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Chapter Text

SASUKE

July 12 Year 60, Saturday

6:23 AM

It had been four days since Sasuke and Kakashi started training for the Chuunin Finals. The plains outside Konoha stretched in uneven lines of stone and dirt, the morning air dry, the terrain rough underfoot. Sasuke’s neck still ached where the cursed seal had sunk its teeth into him during the Forest of Death. The pain lingered in a dull pulse, a reminder of how easily he had been brought to his knees.

A bite mark. Something so small, so insignificant, and yet it had nearly crippled him.

If Sakura had not reached him first and improvised first aid on the wound, if Kakashi had not sealed it immediately afterward, everything would have shifted. He estimated he would have been unable to train until late July at best. That was unacceptable. He refused to fall behind. 

Especially behind those two yahoos—Naruto and Sakura.

Sasuke moved across the rocky ground, feet steady, breath controlled. He thought of Naruto first. Begrudgingly, he had expected that idiot to win against Kiba. Naruto had a way of surviving things that should have killed him. That much had always been clear. And after Hokage-sama revealed the truth—that Naruto was the Yondaime Hokage’s son and the jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox—it no longer made sense to expect anything less than victory from him.

Naruto would crawl out of a grave just to say he won.

Sasuke clicked his tongue and shifted his footing before launching into another sharp movement. The seal stung again, but he ignored it.

Sakura, however… 

Her result had been different from his expectations.

It was not a matter of strength on paper. Ino had the clan techniques. Sakura did not. Ino had the clan support. Sakura did not. But Sakura had proven herself capable when she pushed herself. Cunning. Controlled. Occasionally dangerous. 

No. Not occasionally. Always.

Even so, Sasuke had not expected her to win. Not because she was weaker, but because she was Sakura. She held onto her ties too tightly. She valued them too much. She would have given Ino the victory just to preserve that bond.

But she had not.

“Don’t get distracted,” Kakashi mumbled from behind him.

Fwish!

Sasuke dropped low just as Kakashi’s leg cut through the air where his head had been. The sweep missed him by an inch. Sasuke rolled across the rough ground, dust scraping his palms, and pushed off into a leap that carried him several paces back.

He did not give Kakashi time to press forward.

“Katon,” he formed the hand seals in quick succession, heat already gathering in his chest. “Goukakyuu no Jutsu!”

Flames erupted from his mouth, swelling into a massive sphere that roared across the field. The explosion hit the earth in a burst of fire and smoke.

BOOM!!!

Sasuke lunged forward through the haze, katana unsheathed, blade flashing—

Slash!

The metal met no resistance. Kakashi’s form dissolved into white smoke, replaced by a half-charred log.

A substitution.

Sasuke halted his advance and inhaled through his nose. He lowered his stance, exhaled, and let his senses stretch across the plain. The wind brushed against the stones. Heat from the fire dispersed. The dust settled.

Nothing.

That bastard really knew how to hide.

“Sharingan,” Sasuke muttered under his breath as the world sharpened into layers of chakra, motion, and threat.

He stepped forward slowly. The area was narrower than expected, a half-forgotten training ground wedged between two sloping ridges. Tough grass pushed up through cracked stone, and old scorch marks still stained the walls of the shallow ravine. Wind brushed through the sparse trees above, carrying the faint smell of damp soil and iron.

Sasuke glanced to the left. Nothing but a jagged outcrop of stone, shadows pooling beneath it. A few leaves shifted lazily along the ground.

Then to the right. A thicket of brush, dense enough to hide movement, but still. Too still.

Up. The sky was a sharp strip of pale blue between overhanging branches. Birds circled far above, unconcerned.

If not left, right, or up—

Then—

“Chidori,” Sasuke whispered, lightning shrieking into existence. The blade of his katana caught the energy instantly, humming with violent purpose.

Sasuke bent his knees, jumped.

And—

Shing! Mid-air, he threw the katana downward. It spun once, twice, before slamming into the ground like a stake.

Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!  Lightning exploded outward across the earth in branching patterns, a visible current ripping through soil, rock, and root as the Chidori spread like a searching net.

Anything hidden beneath would have no choice but to react.

Rumble. A section of earth to Sasuke’s right heaved upward, soil breaking as something moved beneath it. Sasuke dropped down onto the kashira of his katana, using the pommel cap as a springboard, and launched himself toward the disturbance.

Fwip! Fwip! Fwip!

He released a quick volley of shuriken. The blades cut cleanly through the air and—

Clang! Clang! Clang!

All three were deflected with casual precision. Kakashi stood there, one hand in his pocket, the other flicking a kunai just enough to redirect each shuriken.

“Good,” Kakashi hummed. “Now you're learning something from Sakura-chan.”

Sasuke’s eyebrow twitched upward.

Sakura? Again?

“Let’s stop for a moment and have a proper breakfast,” Kakashi announced, already strolling back toward the bags they left under a crooked tree. “Man, I’m tired.”

Sasuke exhaled through his nose and began collecting the scattered weapons. Shuriken embedded in bark. Kunai half-buried in the soil. His katana still humming faintly with fading chakra.

He understood if Kakashi compared him to Naruto. That was familiar. Annoying, but familiar. Kakashi enjoyed provoking the two of them, pushing competition where it was useful. But Sakura?

Lately, Kakashi mentioned her far more often than the dobe.

Sasuke supposed he understood. Sakura was more observant than either of them. Perhaps even more intelligent. Sasuke accepted that. Begrudgingly.

Her mind was her greatest asset.

It was the same mind that created those genjutsu—those disturbing, vivid, crushing illusions she wielded with unnerving ease. Sasuke had not experienced one firsthand, but he remembered Naruto’s panic months ago. Haku’s ghost-white reaction. Lee’s moment of near-collapse. Orochimaru retching their own scroll into the dirt. Shikamaru’s recounting of how Team 10 and Team Gai were collateral when Sakura cast an illusion against the three Oto-nin during the Forest of Death.

Sasuke slid the last shuriken into his pouch.

He had a fairly clear idea now. He needed to be wary of Sakura ever directing a genjutsu at him. No—not just a genjutsu. Anything that involved her mind.

After all, it was also that same mind that pieced together who was the true mastermind behind the Uchiha Clan Massacre.

