Start Again M*therf**kers

Location: Kirigakure Abandoned Bunker

A barren wasteland.

That was what the world had been reduced to.

Long spidery cracks ran through the dry ground, the endless drought and diminishing nature chakra was slowly turning the earth into a desert. Every breath of the arid air that they took felt like fire blazing through their lungs. The ashes of their fallen comrades flitted across the destroyed lands, swirling and swaying from the violent blasts and explosions littering the earth. It marked the bodies of the still moving –the ones still fighting –with black soot and dust. The sky was locked in an everlasting state of darkness, the only source of light being the bright moon. It taunted them with the possibility of paradise. A chance to finally leave this hellish place filled with only painhungeranguishdeath. But they knew if they looked at that cursed moon, it would just spell their devastation because there was no salvation in a dream.

The screams and anguished cries of the injured and heartbroken could be heard through the torrent of chaos and destruction that razed the land. Bodies were littered across the battlefront, stained crudely with splatters of blood that pooled around them and spread into a sea of crimson. Even more shinobi could be seen standing strong against the enemy, protecting their fellow comrades and driving the mass away from their base. Just as the fodder was thinned to a manageable level, there was a sudden influx of chakra before hundreds of white clones emerged like hordes of zombies craving flesh. They stumbled, much like newborn fawns learning to walk for the first time, before suddenly breaking into a run, with a single-minded focus on the impaired and grieving soldiers on the blood-soaked battlefield.

“Doton: Doryūheki!” (Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall)

A protective wall of earth spanning almost half the area sprung from the ground between the incapacitated fighters and the oncoming flurry of attacks from the enemy side. A brown-haired soldier stood guard in front of the others, panting from exhaustion with his hands still holding the Dog seal. The man was wearing a hitai-ate with the kanji "Shinobi" (忍) on it. He swung his head towards the unmoving soldiers and yelled, “Get up and move before they break through! Move the injured first and seal the dead!”

Several other shinobi leaped into action, dashing swiftly onto the war-torn field and leaving just as quickly with their broken comrades encased in their arms. Dead bodies were sealed in scrolls and stashed away for the pyre they were going to have to build later. The battlefield was entirely vacated of the indisposed people, leaving the other shinobi who were readying for the fight ahead. The earth wall protecting them held for a while longer before a powerful lightning jutsu soared through the air and pierced straight into the rock. The soldiers flinched at the distinct crack sounding from the wall before it went crumbling down under the combined forces of the aerial attack and the mindless clones. As the first line of White Zetsu clones broke through, several shinobi formed a tight defensive line, the dark determination in their eyes spelled out their intentions.

They were going to protect their friends and family until their dying breath.

“Katon: Karyūdan!” (Fire Release: Fire Dragon Bullet)

A dark-haired shinobi shouted as a stream of flames burst from her lips towards the creatures. Her eyes were almost blank, unfeeling as she watched the clones shriek in pain from the burning. Even though they had once been her comrades, she felt utterly indifferent to their suffering –after all, those shinobi had died the moment they looked at that cursed moon.

With devastated looks on their faces, numerous other soldiers released their own various ninjutsu and tried to contain –distract –the masses to allow their companions to relocate. The number of safe camps for the survivors to hide out in was decreasing with how quickly they were being found out in recent days but they weren’t ready to surrender. Not yet. They had to have hope. They had to believe there was a way to get rid of the Infinite Tsukuyomi. They had to have faith that this wasn’t the end of them all –because if they didn’t have hope, if they didn’t believe, if they didn’t have faith then there would be nothing left for them.

“Katon: Gōryūka no Jutsu!” (Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique)

“Doton: Doryūdan!” (Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet)

“Suiton: Daiteppōdama!” (Water Release: Great Gunshot)

The various elements of earth, fire, and water slammed into the swarm, effectively propelling the white creatures as far away as possible from their camping grounds. The other shinobi that had fallen back to try and scramble their stuff together were moving as fast as they could. None of them wanted to stick around when she was notified of their hideout. Sealing scrolls were filled to the brim, the injured were safely secured, and the transportation seal for them had already been laid out for emergencies like this.

“Move everyone!” Shikamaru yelled out, eyes narrowed in alertness as he took in the situation before him.

Several ninjas with more substantial chakra reserves were kneeling at specific transmitter points on the transportation seal, they were going to power the seal with their chakra and send everyone through. Curses and screams of panic flooded the air as numerous White Zetsu clones ducked past the first line of defense and made their way toward the incapacitated ninjas. A blond-haired medic-nin tripped in an effort to run away, leaving her vulnerable to the advances of the quickly approaching clone. Ayumi had been working non-stop for 72 hours with hardly any sleep or breaks when the unforeseen attack on their hideout happened. She didn’t have the strength –the will –to stand up and fight, much less run.

Her hazel eyes widened, fear and hopelessness dancing together as she slowly relented to her fate, “Someone…help…!” She called out weakly –she didn’t want to die, not like this, she was supposed to see her sister again after they reversed the Infinite Tsukuyomi. She wasn’t supposed to die, not yet.

Just as the White Zetsu clone reached her, an enraged roar echoed across the battlefield, shaking the heavens and the earth with its fury. A yellow blur streaked by, too quick for the naked eye to catch, and jumped into the fray of clones –conveniently taking out the one that had been so close to Ayumi. Eyes filled with wonder and gratefulness barely tracked the movement, but she knew who that was, who saved her and it filled her with a renewed sense of optimism. Because as bleak as the future, fuck, as bleak everything seemed, she knew she could believe in the Rokudaime Kage.

“Everyone!” Their Kage dressed in a torn, bloodied and tattered black haori –it used to be stark white, but the battles had soaked the innocence of it in loss and grief –shouted and gestured towards the seal where most of his people were gathered, “Evacuate now!”

With that, the man –a god, he was a god to them –turned towards the army and unleashed jutsu after jutsu at the White Zetsu clones, decimating the numbers like they were nothing at all. While many would have stopped to watch in awe once upon a time, things were different now, they had to use what precious time they had if it meant surviving to see the next day.

Not like there was any day to see…

Ayumi was quick to join the rest of the slightly shivering and shaking soldiers –no matter how many times they did this, it never failed to diminish their hope. She could understand though, there was nothing left to go back to even if they managed to stop the Infinite Tsukuyomi. The world itself seemed dead, life seized to grow and food was scarce –then again the rising death toll stopped them from halving their meager rations –and water was like lifeblood in this dry apocalypse. They hadn’t been ready for an eradication of this magnitude. After all, they had been recuperating from the Fourth Shinobi War when she arrived with her never-ending army of White Zetsu clones and the Infinite Tsukuyomi. So much had been lost initially, their loved ones during the war and then the ones who were ensnared by the moon, and they still continue to lose more as time dragged by. It was as if fate was drawing out their annihilation. It made Ayumi sick to her stomach.

Yet as she stared out at the battle before her, at the man who had saved them, who had protected them for so long, who disregarded his health and safety just so they could get a minuscule amount of time to escape, she couldn’t help but see a better future for them all.

“The Rokudaime Kage, Uzumaki Naruto.” She whispered under her breath before the seal took effect and whisked them away to another place where they would call home.

Shikamaru cursed up a storm at his knuckleheaded friend’s impulsive behavior. He knew that the blond-haired man could easily take out the clones but that was a waste of his strength, especially after he pushed himself to exhaustion this week. The Nara had thought that he would have at least had faith in his fellow shinobi and left them to deal with the cannon fodder but it seemed he had been wrong –he always was when it came to their number one unpredictable ninja. But she was still out there, looking for them, and they needed all the hands on deck if she decides to confront them again. Yet this idiot was throwing around his chakra like it was candy and on the White Zetsu clones of all things.

Not to mention that his chakra was a beacon for that witch.

‘Goddamnit Naruto!’

Shooting a dark look at the bouncing yellow ball that was his friend, Shikamaru joined the other shinobi on the transportation seal. He knew that Sakura had left with the injured first –the lives of their fellow comrades were more important than the frontlines. The infamous Uchiha was probably shadowing Naruto, as usual. While Sasuke knew that Naruto didn’t need protection, he still fell behind to stay as backup if something went wrong. Another powerhouse running amok instead of saving his energy for the big bad that was surely coming for them.

“Idiots…!” The Nara hissed out in irritation, “The both of them.”

Shikamaru watched the backs of Naruto and Sasuke as they easily battled and discarded the White Zetsu clones like there were mere flies. He knew that they were insanely powerful, but that power drew her out every time they unleashed it. Every time they used it, he felt fear grip his heart at the thought of her finding them. Shikamaru had never been the same after their first encounter with her. Not after he watched as she easily tore through his friends and family without remorse. After she triggered the Infinite Tsukuyomi and trapped everyone in her fucking genjutsu. Certainly, not after she turned their loved ones into puppets with amusement twinkling in her godforsaken eyes. Shikamaru was rightfully wary when it came to anything concerning that woman.

But as the blinding white light of the activating teleportation seal surrounded them, Shikamaru couldn’t help the reassuring smile that climbed onto his face.

‘Give ‘em hell…’

Naruto gritted his teeth so tightly he was sure they would have cracked under the pressure if it wasn’t for Kurama’s affinity for healing him. He wanted to jump straight into the fight, to save his people from pushing their already bone-tired bodies but Shikamaru had already ripped into him for overdoing it this week. The blond-haired man had been particularly stubborn when it came to fighting since the first attack from Usagi no Megami. An attack that they had fought and promptly lost –that was a failure that Naruto would carry heavily on his shoulders until the day he died. Naruto hadn’t wanted any more losses, not after the Fourth Shinobi War, not after Tsunade-baa-chan, not after Sai, not after Kakas-Naruto had promised himself he wouldn’t lose anyone else.

A horrible vow to make to himself, especially when he kept watching as people died around him.

‘Weak…’ His mind whispered –it was a cacophony of all the people he had failed to save blended together.

That first loss had been a year ago, and ever since then, they had been running. They had been trying to find another way to get rid of the goddess that didn’t rely on direct confrontation. Naruto grimaced as he remembered the number of people they had lost in just a year. He refused to think about the smile on Baa-chan’s face as she stared at the moon or the look of contentment on Yamato’s normally stoic face or the almost real smile on Sai’s pale face. They had been lost to the Infinite Tsukuyomi, the illusion of happiness too great to refuse –not that he could blame them.

