The morning Kakashi returned from his mission, he went home and slept until late evening.

When he woke up, the headache had faded enough that he could ignore it. He washed off the visible grime at the sink and made his way to the hospital. At the hospital, he was told that Sasuke had never been admitted, so he went to Lee's apartment and found the teenager losing badly to Naruto at poker.

(Ino had gone home after dinner, and she'd pushed Lee and Sakura into walking back with her, or they could have warned Sasuke never to gamble against Naruto.)

Kakashi settled on the couch and watched with amusement as Sasuke proceeded to lose another three hands.

When he dealt the fourth time, Sasuke barely glanced at his cards before setting them on the table. "I fold."

"What? At least pretend to have a good hand!"

"I'm not going to go broke playing someone with fox luck," Sasuke replied, standing. "Are you ready to leave, Kakashi-sensei?"

He blinked. "You're coming back with me?"

"Has the Hokage decided I can live on my own yet?" the teenager replied.

After a long pause, Naruto warned him: "Sakura-chan'll be mad if you leave without telling her."

"She'll be here soon." He made a vague motion towards Lee's clothes. "And I have to change."

As soon as Sasuke had his back to the table, Naruto reached over and peeked at his cards. He snorted, and Sasuke closed the bedroom door emphatically.

Naruto dropped the cards on top of his own and began shuffling them back into the deck. "Hey, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Yeah?"

"Is there another kind of sharingan?"

Kakashi paused. "What do you mean?"

"Like, a kind that looks weird. Where those black things are like a warped triangle."

Kakashi's eye narrowed. "Naruto, where's your bad-luck charm?"

"Huh? It's here, same as—"

When Naruto glanced down and started to tug his necklace out from under his shirt, Kakashi pulled a kunai from his vest and threw it at the teenager. It landed in his collarbone, only a few centimeters from the artery.

Naruto fell backwards with a loud yell.

"Shit!" He jerked the weapon out with a grimace. "What the hell was that for?"

Kakashi had already lifted his forehead protector and was studying Naruto carefully, ignoring the headache that made itself painfully known again. In the hallway, Sasuke had wrenched open the door and was halfway into the room, shirt still in hand.

Naruto's chakra looked the same as it always did—and most importantly, it was still there. Half-smothered by the fox demon's, but that was the way it had been for over a year. He was still there.

"You would have blocked that if you were the fox demon," Kakashi said, and Naruto looked at him like he was crazy.

"What?" he demanded, a hand clamped over his bleeding shoulder. "Why the hell would you—I'm not that damn fox! Damn, Kakashi-sensei!"

"Because you're not dead. I had to make sure," the man replied.

Naruto was starting to look more pissed than confused. Kakashi glanced at Sasuke from the corner of his eye.

The other teenager's eyes were wide as he stared at Naruto. Kakashi realized with surprise that Sasuke just hadn't considered the possibility that, far-fetched as it was, Naruto really had died and the demon was still walking around in his skin.

It was a dangerous enough slip that Kakashi should have been angry. Instead, he was mostly relieved; it meant Sasuke wasn't intentionally risking his teammates' lives just to hide a secret.

It was nice to get these little signs that the last seven weeks weren't wasted time.

Naruto noticed that Kakashi was looking elsewhere, and shifted his focus accordingly. He frowned again when he saw Sasuke's expression.

Sasuke jerked his gaze away as soon as Naruto looked at him, and stared at Kakashi instead. That was no improvement, so he glanced at Naruto again before taking a step back.

Sasuke finally managed to force his features into a scowl. He turned sharply, kicked the bathroom door open, stormed in, and kicked it shut harder behind him.

Naruto was gaping. "What. . . ?"

"It's called the mangekyou sharingan," Kakashi said, answering his earlier question. "What Sasuke told me—as far as he knew . . . it could only be attained by killing the person who is closest to you."

Naruto looked at him and blinked.

You're alive.

He'd heard the relief, been glad for it, thought that the surprise was just Sasuke underestimating him again like he always did.

And then, years ago, he'd heard the regret hidden so far beneath all that coldness, but there hadn't been time to think about it. And later when there was time, he assumed that Sasuke had just been angry that he'd found no one better in Konoha he could call a friend besides the idiot Uzumaki boy.

It was not meaningless . . . to me, you have become my closest friend. . . .

Naruto stared wide-eyed at the bathroom door as things sunk in.

