know Sasuke, she’d say he’d grown depressed. But, that wasn’t quite right. For as long as she’d known him- hell, even far longer if she had to guess, he’d shown signs of depression.

The lack of self care, the anger at having to be awake, the way Sasuke just seemed to shut down if he wasn’t training or taking care of some goal he’d set for himself… all of it would have been clues for any other person. But, Sasuke wasn’t normal. None of them were.

But this? The way he was acting now? It was uncharted territory in a very real, very scary way.

Sasuke wasn’t okay. If she knew more about omega parents and their mental health surrounding their attachments to their pups if separated, she’d know how to handle it better. But, she didn’t, and Sasuke was clearly on the road to a mental collapse of some kind, and that just couldn’t happen.

It couldn’t. Too many things rested on his shoulders. She knew that if he broke apart now, so close to the end of his quest, he would never forgive himself. Itachi Uchiha was a time sensitive case. They only had so much time before rumors spread and the maniac found out that he had a nephew that he could torture as equally as he already had Sasuke.

She pushed her glasses back into position, “I’ll try.”. The omega smiled minutely at her much larger packmate, but even she could tell that it wasn’t quite reassuring in the way she’d meant for it to be.

Karin watched as Juugo put together something small. He took great care to include the best pieces of meat into the portion. The gentle tremor in his hand was the only indicator that he was as worried as Karin was.

It had almost been too long since they’d been able to get Sasuke to force himself to eat something.

Her feet carried her over to the foreboding boulder that Sasuke had perched himself on. Even the light of the fire didn’t quite reach the area, so only her sensory abilities kept her from tripping in the darkened abyss that the Uchiha had isolated himself in.

“Sasuke?” She murmured softly.

Her packmate didn’t acknowledge her, but, she’d expected as much.

“Sasuke please eat- you need to keep your strength up.” She tried again. She stepped around the side of the large stone and into his direct line of sight, but his eyes were unseeing.

His nose didn’t even twitch at the aroma wafting off of the food Juugo had prepared.

It was scary how out of it Sasuke was. Terrifying how she couldn’t even tell if he was letting oxygen into his lungs or if he had somehow turned himself to stone in a weird, tortured attempt to protect himself from the heartbreak of separating from his pup.

Karin shivered despite the humidity that clung to their surroundings.

“Sasuke-” She crouched down to try and get his attention by waving her free hand in front of his eyes, but all that got her was an unimpressed blink.

The silence stretched on and no doubt, the depressed omega’s food was cold, but Karin wasn’t done yet. She wasn’t soft like Juugo, she wouldn’t give up to keep Sasuke comfortable.

To her own guilt and shame, she knew what she had to do. One last try, one last ditch argument that she’d refrained from uttering out of respect for her fellow omega and leader’s psyche.

She steeled herself and clenched her jaw. With authority lacing her tone, she broke the eerie silence once more. “You’re just going to give up, just like that? If you think you’re gonna take Itachi Uchiha down in the state you’re in, you’ve got another thing coming. Do you want Otter’s last memory of you to be you turning your back on him? Because at this rate, you’re going to leave him motherless. You’re a shinobi, act like it. You have a mission to complete, if you let your feelings get in the way, then you’ll fail, and Otter will be ashamed of you.”

And yes, Sasuke was beyond vulnerable. Yes, he’d been through such traumatic experiences back to back that his mind could be sewn back together by an expert manipulator’s needle if one so pleased. But, the situation was dire, each step they’d walked was leading them closer and closer to Itachi Uchiha.

Sasuke needed to snap out of it and defeat his brother. Then, he could heal in peace. But not a second before. If Karin had to be the one that pulled Sasuke’s strings like a twisted puppeteer, then so be it. She did it out of love. She couldn’t say that the next person who would try to manipulate the ashen omega would have his best interests at heart like she did. That was why it had to fall on her shoulders.

She used to do Orochimaru’s dirty work. Karin was used to it. She could give harsh verbal blows and watch patients or captives or whomever else she came in contact with break apart under her analytical gaze.

Even if the scent of her fellow omega’s distress burned her nostrils and his face visibly crumbling at the idea of Otter being ashamed of him broke her heart, she held firm. Someone needed to. Suigetsu was still gone and clearly Sasuke was in no state to handle things, so it fell to her.

Orochimaru had hand picked her out of his countless other followers to lead one of his hideouts in his stead, and it wasn’t because she was a push over. In fact, the direct quote had been ‘Karin, your natural talent for cruelty and analytical genius is superior even to Kabuto’s, who else could I choose to lead in my absence?’.

She’d been proud of the praise back then. All too eager to prove herself to the man who had saved her from that wretched village and that wretched hospital. But, now, as she watched Sasuke’s thin, trembling hands tentatively reach out to weakly grasp onto the plate she held out to him, she couldn’t help but wonder if those traits were as desirable as she’d once thought.

The Uzumaki stood back up and crossed her arms, “Right. Now, eat everything on the plate or I’ll make you eat another serving.”.

She was bluffing but he didn’t need to know that.

Karin forced her eyes to bore into his with the unsubtle threat until he took a small bite- and small it was. Hardly even a nibble, if she was being completely honest. But, it was a start.

She watched him struggle to chew. First one motion of his jaw, then another followed in an awkward, nauseated movement. It was as if the bones in his jaw had forgotten their purpose. He swallowed with some effort, if the pinched look on his face was anything to go off of.

Karin suspected that if she listened close enough, she could hear the food sliding down into the pit of his hollow stomach and causing a grumbling sort of echo to reverberate through the rest of his body.

“Go away.” Sasuke’s unused voice was rough and shaky in a way that hurt her heart more than her ears.

She adjusted her glasses to hide the fact that she’d been staring at him the entire time. Her startled step back was, however, impossible to hide.

It was the first time he’d said anything in days. A small victory all on its own, but she knew it was a victory born of guilting him into doing her bidding with holding his son over his head. It felt less worthy with that in mind. Less ideal.

Sparing him a long glance, she deflated and trudged back to where Juugo was patiently sitting with his legs crossed and his large, hulking shoulders hunched. She sat down beside the beta without a word. The plate was noticeably absent from her hands.

“He took the food?” Juugo’s eyebrows shot up.

The redhead nodded, even though her attention was almost solely on Sasuke’s back. If she concentrated hard enough and squinted, she could tell that he was shaking.

“Is it- do you think it’ll be better now?” The beta whispered, his words almost lost among the crackling of the fire as he leaned closer to her.

Karin pulled her knees to her chest and stared into the bright yellow-orange flames. “It has to be. There’s no other way. It just has to be.”

Sasuke continued to shake, and the fire continued to cast shadows across their makeshift camp. Sasuke remained far away, but at a certain point, long after Juugo had gone off to relieve himself in the wilderness nearby, the omega sat an empty plate down onto the ground next to his boulder. He said nothing, and Karin said nothing to note the accomplishment.

She watched him, and he shifted to his original position: solid, like stone.

It had to get better now. It just had to.

~~~

His first experience with an explosive diaper as a father came an hour after Naruto had finally managed to get them both dressed the next day. The Uzumaki was patting the baby’s back awkwardly as he tried to not fall asleep as he held him, barely awake from the baby waking up no less than an hour after Naruto had found Sasuke’s letter, but one misplaced pat on the boy’s bottom caused the blonde to jolt fully awake.

Warm, brown, squishy something was on his hand and he was going to need to boil it. The smell hit him right as the baby started to cry and Naruto wanted to sob too. He was never going to look at his right hand the same way ever again.

“Oh-ew, gross, little guy! I didn’t even do that when I drank that expired milk-” He was cut off from frantically yelling by none other than his son screeching in his ear.

“I know, I know, I don’t like this either, trust me!” Naruto gagged.

He jumped up, leaving the baby to screech loudly on the couch as he jogged out of the room to wash his hands, but then immediately turned back around to grab the baby because he’d forgotten him in his horror, and hightailed it to the bathroom sink to wash away the putrid substance. It took twice as long to get his hand thoroughly sanitized and uncontaminated because the pup squirmed so much in his hold, the little guy was clearly unsympathetic to his father’s plight.

The unholy odor wafted up into the air again and Naruto was unashamed to admit that he gagged. “What have you been eating?!” he cried out, not at all accepting that it was him that was in charge of deciding what the baby ate. Apparently, his son had inherited some of Sasuke’s more.. sadistic qualities, because the little guy stopped his fit immediately and began to giggle at the alpha’s betrayed expression.

Fourteen minutes, six ruined diapers, and nine absolutely destroyed towels later, Naruto sighed. The day had barely even started and already everything was a mess. The brown mass of doom that caused a green hue to color Naruto’s cheeks had used itself to repaint the already dented and previously stained countertop. Any towels used were thrown into the farthest corner of the bathroom as possible to keep the horrible smell as away from the alpha as he could keep them. For now, that is.

That didn’t matter, though. Because the milky scent of his now happy pup was strong in the air and his chubby little body was warm in Naruto’s hold once he’d gotten the baby clean and re-diapered. He could take any gross early morning surprises if it meant he got to be with his baby forever.

Three scar marks on two chubby cheeks crinkled as his son beamed up at him, clearly pleased with his fresh diaper. Naruto’s heart felt less cracked than it had felt in three, nearly four years. This was his baby. His and Sasuke’s.

Their little- “Uh, right, you still need a name, huh?” The alpha blushed, not having the slightest clue on what to call such a perfect creature. Stinky, and admittedly full of literal shit, but perfect.

Shikamaru, Ino, and Choji were all named after their fathers. Maybe that was the normal thing to do.

What could be derived from ‘Naruto’? Haruto? Kazuto?

“Boruto.” Naruto tested, only for both himself and the baby to grimace immediately.

No. Definitely not. Naruto was an oblivious man, that much was fact at this point, but even he knew a terrible, laughable name when he heard one. Pft, Boruto. What had he been thinking?

No one would name their child that.

The seventeen year old bounced his baby jovially, “You’re too cute to be called Boruto, aren’t you?”

His son clapped his hands together sporadically with serious eyes, which Naruto took to be his own little form of agreement. The blonde tried to ignore the way his child’s face looked so much like his missing soulmate’s, but his heart hammered away in his chest regardless.

That frown on such a small thing would have felt out of place on any other baby, but on his pup’s, it just felt right, given who his mother was.

As if sensing that Naruto was thinking about his mother, the baby began to try his best to scent him by nuzzling his tiny little button nose against the blonde’s collarbone, completely unaware that it wouldn’t quite work in that particular location.

The older Uzumaki laughed and shifted the baby to where he was propped up closer to the scent glands at the juncture between his shoulder and throat to actually scent his father. “My sweet little pup.” He murmured softly and craned his neck downward to scent his boy back.

Soft, feather light sensations tickled at the blonde’s cheek as he nuzzled the baby. His son was so small, so young, and he already had such thick, wild hair. Beautiful in an inky, endless sort of way, just like his mother’s.

Mother. Sasuke was a mom just like he himself was a dad. A difficult feeling rose in his chest at the thought. Sasuke, his rival, his friend, his- well, his soulmate, was a mother. A mother separated from his pup-

Tears invited themselves without invitation to sting at his eyes. Naruto tried to blink them away, but they just kept coming. The baby’s tiny nose rubbing against his scent gland, along with the small, precious weight of his body in the alpha’s arms just added to his fluctuating mood.

Naruto couldn’t imagine it, now that he finally had his pup with him to love and protect and raise. If anyone tried to take this small creature with his eyes and Sasuke’s nose, he’d kill them- a revelation that didn’t feel so chilling as he continued to bounce the baby gently. And, if he’d ever have to part with their pup?

There were no horrors that currently existed in his lifetime that could describe the imploding hell he would unleash until his baby was returned to him. To know that Sasuke had forced himself- because there was no other way Sasuke would ever part from such a babbling, innocent thing- to let their son leave his side…

Oh, how the alpha’s heart ached, both with love and torment.

Small, uncomfortable whines rang in his eardrums like twinkling chimes. The alpha pulled his head away to inspect the baby. Two sets of watery blue eyes met, and Naruto couldn’t help but to kiss the pale skin of his son’s cheek.

“Yeah, I know. I miss him too.” He cooed gently.

The disaster in the bathroom could wait to be cleaned. Right now, he had a much more precious task to be doing.