People were caught off-guard by the appearance of the Usagi no Megami and were left powerless in the face of her devastation; they were easily taken into the genjutsu. The rest who had stronger wills to resist the allure were hunted down. Whether they were alone or in groups, it didn’t matter. Naruto had tried to save as many people as possible in the initial chaos, but the attack had been too heavy, too sudden for him to save everyone. Some had refused the lure, some had yielded to their fate with ease, some had fought and died, some continue to fight and some gave up entirely and slit their throats without another word. He had made it his duty to protect his people, and after ascending to the rank of Kage –ascended, more like handed when Kakashi di –he made it his priority to see that his people were safe and she was eradicated.

‘Kaguya…’

“Come at me, you shitty clones!” He yelled as he lashed out with his wind-enhanced chakra chokutō. He sliced cleanly through several bodies at once, the force of his attack sending the hacked parts flying through the air.

Naruto had switched to his straight sword after pushing back most of the White Zetsu. He didn’t need to alert Kaguya of his location by carelessly letting out huge amounts of chakra.

“You’re overdoing it again, dobe.” Sasuke deadpanned from beside him, his own blade poised straight up, not willing to let down his guard for anything.

Naruto shot the dark-haired man an annoyed look before growling, “How ‘bout you stop standing there like a teme and help me out!”

“I don’t think I want to.” He said bluntly with no emotion on his face, but Naruto knew by the glint in his eyes that Sasuke was amused by his anger.

“Asshole…!” He spat out before throwing himself into the hoard with no regard toward the Uchiha.

The blond-haired man slashed through his opponents easily. His form wasn’t as elegant as his ever-graceful Uchiha, filled with a mismatch of tattered sword forms and taijutsu, but it would do to take out his enemies. He didn’t want to leave such a large army of White Zetsu clones alone. Otherwise, Naruto knew that they would find a way to follow them to their next hideout and he had to protect his people –he buried the fact, that these clones had once been his precious people as well, deep into the well of his mind–and buy them some more time. Naruto used as little chakra as possible. After all, he’d rather not inform the witch goddess of his whereabouts. She had been pissed to hell when she didn’t get Kurama the first time, he didn’t really want to try his luck with her this time, not as he was now.

Dodging a lunging attack from a clone on his left, Naruto ran his sword through it before smirking and shouting, “I’m gonna tell Sakura-chan you left me to fight alone!”

Sasuke cursed colorfully, he was sure if his father was alive he would have disowned him for his words. He probably would have broken his brother’s impeccable stoic mask with how creatively crude his insults were. His own chokutō lit up with sparks of lightning flowing through it as he elegantly cut down the White Zetsu clones indifferently while slowly meeting his blond idiot at the epicenter of the chaos.

‘The pink brat never fails to terrify the both of you.’ Kurama snorted in amusement at their behavior.

‘Hey! Sakura is scary alright!’ Naruto protested vehemently, thinking about all the bodily harm she caused with her chakra-infused fists-of-fury.

‘Pathetic, Fishcake.’ Kurama intoned, making the blond pout.

‘I’m not a fishcake!’

‘Your mother knew exactly what she was doing naming you that, Fishcake.’

“Is that all of them?” Naruto asked as he nudged a downed clone with the tip of his boot.

Sasuke roved his uncovered eye over the battlefield, the Mangekyō Sharingan swirling as he checked for any chakra signatures signaling if there were any clones left, “No. Nothing for now.”

Naruto hummed while casting a side-glanced towards where the teleportation jutsu had been. It had faded pretty quickly after it had been used, a design specification that Naruto had inscribed into the original seal, which made it harder for enemies to track their movements. It looked like they were going to have to use Hiraishin to move around until they find the base, which wasn’t the best solution to their problem at the moment. The seal was permanent when put down and it carried his chakra signature which could be traced, and that was something they didn’t want at all.

“Should we be worried that the bitch didn’t send any of her monster children?” Naruto callously questioned. His tone was light and full of levity but his cerulean eyes were cold and hard.

Sasuke hummed for a moment, before answering in that impassively deep voice of his, “There isn’t any spare dead around for her to create her little monsters.”

“Thank the Sage for that…” Naruto mumbled softly before his mind shifted to their next move. 

‘Move around a bit using the Hiraishin to throw them off the trail of the base then walk there.’ Kurama interjected with a huff.

‘It’s gonna take a few days then.’ Naruto frowned at the thought –he didn’t like the thought of being away from his people for too long.

‘It’s better than them stalking your trail and finding the hideout, kit.’

Naruto grimaced slightly at the thought. They were losing hide-outs at such a rapid rate, especially with how quickly Kaguya had been locating them in recent months. He knows that it had to do with how big their numbers were –it wasn’t much, but the cluster of chakra signatures was more than enough to locate them.

‘We’re gonna have to start using chakra suppressors to throw them off our trail…’ He thought uneasily, the vulnerability of being without power during a time like this was terrifying.

“Naruto…” Sasuke called out, breaking him out of his distressing contemplations.

The blond-haired man turned towards the other man –his best friend, his partner, his everything, he didn’t know what he would do if he lost him –and shot him a hesitant smile. Naruto ran a hand through his hair and grimaced at the knot-tangled and greasy feeling of his mane. He hadn’t had the time to cut it and he was sure that his hair looked more like a brown dirt color than the sunshine blond it actually was.

“It’s gonna take a few days to get to the bunker,” Naruto admitted grimly, watching for the other man’s reaction to his words.

As usual, he was blank as ever, “I realized.” He said dryly.

“I’ll flash us to different points to throw them off the bunker trail then we’ll walk the rest of the way.” The blond stated while turning his head to face the dead clone-littered field before him.

“Hn.”

Typical Uchiha response.

Naruto sighed in exasperation –he was too tired to deal with Sasuke’s bout of broodiness. He placed his left hand on the other man’s shoulder and activated the Hiraishin towards the location of one of their first hideouts. In a split second, they vanished, leaving behind dead White Zetsus for Kaguya and her subordinates to find.

When they reappeared, it was at a familiar but upended base. Naruto winced at the sight that greeted him. It brought back so many memories –dead bodies littering the ground, blood decorating the walls, a gaping hole through a chest that they couldn’t heal –that he would have rather kept submerged in the recesses of his mind. Taking a deep breath to calm his racing heart, Naruto took a hesitant step forward into their first hideout. Sasuke followed close behind without making a single sound, he refused to glance at the utter ruination of the place and instead stared straight at the blond’s back.

Kaguya’s invasion and subsequent rise to power took place a mere two months after the Fourth Shinobi War. People had been in mourning, they had still been living in camps because no one had the will to rebuild just yet, food and clean water had been hard to come by because of how wide-scale the chaos had been so no one –not a single fucking person –had been prepared for the Rabbit Goddess.

‘More like Demon…’ Sasuke thought back to her remorseless eyes as she slaughtered people, draining their chakra and leaving behind husks waiting to be turned into puppets for her army. Her monstrous children, the Jinmenju, had appeared not long after.

They continued to walk further into the place they had called home if only for a few months, taking note of the upturned furniture. They had left in a frenzy, scrambling to move their supplies to another location when they were overrun with White Zetsu clones. They stalked forward until they were standing in front of what used to be the room they had their ‘war councils’ in. The blond man stopped short at the threshold of the room –he could feel the pain radiating from the other man as he stared at the inside of the room.

“Let’s go Sasuke,” Naruto called out, his voice slightly hoarse, before placing his hand on the dark-haired man’s shoulder again.

With that, they vanished.

This continued for some time until they were sure that the enemy had taken the bait and started to follow their chakra signatures, before stopping for a slight break. The blond man dropped to the ground, his legs crossed and his elbows resting on his knees, with a thoughtful look on his face –the look had become a norm at this point. Sasuke found it disconcerting. He didn’t like feeling like that when it came to Naruto.

“Where do you think the seal took them?” Naruto asked softly.

Sasuke was quiet for a moment as he considered the question, “It’s random for a reason, dobe.”

When the dark-haired didn’t hear the usual offending retort from the easily angered blond, he turned to face the man. Naruto was gazing at the desolate land with a far-away expression on his face as if he wasn’t actually here in the present. Sasuke hated it when the blond went all silent and contemplative, it always ended with Naruto blaming himself over things he couldn’t stop –things he couldn’t change and people he couldn’t save –so he promptly snapped him out of it.

Sasuke slapped him across the back of his head.

“OW! What the hell tem-”

“Stop thinking, you’re not made to use that mush in your head, dobe.” The dark-haired man said dryly.

“Oi!” Naruto reared up angrily, a thoroughly pissed-off expression on his whiskered face, “What the fuck, Sasuke?!”

The man being addressed stared at the blond blankly before huffing out an exasperated breath, “Let’s go. The quicker we get there, the quicker I can finally get rid of you.”

“Hey! You like my company, teme!”

“Hardly.”

‘And the flirting commences.’ Kurama gagged in disgust –he couldn’t believe his kit was enamored with Uchiha scum of all people.

Two Years Later

Location: Cha no Kuni (Land of Tea) Underground Bunker

Sakura huffed out a heavy breath, she was absolutely exhausted after the day she had. They had sent out a recon and carrier team –two for each, there weren’t enough people for something bigger –and they had only arrived back now. Food had been steadily running out and they had desperately needed information on Kaguya and her creepy clones, so Sakura and three others were dispatched to take care of it. They had found some long-lasting packaged goods in an abandoned Kumo bunker that had been very far from their own site which was a relief. The Rabbit Goddess hadn’t been spotted anywhere near them which almost made the two scouts burst into tears. Things hadn’t been good as of late so it was understandable for them to feel like that.

Thankfully they arrived back only nine days after they had left; normally missions like that took a couple of weeks, at best, with how careful they always had to be.

All she wanted to do was face-plant on her mattress and sleep for the next couple of days –which was an impossible dream for her being an on-call medic-nin. She knew that she also had patrol tonight which meant she would be lucky to get a maximum of three hours of sleep before someone woke her up, and that’s not even taking into account the sheer number of people that came to her for medical help.

Since her Shishou-

‘Don’t think about her, Sakura.’