It was that same mind—the mind of a girl a year younger than him and Naruto—that gathered fragments, contradictions, implications, and omissions, and aligned them into something damningly coherent. It was Sakura who drew every thread together, who sifted through detritus others ignored, who looked at the empty spaces and saw shape and intent. And with that, she named the man who had given his brother the order to destroy their clan.

Sasuke still did not know how she had arrived at that conclusion. How she followed a proverbial trail that no one else had even acknowledged existed. How she announced Danzo’s name with such certainty, as if she had simply solved an equation.

But he remembered Hokage-sama’s silence.

He remembered the way the air went still.

He remembered how no one was able to contradict her.

The absence of denial had been all the confirmation Sasuke needed.

‘I see,’ Sasuke realized. Kakashi wanted him to have the same discerning mind as Sakura. A mind free from darkness and cloud. A mind with clarity.

“Oi! Sasuke!” Kakashi waved over, already rummaging noisily through his pack. “Enough brooding. Let’s eat!”

‘How ironic,’ Sasuke scoffed to himself. The very same girl clouded by her own feelings over him was now the model of mental clarity for him to emulate.

The thought brought a brief, sharp pang to his chest.

Sasuke refused to give it shape. He refused to give it a name. Whatever it was, it had no place here. Not in training. Not in his path forward.

And yet—

And yet he could not shake the pressure beneath his sternum. That strange, hollow tug. As if he was late for something. No—too late for something.

Was he late in recognizing that Sakura was a worthy rival? No. He had long accepted—begrudgingly—that she was an intellectual peer. Debating with her was useful. Efficient. And it was not as if Naruto had anything to offer in that department; the dobe’s brain was practically made of air and ramen broth.

Was he late in studying genjutsu? Hardly. He respected Sakura’s technique, but he had the Sharingan. He would exceed her eventually. He would challenge her one day and force the matter—settle who the superior illusionist was.

No. None of that landed. None of that fit the strange ache tightening his ribs.

Was he too late for her affections—

Pang.

Something stung again, sharper this time, as if his own chest disagreed with the thought before he could even complete it.

But what thought did it disagree on? That he was too late to recognize her feelings? Or that there had ever been anything for him to be too late for?

Preposterous.

That he, Sasuke, could hold any kind of affection for that annoying pink-haired yahoo was downright preposterous. Foolish. A waste of mind and breath. He would sooner believe Naruto had a functioning brain cell than accept such an idea.

Besides, her gaze—

Sting. His chest ached again, a tight and unwelcome pull beneath the ribs.

Her gaze was different now. That much he could not deny. There was no longing behind her eyes anymore. No soft admiration. No quiet fluster that he used to catch in the corner of his vision, even when she tried to hide it.

There was just care.

Plain. Steady. Uncomplicated.

The same kind of gaze she had whenever she looked at Naruto.

And somehow—somehow that stung worst of all.

No, that was downright more irritating.

Sasuke bit his lip, forcing the sharp turn of his own thoughts to stop. They did not. They persisted with an aggravating stubbornness that made his jaw tighten.

Because her gaze was now directed toward that lowly, rat-like Hyuuga.

Neji.

And that very same Hyuuga seemed to—

Sasuke cut the thought with a hard shake of his head, as if he could rattle it loose and fling it somewhere far from him. It was unbecoming of an Uchiha shinobi to concern himself with anything so banal. So pointless. So far beneath the priority of his training and his purpose.

Especially now that he had learned the truth of the matter regarding his clan.

Especially now that Hokage-sama had provided him with clarity that rewrote the very ground he stood on.

Especially now that his path as an avenger was clearer than it had ever been. The edges were sharp, defined. Unyielding. Everything else was supposed to fall away.

“Sasuke!” Kakashi called again, waving his bento in the air. “If you don’t eat this, I won’t teach you the Summoning Jutsu.”

“Fine,” Sasuke muttered, walking over and snatching the bento from Kakashi’s hand.

He sat down on a flat rock, dust clinging to his knees as he unwrapped the box.

Kakashi tilted his head, one eye visible behind the mask. “By the way, why are you suddenly interested in the Summoning Jutsu? You’re just beginning to implement Chidori in your katana. Why focus on another task?”

Sasuke considered it for a moment. Orochimaru’s snakes came to mind. Fear incarnate, yes. But they had done more than spread terror—they had moved, struck, and controlled the battlefield. He remembered watching them, the way they overwhelmed Team 7.

A summon would be useful. In any fight. Any terrain. Any opponent. Especially if he wanted to find the very elusive Itachi.

“Useful,” Sasuke said, voice low.

“Anyway,” Kakashi said, leaning back slightly, “using the Summoning Jutsu requires large pools of chakra. Before you can attempt one, you must first raise your chakra levels.”

“Hn,” Sasuke replied, barely acknowledging the warning.

“Any idea what you want as a summon so I can do some research? Summoning scrolls aren’t exactly easy to come by.”

Sasuke’s eyes swept the rocky plains again, scanning the ridges, the patches of open sky, the sparse trees dotting the horizon. “Something that can fly, preferably can be ridden on.”

Sasuke cleared his throat, momentarily shifting his attention. “And…”

Kakashi turned toward him, raising his visible eyebrow.

“And?”

Sasuke hesitated, then said, “Another… for Sakura.”

Kakashi blinked behind the mask. “Something that flies as well?”

Sasuke’s gaze drifted over the terrain again. He remembered how Sakura fought. Precise strikes, close-range, controlled taijutsu. Her movements were lithe, almost feline, bending and twisting with fluid flexibility. If he were to suggest a summon for her, it would need agility and speed. Unpredictable, capable of weaving through obstacles as she could.

“No. F—” Sasuke paused, clearing his throat once more, “Feline.”

This way, he can repay Sakura for identifying the true mastermind behind the Uchiha Clan Massacre. Now, they were even.

No more useless things tying them much more than what was necessary.

Kakashi blinked slowly, the eyebrow lowering fractionally. “Feline?”

Sasuke’s jaw tightened. “Yes. I’ll pay for both.”

Kakashi gave a soft hum, almost like a smirk behind the mask. “Not easy, but still easier than your Flying Summon. And Naruto?”