~~~

Sakura banged on Naruto’s door for the seventh time in as many minutes. What was taking him so long? They had a mission in Kumo that they were already late for!

The pink haired alpha crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently. Beside her, Sai continued to sketch silently in his sketchbook, clearly unbothered with their teammate’s lack of punctuality.

“Naruto! Come on, we’re late for the mission briefing!” She called, knowing that with how cheap and thin the door was, the blonde would be able to hear her shout from outside with the same clarity of a cup made of glass.

Really, she’d been trying to get him to move into a less shabby apartment for some time now, but it was difficult to find many landlords that would rent to Naruto.

Sakura tried not to cringe when she heard a crash from inside, quickly followed by a poorly muffled yelp.

She shared a look with Sai, both alphas fond of their friend who had clearly overslept and likely just fallen out of bed. The medical ninja couldn’t keep the smile from her face as she yelled, “You idiot! Don’t tell me you overslept!”.

Sai closed his sketchbook with a small sigh. “Perhaps we should meet him in the hokage’s office. Lady Shizune is likely getting worried.”.

Sakura blinked and took a step back to lean against the railing of the fifth story walkway. She didn’t dare put too much of her weight against the thin metal, though, because it already wobbled precariously on its own, when no one was touching it.

That kind of faulty safety measure was abundant in these types of older buildings that should have been updated when the village was rebuilding after Orochimaru’s attack on the village. But the change in leadership and lacking manpower at the time had meant that there had been glaring oversights. And, in the end, these places had remained much cheaper than surrounding, much more modern places. That meant, after the economic and immigration boom the village had undergone about two years ago, there had been a market for even the humblest, shabbiest places of living, and landlords hadn’t been forced to fix some of the very serious issues that had arisen in their buildings.

The door creaked horribly as Naruto cracked it open from the inside. Only his face was visible from the small space he’d let the deteriorating door stretch open. He had bags under his eyes like he’d never slept in his entire seventeen years of living. Purple, nearly the shade of Neji and Hinata’s eyes.

He looked as exhausted as he had the day he’d woken up in the hospital after they’d failed to get Sasuke back from Orochimaru. Less depressed, obviously, but definitely as tired.

Was he sick? It would explain the lethargy and the fact that he’d blown off training yesterday.

“Naruto, the mission-” She started, but he yawned, interrupting her with a whisper.

“Can you keep it down? And yeah, uh, I can’t really go.” he rested his cheek against the doorframe and blinked his blue eyes at her, dazed with exhaustion.

She and Sai shared another look. So Naruto was sick and had a headache and that was why he wanted her to be quiet.

“Naruto, if you were sick, why didn’t you tell me!” She stage whispered harshly.

She moved closer to the cracked doorway to feel his forehead, but the alpha yanked his face away and went to shut the door, but Sakura was faster and jammed her foot between the doorframe and the door to stop it from shutting all the way.

Naruto cursed and ran his hand through his hair, mumbling something to himself incoherently.

“I believe he may be delirious, Sakura.” Sai supplied unhelpfully off to the side.

She narrowed her eyes. Something was itching in the back of her mind, like she didn’t have the full story.

“Naruto.” It was hard to fight off the warning tone from her voice, and bits and pieces still bled through in the end.

She watched her best friend crane his neck to the side to look at something that was blocked from their view. Then, he rested his forehead against the back of the door and closed his eyes with a gulp. When he opened them, his eyes looked oddly blue-r than before.

He scratched the back of his neck anxiously, setting off alarm bells in her mind. She shared a glance with Sai, who for once, seemed to have caught on to the odd response.

“Naruto, are you okay? Open the door and let me take a look at you-” Sakura tried to reason.

He cut her off by swinging the door open to reveal himself from head to toe. A peak over his shoulder and into the apartment behind him did little to soothe her worry. It was dark inside, despite it being well past the time for Naruto to be awake and doing chores before he left for the mission. She could make out the faint outlines of clutter, but not the usual chaotic mess that came with Naruto’s living situation.

She turned her attention to the blonde, only to grow even more skeptical. The bags under his eyes seemed darker once the light from outside fully hit him. His shirt had random stains on it, almost like he’d taken up a new painting hobby. If he had, she needed to inform him that he needed a new color palette because vomit-tan was not an appealing color.

Naruto lowered his head to face the ground, and his arm not holding onto the door handle turned to a fist. “If I let you come in, you have to promise to be quiet.”.

And that was admittedly not what she’d been expecting him to say at all.

It was Sai who spoke for the both of them, with his own personal brand of what should have been a reassuring smile. “Alright.”.

Still with a hesitance that felt so foreign on her fellow alpha’s body, Naruto backed away from blocking the doorway and opened it just a little wider to make enough room for the both of them to enter.

Years of being a shinobi had taught her to enter every room with an analytical eye, but nothing could have prepared her for the disturbing sight she was met with as she stepped inside of Naruto’s apartment. If the small gasp Sai let out behind her was anything to go off of, she could tell that he was thinking something along the same lines that she was.

Through the darkness, she could still make out everything in the room perfectly. And that was the disturbing part. There were no empty ramen cup containers piled on the kitchen table. The trash can wasn’t overflowing with a month’s worth of trash. Clothes piles that Sakura had just assumed were rooted to the floor at this point had disappeared entirely. Even the lumps in the couch looked smaller.

Naruto’s apartment…was clean.

There was only one way Naruto’s apartment could be this clean.

She narrowed her eyes and jumped back from the blonde immediately. Sai, having likely reached the same conclusion, followed her lead. Instantly, kunai and shuriken were nestled in their practiced hands as their feet moved in synchronized motions to form a fighting stance.

“Who are you and why are you impersonating Naruto?! What have you done with the real Naruto!” Sakura shouted angrily.

Whoever had performed this transformation technique was sloppy. This version of Naruto had bags under his eyes and seemed zapped of energy on even the most basic level. The real Naruto had far too much energy for this mockery to hold any semblance to the real thing.

“What?! Sakura it’s me, I promise but you have to keep your voice down-” The fake Naruto raised his hands in the air to try and convince her to lower her guard, but Sakura and Sai were far from rookies.

They wouldn’t be so easily swayed.

“Liar! You don’t want us to be loud so that your cover isn’t blown!” She shouted.

Sai let loose a Kunai that the fake Naruto tried to dodge, but because of his sluggishness, was too slow. It nicked the side of his cheek, clashing with the three whisker scars that resided there.

“Wha- guys! Cut it out-” The phony tried again as he rummaged behind himself blindly on the counter top to try and find something to shield himself with.

Sakura moved to strike next while Sai flipped into the air to land behind fake Naruto onto the countertop and began to draw his sword. She funnelled a large amount of her chakra into her fist, ready to knock whoever was impersonating her friend into next week.

A sharp, piercing cry cut through the air, stopping all three alphas in their tracks.

That was no normal cry- that was- that was-

The fake Naruto that Sakura was starting to suspect might be the real Naruto after all deflated like a suicidal balloon. Any fight or life remaining left his eyes, leaving only a dull, drained look in its place.

“Why’d you guys have to go and do that! You promised to be quiet!” Probably real Naruto whined.

Sakura was still frozen mid punch, however. Sai seemed more confused than surprised.

“What-What is that-” Sakura’s lips felt slow and numb as she formed the words.

“Sai let me go!” Definitely real Naruto shouted as he fought against the pale alpha’s death grip on the back of his shirt.

He twisted and yanked his body with an uncharacteristic annoyance. Naruto craned his neck to the side to glare at Sai, and that was when Sakura got an eye full of a tiny, fuzzy little green sock that was tangled in the back of the blonde’s hair.

Maybe it was the soft green that so starkly contrasted with Naruto’s bright blonde hair, or the piercing, bloodcurdling wailing sounding from deeper into the apartment, or the simple fact that not once in all the years she’d known him had Naruto been the one to beg for people to be quiet, but that didn’t matter. What did matter was the crazed wheeze that left her bones rattling as she willed her chakra to fizzle away from the center of her fists.

Behind Naruto’s shoulder, Sai’s bored face looked as confused as ever as Naruto continued to bat at him from the awkward angle.

“Sai, let him go.”

Fidgeting still, for a reason Sakura was beginning to suspect was related to the desperate sobbing going on, Naruto shoved himself away from Sai so aggressively that he stumbled a little in his haste to get to his bedroom.

She shared a long look with Sai, who still perched atop the counter like a bird primed for attack. In silent agreement, they treaded with caution as they followed their packmate’s trail.

Her nervous system felt all short circuited and hot the longer the crying continued. She’d heard it before many times at the hospital as she did her apprenticeship in the maternity ward.

A pup.

Naruto would only have a pup with him if Sasuke had returned. But, Master Jiraiya and Lady Tsunade had not yet arrived back to the village. She sniffed the air discreetly, only to be met with the absence of thunder and lightning.

Something was wrong. The pink haired alpha could feel it in the air. Those cries weren’t normal. They were the wails of a distressed and lonely baby. She’d come to know the difference in sounds after having delivered several infants whose mothers did not survive the birth to be able to bond with them.

Had Sasuke- was Sasuke-

Sai was the one to push the bedroom door open a little wider to see what was going on inside. Even the bedroom was spotless- minus a few cloth diapers and toys strewn across the desk.

What really caught her attention was Naruto.

He was standing adjacent to the side of his bed with his upper body hunched forward as if to use his body as a shield to protect something small and fragile. His shoulders were tense, but the rest of his body language was gentle. The blonde’s hand was softly petting at a bundle held firmly against the curve of his chest.

Black tufts of hair as wild as Naruto’s peaked out above the orange sleeve of the blonde’s sweatshirt that had been blocking part of the mysterious lump from Sakura’s field of vision.

Sai did not catch on to Sakura’s shock. Neither was he aware enough of such a paternal, protective stance to know that he shouldn’t get any closer. Instead, Sakura’s mind screamed at her to make herself move from her frozen stance to grab onto Sai’s arm and yank him back, but alas, she couldn’t.

Sai stepped closer and put his hand on Naruto’s shoulder.

“Naruto-” Whatever Sai had been about to say was abruptly cut to an end by Naruto’s elbow swiftly jabbing into Sai’s jugular.

The pale alpha spluttered and coughed and Naruto, to his credit, seemed shocked at himself that he’d even done it.

But, the blonde had shifted just enough for Sakura to get an eye full of the bundle- no, the wailing pup in Naruto’s hold.