Just as she was making her way towards the sleeping quarters, she heard the distinctive noise of arguing –specifically arguing between Shikamaru, Ino, and Naruto. Letting out a long-suffering sigh, Sakura debated on whether or not she wanted to involve herself in matters concerning her stupid Kage and his advisers. She had distanced herself as far away from all things concerning leadership since Kaguya’s invasion. Sakura rather liked being a medic, and being in the war council was enough for her.

“Naruto!” Ino shouted in anger and worry, “You can’t keep doing this to yourself!”

At that, Sakura froze mid-step towards the bed that was calling out her name as a lover would. She could hear the utterly sinful words drifting into her mind, luring her with the promise of sleep and relaxation and it was working like a charm. The pink-haired kunoichi knew that hearing voices –one concerning her mattress of all things –would normally lead to a one-way trip to the mental hospital but times have changed.

Everyone was mad here after all.

“If you keep doing this, I’m going to set Sakura on you,” Shikamaru said in a blunt lazy tone –she could almost hear the smirk in his voice or that could just be a side-effect of her impending absolute mental instability. Also, rude, he made it seem like she was some kind of rabid dog.

“Che, as if Sakura-chan would be able to stop me.”

And that right there –was the reason why Sakura decided to ignore the siren’s call of her bed in favor of marching towards her irritable blond teammate.

“HAH?! What the hell did you just say?!” Sakura shouted, her exhaustion and anger bleeding together to create a monster that should never be trifled with.

Her blond idiot of a teammate was hunched over a large table in the middle of the ‘office’, they needed a room to meet and this became the one where all the important shit took place. The Nara and her best friend, Ino, were standing on either side of Naruto with barely concealed expressions of worry and annoyance.

“S-Sakura!” Naruto ‘eeped’ out in a high-pitched voice, “I thought you were out on recon!”

They obviously weren’t expecting her to be back so soon, not that Sakura gave an absolute shit at the moment.

Grinding her teeth, the grating sound made Shikamaru grimace uncomfortably, “I just got back and I’m faced with this bullshit.” She almost growled out, her voice low and filled with teetering fury.

“Sakura-” Ino was cut off with a stern glare.

“No! What the fucking hell is going on here?!” Sakura shouted, the no-nonsense tone preventing anyone from even attempting to lie to her.

“Nothi-”

Naruto was abruptly cut off by Shikamaru. Apparently, his Kage’s current condition made him imperceptible to the danger that was Haruno Sakura at the moment. Shikamaru was practically saving his blond ass by preventing Naruto from saying something he would regret. “Naruto had been awake for the last five days. He’s refusing to sleep and he’s not even taking any breaks either.”

“He’s been overworking himself, stressing over Kaguya, and making borderline suicidal plans.” Ino said with a worried frown creasing her brows, “He hasn’t eaten any food for days…and he’s been taking soldier pills non-stop.”

As the list of Naruto’s grievances grew, a tick mark appeared on Sakura’s forehead for every single one. Shikamaru was sure the pink-haired woman was going to pop a blood vessel if they continued at this rate, not that he could blame her. Naruto gave everyone more stress and headaches when he refused to take care of himself.

“Na-ru-to~” She sang in a happy-go-lucky voice that sent shivers down everyone’s spine. That is everyone, besides Naruto.

It seemed like the sleep deprivation really got to Naruto with how he had blatantly ignored his scary-ass teammate’s deadly tone.

“I still have to wait for Sasuke to come back from raiding the other base-” Naruto continued without paying any mind to the rapidly reddening face of his very explosive teammate.

“Your report on that bitch situation is also due-”

That was the last thing Sakura –who was basically running on her empty reserves –wanted to hear, especially coming from her dumbass teammate. It was a wonder how he managed to balance staying alive and being a Kage at the same time.

“I’m currently running on fumes, spite, and Sakura’s shitty soldier pills! I’m ready to fight a fucking god or become one!” Naruto declared brilliantly with a triumphant crazed laugh falling from his lips, while Ino and Shikamaru audibly gulped at the practically visible killing intent wafting from the insulted pink-haired women.

“And he’s lost it…” Shikamaru sighed, scratching the back of his head.

All of a sudden, Naruto threw himself out of his seat, his chair flying out from under him and crashing against the concrete floor with a loud metal clang. He ran his fingers through his long crusted hair –he refused to cut it for some reason –before plastering a slightly demented smile on his face. Not bothering to listen to them, the blond stalked straight past them and towards the door.

“Where the hell are you going Naruto?!” Ino shouted, utterly baffled at being ignored by the blond man.

“I’m gonna make Kaguya my bitch!”

Naruto cackled like an absolute maniac then left.

Just.

Like.

That.

“He’s completely lost it.” Ino intoned in disbelief, she knew it would happen one day –no one could go survive this long and come out sane.

“He could give Madara a run for his money with how he’s behaving,” Shikamaru said dryly, he wasn’t even going to bother going after the blond. Naruto was probably going to crash before he even put a foot outside of their hideout.

Meanwhile, one pink-haired kunoichi is debating the murder of the Rokudaime Kage.

“Did he just call my soldier pills…shitty…?” Sakura whispered under her breath, her tone light but the intent was as deadly as a kunai to the heart.

With that one question, it felt like the entire world froze.

Shikamaru sighed and muttered, “Troublesome…”

“Sakura’s going to murder him…” Ino whispered before slowly shaking her head. She was going to have to pray to the Sage for his survival; no one insulted Sakura’s soldier pills and got away with it.

“NARUTO!”

The pink-haired kunoichi proceeded to chase her dumbass of a teammate around the compound while everyone stared at them with various expressions of chagrin, fondness, and amusement. Sakura had no qualms shouting out colorful expletives that would have made Jiraiya blush from the utter vulgarity. On the other hand, Naruto –who was completely off his rocker –was taking the woman’s threats as a suggestion and running with it. The lack of sleep left him with little-to-no self-preservation and loopy as hell, Shikamaru is positive that the blond had no idea what he was doing.

Thwack!

Thud!

“And she caught him.” The pineapple-headed man deadpanned.

Ino giggled lightly at the commotion the two had caused, “She probably knocked him out with one hit.”

“That’s one way to make him sleep.” Shikamaru nodded, approving of Sakura’s methods as long as she didn’t enact them on him. The Nara got enough grief from Ino as it was.

Chōji trudged into the room, his movements sluggish in a way that instantly caused Shikamaru to worry. A chuckle escaped his lips, the sound rattling slightly in his too-thin chest. Chōji was thinner, thinner than he was supposed to be, and it showed just how bad things were if an Akimichi resembled Sakura during her Sasuke fangirling days. The slightly bigger man’s brown hair had been cut short, it had been an almost failed mission to gather food when they were caught off guard by an influx of White Zetsu and the man had to sacrifice his hair to survive. Chōji could never bring himself to grow it out again. He had said that it had reminded him too much of how his own father kept his hair.

Shikamaru ignored the whisper that told him that his friend was wasting away before his eyes and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“Sakura knocked Naruto out cold.” Chōji announced with a snort, “Without chakra.”

“Damn…” Shikamaru cursed under his breath, “Why are all the women I know so fucking terrifying…?”

“Hah, I knew she had it in her.” Ino said, swiping her fingers against the dark bags under her eyes, “I’m so proud.”

Before Shikamaru could retort, a very satisfied Sakura strutted into the room and plopped herself onto one of the chairs near Ino.

After a beat of silence, Shikamaru asked, “Where’s Naruto, Sakura?”

“Taking a nap.” That was all she said and the Nara left it at that –he wasn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole.

The pink-haired kunoichi’s obvious dog-tired expression made every one of them hesitate at interacting with her. Sakura had been extremely prickly as of late –not that anyone could blame her, everyone was on edge and a single mishap caused them to fly off the handle. The stress of two years of running and hiding was catching up to all of them, some losing hope as their future became dimmer and dimmer. Their apocalyptic world wasn’t something they had been preparing for. Sure, the war made them aware of extreme loss and the possibility of dying for their cause but they hadn’t been ready for an all-out extinction. Madara might have wiped the floor with the Allied Forces with his near-godlike power but, he had still been human at the end of the day.

Kaguya was a different story.

She had come at them without remorse, picking off everyone and everything as easily as squashing bugs beneath her feet. Kaguya had eradicated thousands of people in a few short days before everyone decided to turn tail and run. For all they knew, the people in this hideout of theirs were the last ones left on earth. They had never come across another settlement of people so far and no one was holding out on finding more people outside of themselves.

A distinct thump yanked everyone out of their damning thoughts as their heads snapped in attention toward the door of the office. A dazed Naruto was standing in front of them –well, more like holding on to the wall like it was a life support system.

“How the hell are you awake, Naruto?” Chōji asked, not even bothering to help his friend out. The blond man had been severely pissing people off with how he refused to take care of himself.

Sakura reared out, her fist raised in the air ready to strike out and condemn the man to an eternity of sleep when Naruto smirked like a fox, “Pink brat…”

Apparently, it was Kurama in the driver’s seat and not their knucklehead of a blond.

“Oh!” The pinked-haired woman exclaimed before rushing over to the blond man, gently grabbing hold of him and dragging him towards a chair.

Sakura shoved Kurama –the fact that she was able to get away with pushing around the thousand-year-old demon fox is absolutely terrifying –into her seat then, true to her profession as a medic-nin, she began inspecting him to make sure he didn’t possibly have any brain danger. She had made sure to hit Naruto with enough force to knock him out, and with how tired he was she knew it wouldn’t have taken much effort. But it didn’t hurt to check if his brain was still intact. They still needed their Kage no matter how brain-dead he could be sometimes.

“Why…” Shikamaru asked while Sakura fussed over her blond teammate, “are you currently running around in Naruto’s body Kurama?”

The blond man pushed the medic-nin away with a wave of his hand before turning to address the pineapple-headed man, “Naruto was trying to wake up.”

“What?” Ino raised an incredulous eyebrow at the Kyūbi’s blunt statement, “After being downed like that?”

“We all know that Naruto doesn’t give up so easily.” Chōji stated while crossing his arms in thought, “Question is why he was like this in the first place.”

Kurama sighed listlessly, “I haven’t been able to reach out to him in days, to try and get him to rest.”

“He blocked you out?” Sakura asked in confusion –she knew Naruto would have never done that to his partner-in-crime.