Sasuke’s gaze flicked toward the horizon. “I heard he’s already trying to learn how to summon a toad.”

“Ah,” Kakashi said, nodding once. “That. Of course. It’s Jiraiya-sama, after all.”

Sasuke did not respond to Kakashi’s comment. His thoughts had drifted elsewhere—toward something far heavier than toads or cats or anything as straightforward as summons.

They circled back, unbidden, to Hokage-sama’s words four days ago. To the truth laid out before him like a blade placed on a table.

And to the offer that came with it.

There had always been a caveat. There always would be. Nothing in Konoha ever came without a shadow clinging to its edges. Anyone who thought otherwise was a fool. Konoha looked bright on the surface, but beneath the lanterns and market chatter, it was a military village steeped in politics, in strategies built from corpses, in choices soaked through with blood.

Sasuke understood that now. Fully.

The truth about that night—his night—had a price.

The price was a choice.

He could stay within these walls and pretend. Pretend that things were fine. Pretend that he could continue as a shinobi of Konoha, training, eating, breathing, laughing beside teammates. Pretend that the truth did not change anything.

Or—

He could take Orochimaru’s outstretched hand. Play the traitor and let his defection lure Orochimaru’s attention away from Konoha. Allow himself to become bait so that this village—this Kami-forsaken, politically tangled village—could survive just another day.

Stay in ignorance.

Or become a tool.

Those were the two paths the Sandaime had placed before him. Both drenched in different kinds of darkness.

Sasuke picked up another bite of rice, chewing slowly. Thoughtfully.

Hokage-sama had been generous. More than Sasuke expected. He had given the truth freely. With it, he had also given Sasuke the dignity of choice.

A luxury his clan had never received.

And so, the choice was his.

Entirely his.

No one else would decide the path this time. Not his brother. Not Orochimaru. Not the elders.

Not even the Hokage.

Sasuke lowered the chopsticks and exhaled, long and controlled, the sound barely audible.

He would choose.

Something flickered at the edges of that certainty—unwelcome, unwarranted. A flash of green, bright and waiting. Eyes looking up at him as though his answer mattered. As though he mattered.

‘What would she think?’

The thought carved its way in without permission, sharp and intrusive.

What would Sakura think?

‘Pathetic,’ Sasuke snapped inwardly. The rebuke did nothing to scatter the image. It only solidified, as if his irritation granted it weight.

Ridiculous. Here he was, standing before the fork that defined everything he could possibly become—vengeance sharpened to a point, Orochimaru’s power dangling like a poisoned lure, the strength to one day drag Danzo to the ground, the justice his clan had been denied—and yet…

Yet his mind had the audacity to stall.

All because of her.

Would she plead with him to stay?

Would she beg him to forgive, to forget, to let go of the blood he carried?

Would she ask him—of all people—to choose his own life over a dead clan’s shadow?

Sasuke exhaled through his nose, a short, humorless breath. He could almost scoff at himself.

Hah. As if he needed to wonder.

He already knew the answer.

It sat somewhere deep, beneath the noise—buried under the chatter, the static, the spinning thoughts he refused to name.

He just had to reach it.

Sasuke drew a slow breath, though it did nothing to settle the agitation that pressed beneath his ribs. He kept his eyes fixed forward, as if the simple act of looking ahead would force the path to solidify beneath his feet.

Besides…

Sasuke knew enough of Sakura.

This Sakura—sharp, relentless, infuriating in the way she refused to bow to him—was not the girl who had once orbited every step he took. Not anymore. That version of her had clung far too tightly, and the memory of it jabbed at his chest again. A sting. Precise. Unavoidable. He despised how it still managed to find a place within him.

No. This Sakura, the one who stood equal to him in skill and will, would say the same thing he had thought of.

That it was not up to her. That the choice belonged to him, entirely.

That was what made it a choice to begin with.

And as irritating as it was to even allow the thought, Sasuke understood the truth of it. He would hold on to her words. He had done so before.

He wanted to kill the three Oto-nin for what they had done to her, for the blood on her lip and the tremor in her breathing after she forced them down. Even by herself and on the cusp of collapse, she had undone those three bastards until their limbs could not move. She had won. She had earned it. And he respected her enough not to desecrate that victory by stepping over it in his own rage.

That restraint had been hers. Because of her.

And that was why it was fortunate that Sakura would not stop him now.

Because with just one word from her, Sasuke knew he would.

GAARA

July 12 Year 60, Saturday

8:15 AM

Gaara walked down one of Konoha’s narrower streets, sand shifting beneath his gourd with every step. The morning was already loud. Too loud.

Vendors called to customers from behind their stalls. Women carried baskets and spoke to each other in low, easy voices. Men laughed at something he could not hear and did not care to understand. Children darted between adults, weaving through legs and kicking a ball across the packed dirt as if the world itself bent to accommodate their games.

None of them paid him much attention. A few glanced his way—quick, wary flickers of the eyes—but most returned to whatever they were doing. Their lives moved around him without pause, without fear, without the awareness that they should be afraid.

Konoha’s civilians breathed without caution. They trusted the space around them to remain intact. They trusted each other to remain unharmed.

Gaara watched them pass in and out of shadow, watched the way they stayed close in clusters, as if belonging was something as natural as walking. As if it cost nothing.

Bop!

“Oompf!”

A small weight slammed into his leg. Gaara stopped. The impact itself was nothing, barely more than a nudge against his sand.

He looked down.

A child—maybe six, maybe seven—had fallen backward onto the street. Brown hair, scraped knee, dust on her palms. She blinked up at him, eyes already glossing with tears as she scrambled upright.

“Um… I’m sorry, Mister,” she said, voice thin, wavering.

Gaara said nothing. He only stared, letting silence settle heavy between them.

Her breath caught. Her chin trembled. The tears broke free and slid down her cheeks as she stood there, rooted in place, small hands clenched at her sides.

Gaara turned away and walked on. Her quiet crying faded behind him, swallowed by the chatter of the street.

Children in Suna did not bump into strangers. They did not run freely where danger could appear from nothing. They learned early to watch the ground, the wind, the shadows. They learned early to stay small, silent, and unnoticed.

Here, they ran. They collided. They cried. And nothing descended on them for it.