Dark, inky locks adorned a chubby, pale face save for the teary splotches of red accompanying the pitiful sobbing. Three little whisker marks that were no longer than half the size of her pinkie finger sat along each cheek that mirrored Naruto’s in a shockingly adorable way. And those eyes. The nose and the eyebrows were all Sasuke, but those eyes- that was all Naruto.

Sakura was staring right into the face of her teammates’ baby, and that was what finally broke her.

“Naruto,” She whispered with wide, unblinking eyes that were beginning to blur, “That’s-”.

She choked on a dry half-sob like gasp that wrenched itself from her throat. Naruto’s eyes caught hers with almost the same feeling she was confronted with mirrored in his own irises. “Kami, your baby- She’s perfect.”

Sai’s coughing died down, but his dark eyes reflected no malice after hearing the confirmation escape Sakura’s lips. He merely rubbed at his pale throat to soothe some of the ache.

Whatever Naruto saw as he searched Sakura’s eyes seemed to calm him down. The subtle warning of a threat left his body in one swift sigh as the blonde began to lightly bounce the screeching pup. Naruto smiled at her softly- a look that showed just how young he really was.

“Heh,” he chuckled sweetly, “I thought he was a girl at first too.”.

It was then that Sai had deemed himself recovered enough to peek at the infant. “He has your lungs.” The artist whispered hoarsely.

Naruto cringed with regret at hearing Sai’s voice. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”.

Sai, to his credit, only shrugged. Sakura had probably broken both Sai and Naruto on caring when their packmates lashed out at each other because of her..slight..temper.

“Instincts.” Sakura mumbled, still too transfixed on the pup to further elaborate.

Her best friend stood there like he’d been born to be a parent with the way he was slowly calming the fitful pup down. He was obviously tired, but his eyes were so bright with a deep, everlasting love that was similar to the way she’d only ever seen him look at Sasuke before. Similar, but different, because if the way the blonde had looked at Sasuke was overwhelming, then this gaze was about twelve levels past that.

A glaring light from the bedside table forced her to take her attention away from the scene. An icy feeling washed over her as she realized that it was the light reflecting off of the picture frame that encased the photo of the original Team Seven. There Kakashi was, smiling a rare, goofy smile. There a younger version of herself smiled back at her, too naive and far too blind. And, on either side, were two children that she knew so well, and yet, were strangers now in different ways.

Naruto with his arms crossed and his jealous glare pointed directly at Sasuke, and Sasuke with his own glare directed at the person taking the photo. Naruto had always wanted Sasuke’s approval back then, and Sasuke had never allowed himself to acknowledge the blonde.

But, then Sakura looked back at the baby in Naruto’s arms, and she realized that somewhere down the line, Sasuke had acknowledged Naruto.

But he wasn’t here. And the pup’s cries were desperate and painful in a way that only infants whose omegan parents had been separated from them in some way typically sounded when they cried.

She glanced at Sai and found him already looking at her.

Naruto was oblivious, too wrapped up in his child’s care to spare any extra attention elsewhere.

“What’s his name?” She tried something light first before she started asking the harder questions.

Every teenager in the room watched the pup nestle his little nose into the crook of Naruto’s neck to scent him. Sakura had seen the display of self soothing many times before at the hospital, and each time she saw it, her heart melted just a fraction. Like magic, being so cozied up to his father’s scent gland calmed the baby’s fit down to a few wet hiccups and spluttery breaths.

The blonde blinked and crinkled his eyes awkwardly as his smile fell just a hair. “Uh, well, you see…he doesn’t really have one?”.

Sakura found that hard to believe. Sasuke Uchiha, who knew exactly what kind of power a name could hold, would not pass up a chance to name his child. He sure as hell wouldn’t let Naruto, the person that had named his houseplants after different types of ramen flavors, be the one to choose it.

Unless Sasuke had not survived the birth to name the pup himself.

The omega’s young, glowering face stared at her from the picture frame out of the corner of her eye. It ate at her. Why were Lady Tsunade and Master Jiraiya not back yet?

Naruto seemed to sense her inner turmoil, because one moment he was five feet away, and the next, he was standing in front of her and gently offering the now somewhat appeased baby to her.

On reflex, her arms numbly unfurled from their folded position to cradle the air underneath the bundle of wriggling limbs and soft fabrics. With more care than Sakura had ever seen Naruto move with, he eased his son into her hold.

She pulled him close and angled him in a way to where the back of his head rested in the crook of her elbow, just like Shizune had taught her to do. Time was still.

Curiously, his small little button nose twitched once and then a second time for good measure. All three alphas in the room watched as the youngest Uzumaki did his best to try and lean forward to get closer to her scent gland.

She looked to Naruto for silent approval. Scenting someone’s pup was very meaningful to alphas- especially with infants as young as the little cutie in question. There had to be a lot of trust built between the alphas to even consider it an option. If there wasn’t, it could be taken as a challenge or threat.

But, Naruto proved himself once again to be unconventional. All he did was beam at her and tip his head forward to encourage her to bond with his pup.

Gently, she eased the boy to rest comfortably against her chest so that the palm of her hand was flat against his back and his face rested comfortably into the crook of her neck.

The small little sniffs and instinctual nuzzling tickled in the most endearing way. She let it go on for a few moments before she pulled him away, careful to not let it go on for too long and risk messing with Naruto’s instincts out of respect.

The blue eyed pup’s eyes were wide as they made eye contact. And then, he sneezed.

“Hah! Sakura’s scent made him sneeze! Did you see that Sai?” Naruto laughed.

Sakura glared at him over the baby’s head. If her hands weren’t full, she’d have shaken her fist at him in warning.

“It’s not a surprise. She does smell like cinnamon after all.” Sai teased.

Sakura decided she liked Sai better when he’d been coughing from being elbowed in the neck.

And then, the little boy reached his fat little hand towards her bangs that were hanging just out of her reach. The alpha watched in shocked fondness as he blabbered happily as he tried his best to snatch at her pink locks.

The smile on her face was genuine, but the question she’d been wanting to ask could be put off no longer.

Sakura looked to Naruto with a flurry of emotions in her heart. “Where is Sasuke?” Came as a whisper- nearly a plea.

Her best friend sighed and ran a tan hand through his unkempt hair. Sai, whose presence had nearly been forgotten, folded his arms across his chest. Such emotionally charged conversations weren’t his strong suit, so he clearly fell back on his old habits and seemed to treat it like hearing the details of a mission debriefing instead.

Hell, maybe after Naruto shed some light on the situation, it would be a mission debriefing.

Naruto didn’t look her in the eyes, but his fists were clenched at his sides. “Sasuke…He sent our pup here about a week ago. He’s going after Itachi.”.

In her hold, the baby cocked his head to the side curiously with narrowed eyes that reminded her oh so much of his mother and father alike. Suddenly, he was no longer entertained by trying to grab Sakura’s hair- he’d found another target of interest in Sai.

“How did he get the pup to you with no one being alerted? You still have the anbu detail watching over you that Lady Tsunade had requested, along with perimeter patrols around the village gates and border officers limiting entry.” Sai inquired while Sakura tried to adjust to the little boy’s fidgeting.

Sasuke was alive. The baby was just going through the stress of his mother being gone. She could live with that.

Naruto sighed and plopped down on the edge of his bed. His body caved in on itself as if he was in desperate need of food, energy, and sleep. He probably was, if he had been dumped with the task of solo parenting an infant with no warning.

Next to his foot was a stuffed animal in the shape of a bright orange fox that must have fallen to the floor at one point. Sakura chose not to comment on it.

“I don’t know. The guy he sent wasn’t exactly very friendly. Actually, he was an asshole. I don’t know how Sasuke could trust him with our baby! He was rude and arrogant and he seemed like he didn’t even like me but he didn’t even know me!” Naruto’s voice escalated as he ranted.

Sakura bit the inside of her cheek in concentration as the baby continued to persist his determined twisting and turning to free himself from her hold. Oh no, he wasn’t getting away from her that easily.

“Bah! Bah Bah Bah!” The stubborn little thing commanded her

“Naruto, it would seem as though your son is a genius! He speaks more eloquently than you do!” Sai smiled.

Sakura snorted as she kept trying to wrangle the determined little guy. Something about Sai had caught his interest.

Naruto sighed and stood from the bed to take him from her, but the pup smacked Naruto’s chest, shocking the blonde. “Excuse me?! If you don’t want me then who-” The epiphany was evident on Naruto’s face.

Sai, to his credit, only seemed mildly horrified. “No-don’t- really, it’s okay-” He stammered, but Naruto had that mischievous grin on his face and the baby was starting to whine and kick his feet desperately.

“Come on, you’re part of the pack! You should scent him too!”

Sakura smirked at Sai’s dilemma. She decided that it was good enough payback for him making fun of her scent.

The baby made a delighted, almost relieved sound as he was placed into Sai’s robotic, awkward grip.

The blank alpha held him up by his armpits, away from his lean body, like the pup was a wet cat he’d just saved from a river. Naruto took pity on Sai and mimicked how to hold him in the air, which looked really stupid, but got the point across.

As soon as Sai did as instructed, albeit with a very, very reluctant face, the baby dove right for Sai’s scent gland at an alarming speed. Naruto laughed awkwardly, like he didn’t really believe what he was seeing, but Sakura felt a little suspicious. Though, knowing how Sasuke’s personality was, maybe the baby was just used to or even preferred stony demeanors.

Small sniffles filled the quiet room while Sai stood frozen in discomfort the entire time. It would have been funny, too, if the pup hadn’t ripped his head away from the pale alpha’s scent gland in frustration hardly even a minute later.

Sakura and Naruto both stepped closer to check on the little guy. A small, betrayed grimace marred those chubby cheeks.

“Sai what did you do-” Naruto began to interrogate, but what he was saying seemed to die in his throat when the baby suddenly shoved his hands into Sai’s unsuspecting eyes.

“Ack-” Sai huffed in pain, wrenching his head out of the baby’s reach as far back as it could realistically go.

Because of the alpha’s sudden movement and lack of skill when it came to holding a baby, the sudden movement jostled the pup, making him fall forward only to accidentally shove his hands into Sai’s eyes for a second time.

The pup seemed to pause, as if he was waiting for something to happen, but Naruto was quick to slip his son back into his hold. And that was when the waterworks began.

“Ah, geez- What did you do to him, Sai?” Naruto exclaimed in exasperation as he began to try and bounce the little hellion to calm him down.

A memory from months ago that felt like a lifetime ago sparked to life inside Sakura’s head. A sharp recollection of Naruto yelling at Lady Tsunade in her office bloomed along her mind. He’d been angry at her for filling Sasuke’s place on Team Seven with someone else, especially someone that looked so much like-

Puzzle pieces snapped into place with glass like precision. The baby had instantly felt the unconsolable need to be in Sai’s arms once his eyes had locked in on his presence. He’d dove straight for the alpha’s scent glands without even a hint of hesitation, denoting some form of perceived pre-existing bond. When the scent he’d found had been of ink and sandalwood instead of electricity and thunderstorms, he’d been confused and upset. Then, he’d jabbed at Sai’s eyes in the final, damning bit of evidence to support her depressing theory.

“Naruto!” She got his attention. He must have seen the alarm in her eyes, because any hint of his metaphorical hackles being raised vanished instantly.

Her green eyes slid down to the innocent little thing that was busy bawling his eyes out. Big, fat tears rolled down those scarred pale cheeks, giving Sakura pause for a glimmer of a second. She was reminded darkly of the irony of Naruto’s son desperately wanting Sasuke back, just like his father.