“That punch to the head from you left him disorientated enough for me to take over and force him to sleep.” The fox demon chuckled, “He was planning to wake up and leave the compound after you left him alone.”

Sakura’s face turned an unflattering shade of red, “Why that little-”

“Do you know why he’s been like this?” Chōji asked, cutting off the pink-haired kunoichi before she could completely lose it. While he wasn’t at Shikamaru’s level of brainpower, he knew that something had gone down the previous week concerning a couple of shinobi and Naruto leaving the compound.

“The mission last week…” Kurama offered up with a frown, “...it didn’t go well and it hit him hard.”

“What?” Ino questioned with narrowed eyes, “What mission?”

Sakura discarded her anger in favor of figuring out what had plagued her friend to the point where he lost of sense of self, “Naruto never mentioned a mission.”

“Because it wasn’t supposed to be a mission.”

The admission from their resident Nara caused everyone’s attention to switch from Kurama to Shikamaru, whose expression was grave and pain-filled. That was an expression they had become used to seeing –in each other’s faces and the faces they confronted in the mirror every day –yet seeing it this time made dread pool at the bottom of their stomachs.

“What did you guys do, Shikamaru?” Ino asked, taking a warning step toward the other man.

“It was a proposal towards securing a team to scout for Kaguya.”

They all sucked in a sharp breath at the clan head’s words.

Ino shakily covered her mouth with her right hand as she registered the implications of such a statement. Chōji’s eyes glazed as memories of the Rabbit Goddess assaulted his mind, memories of his mother and father being drained by the God Tree, memories of his clan being struck down by White Zetsu clones, memories of the cold and unfeeling gaze of Kaguya as she stared at them as if they were mere ants to be crushed under her feet. Sakura wasn’t fairing any better as she stared at the ground with her fingernails digging painfully into either side of her arms, she probably drew blood from how hard her grip was.

“Why…” Sakura whispered, “…why were you guys discussing plans about Kaguya…?”

Shikamaru looked away, unwilling to face the utter heartbreak and grief written across the woman’s face. He knew what they had been planning, what they eventually had been wrong, but in the moment he couldn’t bring himself to stop Naruto from going through with it. The blond had spiraled and began planning an all-out attack on the Rabbit Goddess with him being the only participant. The only way Shikamaru knew he could deter him was to help him to make sure that things ran smoothly.

Things didn’t run smoothly.

“We were going to tell you guys…” The Nara clan head muttered, “…but he was so torn up. He couldn’t bear to look at himself, much less talk about it.”

“What.” Sakura gritted out before stalking up to Shikamaru, she grabbed hold of his shirt and yanked him towards her, “Did. You. Do.”

“Naruto wanted to fight Kaguya by himself so I convinced him to take some people to have his back.” The man said, looking away from the pink-haired kunoichi, “We changed the plan to it just being a scouting mission for Kaguya, I didn’t actually think they would…find her.”

“Oh, my sage…” Ino rasped out, holding her head in shock. She dragged her blackened fingernails through her dirty-blond hair, tugging at the strands until her head exploded with the pain of the action.

“Where’s the rest of the team, Shikamaru?” Chōji dreaded to be the one to ask the question, but he knew that no one else would be able to do it.

“They never made it back.”

The Akimichi let out a shaky breath at the confession. He could hardly believe his friend could have been that stupid, he was a Nara for a reason, he didn’t do dumb shit like this. He didn’t gamble with people’s lives like this.

“Why weren’t we informed of this?” Sakura asked, her bangs shadowing her face.

“Naruto couldn’t bring himself to tell you…” Shikamaru swallowed, the guilt rising to the surface, “…I couldn’t bring myself to tell you…”

“What the fuck, Shikamaru?” Ino whispered, horrified at his words.

“He begged me not to say anything.” The Nara continued –it seemed like once he started, he wasn’t going to stop, “Naruto had been struggling before this. Nightmares, I think. He was going to try and fight her again without any regard for his own life. I just…”

Shikamaru choked remembering the broken expression on the normally so determined, so bright, so…hopeful man’s face.

“I couldn’t let him do that…to himself…to us…to everyone…” He stated, his voice clogging as he spoke, “So, I asked a couple of people if they wanted to go with him. They agreed and Naruto promised that they were just going to scout out for her. They never planned to fight her, not at all.”

“She found them.” Chōji intoned, his face suspiciously blank. It really was a terrible time for them if an Akimichi, if Chōji, of all people, was using poker faces.

“He tried…” Shikamaru whispered, his voice and hands shaking in tandem, “…he tried…so hard to save them. To get them back to the compound without Kaguya finding us but…”

“Damnit Naruto…” Sakura whispered hoarsely, still not lifting her eyes from where they were firmly planted on the bottom of the man’s shirt.

“He came back shattered.” The Nara went on to say. He remembered the utterly defeated look on Naruto’s face, the copious amount of blood –not his blood his comrades’ blood –before he barricaded himself in the office.

“Why didn’t you tell us…?” Chōji asked in the quiet of the still room.

“Because it’s my fault.”

Ino bit back the urge to gather her teammate into her arms, he looked so close to giving up –the last time she had seen him like this was when Asuma was killed. She had never wanted Shikamaru to feel like that again, taking on the guilt and revenge of their sensei’s death, yet it seemed he was doing it again. But with Naruto this time.

“I should have just said something…” He whispered, his words lilted with frantic fractured edges, “You guys who have stopped him easily and no one would have died. Naruto wouldn’t be actively digging his grave if I’d been smarter. I’m a Nara, I-I’m supposed to be smarter. I’m not supposed to let emotions cloud my judgment. I’m so sorry…I’m sorry…I-”

Sakura let go of the man and stepped away from him. She couldn’t do this, not today, not after the week she had. She refused to look or address any of her friends in the room as she struggled to rein in her emotions. She just couldn’t believe them. Naruto and Shikamaru lied to them, lied to them about planning attacks against Kaguya, lied to them about a mission, lied to them about the deaths of their comrades –they weren’t supposed to do that, honesty is one of the only virtues left in this calamitous world of theirs.

And they broke it.

“Wake me up for my shift.” That was all she said before leaving the office without another word to the others in the room.

Kurama had watched the entire thing impassively.

“I’m going to bed.” He stated after a short while of tense silence, “Naruto’s body needs rest as well.”

That left Shikamaru, Ino, and Chōji alone.

Naruto groaned loudly as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, his body was aching something terrible, his head was pounding and he had cotton mouth. So all in all, he felt like complete shit. Blinking rapidly to dissipate the blurriness shrouding his normally clear vision, the blond man tentatively inched his head from left to right to see where the hell he was.

Then promptly let out a shriek of fear at the unimpressed face of one, Haruno Sakura.

‘You’re in a shitload of trouble, Fishcake.’ Kurama commented lazily, already readying himself for a nap during what was going to be a fight that ended with the pink brat slamming her fist in his stupid brat’s thick skull.

Wincing at the pain the echoed voice caused to his fragile mind, Naruto cautiously turned his attention towards his very frightening, very powerful, and very pissed-off teammate, “H-Hey…Sakura…-chan…”

If anything, the cutesy honorific for his friend made her glare harder at him. He swore with how much anger there was in her eyes, the woman was going activate Sasuke’s precious Dōjutsu and the Curse of Hatred at the same time.

‘As much as I hate those eyeball-obsessed stuck-ups, she’d make a suitable Uchiha.’ The old fox nodded in affirmation at his own words.

‘She’s already got the glare down!’

“What did I do?” Naruto offered up weakly, resigned to his fate –even their holier-than-thou, emo, duck-butt-haired teammate wouldn’t be caught within two feet of Sakura when she was like this.

However, instead of answering his question, the blond was faced with the stilting uncomfortable silence from one of his closest friends. Naruto tilted his head up gingerly so that he could glance at the woman sitting in the chair in the corner of the room without actually facing her directly. His cerulean eyes widened at the sight of the swirling mass of emotions –worry, anger, and betrayal–in her pale green eyes. The blond man wanted to hide away from her prying eyes as he felt himself being dissected as if he was a patient under her scalpel.

Clearing his throat in an attempt to dissolve the tension and get her attention, Naruto spoke in a slightly groggy tone, “How…long was I asleep…?”

Sakura snapped out of her observation of him as if she now realized she had been staring at him for so long. The woman let out a huff of breath while gracefully straightening out her posture then rose from her seat and sauntered towards him. However, Naruto wasn’t deceived by her casual gait, he knew that her simmering anger was going to present itself one way or another –through her fists or words and he would take it like a man.

‘Hardly a man with how you’re cowering.’ Kurama snorted at his container.

‘Sakura has made tougher men cry with a look…’ Naruto hissed at the stupid fox, ‘it’s a miracle I’m still alive right now.’

‘That miracle has run its course Fishcake.’ The demon countered with a humor-filled cackle, ‘She’s going to skin you alive now.’

Chancing a look at the pink-haired kunoichi’s face, Naruto blanched at the unbridled rage steaming in her olive eyes, ‘I’m gonna die.’ He thought with a whimper.

“Naruto,” Sakura said with her tone even and, if the blond was anyone else, he would have thought himself clear of danger –but he knew his teammate and he knew that she was getting the formalities out of the way before she claims the right to his life.

“Y-Yes…?” Naruto stuttered slightly, looking down and finding interest in the scratchy blanket covering his body. He cursed himself for showing weakness in front of Sakura –the woman was equivalent to a shark scenting blood when she was angry.

The blond man heard his teammate let out a weary sort of sigh at his inattention before taking a seat at the edge of his mattress. And for a while, the two of them just sat there in silence, unable to say anything. It reminded Naruto of the day in Konoha’s hospital room after Sasuke had abandoned them and he had failed to keep his promise to Sakura.

‘Your Nara told them about your little suicide mission.’ Kurama chimed in –he just knew the old fox was biting back the urge to grin and cackle evilly.

‘Hmpf!’ The demon fox huffed out in offense, ‘I do not cackle.’

''Why don’t you shut up, you stupid old fox?!’ Naruto grossed out angrily, ‘I’ve already got Sakura breathing down my neck. I don’t need you two to gang up on me.’

‘Hah! As if I give a shit!’ Kurama snorted at the pouting blond, ‘This is motherfucking karma for shutting me out, bitch.’