Konoha let its children remain children.

Suna never had.

The thought of Suna made Gaara remember why he had decided to leave the team’s lodgings for the moment. Today, he had chosen to search for something to eat.

Salted tongue and gizzard.

He doubted that Konoha possessed such a delicacy. The climate alone made it unlikely. Suna preserved meat because it had no choice. Dry heat stripped moisture out of everything, including food. Salt kept meat from spoiling during sandstorms, during long patrols, during nights when hunters did not return. Konoha, by contrast, had forests dense enough to hide predators and rain heavy enough to rot meat in a day if left unchecked. Food here was fresher, greener, softer. Their preservation methods differed because their world did.

But since he was already outside, he might as well look.

Gaara considered it logically. If such a food existed within Konoha at all, it would not be at a street stall. The stalls sold skewers, dumplings, noodles, warm broths. Nothing that required extensive drying or salting. He would need to find a general store that specialized in imports. A hub that relied on merchants crossing borders. Somewhere that stocked foreign ingredients for foreign shinobi who did not want to adapt to Konoha’s palate.

There would not be many. Perhaps only one.

Imports required space, storage, preservation seals, and steady trade routes. Konoha’s geography made it a natural choke point for travelers moving between the Land of Fire and its neighboring countries. That meant caravans. And caravans meant a market district that served not only villagers but visitors who needed supplies that reminded them of home.

Gaara turned toward the center of the village, toward the heavier foot traffic where merchants gathered. If salted tongue and gizzard existed here, it would be in a place like that—an establishment that catered to outsiders, that sold goods Konoha itself did not produce.

He would start there.

“Dad! Dad!” A boy, no older than ten, darted across the street in front of him. “Hurry! Mom’s gonna make skewered gizzards!”

Gaara stopped.

The boy’s dark hair was tied in a top knot. He wore a shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pair of hakama pants. A walking stick swung in one hand, and sunglasses covered his eyes.

“Ichitaro, wait!” an older man called out—likely the child’s father. He was unmistakable even at a glance: dull pink hair styled into five pointed spikes, almost like a star. Or a flower. His clothing was simple, a loose dark green kimono shirt over matching cut-off pants.

“Mebuki will not be able to make the skewers because we have it. So wait!”

Something about this man felt familiar. Gaara could not place it immediately. 

The child—Ichitaro—did not appear to care. “Okay!” he cheered, spinning the stick once as if the world itself had parted to clear his path.

But Gaara’s attention had already shifted.

Gizzards.

They had gizzards.

That piqued his attention. Konoha’s chatter pressed on him in a way that grates. He disliked it. The sooner he returned to the quiet of their lodgings, the better. If these two knew where to find such ingredients in this sprawling village, he would spare himself hours of searching.

He stepped toward them. He would ask. It was the quickest path toward leaving this annoying place behind. 

Gaara’s senses prickled.

Someone was watching him.

“Show yourself,” he said, tone flat, as the sand inside his gourd shifted in quiet response.

“Dude, you’re the creepy one for stalking my family.”

Gaara turned.

Pink hair. Green eyes. It was the genin who fought with that strange blend of precision and unpredictability. The teammate of the Uchiha. Student of the Copy Ninja.

“You,” Gaara said.

She raised a brow. “Don’t tell me you forgot my name?”

There was no fear in her voice. No hesitation. No tremor. She spoke to him—not the jinchuuriki, not the monster whispered about in her village’s shadows—but simply to him.

Gaara paused.

Most people stammered. Or stepped back. Or let the word you mean something else entirely.

But she waited, arms loose at her sides, gaze steady, as if the idea that he might harm her did not even register.

It was… unusual. Irritating. And yet, curious in its own way.

“Johyō Girl,” Gaara said simply.

Her mouth twitched. Her brow knitted together.

He did remember her.

This girl was the one who fought the Yamanaka heiress.

The girl who wielded a strange weapon—weighted prisms attached to an extending ribbon the color of faint rose.

The girl who had handed him an eyebrow pencil—Temari insisted that was the correct name—right as their team arrived in Konoha.

The girl to whom he had given a johyō in return.

The girl about whom the Yamanaka clan heiress had claimed, with an air of frustrated certainty, that she held two souls inside one body.

She huffed for a moment as she rolled her eyes, tapping one sandal against the dirt. “My name isn’t Johyō Girl, Red Boy.”

Red… Boy?

Gaara raised his brow and huffed in return. “I am not Red Boy.” 

She mirrored his look, tongue clicking lightly. 

Insolent.

The sand inside his gourd shifted, a low rumble only he could hear.

“And my name is Sakura Haruno,” she said, poking her own chest with one finger. “Sa. Ku. Ra.”

“Sa. Ku. Ra,” Gaara repeated.

She smirked—smirked—before pointing right at him. “Ga. A. Ra.”

Gaara felt his right eye twitch.

“If you’re gonna throw a tantrum like a toddler,” she went on, breezing past him as if he were merely a decorative cactus, “then I’d like to end this conversation right now.”

His eyes widened—not out of fear, never that—but at the sheer audacity. She was the one who spoke to him first. How was this suddenly a tantrum?

She moved past him, already walking toward the direction the child—Ichitaro—and his pink-haired father had gone.

Gaara stared after her.

If those two were her brother and father… then she knew where to find gizzards.

A vein pulsed at his temple. His teeth grit.

“Wait,” he said sharply. A beat. “Sakura.”

She turned, sandals scuffing lightly against the dirt. “Yes?”

Gaara opened his mouth. “G—”

He stopped.

She stood there with no particular expression—no smug tilt to her lips, no condescension in her eyes, no fear tightening her posture.

Just… waiting.

As if she were prepared to hear anything he might say, whether it was a threat, a question, or nonsense.

It unsettled him in a way he could not name.

“Gizzards,” Gaara said at last.

Sakura blinked. Then her finger came up to her chin, tapping lightly as her gaze drifted upward in thought.

“Hm,” she hummed to herself, thinking aloud. “You’re from Suna, so… not the usual grilled kind. And you wouldn’t stop me just for something plain. Suna tends to dry, cure, or salt things….”

Gaara watched as her mind moved.

Quick. Precise. Not meandering the way most children’s thoughts did.