“He thought Sai was Sasuke.”

Naruto looked between her, and then his son, and then at Sai, and then at the baby one last time for good measure. It was as if the exhaustion had seeped back into his bones, highlighting the purple bags forming under his eyes.

Sai recovered quickly enough, but made a point to stay far away from both Uzumakis. Awkwardness filled the air as the pup continued to wail for a person that would not heed his cries.

Before any of the teenagers could try and break the icy atmosphere, a figure with a mop of wild grey locks clambered through the window with such fluidity that he could have been made of water and Sakura would have believed it.

“Shizune sent me to find you guys, you’re an hour late for a mission you kno-” Kakashi stopped dead in his tracks once the scene before him registered.

Sakura could only imagine what it looked like. Sai with two eyes that were beginning to form bruising around the areas, Naruto with a baby sock stuck to the side of his head, wildly bouncing a sobbing infant, while Sakura stood in the midst of it all trying to get a handle on the situation.

Kakashi blinked promptly before fainting. The following thud of the jonin’s body colliding with Naruto’s rickety wooden floor sounded painful. She’d definitely be needing to look at his head later when he woke up for any signs of a concussion.

“Uh, so, I don’t think any of us are gonna make it in time for the mission.” Naruto cringed with a shaky voice.

Sakura felt a shred of her already dwindling sanity go up in flames. She muttered something about going to get Sai an ice pack and quietly left the room for a breather. There was so much to process, and so little time.

~~~

Naruto couldn’t stop scenting the baby.

He realized it late one night after he’d woken up from another bad dream about something happening to Sasuke. He’d woken up on his side in the nest he’d made for the pup’s comfort, carefully distanced from the sleeping infant but close enough to still keep a protective arm loosely surrounding him.

Anxiety had rolled his stomach, even after he’d realized that what he’d seen had only been a dream, until he instinctively inched himself closer to the pup and nosed at the pup’s unruly black hair. The overwhelmingly sweet scent of milk had filled his nose, followed with the subtle hint of both Sasuke and Naruto’s own scents intertwined.

To say it was soothing would be an understatement. Why did medicine exist when all he felt he’d ever need was the presence of his pup to heal whatever ailments would befall him? How could Naruto feel sad ever again when the product of his deepest love was right there, with his tiny chest rising and falling with every breath that seemed just too big compared to his small, fragile body?

And so it had become a ritual. Nightmare. Wake up. Scent his pup. Watch over him. Fall back asleep.

Only, now, Naruto was anxious for a different reason. The baby had been fussing the entire night. The alpha had checked his diaper every few minutes, only to find it somehow cleaner than when he’d left it last. He’d rocked the pup as gently as he knew how, and despite it all, the little menace was wide eyed and bushy tailed, even at the late hour. His chubby tummy was full, though Naruto’s was still grumbling because his son ended up flipping his cup of ramen over in an attempt to eat the alpha’s food too earlier in the evening.

The sight of his chubby cheeked baby with noodles on his arms with his broth covered fist in his mouth, happily sucking away at the remnants of Naruto’s beloved meal had been too adorable for Naruto to be upset, but the hunger was starting to get to him.

“Come on baby, what’s wrong? Why won’t you go to sleep, huh? It’s okay, daddy’s here, you can sleep-I’ll keep you safe and cozy.” Naruto rambled to his son, walking the fine line between sanity and sleep deprived single parent levels of insanity.

The baby only wailed louder in response.

The book about babies that had mysteriously appeared after Sai had dropped by out of the blue one day had told him to check for gas, but Naruto had no idea how to check for that. He’d poked that squishy little stomach a couple times, to try and test it out, but that had only agitated the baby even more.

“Shhh, it’s okay. Do you miss Sasu-I mean, your mama? Is that why you’re upset?” Naruto was nearing his wits end. He hadn’t slept more than an hour or so at night for nearly a week straight.

If the baby wasn’t crying or hungry or needing a bath or wanting attention or needing a diaper change, Naruto was having to do the laundry and clean the apartment or cook dinner or do his best to baby proof every sharp surface he could find.

At first, the alpha hadn’t worried about putting away his ninja gear. After all, what kind of baby would take an immediate interest in a bunch of weapons?

His and Sasuke’s baby, apparently. Naruto had left the infant on the bed for probably what amounted to less than even a minute to bend down and grab the stuffed fox that he’d thrown over the edge in an attempt to smack the blonde in the face to amuse himself. And, in that time frame, his son had rolled over and managed to grab hold of one of the kunai that was sitting on his nightstand.

An uncoordinated baby with a death grip on the handle of a kunai knife was not how Naruto had been expecting that night to go, but here he was, two days later with an arm full of shallow cuts from his overly zealous child.

A harsh tug at the ends of his bangs winded the alpha. His scalp had never been so abused in all his years.

“Please, please I’ll do anything, just stop crying!” Naruto pleaded with bleary eyes. Had the ceiling always swayed and shifted like that or was he hallucinating?

There he was begging for his son to stop wailing, and he himself couldn’t even get himself in check.

He closed his eyes. Darkness.

The alpha took a breath. Then another. And then one more before he opened his eyes again and ignored the ache in his tired bones.

The baby had eaten his last meal about an hour ago, so it would probably be a good idea to check his diaper again. Only, Naruto was so utterly sick of diapers. Well, particularly the soiled kind. Why had Sasuke decided on cloth diapers?!

It took three clones to clean those monstrosities! And lately, Naruto had been forced to bribe his clones with ramen to get them to wash the disgusting things for him!

The alpha patted the baby’s butt to check for any squishy horrors and cringed.

With barely any real effort, he summoned a shadow clone to take care of it.

Another version of himself poofed into existence with an exhausted whine.

“Awe come on! Again?!” The clone stomped his foot and crossed his arms with an obstinate pout. “Why should we be the ones to change his diapers?! He’s your pup-”

The real Naruto shot him a deadpan look as he cut the clone off. “You clones are literally me! He’s ‘our’ pup! So really, you guys aren’t carrying your weight on this whole parenting thing! I could start summoning you for bath time ya know!”.

The clone version of himself recoiled as if burned by the idea. He gasped in horrified fear.

Good. Naruto decided then and there that he should use the threat of bathtime to get his way more often.

“No! Please! Anything but bath time-” His clone pleaded with the same desperation of a tortured man begging for the sweet release of death.

The real Naruto watched as his clone got down on his hands and knees to appeal to the blonde’s merciful side, but when it came to diaper changes, well, Naruto just couldn’t be merciful. He had to resort to such extreme threats, okay? He loved his son but that child’s diapers could be sold as high quality bombs!

“Well,” Naruto sing-songed as he pretended to think, “if you change this diaper, you won’t have to be on bath duty.”.

It was too easy. Which was actually kinda worrying. Was this how other people saw him? Gullible and easily fooled? Oh well. It was working to his advantage and, as the saying went, if it wasn’t broken, it shouldn’t be fixed!

His clone beamed and cheered at the ‘alternative’ and whisked the baby out of the real Naruto’s arms and raced to the bathroom.

With the wailing pup in the other room, Naruto felt that he was finally able to get a small break. He collapsed bonelessly onto the shabby couch and ignored the way the legs wobbled under the sudden motion.

He threw the back of his wrist over his eyes, hoping to get at least a five minute nap in. His eyelids had been closed for exactly three seconds before he heard a rather undignified scream. Truth be told, he didn’t even know his own voice could get that high.

Naruto jumped off of the couch in record speed. He raced to the bathroom, only to tumble right into the second version of himself.

They both landed on their butts with a painful thud, but neither Naruto paid the pain that radiated up their spines any mind. Both alphas were too frantic. One, because he’d nearly dropped the baby as he’d crashed to the ground, and the other because he had no idea what was going on.

“What’s wrong? Is he okay? What happened!?” The real Naruto wheezed as he desperately tried to look the screeching pup over for any signs of injury.

“His eyes! Look at them!” The clone cried.

He gestured like a madman to the baby’s face, and the real Naruto had to bat his clone’s hand out of the way so that he could actually try and see what he was talking about.

He waited for his son’s eyelids to pry themselves open to try and assess the situation. He didn’t have to wait long before a small gasp was exiting his lips.

“The sharingan…” He trailed off in total shock.

He knew that that asshole who’d delivered his son to him had mentioned it in passing, but seeing it for real was different.

A dark red that really would have been menacing if it weren’t surrounded by big teardrops that hadn’t yet spilled and a blotchy, chubby baby face had totally taken over the pup’s normally crystal clear sky blue irises.

“I don’t know how it happened! One minute I was fastening the new diaper, and the next I looked up and those were staring back at me!” His clone yelped dramatically.

“Go get Sakura! Maybe he’s sick or something!” The real Naruto covered the baby’s ears, like somehow he’d understand what his father had just suggested and get even more upset.

“Yeah! Right!” The clone version of himself saluted him before tripping over his own two feet in his hurry to get to the front door.

Naruto kissed his son’s forehead with a worried frown. He was in uncharted territory here. Babies of clans with kekkei genkai weren’t supposed to have enough chakra control to be able to awaken their lineage traits so early on, let alone to be able to use it at will like this.

Sasuke hadn’t even awakened his until their first real mission as genin. Even after that, Sasuke had always been in control, except for when he’d presented. Naruto had asked him about what it was like, once, right before passing out in the omega’s nest. The dark haired boy’s lips had pursed before relenting, Naruto recalled, and told him that for a split second, as his eyes shifted to the sharingan, he felt a stabbing pain right behind his eyelids.

Naruto’s heart hurt because his son was far too young to feel pain on a level that even Sasuke Uchiha at thirteen years old had been discomforted by.

“Shhh.” The alpha cooed in the most soothing tone he knew he possessed.

The small, shivering weight of his pup did nothing to alleviate the growing worry clawing at his insides. Was this what it was like to be a parent? Constantly worrying and trying to put out fires wherever they sprouted with only a thimble full of water at his disposal?

~~~

As it turned out, his pup hadn’t been sick. He’d just had a diaper rash from Naruto accidentally putting his diapers on incorrectly. Sakura had smacked him for his incompetence, or, rather, she’d smacked his clone, and given him some baby powder and some rash cream to put on the baby.

The rash had cleared up within a couple days, but the bruise left by Sakura’s arm from when she’d ‘hugged him goodnight’ after they’d gotten the pup to sleep was still taking its sweet time to go away.

They’d still been bewildered by the sighting of the sharingan, though.

Naruto let out an unsure breath as he crossed the tree line. It had been so long since he himself had left his apartment for fear of the wrong people finding out about the baby and trying to accuse him of kidnapping or worse. With Granny Tsunade out of the village still, only Shizune was left in the hokage building to look out for him. Hell, even the anbu Granny had sent to tail him and watch over him couldn’t be trusted to be kept to complete secrecy over something like this.

That was why for at least a week and a half, Naruto had been sending his clones out to do whatever was expected of him. He’d gotten away with it, too, until Sakura had punched one of his clones and found out that it wasn’t the real version of him when the clone poofed out of existence.

Captain Yamato had a fit, and Kakashi sensei had surprisingly backed him up when they figured out that it had been nothing but clones attending training for the nine tails chakra.

And so that was how he found himself with a baby strapped to his chest, hidden only by the bulkiness of his jacket that was zipped around the pup- both to keep him cozy and warm from the early morning wind, and to keep him away from prying eyes.