“So…” The mused word effectively dragged Naruto from his mindscape, where his pink-haired teammate was waiting for him with a blank look on her face.

The blond man gulped at the palpable tension in the room and drawled out, “So…”

Sakura cleared her throat –the blond winced, knowing that he was in for a long tirade of shouting –and spoke, “Shikamaru said you’ve been having nightmares.”

Naruto’s eyebrows creased as an amalgamation of emotions soared through his body –confusion, worry, self-hate, all normal things for him, “Y-Yeah…I…I’ve-I haven’t been sleeping properly…I guess…”

Clearly, the blond man had been thrown off balance by Sakura’s choice of topic. He probably expected her to fly off the rails and attack him, which wasn’t far off from what she had wanted to do in the first place.

But Sakura was tired.

She didn’t have the energy to lose her shit like that. Not anymore. And Naruto didn’t need that from her. No matter how much he fucked up –he clearly knew he fucked up with how he was wallowing in guilt and self-hate –so she wasn’t going to scold him about the things he obviously knew he did wrong. He wasn’t a child. They weren’t children. Sakura had moved on from that part of her life where she beat up her friend for not understanding, for his mistakes, for his self-loathing, for his obvious pain. So she wasn’t going to hit her friend for something he very clearly regretted.

“Hmm…” She hummed at his words, “…well, how are feeling then?”

Caught off-guard once again, Sakura could get used to being the unpredictable ninja in their team for once, “O-Oh…erm-I…I’m okay.”

Clearing his throat, Naruto spoke a bit better, “I feel better…than before.”

“That’s good.” Sakura simply said before getting up and stepping towards him.

The pink-haired kunoichi started a routine check-up on the blond man absentmindedly. It was a basic skill that was ingrained in her psyche; she could probably do it with her eyes closed now. Grabbing Naruto’s wrist, she checked his pulse for any irregularities before switching to his pupils. Her teammate was many things –he was extremely powerful and hardheaded, he was resourceful and strategic when need be and he was a jinchūriki but he was still susceptible to exhaustion, sleep deprivation, hunger, depression, grief, and stress.

However, it seemed like Naruto had forgotten about that.

‘Or that he just didn’t care anymore.’

“You’re going to be on bed rest for the rest of the week,” Sakura said bluntly, she didn’t want to gloss over anything, and, knowing her teammate, he’d find a way to wiggle out of his punishment.

‘He always did when it came to Shishou.’

“WHAT?!” Naruto shouted in shock and confusion.

After not getting the reaction he expected from his rather violent pink-haired friend, Naruto was rightfully thrown completely off by her words.

“I would have made it longer but you’ll go stir crazy for longer and hurt yourself more so it’ll have to do.” The woman continued to explain, not reacting outwardly to his exclamation.

“B-But…!” The blond man tried to protest, “I-I can’t just…be here!”

“And why is that, Naruto?” Sakura asked, crossing her arms as she waited for an explanation from him.

“I need to make sure everyone is safe!” He exploded, utterly fed up with the weirdness of Sakura’s behavior, “What if Kaguya-”

“You really didn’t think about our people when you decided to try and fight her on your own.”

Naruto seized up at that.

‘Of course…of course…that’s what this was about.’ He thought as if realizing something for the first time, ‘…she was throwing me off. It’s because of what I did. This is her punishing me.’

The blond swallowed thickly, “I-I…”

“Look, Naruto…” Sakura sighed tiredly and the defeated expression on her face made him flinch, “…I’m not here to make you feel guilty or to scold you. You’re a grown man, you don’t need me to point out and correct your mistakes.”

Naruto wanted to scream.

‘Please! Scold me! Correct my mistakes! I don’t know what I’m doing anymore!’

“I’m just here to tell you to eat and get some sleep.” She stated while running her hand through her dirt-crusted hair, “We need you alive. Sage knows how less there are of us left.”

Sakura sent him another lingering look before straightening her spine and moving away from the mattress. Naruto could feel a bolt of terror strike his body and jumpstart his heart into overdrive as his teammate turned to leave. The panic overran his body, forcing him to do something before she left him. He didn’t need someone else –another of his precious people –to turn their back on him. He couldn’t handle it if Sakura did that, not after all they’d been through.

“I-I’m so sorry…” He croaked out into the defeating silence of the cemented room, the apology echoed making the kunoichi stop in her tracks, “I’m so so sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”

Naruto wasn’t aware that he was apologizing on repeat. The only thing he wanted was to make Sakura stop walking, to make her face him with her usually angered expression and not indifference, to make her not turn away from him. Even as his voice became hoarse and tears dripped steadily down the sides of his cheeks, he still continued to mindlessly apologize.

‘I’m sorry Kakashi, I’m sorry Baa-chan, I’m sorry Sai, I’m sorry Yamato, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…’

‘Kit…’ Kurama said, his tone –he would forever deny it –oozing worry and fear.

And as solid arms encircled his shivering body –he was shaking, why was he shaking, when did he start shaking –Naruto still continued to apologize, his voice mechanical and warbled as if that was the only thing he could do. A soft but unbreakable body followed, cushioning his head as he muttered under his breath. The quietness of the room was almost serene with the near-silent sniffles and mumbling from Naruto. The pink-haired kunoichi kept her mouth firmly shut and allowed the blond man some reprieve, a comforting hand, and mellow presence were all that was needed.

Sakura didn’t know how long they sat on the mattress; she didn’t need to know when she was holding Naruto as he completely broke down. What she did know was that the blond-haired man had been pushed to his capacity which resulted in the deaths of three of their people. Something had to have happened before he decided to try and fight Kaguya on his own. Naruto would have never come to such a resolution unless someone forced his hand.

A slight raw humming sound and a cough signaled that the blond was ready to talk so Sakura waited patiently for him to speak.

“…Ayumi died.”

Sakura resisted the urge to cry at Naruto’s words. Instead, she cringed and gritted her teeth, and forced herself to be strong through his explanation.

She knew who Naruto was talking about. Hideko Ayumi had been a medic-nin and had been part of the first group to be rescued after her sister was taken into the God Tree. Naruto had made it his personal mission to make sure that she and everyone else he had saved was protected at all costs. The blond had made it a personal priority of his to be a savior for everyone but the first group was different for him, for all of them. They had all traveled together, and made solid bonds together and while Ayumi had an obvious hero-worship thing for Naruto, he never treated her differently. If anything, that made him all the more determined to keep her safe.

She had died on a bad mission about a month ago.

Naruto had taken it hardest out of all of them, not that Sakura could blame him. Their original group had shrunk quite a lot and he hadn’t wanted to suffer anymore more losses. Not to mention the fact that the mission she died on had been sanctioned by him.

‘He’s blaming himself.’

“One of the others-” Naruto swallowed dryly, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, “-I think his name was Hide.”

‘Akifumi Hide, he had joined our camp the year before when we found him hiding out in an abandoned Kirigakure bunker.’ Sakura thought back to the dark-haired man, ‘He had been particularly close to Ayumi.’

“He confronted me.” The blond admitted, remembering the raw anguish and anger in the other man’s eyes, “Blamed me for her death.”

“Naruto-”

“He was right!” Naruto exploded unwilling to listen to his teammate's comforting words or barbed response. He dislodged the kunoichi from his body before scrambling toward the other end of the mattress, “I basically killed her by sending her on that stupid mission!”

“Naruto, she accepted the mission of her own volition,” Sakura interjected calmly with a frown on her face.

“She was a medic! That was no fucking reason for her to leave the bunker!” Naruto screamed, tears welling in his eyes, making his cerulean eyes gloss over.

The pink-haired woman sighed at the man’s behavior, “Ayumi was also a shinobi, Naruto. She knew what she was doing.”

“Well, I was her Kage.” The man rasped out, his voice was merely a whisper now as he spoke, “I should have protected her.”

Sakura shook her head in exasperation, “You’d run yourself into the ground if you did that for all of us, Naruto.”

“But-” He was cut off before he could continue.

“I know being a Kage means having to deal with everything yourself….” Sakura knew intimately how bad Naruto was when it came to the big stuff like taking care of his loved ones. The promise he kept for her spanned years, so she knew that he’d probably get himself killed one day by being so selfless, “But you forget that before being a leader, you are our friend, our family, and we care about you. We’re here to share that burden with you, not pile on it. Ayumi knew that, that’s why she decided to go on the mission with the others.”

The blond man looked so close to breaking down again as he dragged his knees to his close to his chest where he wrapped his arms tightly around himself. In that moment, Naruto looked so much like a child crumbling under the weight of the world on his shoulders. It broke her heart, to see her knuckleheaded friend so afraid and tired. The fact that she didn’t know that he had been suffering, for so long, hurt her even more.

‘I couldn’t even tell that he was faking it…’ She thought, despairing at what he must have gone through.

After a bit of strained silence, Naruto spoke softly, “Hide, he said she looked up to me.”

Sakura wisely kept quiet and waited for the blond to continue, lest he clams up and stops talking.

“I-I-I… I don’t think…” Naruto’s lower lip trembled slightly, “I…can’t be what they want…what they need, Sakura.”

The pink-haired kunoichi smiled softly at her friend before huffing out a small laugh, “You’re not alone, Naruto. You can depend on us.”

Cue the tears.

Naruto sniffled as silent tears streamed down his whiskered cheeks, “Sakura-chan…” He whined slightly.

“Come here, baka.” Sakura whispered fondly, opening up her arms and waiting for the blond to take the golden opportunity in front of him.

And he did.

By dive-bombing straight into her, knocking all the air out of her body, and forcing them off the bed where they landed on the cemented floor in an uncomfortable heap of tangled limbs.

“NARUTO!”

One year later

Location: Kumogakure Underground Compound Unit

War.

The concept was as simple as breathing for them now. As peaceful of a time their era had been before everything collapsed, the loss and grief that accompanied war had been present even though there had been no full-out battle between the villages. The Kyūbi Attack had been the first of many tragedies, with the Hyūga Clan Incident and Uchiha Clan Massacre following not long after. So, as much as people preached that they had been in a state where peace had been achieved, it really wasn’t true. There had still been skirmishes at the borders, villages and their respective Kages had barely tolerated each other, Kirigakura had been suffering through a bloody civil war, Konohagakure had no qualms cutting down clans when it came to the benefit of the whole, Sunagakura had suffered massive losses during the previous war and had been gunning for revenge.