He could almost see each conclusion click into place.

“…so you probably mean salted gizzards,” she continued, brows drawing together. “And if it’s salted, then maybe tongue too, since they’re usually sold together, right?”

His eyes widened a fraction.

She was deducing him.

Sakura tapped her chin once more, now fully narrowed in thought. “But Konoha’s too humid to make those locally. Unfortunately, our general store doesn't have them. At least, not yet. So you’d need a store that imports from dry-climate regions. Probably near the merchant district on the east side. They get shipments from Wind and River every few weeks.”

Her gaze returned to him.

Matter-of-fact. Certain. Not impressed with herself—just stating what she knew.

Gaara found himself silent for a moment longer than he intended, quietly unsettled by how… efficient she was.

She had stripped the problem down, examined it, solved it, and offered an answer—all while treating him like any ordinary passerby.

No fear.

No awe.

Just… reasoning.

It was almost disorienting.

“I see,” Gaara said, the words leaving him flatter than intended.

“Well, come on,” Sakura replied, already pivoting on her heel and starting down another street.

Gaara’s brow rose.

She walked several paces before stopping, glancing back when she noticed the absence of footsteps behind her.

Sakura blinked at him. “Um… are you coming or what?”

Gaara simply stared.

She clicked her tongue softly. “Dude, you’re literally a visitor from another village.” A pause. “Think nothing of this but Konoha hospitality.”

Hospitality.

The word struck him oddly.

‘But is it really just hospitality?’ The thought came unbidden.

He had traveled before—missions taken outside Wind, political errands demanded by the Kazekage. Clients from other lands always claimed hospitality. The words were polite, accommodating, rehearsed.

But their eyes betrayed them.

Fear.

Revulsion.

Whispers behind fans and half-closed doors.

They offered bread with trembling hands, and a room while flinching at his shadow.

That was hospitality shaped by terror.

This, however—this girl—

She was not pretending. She was not forcing herself to be polite. She was not trembling or averting her gaze. She simply expected he would follow.

As though leading him through her village was neither a burden nor a threat. As though she did not see him as a monster at all.

It made no logical sense.

And yet he followed when she began walking again.

They moved in silence, her steps light, unhurried, weaving through Konoha’s late-morning bustle with ease. She did not look back to check if he was still behind her. She simply assumed he would keep up—as though leading a jinchuuriki from another village required no more caution than guiding a lost tourist.

She kept a small distance ahead of him, that rose-colored ribbon tied at her hip catching the breeze. Civilians passed her with casual greetings; some waved. She waved back. Nothing about her posture suggested wariness. Nothing suggested calculation.

It was… irritating. And bewildering.

Gaara’s fingers twitched by his side.

He wanted to ask why.

Why she was different? Why she was so fearless.? Why did she not react like every other human who laid eyes on him?

Was it because of what the Yamanaka heiress had said? Because she supposedly held two souls in one body?

Perhaps the one in control now was the fearless one. An inner presence guarding her emotions.  A second consciousness with sharper instincts. Something that made her brave.

Like Shukaku’s influence over him—

A presence lurking just beyond his mindscape. A second self lurking beneath the surface.

Was it the same for her? Was this calm, unflinching demeanor the result of that… other soul?

Gaara’s sand rustled quietly inside the gourd.

Because if that were true—

If this girl’s fearlessness came from something monstrous within her—

Then what did that make the part of her that handed him an eyebrow pencil without hesitation?

What did that make the part of her that had taught him to use the johyō he offered in return?

What did that make the part of her that now walked ahead, alone, unguarded, as though the world itself obeyed her stride?

His eyes narrowed.

No.

It was not the same.

He knew enough to sense the difference.

Her presence—even when calm—did not feel like a second entity fighting her for control.

There was no bloodlust.

Her chakra alone told him that she was no jinchūriki.

There was no malice. No hunger.

Only a steady, maddening certainty.

And it left him with two thoughts he could dare not categorize:

One: perhaps she was fearless because she simply was. Unaided. Unshielded. Uncontrolled by anything beyond her own will.

And two: if the Yamanaka girl had spoken the truth… then those two souls inside this pink-haired genin were not fighting for dominance at all. There was no thrashing for control. No inner violence.

There was coexistence. Harmony.

Was such a thing even possible?

Two presences within one vessel—

Yet no screaming.

No clawing. No need to suppress or be suppressed.  No madness licking at the edges of consciousness.  No murderous whispers.

Just… stillness.

Gaara’s jaw tightened.

If that was true—

if such balance was real—

then her fearlessness was not borrowed strength.

It was her nature.

Gaara observed, with a faint tightening in his chest, that she did not pause to inform the man and the boy. Her father and younger brother

No request for permission.

No customary bow of acknowledgement.

No familial check-in before walking off with a foreign shinobi.

Was that not the standard custom in this village?

Was that not what civilians did—ensure safety through proximity, through approval, through rules?

Yet she simply slipped away from them as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

As if she owed no explanation.

As if she was not expected to give one.

She walked a few more steps ahead, then pivoted cleanly on her heel.

“You’re silent,” this person—Sakura—said, eyebrow raised. Then, with no warning at all, she let out a soft chuckle, shaking her head at some private absurdity. “Oh right. You’re not the talker-type. That’s bonkers of me. You’re practically an overabundant species.”

He blinked.

Over… abundant?

She paused, eyes sliding upward as though she was counting them in that small, infuriatingly careless head of hers.

These “overabundant species.”

Was she including that Uchiha boy—her teammate with the sharingan who had looked at Gaara with a predator’s gaze?

And the white-eyed teammate of Gaara’s bowcut, taijutsu-user opponent?

Were these the “silent types” she was tallying?

Gaara felt his brow lower, slow and sharp, irritation coiling somewhere beneath his sternum.

Overabundant species.

She dared to categorize him so easily?

How insolent, pink-haired genin. Audacious. Brazen. Intrepid. Dimwit.

“You should probably lower the glower,” Sakura sighed as she offered him a light, almost careless smile. “It’s like you’re a few breaths away from snapping my neck.”

Gaara’s eyes widened—again.

Did she just read his mind?

Was this some hidden jutsu?