With the way the bright light of the still waking sun was peering down at the Uzumakis through the gaps in the tree leaves, he could tell that Captain Yamato would already be at their usual spot. It had come as no surprise to team seven that Captain Yamato was an early riser. Sai had once commented that the alpha’s eyes were so wide that it was likely just too difficult to keep them closed for long enough to sleep.

After experiencing enough pointed stares from Captain Yamato, Naruto had decided to give what Sai had said some validation.

Naruto had been worried about taking the pup today. Sakura had given him a lecture about all kinds of illnesses that pups were susceptible to and what to watch out for, and a large part of him was scared shitless that outside the apartment, the baby’s chances of contracting a plague were almost guaranteed.

That fear, coupled with the general anxiousness of his instincts that had yet to settle and the knowledge that one wrong move could have the wrong people finding out about his son, kept him on his toes. Every small shifting groan of a tree branch had the alpha whipping his head around in the direction of the noise. Every distant bird’s chirp, and his pup’s fascinated squeals at the sounds gave him small bouts of panic.

If he had the option, he would’ve gotten a babysitter. But, he was a seventeen year old single parent with little wiggle room in his budget to pay someone to watch the little guy, and he had a very limited pool of people he could ask anyway. Iruka sensei didn’t know yet and Konohamaru was still a pup himself. Sakura and Sai were going to show up later for group training, and the rest of their friends were still kept in the dark as well.

Just a few more yards, and Naruto would meet up with Yamato, and he could let himself breathe knowing that the older alpha would help him keep an eye on the newest Uzumaki. He hadn’t even gotten to meet Naruto’s son yet because he’d only just gotten back from a mission, but the blonde trusted that his latest sensei would ensure the baby’s safety above all else.

Naruto just wished that he didn’t have to bring his pup to training with him. He’d made a lot of progress on harnessing the power of the Kyuubi, but that guaranteed nothing. If he was honest with himself, he was scared that he would lose control. A million things could happen- his son could start crying and break Naruto’s focus or with his senses amplified in the nine tails form, his instincts could skyrocket and turn violent with the need to dispose of any perceived threats. Which, because of his status as an alpha, would mean that he could very likely attack Yamato, or try to anyway.

Still, the alpha was going to try his best to make sure none of that happened.

“Naruto! You’re almost as bad as Kakashi is!” Captain Yamato’s voice broke through the shrubbery right as Naruto made it to the edge of their training field.

It was the farthest possible spot that was still within Konoha’s territory that they had the opportunity to use habitually. With the kind of training Naruto had to do here, it had been silently agreed upon that this was the best field at their disposal.

“Bah!” His son cooed from where he was strapped to his chest. Somewhere along the way, as they’d gotten deeper into the village’s wilderness, the pup had figured out that he could pop his head out of the opening of Naruto’s jacket at the neckline and had made a little game out of it.

“Well, hello to you too.” Captain Yamato smiled down at the baby as the blonde neared the older alpha.

He couldn’t help the fond smile that graced his lips as he craned his neck downward to place a kiss atop the inky, wild locks of hair.

“Was Kakashi sensei the one to debrief you on the situation?” Naruto asked before pausing to unzip his jacket.

The woodstyle user nodded sagely, “Yes, though it would have been nice to hear it from you, yourself, I appreciated his candor.”.

Naruto chuckled awkwardly, “Heh, sorry about that. It’s been a little…crazy.”

As if knowing that he’d been the cause of said hecticness, the pup blew a few spit bubbles innocently.

Captain Yamato shook his head and waved his hand in the air to wave off his apology politely. “So, how are we doing this? I’ll need my hands free for the protective jutsu I’ll be managing, and you’ll need to be distraction free.”

The baby latched onto the finger Naruto absentmindedly offered him to amuse himself with while his father mulled it over. “Would it bother you very much if you put the carrier on and had him on your chest? He shouldn’t be fussy. I’ve already changed his diaper, and he should be full from breakfast for a while.”

Both of them came to an agreement and soon enough, Naruto was popping his knuckles in preparation for harnessing the Kyuubi’s power, and Captain Yamato had a delighted baby with whisker marks on his cheeks attached to his chest.

Oddly enough, Naruto was almost proud of how well behaved his son was being. If anything, the outdoors seemed to soothe anything that would have caused a crying fit. If today went well, maybe he’d bring the baby along with him for more training sessions.

“Okay Naruto, you know what to do by now. Focus, trust your gut. If you begin to lose control, you have to shut it down at the first sign of trouble.”

Naruto took the older alpha’s warning as he always did, with a thoughtful nod of his head and a reassuring promise to do as he advised.

He made sure to walk an extra twenty or so feet away from the man. On the off chance that something happened, he wanted Captain Yamato to have as much time to get to a safe distance away as possible while still being in range to use his wood-style technique to keep things in line.

Then, he got to it. It was like he hadn’t taken nearly a week and a half long break from it. His fingers wove themselves into the signs before he even directly thought to weave them.

Naruto focused his energy into his left hand, siphoning it so that all that would remain in his dominant hand was the Nine Tails’ chakra. Opposite sensations washed over him as he began to direct the two different chakras. His was bright and blue, strong yet malleable. The Kyuubi’s was harsh and unbending and as deeply red and hateful as it was overwhelming.

Harnessing the demon’s chakra was difficult to say the least, but not impossible. Naruto, with the help of Captain Yamato and Kakashi sensei, would get it under control. He had his heart set on it, and somehow, some way, he would make it happen.

The blonde closed his eyes and forced himself to reach deep within his mind to the very corners that he did not allow himself to tread outside of these training sessions. Unease clutched at his insides, but he pushed on. Soon, the beaten and abused steel bars of the Kyuubi’s mental cage came into view.

It loomed over him, feeling impossibly large inside of his mind. The alpha could feel the demon lurking somewhere in the endless darkness on the other side of the bars, but he did not make his presence known just yet. Naruto spared a glance at the reinforced seals that adorned the front of the cage’s opening.

He let himself feel an immense sense of gratitude to Pervy Sage for improving them. Without his intervention three years ago, the original seal would have surely cracked and broken away, leaving nothing but Naruto’s will power alone as the wall between the Nine Tailed Fox and the rest of the world.

Red tinged light that came from nowhere bathed everything with a bloody hue- a stark contrast to how bright and green the training field had been.

Naruto inhaled and exhaled. “I know you’re there.” He finally broke the charged silence.

The responding voice was as thunderous as it was hateful. “You wish to control my power.”.

Naruto’s determination painted itself across his face. “I wish to learn, that is all.”

Smoke billowed from the cage, though the alpha could see nothing beyond that. “I will not lend my chakra to an Uchiha lover.” The demon spat.

Naruto gritted his teeth. They’d spent hours and hours arguing over this, and they always came to a stalemate.

“For the last time! Sasuke isn’t even here to try and manipulate you!”

The Kyuubi huffed and opened his spiteful red eyes. “That kit has the sharingan. You’ve bred another potential captor. I don’t have to help you at all.”. ‘

Naruto ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Like I’d ever let my pup anywhere near you to begin with.”.

That did get a wicked smile to appear amid the darkness. It was so blindingly twisted that Naruto almost winced.

“You forget, it is uncertain where you end, and I begin. The next time you’re so sleep deprived that you can’t think straight, what’s stopping me from taking control and getting rid of the abomination?” The demon taunted.

And see, the thing was that Naruto knew he was taunting him. He knew he was trying to get under his skin. But instincts were a funny thing because they weren’t always logical. And, where his pup was concerned, any idea of a threat brought out a vengeful sort of protective streak like never before.

The image of his baby drooling around his fist in his mouth as he slept came to mind. No harm would come to such an innocent little thing. Naruto swore it on his own life.

“The seals are too strong. I’d know before your chakra began to seep out.” Naruto counter argued. He crossed his arms like he was bored, but on the inside, he was seething. It felt like a shoe was about to drop, but he didn’t quite know why he had the gut feeling.

“Oh?” The fox’s grin was deepening with every passing second, “Like right now, for example?”.

Panic set in instantaneously. He lessened his focus on the mental realm within his mind so that he could try and feel what was happening on the physical plane.

He heard high, anguished wailing and Sakura’s frantic shouting.

“What have you done?!” Naruto shouted at the laughing beast before breaking the connection.

Blue eyes tore open, only for a deep shade of red to take over as soon as the light hit them. The blonde felt like a stranger, watching his red coated body attack anything and everything in sight. Energy of three tails being unleashed brought forth a frenzied sort of glee that he knew wasn’t his to the forefront of his heart.

Through the thick wall of scarlet chakra that had surrounded him, he could almost make out Captain Yamato signaling to Sai to fall back while Sakura tried to distract Naruto’s demon form. He couldn’t see his son, but he could hear the cries.

The panic and fear and anguish of worry for his son washed over him, just as a fourth tail sprouted itself from the base of his back. It was then that he lost control of his senses, and everything became red.

Many long hours later, Naruto watched the rise and fall of the baby’s chest as he slept with a blank face. Moonlight peered down at him through the window and highlighted the wild dark tendrils of his hair. His fist was jammed in his mouth with slobbery drool darkening the edges of the pale yellow onesie sleeve that tapered off at his wrist. Every now and then, his eyelashes fluttered like he was dreaming something pleasant.

Naruto scoffed at himself. What was he doing- playing house like this? How could he have fooled himself into thinking that if he changed enough diapers and sang enough out of tune lullabies, he’d stop being the monster everyone knew him to be?

He’d almost-

The alpha let out a shuddery sound, disgusted with himself.

He almost hurt his baby. His sweet little boy that smelled like home and giggled every time Naruto whacked his head on the doorframe. The proof of his and Sasuke’s bond. The future of said bond.

He almost hurt the only blood-family he’d ever had.

Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes, and the alpha scrubbed at his eyelids, overwhelmed with the emotions that overcame him. The shame, the fear, the horror- the despair. All of it came crashing down on him in unforgiving waves.

And the worst part was that he couldn’t give in. He couldn’t break down like he would have in the past, because the baby needed him. He had to be better and have it all together, even with something like this because Naruto would rather die than have his child grow up the way he did. He was already down one parent as it was. Naruto couldn’t do that to his son. He couldn’t.

But he also couldn’t trust himself to be the only one to care for the pup. There had to be another way. Doing it on his own with meager exchanges with Kakashi sensei and Sai and Sakura had ended up putting the baby in danger.

The sheets rustled ever so gently as the alpha moved to carefully pull the baby’s fist out of his mouth so as not to wake him. As he eased the chubby hand away from the slobbery mess, a question danced maddeningly along his mind.