A minute later he shoved away from the table, and went to the kitchen to wash the blood off his hand. He ran the water much longer than necessary—the wound in his shoulder had already healed by the time he shut it off.

Sasuke stayed in the bathroom until Sakura and Lee returned.

Several seconds after Sakura's cheerful greeting and Naruto's hesitant reply, Sasuke walked out and announced that he was leaving with Kakashi. He had his arms folded over his stomach, but the long rip in his shirt was still visible, as was the stain that not even the best soap a ninja village had to offer could fully remove.

It was obvious that something had gone very wrong, so Sakura wavered only a moment before sighing dramatically. "Why do I bother?" She shook her head. "Okay. If you can move around this much without grimacing, you're probably healed. Don't punish yourself with any strenuous training for at least two more days, and you'll be fine."

Sasuke just blinked at her, in that slow, 'are you done yet?' way of his. Sakura propped a fist on her hip. "I mean it! If you rip all that work open again just because you ignored me, I'll deck you!"

"She will," Naruto called from the kitchen. "Ever since she started training under Tsunade, she's gotten violent."

"Shut up, you."

Sasuke nodded perfunctorily and walked out the front door. Kakashi pushed himself lazily off the couch, said his goodbyes, and caught up with the teenager before he reached the street.

-'-

Naruto walked into the living room once the door was shut, and Sakura gave him a curious look.

"It's okay," Naruto told her, tapping his temple beside his eye. "They . . . you were right."

"What about your shoulder?"

"I'll tell you later," he said. "I . . . I'll see you tomorrow?"

". . . Okay. Do you want me to walk—?"

He shook his head before she could finish. "I'm good. See ya, Sakura-chan, Lee!"

After she saw him out, Sakura sat down heavily on the couch and pulled her feet up beneath her. "I swear, with those two it's like every time I turn my back, something happens. . . ."

Lee rubbed the nape of her neck comfortingly. Sakura hummed under her breath and tilted her head forward.

After a few minutes, he pulled away and leaned his arms on the back of the couch. "I guess I should walk you home; it's almost your curfew."

"No way!" Sakura replied. "I'll tell my parents that Sasuke left tomorrow morning."

"Sakura! It's not right to lie."

"I'm not lying. I'm using a situation to my advantage."

Her line of reasoning failed to convince Lee, but he didn't argue too long for her to go home, either.

-'

"Just go there," Jiraiya said, lounging on the couch in Tsunade's office. "Chew him out, remember the good times, say goodbye and be done with it."

Tsunade slapped one of the papers she'd finished skimming onto the stack. "I don't have time to waste on that kind of crap."

"It'll be healthy," he cajoled.

"Jiraiya."

His lack of a masochistic side convinced him to stop talking.

Jiraiya tapped his fingers on the back of the couch for several minutes, while Tsunade scrawled furiously on another paper and ignored his existence. She slammed that paper onto the stack as well, and the wood of the desk creaked. He held back a snicker.

There was a knock at the door, and a woman—Jiraiya had seen her working in the tower before, but she lacked enough cleavage for him to remember her name—opened it and peeked in. "Haruno-san is here, Hokage-sama. She asked to see you."

"Huh, she's early. Tell her to come in," Tsunade added, before waving a dismissing hand at Jiraiya. "You, leave."

He stood up. "Really, Tsunade, think about it. He was—"

"Get out, Jiraiya."

He shrugged and left, passing by Sakura on his way down the hall.

Once she entered the room, the first thing that she did was bow perfunctorily. Tsunade raised an eyebrow.

"What's happened?" the woman asked.

Sakura straightened. "I need to make a formal request that Rock Lee and I not be placed on the same out-going teams any longer."

The second eyebrow went up.

"He's asked me to marry him," Sakura explained with a smile. "So, to keep with the rules and everything. . . . He'll probably put his request in later."

"Already? You're both still so youn—ha!" Tsunade cut herself off with a laugh. "What am I saying?" She shook her head, and pushed away from the desk before standing up. "Trust me, Sakura, when you get older you'll find yourself thinking of you guys as kids even when you know better. It's like a bad habit."

She patted Sakura's shoulder and gave her a smile. "That's good," Tsunade said. "I'm glad for you."

Sakura grinned. "Thank you!"

Tsunade let her hand drop. "Lee—he goes on a mission tomorrow, right?"

Sakura nodded, and Tsunade waved her off. "I'll have someone handle both your requests. Go spend today with him—if you'll work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for it."