There hadn’t been peace. They had just been bidding their time for the next war.

The Fourth Shinobi War had not been something anyone expected. They hadn’t expected a common enemy. They hadn’t expected that they would have to work together, as a united front but it worked. They swallowed their grievances and differences, donned the "Shinobi" (忍) hitai-ate, and fought together against an adversary that threatened all of them. It had been the first time in history that everyone, every soldier, from across all five villages had unified themselves to wage war against another threat.

But the thing with war was the fine print.

Because the Fourth Shinobi War hadn’t been a war –not at all.

No.

It had been a one-sided extinction.

And humanity had been on the losing side.

“Hinata, any intelligence on Kaguya’s location so far?”

Snapping out of her morbid monologue, Hyūga Hinata raised her head from where she had been staring at the indents and scratches of the worn-out table in their meeting room. Everyone was staring at her, waiting for her response. Her face turned a bright shade of cherry red when she realized she hadn’t been paying attention to the meeting, instead, she had been daydreaming. Just as she was about to scramble up some excuse to get everything back on track, another voice intervened.

“We sighted her at the Kumogakure ruins.”

The monotone answer came from no other than, Sabuku no Gaara, the Godaime Kazekage –before he stepped down –who looked as dead-tired as ever. Not that she could blame him, his ability for tracking and spying had been perfect for scouting out Kaguya, however, that meant that he was constantly on the move outside of the bunker.

“That means she’s getting closer.” Shikamaru hummed as he stared down at the giant map that spanned across the table.

Gaara dipped his head in a slow but short down as confirmation, “She’s been sniffing out the old bunkers because of the residual chakra but, recently, she’s been moving towards us.”

Then the red-headed man hesitated, a momentary thing that was uncharacteristic for the normally stoic Gaara, “She had a couple of her little monster children running around as well.”

Every shinobi in the room stilled, their eyes darkening in hidden fury.

Naruto gritted his teeth, controlling and redirecting his anger onto something more productive, “Anyone we know?”

“I didn’t recognize anyone,” Gaara stated monotonously, “she probably recycled some of the old ones.”

As cold and unfeeling as the statement was, none of them could disagree with Gaara. They had gotten into the habit of sealing and burning their dead as quickly as possible. Kaguya had really fucked them over initially by using the bodies of their family and friends against them –not unlike the tactic that Madara and Obito used…but just more horrifying. While knowing that Kaguya was recycling through her arsenal of dead shinobi for her tree army was alarming, it was also a relief to find out that none of those dead bodies were from their camp.

However, the fact that Kaguya was close to finding them posed an immediate problem for them.

“Are the chakra suppressors not working?” Sakura asked with narrowed eyes towards their resident Fūinjutsu Master, skilling compartmentalizing the topic of Kaguya’s monster children and how they were made.

Naruto frowned in thought while he spoke, “The seals I designed suppress our chakra while also allowing us to blend into whatever nature chakra there is around us. What she must be sensing is the chakra that our bodies live on. I can’t make a seal that completely cuts that out or we’ll die.”

“Does this mean we have to start moving again?” Sasuke asked calmly, he was leaning against the wall behind Naruto –the overprotective Uchiha never left the blond alone, not after what happened last time.

“Where are we supposed to move to?” Gaara’s sister, Temari, asked them incredulously, “Because I think we’ve run out of places.”

Karui, the previous Kumo kunoichi, looked pained at the thought of leaving her home village, “I don’t think there are any places left in Kumo for us so we’ll have to look out of here.”

“Suna was destroyed and is completely uninhabitable now,” Gaara interjected before they could throw his old village on the chopping block.

Kankuro grimaced at the blank look on his younger brother’s face –it reminded him of the time the Ichibi had been tormenting his mind, “We had been having trouble growing crops there even before the war so, in terms of food and water, it’s not viable.”

“Konoha…?” The whispered suggestion made the previous dwellers of the Leaf Village shift uncomfortably in their seats.

“Um-” Naruto choked back the urge to cry when he remembered what happened to their village, before hesitatingly responding, “Kaguya was thorough…with Konoha.”

Sasuke scoffed with derision at Naruto’s choice of words, “She decimated the village completely.”

They winced at the black-haired man’s caustic attitude.

“Okay, so Konoha’s out of the question.” Shikamaru stated, successfully diverting attention away from that train wreck, “Anyone has any other suggestions?”

Everyone was quiet for a moment before Naruto raised his hand like a child in a classroom and not a Kage in his own meeting.

“I have one…” He declared strongly, his eyes burning with the familiar determination that never failed to light a fire under the people he was addressing, “Uzushio.”

‘Just like when he was a kid…’ Hinata thought fondly, remembering the loud blond child who shouted about becoming the Hokage.

Things certainly hadn’t been peaceful but it had been simple.

“Alright, now that plans for Uzushio have been made,” Temari voiced out while staring at the map, “what’s our game plan for getting rid of Kaguya?”

“Game plan?” Sakura raised a shocked eyebrow.

“For getting rid of Kaguya?” Shikamaru parroted in disbelief.

The blond Suna-nin clicked her tongue in annoyance at them, “Yes, game plan. You guys do know that we can’t run forever.”

“I mean…” Kankuro hummed in consideration before abruptly choking at the steeled rage-induced look in his sister’s eyes, “…Temari’s right. We need to stop her.”

Naruto, of all people, snorted at the other man’s words, “Like that worked out so well the last time.”

Sakura looked away from the blond man’s slightly broken and defeated visage. They all knew what happened the last time they were reckless with trying to take down the Rabbit Goddess. It had cost them too much before, so they weren’t going to gamble on a half-baked plan like trying to get rid of her.

“Look,” Temari sighed, her lips had been bitten raw from all the anxiety and fear that had been clawing into her insides, “Uzushio is temporary.”

“Temari-”

“No, Kankuro!” The blond kunoichi emphasized her anger by slamming her hands onto the rickety table, upsetting everything, “Like all the other compounds, Kaguya will find us. We have to find another way. Running away is just prolonging the inevitable at this point. We might as well lay down and die at this point!”

“What the hell do you want us to do then, Temari?!” Shikamaru yelled back at the woman, the lack of sleep and all the stress of moving caused his endless patience to snap.

She jerked back from the man, not expecting the sudden explosion from the usually calm and laid-back man, “I-I…I’ve been trying to find a way, Temari!” The Nara hissed out, his furious expression crumbling away, revealing his desperation for a solution.

“Shika, you need to calm-”

“I don’t need to calm down!” The man shouted back at Ino, who flinched away, “I-I…we can’t beat her…”

He shut down after that, dropping into his seat with an air of depression hovering over his head. Ino shuffled over towards him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders –she didn’t need to say anything for him to know that she was there for him. The past year hadn’t been kind to them, food had been basically non-existent during the winter and the only water they could get was from when it snowed, which wasn’t something that happened in Kumo. They had sent out small teams to scavenge for food since they weren’t able to grow anything but the rations hadn’t been enough for everyone. Chōji had been all too giving, especially when it came to the younger shinobi and children.

As a result, Chōji starved to death in their compound.

‘No one had been the same again…’

“Didn’t the Rikudō Sennin give Naruto and Sasuke those marks on their hands to seal her?” Hinata questioned, rerouting everyone’s attention to her which left the two friends to themselves for a bit.

Naruto huffed out a tired breath, “Yeah, but we have to touch her at the same time.”

“That didn’t go well the first time we tried.” Sasuke continued bluntly.

‘Kakashi.’ They all thought collectively.

“Damnit…!” Kankuro cursed, his hands clenching and almost ripping into the material of his pants, “I just…wish we could go back before this shit started…!”

…

..

.

“Hey, Kankuro…” Naruto called, a serious look in his azure eyes, “…repeat what you just said.”

It took Sakura all of three seconds to realize what her friend was thinking.

“Naruto!” Sakura chastised the blond, “You can’t be serious!”

“Ohohoho, I’m dead serious, Sakura-chan…” Naruto chuckled darkly which made everyone shuffle their seats away from him.

“What…” Kankuro drawled out in a high-pitched curious tone, “…are they arguing about?”

Gaara stared at the bickering pair with narrowed eyes, “It appears that Naruto wishes to go back in time.”

“WHAT?!”

Even Shikamaru and Ino lifted their heads at Gaara’s casual admission.

“See!” The pink-haired kunoichi pointed at their stupefied and horror-stricken friends, “Even they think it’s a dumb idea!”

“But we could go back and change things!” Naruto stood up, his expression lighting up with something like hope –it had been too long since they’d seen that, “We could prevent the war!”

“Okay, okay, hold up…” Temari raised her arms to silence them all so she could logically think through what Naruto was saying, “If…we could hypothetically-”

“Temari!” Kankuro scolded, he was baffled that she was going along with the blond man’s insane idea.

“-how do you think we are going to even get to the past, Naruto?”

“Sasuke’s Rinnegan can create portals to other dimensions which people can enter,” Naruto informed them, which caused several eyebrows to rise in surprise and curiosity –even the man in question looked more invested.

Shikamaru straightened in his seat, removing himself from Ino’s steel grip so that he could properly see and talk to the blond man, “He can just create random portals to other dimensions.”

Sasuke hummed in thought, “It’s like Obito’s Kamui, the pocket dimension that he had. I can go into those but the technique requires a large amount of chakra and the number of people I can take through is limited.”

“But that’s different dimensions. We’re talking about moving through time in our dimension.” Shikamaru countered as he tapped a toneless beat on his thigh with the tips of his fingers.

“Shika, you can’t seriously be considering this…” Ino uttered, a hit of reprimand lilting her words.

Ignoring the blond woman, the Nara stared at his Kage and his shadow with contemplation, “How are you going about calculating the time period and location?”

At that, Naruto grinned as if he was waiting for his intelligent friend to ask, “With the Hirashin.”

“What?” Sakura deadpanned at her knuckleheaded friend.

However, Shikamaru had other ideas as his eyes gained a bit more brightness, “The old marks…”

“You bet!”

“Can someone please explain?!” Sakura finally blew up, smashing her fist against the cemented wall causing spider cracks to form under the impact –even without her chakra-infused fists, the woman was crazy strong and utterly terrifying.