If so, it was… not entirely surprising that she had reversed the supposedly-irreversible Yamanaka Clan technique.

And as if answering the question forming in his skull—

“And no,” Sakura added, waving one hand dismissively, “I’m not reading your mind. Your face is just that easy to read.”

He stopped. For a moment, he simply stopped.

He was that obvious to her?

Him—Gaara of the Sand? Weapon of Suna?  Host of Shukaku?

Absurd. Impossible. Infuriating.

Gaara bit his lip before the low growl rising from his chest could escape into the air.

“Come on,” Sakura said as she turned forward again, flicking her rose-colored hair over her shoulder in a rather careless arc. “I have training this afternoon. I kinda wanna relax before subjecting myself to torture. Ugh.”

She walked on.

Gaara bit his lip. 

Enough. 

He closed the distance in several long steps until he was at her side. The movement immediately drew her attention, her head tilting toward him as if she had been waiting for him to follow.

She glanced at him. "By the way…" She paused, almost theatrically. "You have teammates, right?"

He eyed her. So what.

"This is going to be a massive waste of time if you’re only going to buy one food," she said, turning fully to face him now. "What were their requests? I assume it’s your turn to be the errand boy."

Gaara raised an eyebrow. He refused to dignify that question with an answer. There was no errand system. It was every person for themselves. His siblings could starve for all he cared.

And yet—

Something flickered in his mind before he could stop it. A memory. A detail.

Temari liked sweet chestnuts and kenchin soup.

Kankuro always demanded steak.

He stiffened. Surely this girl would not reach into his head now.

"Well?" she prodded.

His head turned toward her before he decided to move it. The reaction startled him. He did not know why he was hanging on to every word from her or what he expected to gain by doing so. 

What was he expecting? Was he even expecting anything to begin with?'

Gaara let out a rough huff. Fine.

"Steak. Sweet chestnuts. And kenchin soup."

Sakura nodded as if the response completed some internal calculation. Her gaze drifted upward for a moment, thoughtful, the way a person might trace invisible roads inside their mind while planning the most efficient route.

Her expression settled with a tiny, decisive nod. “Okay.”

NEJI

July 12 Year 60, Saturday

8:43 AM

Neji did not know how it came to be. That morning, when he was about to leave the Hyuuga Manor to train for the Chuunin Finals, he turned into the last hallway toward the main doors. Hinata-sama stood there. She wore her usual training gear, the plain white uniform that resembled what was used in dojos. A sling bag rested against her shoulder.

He stopped. She should not have been moving around like that. She was still recovering from their match. Both of her eyes remained covered by a medical dressing, the white layers of cotton and gauze held in place with clean tape.

Neji kept silent. He did not understand why she had left her room at all.

Fwmmm. Hinata-sama’s palm came into view. The movement snapped him back into the present.

Neji shifted his head aside, letting her strike pass through empty air.

So that was her intent. She wanted to train. She wanted to train with him, even in her condition.

‘How utterly asinine,’ Neji thought. 

She could barely keep her stance steady. Her body had not yet regained full strength. Any sudden strike risked worsening the damage to her ribs. She knew this. The healers had made it clear. Yet she had followed him out as if none of it mattered.

‘What does she hope to achieve with this foolishness?’

Her posture wavered again, the shift small but obvious to him. She was in no state to face anyone, much less him. It was senseless effort, the kind that proved nothing and cost much.

And still, she persisted.

To make matters worse, Hiashi-sama had allowed it. Her own father had given permission for this. Neji felt something tighten low in his chest. It was almost absurd. Main family authority was absolute, yet even with that authority, Hiashi-sama has allowed her to do this. She hovered a breath away from serious harm, and he had let her walk out the door.

Neji held the thought in silence. It was not concern he wished to entertain. But the premise itself unsettled him. A Main family heir, already weakened, sent out like this without restraint. It made no sense. 

Or perhaps it made too much sense.

Hinata-sama had always been treated differently. That difference shifted depending on what suited the Main family at the moment. Sometimes she was sheltered beyond reason. Sometimes she was pushed past what her ability could handle. There was no clear line. There was only expectation, pressure, and the assumption that she would endure it because she was born to do so.

Neji watched her attempt to settle into another stance. Her foot slid half a step too far. She corrected it a heartbeat late. It was a small error, but it revealed everything. She was moving out of obligation, not readiness.

If Hiashi-sama believed this would strengthen her, then it only confirmed what Neji already understood. The Main family did not need to face consequences. They could afford to send someone in her state to train and call it discipline. They could risk her collapsing again and call it growth.

He drew a slow breath. The logic of it irritated him more than the act itself. It was as if weakness and privilege could coexist without ever colliding, so long as the Main family decided the terms.

Hinata-sama raised her hands again, unsteady but determined.

Still, Neji wanted to ask.

She struck toward him once more. He shifted aside, letting her palm pass.

“Why?” Neji grit out.

Hinata-sama paused. The hesitation lasted only a breath before she resumed movement. She slipped into a familiar kata, the one taught in early childhood. Her stance widened, shoulders squared, arms extending in measured arcs. Each step followed the sequence, but the timing lagged. Her left arm rose a moment too slow. Her right foot dragged before lifting. The form was correct on the surface, but nothing in her body aligned with true readiness.

“I told you already,” she huffed. “I-I want to change.”

Neji watched her attempt to settle into the next position. Her balance dipped, a faint sway she tried to hide by tightening her jaw.

Change.

He did not believe it. Not from her. Not like this. It clashed with everything he understood about the Main family’s treatment of her. She had always been shifted between extremes, protected one day, pushed the next, never given a stable ground to stand on. The pressure placed on her had never been about her own will. It had always been about expectation.

And now she spoke as if this were her choice. As if this frail display came from conviction rather than the same obligation that had guided her steps her entire life.

Neji watched her finish another slow arc of her arm, breath uneven.

It did not look like change. It looked like persistence born from duty, nothing more. A tired cycle repeating itself.

“Preposterous,” Neji scoffed. “You expect me to believe that, Hinata-sama? You expect me to believe that conviction when you are here stuttering like a frail little lamb about to keel over?”

“I-I d-don’t care w-what you think,” she managed, breath thin. “N-Not anymore.”