Sakura almost glanced at the library beyond Tsunade's desk, but stopped herself and shook it off with an imperceptible motion. "I will! Thank you, Tsunade-sensei!" She bowed again, quickly, and turned to leave.

"Oh. Before, I need you to do one thing. Find Naruto and Uchiha and tell them to come here. I need to speak to them about that night."

When Sakura turned around, Tsunade added, "I have a feeling what their answers are going to be, but it needs to go on paper."

"Yes." Sakura nodded. "I'll find them immediately."

-'-

Naruto wasn't in his apartment, so Sakura decided to get Sasuke first and then go look for him. But no one answered at Kakashi's apartment, so first she had to track down the man, which took her back to the section of town that surrounded the Hokage tower. Kakashi informed her that Naruto had arrived at the apartment early in the morning and dragged Sasuke off; they were probably somewhere beyond the village walls, beating the shit out of each other and pretending it was training.

"Again?" Sakura demanded.

"They had something to work out," Kakashi said vaguely. Sakura thought back to last night.

Boys, she decided, before thanking Kakashi for the help and setting off to look for them.

-'

The slugs weren't much use if speed was necessary. Sakura focused instead on Sasuke's chakra and, once she found it, headed in that direction.

(The fox demon had developed an antipathy towards her in the last two years. Sakura avoided touching Naruto's chakra when she could.)

She was between two trees when there was a loud crash in the bushes in front of her. Sakura yelped and leapt reflexively onto a high branch.

Below, Naruto jumped backwards out of the bushes, the sleeve of his coat on fire. He slid along the dirt, stopped his momentum by slamming the sole of a sandal against a tree trunk, and noticed her.

"Huh?" he said, blinking. "Sakura-chan? What're you doing here?"

"Your sleeve."

Naruto whacked the fire out with a handful of dirt, as Sasuke emerged from the other side of the bushes. Sakura watched him without turning her head.

"Are you all right, Naruto?" she called.

He snorted. "Ha! A lousy punch like that couldn't hurt me!"

One of Sasuke's hands clenched into a fist—but by the time Naruto finished rubbing the dirt off his sleeve and looked up, it was uncurled and his face had settled into a bored expression. Sakura looked away and jumped to the ground.

"Tsunade-sensei sent me to find you guys."

"What? Now what's she want?" Naruto demanded.

Sakura shrugged. "She didn't say exactly, but I think she wants to talk to you about the fight with the Sound."

"She took her time," Sasuke commented.

Sakura studied him with a frown as the three of them began to walk back to Konoha. A bruise was already beginning to show in the juncture between his jawline and throat, and he was walking with his arms crossed in front of his stomach. His right arm was scraped up from a mix of claws and bark.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Fine."

Sakura rolled her eyes and looked over at Naruto, trying to spot any major bruises or cuts before they disappeared. "What about you?"

"You don't need to worry about him," Sasuke said. "He's not a fox, he's a cockroach. He won't fucking die no matter what."

Naruto broke a small branch off a nearby tree and chucked it at him. "Asshole! You're always such a fucking asshole!"

Sasuke caught it. "You're an idiot who chases after what he shouldn't."

"Liar," Naruto replied. "You came back."

"It was never my intention to return here," Sasuke said coldly. "I don't go where I'm not wanted."

"Damn it!" Naruto half-yelled, ignoring the insult. "What's it gonna take to make you—"

"You are not Konoha," Sasuke snapped. "Sakura is not Konoha. Kakashi-sensei is not Konoha. Don't talk to me as though I'm an idiot like you."

Naruto didn't reply to that.

". . . It's not just us," Sakura tried, hoping she wasn't treading on the unknown subject between them. "There's Lee . . . there's other people. With time—"

"With time they'll tolerate me because they want the sharingan."

She wished that Sasuke's voice had been angry, or cold, or arrogant, or anything but that detached tone he had used when describing the Sound village to Tsunade and the clan heads.

After half a minute of strained silence, Sasuke continued. "That's why I haven't been put on trial yet, isn't it? Because Kakashi-sensei said it would be too dangerous at the moment."

"Pretty much," Sakura answered quietly. He snorted derisively.

"He said that you'd leave permanently," she added. "And that you felt justified in what you did."

"I never promised to stay here," he said. "There was nothing I could tell Orochimaru about Konoha that he didn't already know. I never killed anyone wearing the Leaf. I'm not going to waste my life in jail because they think I'm indebted."

"Do you really believe that bullshit?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke gave him a cold look and said nothing, and Naruto bristled. He started talking before Sakura could stop him.