“Hehe…” Naruto let out a nervous giggle, “We’re gonna use the Hirashin seals that have been used in the past as a landmark to travel to.”’

The pink-haired kunoichi’s eyebrows furrowed in uncertainty, “But you’ve only started using the Hirashin a couple of years ago. It won’t make a difference unless…”

The blond man chuckled as realization struck his friend, “You’re going to use your father’s Hirashin markers.”

“Bingo!”

Ino stood up from where she was crouching beside Shikamaru’s chair with her hands raised in the arm, “We’re actually going along with this?”

Karui shrugged at the blond kunoichi’s questioning stare, “I mean, what else is there?”

They all looked away at the same time, a solemn and miserable silence falling on them as their minds reeled back to all the people they had lost –possibly going to lose in the future as well. It was always heartbreaking for them to watch the people they love waste away before their very eyes, to abandon the injured when they were too late to save them, to break up fights over food and water. There wasn’t much they could do, not with the world as it was –everything and everyone was broken.

“How are we going to send ourselves back?” Ino queried, breaking the overwhelming tension in the room –there was no use in thinking about the dead, not when there were people who were alive and needed them.

“I don’t really know…actually…” Naruto noted sheepishly.

Shikamaru groaned at his thick-headed friend, “Okay, so the Hiraishin works with teleporting the entire body from one place to another. That should mean that if we were going to go into the past, our bodies would follow…possibly.”

“What do you mean possibly?” Gaara intoned with a raised brow.

“I’m not a dimension traveler.” The Nara answered bluntly, “This is all theory and speculation. For all I know, only our chakra would be sent back.”

“Oh! Like Kurama!” Naruto pointed out, “Do you think we’ll become people made of only chakra if that happens?!”

Sasuke smacked him across the head.

“OW!”

“That’s for being an idiot, dobe.” The Uchiha muttered before firmly planting himself into their discussion, “The Kyūbi is a beast made of chakra that was given a physical form, not the other way around.”

“Oh…”

“If we’re going to be sent back, body and all, we have to take note of the consequences of messing with time.” Sasuke explained while eyeing them, “We don’t have much proof of whether time travel was ever achieved or even worked.”

“The Uchiha is right.” Shikamaru nodded in agreement, “If we go back, our presence could cause the timeline to split which would create a new path while keeping this one.”

“Hn…or this timeline could be erased if we leave.”

Hinata shivered at the thought of everything they knew being erased…just like that.

“Isn’t there something like paradoxes involved as well?” Temari put forward, not willing to linger on the thought of being expunged from the universe.

Naruto snapped his fingers in a ‘eureka’ moment, “I knew that I was missing something!”

“Naruto…” Sakura muttered, chagrined at the blond.

“If a version of ourselves exists in the time that we arrive, the universe will try to correct itself by getting rid of the anomaly.” The blond man explained with a grim expression on his whiskered face.

“Namely us…” Karui groaned before dropping her head onto the table with a loud ‘thunk’.

“Honestly this is sounding more complicated than defeating Kaguya, right now.” Kankuro echoed the redhead’s actions by slamming his head on the table as well –hoping it would put him out of his misery.

“Sasuke and I will try to seal Kaguya but if that falls through then we have this,” Naruto spoke so earnestly to them and they knew he would keep to his word.

Hinata’s lips twisted to the side in thought, “Just seal her? What if she gets out again?”

“Then that’ll be a problem for the future generations…” Kankuro grumbled out, utterly done with everything.

Even Sasuke grimaced slightly at the Hyūga’s question, “It’s…just easier to seal her at the moment.”

“I don’t think…” Their Kage scratched the side of his cheeks as he spoke, “…that we can even kill her, Hinata-chan.”

The dark-haired woman let out a disappointed sigh while closing her eyes –probably to collect her thoughts, “Alright…” She mumbled as her pale eyes greeted them once again, this time with a fire blazing in them, “Let’s do this, Naruto-kun!”

“Urgh…this is so troublesome…”

Uchiha Sasuke was familiar with grief.

And loss.

And anger.

And revenge.

The point was that Sasuke was intimately connected with every negative aspect of the emotional spectrum. His main goal his entire life was hunting down his brother Itachi and avenging his clan –nothing more, nothing less. Feelings of comfort, safety, and happiness were foreign to him, especially after the massacre. So it wasn’t exactly his fault that he was currently floundering on what to do when it came to his knucklehead of a blond.

“Sasuke…!” Naruto whined as he buried his face deeper into the dark-haired man’s thighs.

Sasuke flinched –quite violently in fact. And then proceeded to shove the aforementioned annoying blond straight off his lap.

'Who does he think he is…’ Sasuke growled in his mind, cursing out the blond man’s utterly shameless behavior, ‘…putting himself on me like that…’

Just remembering the feeling of Naruto cushioning –no, snuggling –his head into the crevice of the upper part of his legs while letting out sighs of contentment, made his stomach tingle and his body heat up. He didn’t even know whether the other man was doing it on purpose or teasing him for shits and giggles.

“Aww, why’d you have to go and do that, hah?!” Naruto complained loudly, sprawled on the ground with an adorable –no, not adorable, never adorable, this is Naruto, he isn’t adorable –pout on his face.

“You were in my space, dobe.” Sasuke said bluntly, staring at the blond man’s splayed-out form with something equivalent to the stink-eye.

“But you’re so warm!” The blond cried out and he rolled onto his stomach before attempting the puppy-dog-eyes on the dark-haired man.

It was vaguely reminiscent of Kakashi-sensei’s summons, ‘Pakkun must have taught him that…’

Sasuke stared at him with a dry look, as if asking ‘are-you-an-idiot’, “Doesn’t the Kyūbi keep you warm with his chakra?”

“Ahh…” Naruto’s mouth twisted to the side as if remembering something, “Kurama’s chakra is basically a flared beacon for Kaguya so he had to rein it in. He heals my injuries but not any more than that…we can’t afford to alert her by being careless.”

The Uchiha stared at the blond man a bit more before looking away. He couldn’t comprehend why Naruto wanted to keep warm with him of all people. He was a frigid block of ice on a good day which wasn’t something anyone wanted to feel. If the man wanted warmth, he had better luck cuddling Gaara than him. Sasuke scrunched up his nose slightly at the thought of that redheaded creep hugging Naruto –he certainly didn’t want the blond to do that.

‘Maybe he just wanted an excuse to be with you…’ His mind whispered traitorously. It sounded vaguely familiar.

“Anyway!” Naruto jumped up from the ground before plopping himself back down next to Sasuke, sitting closer than usual, “Why the hell don’t you call him Kurama, dattebayo?!”

His body stiffened at the unnatural heat permeating through his shabby clothes from the blond. As much as Naruto complained about being cold, the blond was still warmer than him so it must be his internal temperature that was suffering from the changes.

‘He’s always so…warm…’

Clicking his tongue at the question, Sasuke raised an incredulous eyebrow at the blond, “I don’t think the Kyūbi would appreciate me of all people calling him by his name.”

‘I’ll eat him.’ Kurama grumbled, a grin full of teeth stretching across his muzzle.

Naruto gasped at the demon fox’s sadistic behavior –he should be used to it, especially when it came to the Uchiha Clan or Sasuke, “You can’t eat him!”

Sasuke stared at the blond with an unimpressed look on his face while the jinchūriki blushed to the tips of his ears when he realized he had spoken out loud.

“Ahh, sorry Sasuke…” Naruto apologized sheepishly while scratching his whiskered cheek.

The dark-haired man let out a silent sigh as his shoulders drooped, the exhaustion settling in and Naruto’s smile making him let go of the tension that had been plaguing him. After the plan about moving to Uzushiogakure and the time travel seal had been initiated, they had been working non-stop so that they could finish everything as fast as possible. And everything had to be done without chakra because of the suppression seals Naruto had written into the walls of the bunker.

The chakra suppression seals were the only way to conceal their presence for as long as possible while they were all within the bunker. Kaguya had been finding them too easily and Shikamaru had chalked it up to their chakra being signals for her, so Naruto had come up with using the suppressors to, at least, dull that signal so that they could stay in one place longer than a month at best.

“Why are you here, Naruto?” Sasuke asked instead, deviating from the topic of the fox.

Naruto’s eyes dimmed at his question momentarily before brightening up once more. The switch had happened so fast that Sasuke would have missed it if he hadn’t already been proficient in catching the smallest details in a person’s body language and expression. There was also the fact that he’s had his Sharingan for years which made it easier to see stuff like that. Another plus was that it was Naruto he was staring at and, as embarrassing as it was to admit, Sasuke knew the blond like the back of his hand.

“We’re almost done packing for Uzushio.” Naruto revealed with a small smile on his lips, “Shika said we’ll probably leave early morning…”

Naruto’s head tilted to the sky, his eyes skillfully skipping over the moon and roving over the darkness at encased them. They had trained themselves to always look away from the moon if ever they were forced to stare at the sky. Kaguya had blanked out the sky –there weren’t any stars, no twinkling lights to wish upon –and gave them the allure of a full bright moon. Anyone who gave in was instantly taken into the genjutsu of their dreams, but that was all it was. It was a perfect dream and while people stayed stuck in that dream, the God Tree sucked out their chakra.

Anyone who stayed long enough joined Kaguya’s army of White Zetsu clones.

“…I wish we could see the morning again…” The blond whispered wistfully, his eyes filled with nostalgia and despair, and at that moment he wanted to make Naruto’s wish come true.

Sasuke wanted to give Naruto back the sun.

He wanted to give him back Tsunade. He wanted to give him back Kakashi. He wanted to give him back every single person he lost before and after Kaguya’s invasion. Fuck, he wanted to give Naruto back Konoha…if it meant he smiled genuinely again. Looking at the blond’s forlorn expression, Sasuke wanted it to disappear because Naruto wasn’t supposed to look like that. He was supposed to be the one that smiles like an idiot at everything and everyone. He was supposed to be the one that gave the people who hurt him –destroyed him, taken his loved ones –second chances. He was supposed to be the one that never gave up. He was supposed to be the one that always hoped for something better.

Naruto was supposed to be the one that kept pushing Sasuke to be a better person.

And Sasuke never wanted that person to disappear.