How much trouble was Sasuke in for Naruto to be the safest option for their pup?

~~~

Shikamaru groaned as the pressure in his back released. He’d been having to pop his back much more often these days. Taking that seventy foot fall off a cliff a few months ago on a mission had gifted him with some lasting back issues, to say the least.

How did Naruto trek up this many stairs every day? Shikamaru barely wanted to make the trip up the flights of stairs once every few weeks.

“Good grief.” he muttered to himself.

He should have thought about the stairs before he’d agreed to come to the get together Naruto had decided to host at his place. A guys night, he’d called it. Shikamaru called it a royal pain. There he was, getting his ass handed to him by a semi-bad back and a set of stairs, when he could have been lounging around under the cool shade of a tree, staring up at the clouds with no sense of urgency.

At least the get together would be able to cheer some of them up. Life was seemingly yanking them all around in opposite directions lately. There was something in the air- like something was brewing, but everyone was waiting for the ball to drop before they did anything about it. Even other villages that had no connection to the shinobi way of life seemed to feel it. He’d noticed it becoming a much more glaring issue on his last mission when ordinary civilians in the coastal town he’d been passing through had all been boarding up their windows and reinforcing whatever meager protections they thought would keep them safe from- well- whatever was coming.

The Akatsuki had something to do with it. Of that, Shikamaru was positive. It was all too coincidental. There were big plans that the organization was working towards, obviously, but the ‘what’ and ‘why’ had yet to be determined and it clawed at the genius’s mind.

War was brewing, and leaders of the shinobi world continued to sit on their hands and play pretend.

The alpha scoffed and rolled his eyes as he jammed his hands into his pockets lazily.

Everything was proving to be even more troublesome than he’d imagined. Kurenai was just about ready to pop, and Ino and Choji were in a bickering phase over figuring out their dynamics in their little pack of three. The alpha had decided to stay out of it. Some things were better settled between the two omegas without his butting in.

When Naruto had passed it around that he was hosting a guys night, well, their group of friends had readily agreed. Even Neji had agreed to come, and the strict alpha hadn’t been able to make it out of the Hyuuga compound in weeks because of how busy his training to be the heir of the clan was keeping him.

As Shikamaru neared the top of the last flight of stairs, he spotted Kiba and Shino standing around outside of Naruto’s door. Shino had his hands in his pockets, while Kiba was bent down to Akamaru’s level and was scratching the dog’s head- right behind the ears.

Shino saw him first and waved. Shikamaru graciously expended the effort to pull his hand from out of his pocket and return the gesture. “Hey, been standing there long?” He asked.

Kiba’s head snapped up to see him and the Inuzuka smiled wide. “Hey Shikamaru! Long time no see!”.

Shikamaru groaned in response, “I know. I see the mission debrief room more than I see anything else these days.”.

Shino opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by an exuberant shout coming from the stairs behind him. The lazy alpha barely had any time to move out of the way before a green blur cartwheeled up the stairs right past him.

“Hello my friends! What a youthful day this is!” Rock Lee shouted gleefully- although, as loud as that guy was, it was probably meant as an ‘in-door’ tone of voice.

“Sheesh, Rock Lee, what’s got you all hopped up?” Kiba teased. He stood back up despite Akamaru yipping at him to keep scratching behind his ears.

Shikamaru decided to let the two talkative ones talk. Instead, he leaned against the top floor’s railing with his elbows to passively watch the clouds while they waited for the rest of the guys to get there. Choji had said that he’d meet him there when Shikamaru had asked if he wanted to go together. Something about him helping Ino with something or other had been going to delay him, and he hadn’t wanted to hold up Shikamaru as well.

Neji and Sai were really the only two unaccounted for. Knowing Sai, he’d probably climb through the window like a cat right as everyone was sitting down around the small table in Naruto’s living room. Neji had said he’d come, and that guy wasn’t one to flake out on plans that had already been established, so there wasn’t much of a reason to wait around worrying about it.

So, instead, Shikamaru let himself enjoy the clouds.

Shapeless, universal things they were. Their appearances were soothing and familiar, despite each and every one being completely unique. Like pillows that hadn’t been fully sewn together yet. It was nice to just admire them. It reminded the genius just how small his problems were in the grand scheme of things. Sure, he didn’t like waking up in the mornings, but he couldn’t quite say he hated being awake once he got himself out of bed. Missions took more energy than he’d like, sure, but him being out there meant that someone else wasn’t putting themselves at risk by filling his shoes.

All in all, despite the looming sense of doom blanketing the shinobi world, Shikamaru couldn’t complain about his own small fraction of the world. His dad had become his new shogi partner and they played together after Shikamaru got back from longer missions. Kurenei sensei was due any day, and Shikamaru had a feeling that the will of fire would be deeply embedded into her child’s soul.

Even things with his small little pack of three were going fairly well. He let Ino do the talking, and he let Choji do the rest, and the alpha only stepped in when people gave them a hard time. Not much had really changed from when they’d just been teammates on a three man squad.

The clouds shifted in the sky, momentarily revealing the sun in all its bright glory from where it had been hidden mere moments ago. It hurt his eyes a little, but so what? Small things like that weren’t as much of a drag as they used to be anyways.

A hand on his shoulder disrupted his musings. With a small shake of his head, the alpha turned to see who it was. The face of Neji Hyuuga stared back at him with a neutral expression. Not even those eyes of his gave anything away.

“Shikamaru, hello. You were thinking so loudly that I believe you missed our arrival.” The older alpha smiled not unkindly.

Shikamaru craned his neck to peer behind Neji, and spotted Sai petting Akamaru and Choji chatting it up with Kiba and Rock Lee with a bag of chips already opened in his hands.

The genius let his elbows fall away from their comfortable fold atop the precarious railing and stretched. “Huh, it sure seems that way.” Shikamaru sighed as he felt the pleasant release of the pressure that had built up in his back from leaning over so long.

Neji moved away to give him some space to join the rest of their little group, which he nodded at him in silent thanks for.

Choji beamed at him with his usual wave, the sudden pull of his lips into a grin caused a few crumbs that had settled at the corners of his mouth to fall. “You’ve been zoning out a lot lately, Shikamaru. Something on your mind?” The omega inquired with an understanding look in his eyes.

Shikamaru shrugged, “Eh, you know how it is- Everything’s a drag. Don’t worry about it. How’d your thing with Ino go?”.

The group of friends all continued to catch up until Naruto threw the door open with a giant smile plastered all over his face. It was the kind of smile that made Shikamaru wanna groan and go take a nap because of how energetic it was.

“Hey guys! You’re right on time! Come on in-I’ve got a surprise for you!” The blonde beamed before turning tail and scurrying away from the door so that the others could enter the apartment.

Shino went first with a polite tilt of his head. Then Rock Lee decided to get just one more ounce of cardio in by flipping in the air and landing on his hands so that he could walk in…by walking mid-hand stand. Shikamaru rolled his eyes but followed with Choji hot on his heels.

Kiba was already laughing at some joke he was telling by the time everyone had shuffled their shoes off and placed them by the entryway. Neji was the one who ended up shutting the door behind them all after they’d all filtered in.

“This isn’t gonna end with you trying to convince us to join a pyramid scheme or something, is it?” The Inuzuka’s voice filtered through the oddly clean smelling air.

Shikamaru took a hesitant sniff, not believing his senses. Not that Naruto lived in a trash heap or anything, but usually there was an underlying tone of.. old ramen and sweaty training clothes.

Now it smelled like soap and tangy, freshly ripened oranges with something pleasant and sweet hidden underneath it..

Had Naruto taken up candle making as a hobby? Oh, good grief, was he about to spend an entire evening showing off a bunch of colored wax in glass jars and making them sniff a bunch of different ones-

The genius sighed in defeat for a battle he hadn’t even participated in to begin with and followed the others to the living room.

“Wow, Naruto, look at what you’ve done with the place!” Choji looked around with nothing but pure astonishment in his tone.

Shikamaru himself was caught even further by surprise. Akamaru wagged his tail, as if vigorously agreeing with Choji. Sai merely shrugged and went to perch on his usual spot- the windowsill, not at all bothered by the disturbing sight before them.

“Naruto, since when have you had a rug in here?” Kiba demanded. The wild alpha jabbed his pointer finger at the offending object that lay innocently on the suspiciously clear floor.

Naruto looked at Kiba like he was speaking another language, “Whaddaya mean? That’s always been there!”.

Rock Lee did his best to be supportive while gently breaking the news that until now, most of them had no idea Naruto even had wooden floors because of all the piles or laundry and other random crap that was constantly swimming around in the sea of chaos- also known as Naruto’s apartment.

Naruto smiled ruefully, “Heh, yeah, I guess I used to be kinda messy, huh? But come on! There’s room for everyone to sit around the coffee table, sit, sit!”.

Well, Shikamaru was never one to argue when someone was telling him to take a load off and lounge around. He wasn’t about to start now- even if being able to actually sit on the couch where he didn’t have to shove a bunch of stuff off first for a change was kinda strange.

Just what had gotten into Naruto?

“I know! When Sakura and I first saw it, we thought he had been cloned by an enemy ninja and attacked him.” Sai chuckled, though the laugh pattern was clearly rehearsed and the smile that stretched thinly on the bottom of his face didn’t reach his eyes.

Ino was right, that guy was something else.

“Naruto, you said you had something to show us?” Neji prodded elegantly. The long haired alpha had taken a regal seat on the ground- the rug that was apparently not new, to be specific.

“Oh! Yeah! Uh before I do though, I really think I should warn you-“ Naruto began but was interrupted by Kiba, who had been quiet for far too long to be any kind of good sign.

“Uh, Naruto, why is there a baby bottle sitting on your counter?”

And, man if that didn’t light a fire under everyone’s asses. Rock Lee nearly broke his neck with how fast he turned to look at the counter. Sure enough, Shikamaru squinted just a bit and saw a clear baby bottle with a blue top proudly displayed for all to see right in plain sight.

“Well, if you’d let me finish, Kiba!- Uh, well so you guys know how I kinda like…have this weird thing with Sasuke?” Naruto fumbled through what had probably been a prepared speech.

Only Choji had the awareness to blankly nod his head to humor the stammering alpha.

“Oh no, you adopted a kid to fill the void in your life, didn’t you?” Shikamaru scrubbed his hands over his face as he groaned.

He’d have rathered Kiba’s suggestion of a pyramid scheme to this.

“Well, you see, he's not exactly adopted..”

“You stole him?!?!” Kiba screeched.

“No no-no way! I’m not some creep! I just-Ugh, here, why don’t I show you.”. Naruto huffed and quickly turned on his heels, leaving his stunned friends rooted to their spots.

Sai, however, seemed entirely unaffected. “Wow. This is somehow going even more terribly than the last time.”

Rock Lee and Kiba laughed nervously. Shino may as well have been a damn statue. Neji’s left eye twitched. Oh man, he must’ve been freaking out. His face never moved.

Naruto rushed back in before anyone could comment on Neji’s blatant melt down with something small and human shaped in his arms. Black, familiar tufts of wild hair poked up over a disturbingly vibrant orange blanket.

“See? Does he look kidnapped to you?!” Naruto screeched and flipped the bundle around to reveal something so jarring and horrifying that Shikamaru’s worst nightmares couldn’t have even possibly come up with it.

Six miniature whisker scars on pale cheeks glared at them all. Big blue eyes with stern eyebrows and thick eyelashes accompanied pouty lips and a fine button nose.

Oh fuck.

“No fucking way!” Kiba shouted, jumping up from the couch in utter terrified shock.

Even Shino’s mouth had dropped open.

The genius’s mind began to whir to life, trying to recall any and all evidence that might support this outcome.

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, deep in thought.

The baby- the little Naruto and Sasuke clone- seemed delighted with the tension in the room.

“Bah!” He giggled toothlessly.

Naruto smiled down at the ‘talkative’ pup, and it dawned on Shikamaru that the little guy was at least a couple months old. Probably around three or four if he had to guess. Four months ago, plus about nine months, the baby’s conception sometime before Naruto had come back to stay in the Leaf Village.

That meant somewhere along the way, he’d had a run in with Sasuke.

Now the lack of ruts made sense- that and the crippling depression. Even the random bouts of aggression, if Shikamaru was being honest.

The desperation to chase after that bastard had always been there, but in the last few months, it had nearly tripled in intensity. That implied that Naruto hadn’t known he’d knocked Sasuke up until… until when?

Shikamaru thought back to any and all gossip Ino might have blathered on about lately. Things about ugly dresses worn by even uglier girls and shift switches among chunin on gate duty floated around his train of thought, until a lightbulb went off.

A few months ago, Shikamaru had been trying to take a nap when Ino had mentioned something about Lady Tsunade summoning Naruto’s entire pack for a top secret meeting.

But that was after that botched mission with Orochimaru’s hideout.

Oh shit. Sasuke had to have been pregnant when everything went down. Maybe that might have explained why Naruto had let the nine tailed beast take over on accident.

But, other than that, the timeline was still fuzzy. How had Naruto gotten the baby without having gotten a hold of Sasuke either?

Shikamaru had never liked Sasuke, that was a well-known fact. But even he didn’t expect the guy to be a deadbeat mom. What kind of freakish, insane omega separated themselves from their not even one year old pup?! What a fucking loser Sasuke was. First, he abandoned the only alpha that would ever love him no matter what, and now his kid?

“Start talking. Now.” Shikamaru demanded, not backing down from his heated exchange of eye contact with his friend.