"You! You ran off in the middle of a war, for the other side, to learn stuff you could've gotten here or elsewhere and to—" he noticed Sakura's look "to—get molested by snakes! You should go on trial for stupidity, moron!"

The look on Sasuke's face was entertaining. "Mol—what? What the hell, Naruto!"

"That snake of yours was damn near attached to your leg," Naruto replied, with a grimace. "Nothing normal acts like that!"

"It was pretty creepy," Sakura said, backing up Naruto's change of subject while doing her best not to laugh.

"They're all like that," Sasuke said in annoyance, before realizing how it sounded. Sakura bit her lip with a snicker.

Naruto just nodded. "Bet that's what happens when you run off to learn from some freaky-tongued pervert."

"You don't have room to talk! Whose teacher writes Icha Icha Paradise?" Sasuke threw the branch back at Naruto.

He caught it and tossed it to the side. "At least the toads don't grope me!"

"Of course not. I'm sure even frogs have some taste."

-'-

Sakura abandoned the two of them at the tower, having become convinced that she was the only one who had a sane relationship with her summoning animal. Naruto and Sasuke sat outside Tsunade's office for a few minutes, as she foisted a third stack of paperwork off on one of her poor flunkeys before calling them in.

By that point, Naruto's bruises and scars from the fight were almost gone, while Sasuke's were starting to show vividly. It didn't help his mood.

Sasuke sat on the couch, Naruto sprawled on it, and Tsunade asked the first teenager whether he'd been alone when he left Konoha the night he and Naruto fought Orochimaru.

"Naw," Naruto said before Sasuke had the chance to reply. "I was with him the whole time."

"Really," Tsunade drawled.

"Yep!"

"Kakashi said you must have used teleport to leave—" she glanced at Sasuke, who nodded curtly "—so why would you do that just to meet up inside the village? Why not walk out the door?"

"C'mon, Tsunade, that wouldn't be stealthy. We met by the walls."

"What street? Maybe we can find a witness, that'll make this easier."

"I wasn't paying attention!" Naruto replied. "It was a street, pretty far from the gate. The one with the buildings." He glanced over at Sasuke. "You know what I mean, right?"

"The one with the windows in the buildings," Sasuke said dryly.

She ignored the comment. "Did you arrange to meet beforehand?"

"No," Sasuke said before Naruto could answer.

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "How did you happen to go over the walls together, then?"

"I noticed him moving," Naruto said, with a slight change in tone. "I guessed what he was probably doing, and I got there before he left."

"Hm." There was a brief silence, before she addressed Sasuke: "Assuming you can speak for yourself, is this true?"

Sasuke paused for a moment. "He says it is."

Naruto kicked him in the ankle.

Tsunade's eyes narrowed, and she folded her hands in front of her mouth before staring at them for several seconds. Naruto continued to grin at her.

Finally, Tsunade told him quietly: "You and she are getting very bad about this."

Naruto gave her a quizzical look that she didn't buy for a second. Tsunade interlaced her fingers and rested her hands on the desk. "All right, that's all I needed to know. Naruto, show up here at six tonight."

He frowned. "Whaaa? What for?"

"I'm getting you new clothes," she said. "You're a damn sight hazard in that jacket. You're both free to go," she added, waving a hand at them.

You're kidding, Sasuke thought—but Naruto stood up and started to leave with a cheerful goodbye, so he didn't question it further.

-'

By the time they were out the door, Naruto was chanting "Shit shit shit" under his breath.

"What is it?" Sasuke finally demanded.

"I've gotta find Sakura-chan," Naruto said distractedly. He stopped in the middle of the path, tilted his head, and sniffed the air. A few seconds later, not bothering with a goodbye, he turned and took off across the roofs. The anbu darted past Sasuke with an annoyed noise, moving quickly to try and catch up with him.

Sasuke watched them disappear between the buildings, and he was more disturbed than he wanted to admit at the way the sun had emphasized Naruto's long scars when he'd twisted his head like that.

He shook it off a moment later—it was just smell, all shinobi know to use that—and began walking to Kakashi's apartment.

-'-

When Naruto warned Sakura that Tsunade knew they were lying—about what, he wasn't sure, but safety said to assume everything—she decided there was no longer time to waste.

But there wasn't a way for her to access the Hokage's library that day. Sakura spent the rest of the afternoon sparring with Lee, and the evening planning a way to talk to Hinata alone.

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