How she could train like this while her eyes were covered was beyond Neji. Was she hoping that training in total darkness and without her sight negate the fact that she was Hyuuga?

She rushed forward. The movement lacked sharpness, yet she tried to force speed into it. Her palm swung toward his ribs. Neji angled his hips and brushed her wrist aside with minimal effort. Her steps staggered on the grass. She recovered, but only barely, and threw her opposite hand toward his collarbone.

He parried again. Her fingers scraped uselessly against the sleeve of his shirt.

Neji clicked his tongue in quiet irritation. She spoke as though his opinion mattered, then claimed it no longer did. Foolish. The Main family had never needed to concern itself with the thoughts of the Branch family. Her words felt misplaced, almost naive. She was raised above him from the moment she drew breath. That was the structure. That was the law.

And now she claimed indifference as if it were some revelation.

“I-I asked Otou-sama m-myself f-for permission,” she said, voice trembling as she steadied her stance again. “H-He did not give me an order t-to train.”

She drove forward with another strike, this time toward his shoulder. The form was correct in intention but sloppy in execution. Her elbow dipped at the wrong moment. Her center wobbled. Neji guided her arm away with a small twist of his hand, redirecting her without even shifting his feet.

She attempted to spin into a second blow, but her balance betrayed her again. Her foot slid too far on the grass, and she had to plant her hand briefly on her thigh to keep herself upright before straightening again.

Neji raised an eyebrow.

‘Well, of course that’s your job,’ he thought, watching her attempt another stance adjustment. She was the next heir. She was supposed to pursue strength without waiting for anyone to dictate it. It was her responsibility. It was the role she had been born into.

Her present state only highlighted how long she had avoided it.

If this sudden determination was real, then she was years behind where she should have been. And if it was not real, then all of this was a pointless display, one he had been dragged into without reason.

That… 

Or the simpler truth. That Hinata-sama was a failure. The Clan Head had likely reached a point where forcing expectations upon her felt tedious. Perhaps he had seen enough weakness to conclude that giving up on her training would save time.

Neji watched her raise her hands again, breath unsteady despite her effort to control it. She stepped in with another palm strike. He deflected it. She shifted to the side, attempting a follow-up. He blocked that as well. Each exchange revealed the same truth: she pushed herself out of desperation rather than capability.

Her movements were not guided by strength.

They were guided by fear of falling even further behind.

Neji felt no satisfaction in reading that truth so easily. It only reinforced what had been obvious since her first step that morning: she was forcing herself toward an outcome she was never built for, and it showed in every motion she made.

Neji felt no satisfaction in reading that truth so easily. It only reinforced what had been obvious since her first step that morning: she was forcing herself toward an outcome she was never built for, and it showed in every motion she made.

Then—

Without any ado.

“I want to change,” Hinata-sama said. “Naruto showed me.”

Naruto. Again.

Neji felt his jaw tighten. Of course it returned to that boy. Hinata-sama clung to him as if he were some guiding principle rather than a reckless outsider with no discipline and no regard for structure. It irritated Neji more than he wished to admit.

But then—

Neji registered something else. Belatedly.

She had not stuttered. It had been a quiet, steady declaration. Weak in force, but clear.

Hinata-sama shifted into another stance, wincing faintly as her ribs protested. “Ichitaro showed me. I saw him once at the market and he—”

Neji tensed His teeth ground together before he spoke.

“Do not utter his name,” he admonished, voice low. “You have no right.”

She paused once, startled but firm.

Hinata-sama stepped forward with a swift palm strike. Neji met it with his forearm and shoved her off-line without effort. She pivoted and tried to follow with another blow, but he blocked that too. The angle forced him to shift his foot, a minor adjustment that irritated him far more than the strike itself. Her determination created motion, but her weakened body could not sustain it. It was a clumsy mismatch he had seen too many times from her.

She attempted a third strike, a straight thrust toward his sternum. Neji slapped her wrist aside. Her arm swung past him, useless. She stumbled at the redirection and had to catch herself with an awkward step into the grass.

Ichitaro’s name lingered between them like an open wound that she had torn wide with her own hands.

A ten-year-old Branch child. Blinded months ago. Stripped of his Byakugan, stripped of worth in the clan’s eyes. Hiashi-sama had approved the expulsion before the boy could even adjust to his bearings. To a world of total darkness. One utterance. One verdict. No hesitation. No reconsideration.

That was how things were done. Orderly. Efficient. Final.

Ichitaro had been cast aside, probably for days, stumbling around and carrying all that he could carry in bundles that were far too heavy for a child! 

And Hinata-sama dared speak his name here as if she understood anything about what had happened to him. As if she had done anything to safeguard the poor child.

Neji blocked another one of her strikes, catching her palm with the heel of his hand. She pushed against him with almost no leverage, breath shaking, ribs straining under the effort.

The sight of her pathetic attempt at conviction sharpened the pressure in his chest into something cold and furious.

She had always been shielded. Sheltered at convenience. Pushed only when the Main family wished to posture. Never forced into real consequence. Never cornered without a safety net. And now she spoke as though she had any right to invoke the name of a Branch child discarded for circumstances beyond his control.

Neji released her hand sharply and stepped back. The abrupt break in contact made her stumble again. She barely caught herself, and even that small failure only fed the heat rising in him.

She stood there, trembling with effort, insisting she wished to change, while wearing the treatment of the Main family like a second skin.

Persistent. Yes, she was persistent.

But her persistence was too late. Too late that it had never saved anyone in the Branch family.

Too late that it had never saved Ichitaro.

Too late that it would never save anyone from the Branch family.

Too late that it had never saved Neji’s own father from such degrading death. 

Her persistence meant nothing. It was empty noise dressed up as resolve.

Hinata-sama moved again, her foot sliding forward in an unsteady advance. She struck toward his midsection, the motion strained. Neji sidestepped and guided her arm down, forcing her to drop her center of balance or fall. She recovered with a shaky inhale.

“And Sakura-chan…” Hinata-sama said, breath uneven. “When she fought against Ino-chan. She’s a shinobi without a formal clan and yet… and yet—”

“Do not—” Neji snapped.

His voice cut sharper than he intended. He forced it down, lowering it to something colder, almost flat. A warning.