~~~

Sasuke smirked as the genjutsu cleared, momentarily leaving the two brothers in a tied match of a battle of wits. The omega was in close enough proximity now that the alpha could properly analyze him.

Itachi had unmistakably caught his scent now.

“Sasuke, you-” Itachi spluttered. It was the first time Sasuke had ever had the upper hand on his older brother. It was the first time he had ever seen Itachi genuinely shocked. The omega reveled in the widened eyes and slightly parted down turned lips of his enemy. It was the most startled that Sasuke had ever seen Itachi. He didn’t bother to hide his hateful smirk as he allowed his chakra to pool and thrum into the palm of his hand.

Itachi spoke again, and Sasuke allowed it only so that he could fully take in the fact that he had caught the all-knowing Itachi Uchiha by surprise, “You had a pup.”

Indeed. And Sasuke’s pup would be safe from Itachi from this day forward, because he would not allow himself to lose. He’d been held to an impossible standard all of his life, today would be no different. He would do the impossible because he was a mother, and mothers made the impossible happen every day.

“Three and a half years ago,” Sasuke drawled as he wiped the blood from his cheek with his fist in one smooth motion, “You said that I would never have enough hatred to defeat you.”

Itachi remained quiet, eyes searching Sasuke’s, but Sasuke was no longer the open book little five-year-old that Itachi had known. His heart was not so easily swayed, and Sasuke’s sword would no longer hesitate before dealing a final, lasting blow when the time came.

Itachi readied himself for another skirmish, not having found what he’d been searching for in Sasuke’s eyes. Good. Sasuke was nothing more than an iron avenger in that moment. He would not yield to any trickery Itachi would try. Not this time and never again.

Sasuke ignored the alpha’s silence and stepped forward; sword held unshakenly in his hand as he continued. “You put me under another tsukuyomi, where for a month’s time in that realm, you belittled my status as an omega, my skills as a shinobi, and my bond with Naruto. You showed his death over six hundred times, all at my own hands. You told me that I was nothing, and that I would forever be blind.”

The sword shone so brightly, even in the dark and damp room that Itachi had awaited his presence in. It shone with the ethereally righteous hues of metal, clean and sharp in its solidarity.

Still, Itachi waited for Sasuke to finish speaking, “And I want you to know that all of it was wrong- the taunting, the torture- all of it. With the birth of my son, I have achieved true hatred, unobtained by even you, Itachi. The moment his eyes opened, I saw innocence, and I swore for as long as I live, I will end whatever stands in the way of my son’s future.”

The omega locked eyes with Itachi, finally sowing the seeds of their final match. Sharingan versus sharingan. Brother versus brother. Past versus future.

Sasuke’s fingers itched with the bright crackle of a chidori springing to life in the palm of his hand, and Itachi cocked his head to the side in a silent challenge.