‘He looks like all those things when he’s with you…’ His mind interjected and, finally, he recognized it. It was Itachi.

Naruto sighed, his expression tired and worn, “Shika said that it’s going to be hard to go back in time with our bodies intact. We might have to send only our chakra back.”

Shaking away his, frankly disturbing, thoughts, Sasuke considered the blond’s words, “What will happen to our chakra when it does go back?”

“That’s the problem.” The other man grimaced, it seems the time travel plan was running them ragged, “Since there are no physical bodies to anchor us there, our mature chakra might merge with our chibi’s chakra.”

The dark-haired man frowned, running through the various scenarios of what could happen, “That would pay into us blending in if we’re in our younger bodies but it would make it harder for us to do anything.”

“Not only that…” Naruto groaned as he jerked his bandaged hand through his hair, “Our chakra would either overwrite our younger versions and we’ll basically be taking over their bodies…”

“Or…?”

“Our chakra would fizzle out and our younger self would think all the memories, our memories, was a dream.”

“Shit…” Sasuke cursed because that's definitely not what they wanted.

Naruto nodded, he had cursed twice as much when Shikamaru told him, “Yeah…”

“What if we traveled to a time before we were even born?” The Uchiha proposed to the blond, he was trying to think of other ideas, that didn’t lead to them being fucking erased from the universe.

“That doesn’t solve the whole ‘no-body-situation’, Sasuke.” The blond man countered with a shake of his head, “We’d have to create new bodies for that time period. From what we know the only person with the Power of Creation was-”

“-the Rikudō Sennin.” Sasuke finished while huffing out a frustrated breath.

Naruto exhaled heavily and then began humming softly under. His body swayed to the makeshift music a bit before his head lolled to the side and planted itself on Sasuke’s shoulder. The Uchiha reflectively stiffened which in turn caused the blond to stiffen as if waiting for the moment that Sasuke would carelessly shrug him off his shoulder. When that didn’t happen after a solid five minutes of tenseness, Naruto relaxed into the other man’s body. While the dark-haired man wasn’t exactly warm, he wasn’t cold either –maybe it was due to the fact that his chakra felt warm, which contradicted Sasuke’s whole being, from his chakra affinity to his personality.

Or his chakra was just warm to Naruto?

Meanwhile with Uchiha Sasuke…

‘Why is he leaning on me?!’ He freaked out internally at the close proximity of the blond ninja, ‘And why the hell was he complaining about being cold?! He’s a fucking furnace burning into my side! Fuck, did he come here, just to be with me! No…that can’t be it! Why the hell is this so fucking confusing?!’

Through all of this, Sasuke kept his usual stoic outward appearance.

“Hey, Sasuke…” The whispered call of his name dragged his attention away from his ensuing mini-panic attack.

The dark-haired man tilted his head downwards to look at the blond, without any regard towards how they were positioned, and came face-to-face with Naruto. His eyes widened in shock at the close-up of the other man, whose eyes were also blown wide in surprise. Sasuke could see how truly blue Naruto’s eyes were, they were cerulean with hints of purple near the pupil –probably from the Kyūbi’s chakra intermingling with his. His blond eyelashes fluttered and became half-lidded as a healthy flush spread from his neck, all the way up to his whiskered cheeks and to the tips of his ears. Sasuke could hear slightly heavy panting breaths escape from Naruto’s mouth and he could feel that heat against his parted lips and cheeks. He swallowed deeply when his mouth suddenly became bone-dry, and his breaths started to match Naruto’s pace.

Sasuke sucked in a sharp breath when the blond licked his slightly chapped lips, spreading his saliva across the pink flesh making it glisten under the moonlight. He took in every single detail with his keen eyes, from the soft-looking lips to the small hint of tongue, to the delicious blush and the rapid panting. Sasuke heard Naruto’s breath hitch and he guessed that he had turned his Sharingan on without realizing it –he should have known, otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to memorize Naruto with such stunning clarity.

“Sasuke…” Naruto breathed out onto his lips as he drifted further into the dark-haired man’s space.

“Naruto…” He whispered in tandem, his body frozen, not willing to break whatever this was.

The blond man’s lips ghosted over his, shy and hesitant, as if afraid that Sasuke would pull away but when he stayed still, Naruto drew closer once more. With two soft taps of fingers from Naruto against his thigh and Sasuke caved. Soft lips pressed solidly against his own, a hard body followed with it as the blond man shifted closer to his side. A different type of heat roared through his veins as Naruto began to tentatively move his warm lips against his frigid unresponsive ones. His heart was thudding so hard inside his chest, he was sure it caused some internal injuries but Sasuke ignored that in favor of relishing in the blissful feeling of having Naruto’s lips against his.

All too soon, Naruto pulled away. The cold air and saliva caused their lips to stick together slightly as if giving a sign that they shouldn’t part.

“Sasuke…” The blond whispered, a look of disbelief dawning on his face, and just when he opened his mouth to talk –possibly about feelings…bleh.

“Nope,” That was his only response before his right hand snaked its way up the side of Naruto’s neck and into his long blond hair, and yanked him into another kiss.

‘Feelings come later…’

Sasuke and Naruto groaned simultaneously as their teeth clacked together painfully before their lips met in a desperate kiss –like they were afraid that the other was going to disappear if they stopped even for a second. The dark-haired man felt the blond nibble and suck his bottom lip into his mouth which only served to make him dizzy and crave more. Gripping Naruto’s hair tighter, he yanked the man’s head to the side so that their lips slanted perfectly against one another. The blond gasped beautifully into Sasuke’s mouth and slid his hands up the sides of his thighs and under his ratty cloak so that he could grab a hold of his waist. The Uchiha trailed his tongue against the seam of Naruto’s lips, begging for entrance into that warm, wet cavern, and the blond obliged.

“Wow…never thought I’d see the day you both would get over yourselves and finally fuck.”

As quick as his affinity for lightning, Sasuke threw Naruto off him without moving an inch.

“Ow! What the actual fuck?!”

Sakura burst out into boisterous laughter at the sight of Naruto with his legs over his head, ass completely on display, and Sasuke hastily trying to hide the enormous blush he was sporting with the back of his hand.

“Oh Sage! This is comedy gold!” The kunoichi gasped out while clutching her stomach from how hard she was laughing.

Sasuke growled menacingly under his breath at the sudden interruption and unnecessary blatant mocking from their female teammate. All he wanted to do at that moment was rip a Chidori through the kunoichi’s chest for being so goddamn irritating. Well…that or drag Naruto into his arms for another mind-blowing kiss.

‘No! Think with the head on your shoulders!’ He chastised himself.

Once his heart and mind were sufficiently calmed down, Sasuke cleared his throat and diverted his attention away from the blond at his feet and towards his other annoying teammate, “Why are you here, Sakura?”

“Ah, Naruto said he needed some fresh air and never came back…” The pink-haired woman revealed, her laughter tapering off, “…I didn’t think shared air was his definition of fresh air but oh well.”

Ignoring the snub and the heat blooming across his cheeks –Uchiha’s do not blush –the dark-haired man scoffed, “If you want him so bad, take him.”

Suddenly, Naruto jumped to his feet at Sasuke’s comment with a pout on his red bitten lips –oh sage, they were so red and Sasuke was the one who made them that way –and a frown marring his face, “Hey! Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here!”

“Hai, hai…” Sakura teased while waving her hand in disinterest.

“And you!” Naruto turned to him with his arms crossed, a scowl on his face, “Ya trying to get rid of me, hah?!”

“No.” Sasuke denied bluntly with no emotion on his face, “But it does seem that you lied to me and your council just to get out of a meeting.”

“Why you-”

While they proceeded to bicker like the old married couple they were most definitely going to be in the future, Sakura sighed dreamily with her hands framing her face, “Ara, ara…couple fights so soon~”

“WE’RE NOT A COUPLE!” The pair declared loudly in unison.

The pink-haired kunoichi stared at them with a dry look in her eyes before drawling out, “Yeah...I’m just gonna go and leave this to you guys…”

While saying that, Sakura slowly backed away from the pair with her arms raised in a surrender motion and left the two men alone with the near-silent click of the door closing on them. They stared at the exit of the compound with narrowed eyes, not sure whether the woman would bust in again just to mess with them. When nothing happened, Naruto turned his attention to his dark-haired friend(?) at the same time Sasuke did. Both of their faces burst into flames when their eyes made contact, their previous actions ramming to the forefront of their minds.

Naruto gulped down heavily and opened his mouth to speak-

“Hey, guys! They finally kissed!”

They heard an echo from the compound which was immediately followed by boisterous applause, shouts of triumph, and groans of defeat.

“Aww man, I thought it’d take longer!”

“I knew it! The sexual tension was just too much to handle!”

“Man, I don’t know why the hell I still bet! I always suck at it…”

“What I wanna know is who did it first?!”

Sasuke’s face had blanked out through the entire discussion which honestly made Naruto a little worried, “I’m going to slaughter them all.”

That was all the dark-haired man said before gingerly standing up and stalking toward the door that led to the inner compound. Naruto shook the shock away as horror settled in and followed after the Uchiha. He couldn’t let his friend(?) murder all their precious people like that –even if he wanted to do the same. But he was a man with morals and Sasuke’s new goal was morally wrong, just like all his previous ones.

Damnit, why couldn’t the Uchiha ever choose something easier to strive towards?!

“Sasuke! You can’t just kill them!”

“Watch me.”

Through all of this, one nine-tailed demon fox was lamenting over his precious container sucking faces with a damn Uchiha of all people!

Three Years Later

Location: Uzushiogakure Ruins - Final Standing Compound

“Naruto.”

An almost sweet wispy voice called out to the blond-haired jinchūriki. Naruto swung his head in the direction of where the sound had come and all the blood from his face drained as his heart dropped to his feet. A giant being of graceful full-length flowing white, silvery hair and horns that resembled rabbit ears, pale almost translucent lilac eyes that resembled the Hyūga Clan’s Byakugan and the famed Uchiha Clan Dōjutsu fitted into her forehead –she was there and staring straight at them with indifference.

But Naruto was trained at seeing underneath the underneath.

He could see her glee at finally catching them. She was aiming to take full advantage and enjoyment in their slaughter.

“Have you finally come to accept your fate?”

“Kaguya…"