“You, Itachi, will die here today. It will be by my hands. You will die knowing that you failed, and that the Uchiha clan lives on in myself and my son in spite of you. ”.

~~~

The baby squealed with delight as Konohamaru tickled his stomach. If there was one sound that Naruto knew he could listen to forever, it would be the sound of his child’s uninhibited laughter.

“I think I’ve decided.” Konohamaru muttered with pink tinged cheeks.

He’d been coming over more frequently now that he’d been introduced to Naruto’s son. As soon as he’d found out that the pup had yet to be named, Konohamaru had taken it upon himself to come up with the ‘coolest and awesomest name ever’. So far, the results of his little quest had been…mixed to say the least.

Naruto paused his task of wiping down the kitchen counter to address the overgrown pup. “Oh yeah?”.

Konohamaru nodded his affirmative with a wince as the baby yanked on his scarf absentmindedly. Naruto didn’t bother trying to hide his amusement while he watched the two youngest members of his pack struggle. Konohamaru, because well, the baby was unintentionally strangling him, and his son because he just had no idea why the older boy was trying to unlatch his death grip from his newfound toy.

It was precious moments like this that reminded him of why he’d wanted to start a pack in the first place, even if it was Kakashi sensei in the end who’d been the one to officially get the clearance to do so.

The grin that stretched itself across his face almost hurt. From the moment Konohamaru had gotten to hold the little guy, there had been an instant bond. The baby had taken one look at Naruto’s unofficial student and latched on so tightly that he hadn’t left Konohamaru’s hold for the rest of the evening. He’d even pitched a fit when Konohamaru had made to leave with an excuse of Iruka sensei having set a curfew for him. Konohamaru hadn’t been able to say no to those big blue eyes or that desperate little pout in the end.

That night, Naruto had found himself kicked out of his own bed while Konohamaru snored away merrily under the covers. Even his own son hadn’t seemed to miss him while he was curled so close to the older pup. Of course, he did end up waking up in the middle of the night whining for Naruto to feed him and the alpha had found himself back in the spotlight of his hungry baby’s affections. But still, the floor had been cold!

Konohamaru wheezed after he finally managed to yank the baby’s hand free from his scarf. He coughed a little to try and get some air back into his lungs on reflex, and then redirected the younger pup’s hand to the toy fox that he loved to slobber on instead.

“I was thinking-” Konohamaru’s voice was rough as he finished what he’d been trying to say earlier, “-that his name should be Haruki! Doesn’t he look like a ‘Haruki’ to you?!”

For good measure, as if it would help his case, Konohamaru shoved his hands under the baby’s armpits and held him up in the air towards the alpha.

Naruto snorted and went back to tidying up the kitchen. “I’m not naming him after the color blue!”

He opened the drawer to the left of the sink to place a few dried utensils back in their rightful places. Behind him in the living room area, Konohamaru scoffed.

“Why not?! Have you seen his eyes? Look at him!”

Naruto couldn’t help the fondness he felt as he rolled his eyes. He didn’t bother pausing his cleaning in order to turn around and look. Every precious second that his pup was occupied was another second he could spend doing other important tasks.

“That’s a dog name! What’s your next idea? ‘Spot’?”.

Konohamaru groaned and threw his head back against the couch cushions with a resounding thud. The baby laughed at the boy, thinking he’d done it for his own entertainment and not out of the never ending frustration of trying to name the inky haired pup.

Konohamaru huffed, but continued anyway despite Naruto’s teasing. “Okay, fine, what about ‘Suguru’?”.

Naruto mulled it over. The name itself was fine, he guessed. It had a decent enough meaning. But, it didn’t feel right. “Nah, that’s the name someone would give a future cult leader or something.” He shrugged flippantly.

“What about ‘Yuji’? It means relaxed and caring-”

Naruto cut Konohamaru off with lightning speed. “Nope. Sounds like the kind of name someone who’s gonna have some kind of demon or curse trapped inside of themselves would have.”.

Konohamaru gave him a deadpan look. “Don’t you have a demon trapped inside of you?”.

Naruto flailed his hands in the air like he was a special case, “Well yeah, but how many other people are running around sharing my name, hmmmm?”.

The boy thought about it and conceded, “Okay, yeah, you got me there. What about ‘Natsu’? It basically means warmth and wasn’t the Uchiha clan known for their fire style technique?”.

“I dunno.” Naruto tapped his chin in thought, “When I picture the name, I picture pink hair.”

“How about ‘Yami’?

“No.”

“Hisoka?”

“That’s a pervert’s name!”

“I give up! You come up with something, he’s your baby!” Konohamaru whined petulantly.

The bowls that Naruto began to put away clinked together as he stacked them inside one of the cupboards. Porcelain clanking rang in his ears, but the nerves in his hands felt numb as he placed the bowls into their correct locations.

A chuckle that had been bubbling from his lips fizzled out as the world began to grow hazy.

Distinct tremors of white-hot anxiety raced along his spine, sending wave after wave coursing throughout his body. The juncture of where his neck met his shoulder on his left side that housed the scent bond was on fire. Tinges of an oncoming seizure had come out of nowhere, and the alpha was relieved that there was someone with him to take care of the pup while he went through the motions.

Sasuke.

He had to be having his showdown with Itachi right now. It was the only logical reason for how fast the beginnings of another bond related seizure had snuck up on the Uzumaki. It’d been about a week and a half since their pup had been thrust into his care. More than enough time had passed for Sasuke to regroup and launch his revenge.

Naruto wasn’t the smartest person in the world, but he wasn’t the dumbest either. There was something abnormal with their scent bond. Tsunade had said that it would become painful for them as they got older and did not officially mate, yes, but he had a sinking suspicion that there was something else at play. Every time Sasuke was knocking on death’s door stressed the scent bond so much that Naruto could feel it- almost like a warning to go save his mate.

But Naruto wasn’t completely sure that it worked both ways. That asshole Suigetsu hadn’t mentioned the scent bond and any pain along with it as justifications to why he didn’t like the blonde.

Another wave of pain had Naruto gripping the edge of the countertop so harshly that the skin over his knuckles turned a ghostly white.

“Konohamaru.” Naruto felt wildly out of breath as he spoke, “I need you to stay here and watch the baby.”.

Alarmed, Konohamaru whipped his head around in his direction. Even the pup adopted a somber little pout on his face.

“Naruto? What’s wrong-” Konohamaru’s voice faded in and out until it inevitably just became a distant, blurry sound.

The alpha staggered down the meagre hallway towards his bedroom. Every step felt weaker than the last, and Konohamaru was hot on his heels.

He wouldn’t let this chance slip by. Even if it killed him, he’d bring Sasuke back. There was no one to stop him from doing what felt right- not this time. Tsunade, Pervy Sage, hell even Captain Yamato and the rest of his friends and pack couldn’t hold him back any longer.

The alpha staggered to the bedside table and yanked open the lone drawer it encased. Inside was a mess, but after blindly rummaging around for probably what amounted to less than a second, Naruto felt the familiar odd weight of the special kunai knife he’d gotten so accustomed to.

“Naruto! What are you doing?!” Konohamaru shouted from right behind him as Naruto slid his sandals on and firmly tied the knot of his shinobi headband to his forehead.

Despite the brain fog, Naruto managed to roughly explain that he had somewhere important to be, but the ‘why’ was lost in the confines of his mind.

The last thing he registered before performing the Flying Thunder God technique was Konohamaru’s confused shout, coupled with his pup’s distressed whine.

They didn’t need to worry. Naruto would be back before they even knew it.

Time worked oddly with this jutsu. It slowed down as he tried to lock in on the kunai he’d sent Sasuke.

He remembered the way the chakra had felt on the seal. He remembered the inscription on the handle- the promise he’d carved into the unforgiving steel. That kunai was purple in his mind, and so he sought for the brightest, most divine shade of purple light he could find in this timeless dimension.

The alpha squinted and trudged as if he were wading through a sea of invisible seconds, all ticking by at an excruciatingly slow pace. He passed a few bright green orbs that he knew to be the ones he’d lost somewhere in the training fields. To the left was a yellow one that he was sure did not belong to himself, but to the fourth hokage that lay somewhere in the wilderness, forgotten by time but not the jutsu’s seal.

And then, he saw it. The bright, almost iridescent purple that burned so brightly against the odd, inky blue-black-grey of the dimension the jutsu took him to. It was his lifeline to Sasuke.

The alpha trudged with renewed vigor to the bright violet beam of hope and latched on with more force than was probably necessary. His fingers fell into the necessary sign, all while the scent bond continued to dizzy him with its radiating ache.

In the blink of an eye, the transitional pocket dimension was gone, and the alpha was kneeling on cracked, stone ground that had obviously been part of something much, much larger than the rubble it had been reduced to.

Smoke and electrically charged oxygen burned his lungs and stung his eyes, but that didn’t stop him from hobbling to a standing position and swaying wildly in search for any signs relating to where Sasuke might be.

He hadn’t thought to bring his ninja gear- or anything particularly useful for that matter. His jacket was inside out and Naruto realized that he still had on his sweatpants meant for lounging around the house. The first time Sasuke would be seeing him in months, and he looked like a total loser.

Naruto zeroed in on the gleam of the kunai he’d sent Sasuke, lost among rubble and despair. It glared at him, imploring him to hurry and find his wayward love, but the thunder and electricity that clung to the air made it so hard to think, let alone move.

It had been so long since he’d been wrapped in that scent, and now it clung so flippantly, so dangerously to his entire surroundings. The alpha’s knees almost gave out. But, it was only the knowledge that he was so close that he could feel the ghost of Sasuke’s presence dancing along his burning skin that kept him upright.

It was the memory of the way Sasuke never shied away from giving as good as he got in training that allowed the alpha to put one foot in front of the other, despite the slight stagger as the scent bond came to a crescendo of agony.

The memory of dark eyes that were so black they had a hint of deep, endless blue gazing up at him with open trust as they both shivered together in a cave with nothing but a storm raging outside to witness their passion that allowed himself to stay alert.

Flashes of missions where they did nothing but try to best the other. Inklings of soft moments of understanding as they watched their peers go home to warm dinners and intrigued families asking about their days, only to curl up together in Sasuke’s nest with two empty ramen cups in the kitchen trash can.

The past began to overwhelm him as he grit his teeth in determination for their future. Almost as if there was an invisible string yanking him along the mess of destroyed stone architecture and black flames, the alpha stumbled forwards.

Rain pelted at his hair, matting it against his forehead and causing the ends to poke at his eyes uncomfortably. However, Naruto didn’t even spare the tedious bangs a second thought as he followed the trail of black flames, knowing that Itachi had to have been the cause.

Wherever Itachi was, Sasuke would not be far away. Not with this level of desecration. No, the fight had to either be nearing its end, or there had already been a victor. With how harshly the connection of their scent bond was going crazy, Naruto was worried that Sasuke was on his last leg. A terrible thought it was, because when he’d last gotten to glimpse the Uchiha, his power had nearly doubled since the shared heat.

The alpha coughed as another bout of thunder rolled over the battlefield. The smoke from the ebony flames was different from that of a regular fire’s. Somehow it stung deeper in a vengeful sort of way.

If he called out Sasuke’s name, would the omega hear his call? Would Itachi? Would it distract the two warring brothers, or perchance, distract Sasuke and put him at a disadvantage against his older brother?

But oh, how he longed to have those two syllables tear themselves from his throat and hear the name coated in the rawness of his loyalty as it echoed off of the still barely standing walls of whatever building this had previously been.

A small, insignificant sound to his left stole his attention from the pathway lit by the amaterasu. With the chaos of the weather and just all-around ruin of his surroundings, he shouldn’t have heard it. But he did, and his body had never moved so fast to climb headfirst over a giant pile of jagged debris in his life.

He dug his fingers into whatever opening he saw to pull himself up and over the giant mound, ignoring the small traces of drying blood that speckled a few of the larger pieces. The alpha scrambled with a frenzied sort of intensity to the top, only to slip halfway up and have to start all over again.

“Damn it!” He grumbled fiercely.

He didn’t take care to make sure the rough edges didn't pierce the skin of his palms the second time around. And, after getting to the top and seeing the sight below that had been awaiting him on the other side, he was glad for it.

There, about thirty feet away, was Itachi Uchiha’s unconscious body laying in a quickly forming pool of blood. The force of his body hitting the ground had to have been what Naruto’s hearing had picked up on.

But, what gave the alpha a horrified pause, was Sasuke. Even from a distance, Naruto could see the violent tremors that had overtaken the omega’s form. His grip was barely there on his sword, nearly limp as the weapon teetered nearly completely out of his hold all together. His skin nearly glowed a terrifying white even underneath the darkness of the night that had fallen.

Though, too much of his body was exposed, whether from cuts or rips in his clothes, or a dark, threatening red that poured from unspecified injuries beneath the singed and flayed clothing.

Naruto was numb to everything. His eyes remained frozen open, pupils never leaving their target. He didn’t feel the sting of dirt and other grime making its way into the freshly opened cuts on his hands as he did his best to descend the tall hill of rubble. He didn’t even feel the guttural, panicked sound that reverberated throughout his entire body and out into the open, stormy air like an invisible curse upon whatever had happened to his omega to put him in such a state of clear distress.

All he saw was Sasuke. All he breathed was Sasuke. All he felt was Sasuke.

As soon as one of his sandals hit the slick, cracked stone walkway, he nearly slid thanks to the unforgiving rain, but he corrected his stance before he could fall.

Sasuke needed him, he couldn’t waste any more time.

Closing the distance after a hellish eternity apart was agonizingly slow. The closer he got, the more his heart broke at seeing how despondent Sasuke looked. He didn’t even seem to register that Naruto was right in front of him-nothing. There was nothing.

And then the omega’s knees gave out and Naruto dove to catch him like he was a precious thing that shouldn’t be sullied by touching the same earth that such a villain like Itachi was on. Which, to Naruto, he was.

“Sasuke!” He cried out into the terrible night, knowing that it would fall upon deaf ears, but still repeating the name like a desperate prayer anyway.

Sasuke was boneless as the back of his knees and shoulders made contact with the alpha’s outstretched arms. It was disturbing how light the omega was- so much so that Naruto sank to his knees, sullying his pants with mud and blood and rain water in despair as he adjusted the other boy’s weight to free a hand enough to check the omega over and assess his injuries.

He could almost taste how acidic his own scent had turned with the overpowering urge to rip apart everything that had pushed Sasuke onto the path of becoming an avenger of his clan. Sasuke’s nose twitched, his own instincts probably catching on to Naruto’s and working in tandem to bring the omega out of his shocked state.

“Sasuke, it's okay. You’re okay- you won! He’s gone, you’re safe, just breathe, okay?” The blonde murmured as gently as he knew how.

The alpha tried his best to let a calmer version of his scent permeate the air so that Sasuke might be comforted a little, but the omega remained unblinking. He was alive, but it was like any will or fight had died within his soul.

Chakra exhaustion. He’d seen it once or twice with Kakashi sensei or Shikamaru, but he’d never really experienced it in full for himself. His healing factor took care of any physical ailments that would come with the condition, and his chakra reserves were nearly infinite if he added in the Kyuubi’s chakra as well.

But Sasuke didn’t have a healing factor, and while his chakra stores were profound in their own right, they did inevitably have a limit. Plus the pregnancy and the birth had to have taken a toll on the omega in invisible ways. Especially after rumors had spread that he’d just been in a deathmatch with that Akatsuki member Deidara.

Naruto sat himself down completely on the ground now and situated Sasuke’s body in a way that it would be supported by Naruto’s, so that the alpha could reach up and caress the omega’s thin cheeks with both thumbs. He kept murmuring to the catatonic boy, even though half of what he said was probably drowned out by the ground-shuddering thunder from above them.

Lightning struck abruptly, illuminating the ghostly pallor of the Uchiha in his lap like a lantern persevering at a ship’s helm in the night. The electricity that fizzled in the air seemed to spark something within Sasuke, though. Instantly, relief washed over Naruto along with the water droplets from the tumultuous rains.

Sasuke blinked once and then twice, and Naruto couldn’t hold himself back any longer from diving down and scenting the omega vigorously, as if to reassure them both that everything would be okay. Freezing fingers from a trembling hand found their way to his scalp with a hesitant, almost disbelieving grip as Naruto nosed at Sasuke’s scent glands. He kissed the scent bond, for once so thankful for its existence for it had led him to mate.

And then came a deeply disturbing whine of such utter, bone shattering distress that had Naruto recoiling as if burned.

Frantically, Naruto whipped his head from side to side to see if there were any threats that Sasuke had seen-anything at all that would force him to convey such a helpless, small omegan sound. It felt unnatural and wrong, coming from Sasuke. He’d always been strong and sure, even at his lowest he’d been an impenetrable iron force.

And then his blue eyes met teary black. “Alpha,” Sasuke whispered in watery disbelief.

Maybe he thought he was in another one of Itachi’s genjutsus.

“It’s me-I’m here, believe it!” He whispered back shakily.

And then suddenly, as if it would have been better for the Uchiha to be suffering alone, with Naruto being a figment of his imagination, Sasuke began to openly weep in large, haggard sobs that spoke volumes to the pain he’d been in for a long time. The sounds that wrenched themselves from his throat were so harsh that Naruto panicked and readjusted him, thinking he was choking on the air and grief swirling around them.

“I’m sorry,” Sasuke inhaled sharply, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to- I had to. All of it-”.

“Sasuke, we don’t need to do this now, please, baby calm down. Its okay, you’re okay, I’m okay-”

Sasuke’s breaths came in uneven, clawing sounds that chilled Naruto worse than the freezing storm going on around them, “-Want my baby. Please-my baby, I want my baby!”.

And Naruto understood, because he knew he’d go mad if he ever were forced to part with their pup. It had to be worse for Sasuke- Sakura had told him all about how omegas weren’t supposed to part from their babies for at least a year or two. The mental and medical risks were just too great to justify a separation between mothers and their infants.

The alpha’s heart broke for his mate. So, with no other choice but to jostle the hyperventilating omega once more by standing up and fishing for the special kunai that would take them back home, Naruto kissed the pale boy’s forehead in apology before activating the seal.

“Hey! Put him down-what are you doing?!” A woman’s banshee-like voice startled him.

His head whipped itself to the right to find three figures- a red-headed woman, a large, hulking man, and that asshole Suigetsu quickly making their way towards them. Sasuke whined and fidgeted pitifully, chanting broken apologies like they were the only key that could allow him to finally see his pup again.

But it was too late, the seal had already been activated. In an instant, they were gone with a quiet flash of orange light.

Home. Naruto was finally bringing Sasuke home.