“Do not ever let me hear you utter her name,” he said. “You have no right to speak of her as if you're her equal.”

Hinata-sama froze. The space between them stilled. She stepped backward, lips slightly agape. 

Neji held his stance, but something inside him gripped tighter, like snake coiling and coiling.

Sakura.

Of all the names Hinata-sama could have chosen, she had reached for the one Neji refused to allow out of her mouth.

He forced his breathing to steady. His grip on the moment felt thin.

Months ago. Before Ichitaro’s expulsion. Before the boy’s Byakugan had gone dark forever.

Ichitaro had collapsed and seized hours before dawn, chakra burned thin by the cursed seal’s reaction to his own Byakugan. The compound had been silent. Empty of help. Neji had gone to the Council of Elders. He still remembered the derisive laughter, sharp and dismissive. Then Hiashi-sama’s clipped, opaque words—sanctioning nothing, forbidding nothing, leaving Neji kneeling there with a dying child on his back and half an order he had been forced to interpret.

Neji had run.

He had run until his legs burned, carrying Ichitaro as if the boy weighed nothing at all.

And then Sakura—just a fledgling assistant medic-nin—had met him there.

She had not hesitated. She had not faltered. She had attempted a chakra transfer jutsu she did not fully understand, hands trembling, using an experimental technique because he asked. Her hands had trembled, but she had pressed on because he had begged her. Because she believed he was worth believing.

She saved Ichitaro’s life.

She was expelled from the hospital for it.

Expelled because he had asked her to help.

Sakura, a civilian-born girl with no clan, no status, and no protection, had done more for one Branch child than the entire Hyuuga leadership chose to do.

And Hinata-sama wanted to utter her name as if she understood even a fraction of what Sakura had risked. As if she deserved to speak her name.

Neji stared at Hinata-sama, the morning light catching on the edge of her bandages. She looked small. Thin. Fragile. Weak.

Weak in ways Sakura had never been. Weak in ways Sakura had never allowed herself to be.

Hinata-sama lowered her bandaged gaze, but she did not speak. And Neji felt the tightness in his chest twist.

She had no right to invoke Sakura.

None at all.

“No, Neji-niisan.” The word was sharp, almost breaking the silence between them.

Hinata-sama stood rigid. Stillness filled the space.

“S-Sakura-chan… is my friend,” she said finally, voice small but firm.

She lunged. Her palm struck at him, slower than it should have been. Neji sidestepped and twisted her wrist aside, forcing her to step wide to keep her balance. She tried again, a follow-through strike aimed at his shoulder. He deflected it with the edge of his forearm, pushing her off-line.

“How dare—” Neji started, voice low and fierce, cutting into her movement. He stepped forward, guiding her next swing past him, redirecting her momentum with precise force. She stumbled but caught herself, raising both hands again.

“L-Look a-at m-me. My eyes are b-blinded. I-I d-don’t know if I c-can use my B-Byakugan again,” she admitted, voice trembling.

Rustle. The bandages came off, the cotton sliding from her eyes. She blinked rapidly, adjusting, body stiff, stance unsteady.

Neji observed every motion. Her exposure was a weakness he could exploit with ease. Yet he did not strike. Not yet.

“But e-everything’s c-clear n-now. N-No m-more,” she said, voice wavering but resolute.

Neji scoffed. “You do realize that once your Byakugan is unusable, you would end up just like Ichitaro.”

“I don’t care,” she whispered, lifting her gaze to meet him.

Neji’s teeth gritted. The heat rose in his chest, a bitter taste of disbelief and fury. She spoke of bravery, of friends, of change—and yet she remained blind to what real consequence meant. She was fragile, privileged, protected. She would never understand.

Her persistence, her naïve courage, even her claims of clarity—they were meaningless compared to the cost others had paid. Compared to the recklessness that had almost killed Ichitaro. Compared to Sakura’s courage, her willingness to risk everything for someone she did not even have to save.

And still, Hinata-sama claimed her right to act, claimed her right to defy reality.

Neji stepped closer, gaze narrowing. He did not speak. He did not need to. His controlled presence, the weight in his stance, the sharpness of his movements, conveyed all the warning she had ignored so far.

Inside, the teeth-gritting fury coiled tighter.

She did not care.

She could not know what it meant.

And yet here she was, daring to step forward, to challenge him, to believe she could rise above the rules that had defined life and death for others.

Neji blocked another weak strike. The sweat on her brow caught the morning light. She was defiant. She was pathetic.

“W-Whatever c-consequences, I-I w-would f-face it,” Hinata-sama said, voice quivering but steady in its claim.

Neji stiffened inside. Of course she could say that. Of course she could declare it aloud without fear. She was Main. Privileged. Safe in a way he would never know. She could speak of consequences as if they were merely inconveniences to consider, not chains that could destroy life and rank and family in a single decision.

“I-I k-know. Otou-sama w-wanted H-Hanabi to become t-the n-next h-head. I-I k-know t-that,” she admitted, and a tremor broke through her voice. Tears slipped down her cheeks.

Neji’s eyes widened.

A sob caught in her throat. She raised her trembling hands, thrusting weakly toward him in a desperate sequence of motions. He blocked, redirected, and guided her strikes aside with minimal effort. Her balance wavered, and she staggered slightly.

“A-And I d-don’t c-care,” she continued, voice breaking. Her fists struck again, sloppy, misaligned, but filled with reckless determination.

Another sob escaped her, sharp and raw.

“B-But i-in th-o-off-chance that I t-take the s-seat…” she said, voice low now, almost swallowed by the rustling of the forest around them.

Everything seemed to still. The trees. The leaves. Even the faint chirping of distant birds. The air hung thick and silent, as if the world itself paused to witness her confession.

“T-Then, n-no m-more…” she whispered.

Neji could not speak. The words trembled in the silence around him. But he knew exactly what she meant. No more divide. No more Branch family subjugation. No more hatred. No more oppression under the weight of the Main family’s pride.

He bit his lip. 

‘This is pointless,’ he thought.

She straightened slightly, though her breath shook. “A-and even if I d-don’t, then I w-would s-still accept whatever consequence because it’s s-still my c-choice.”

Neji felt the weight of her words. She could speak them because she had been granted a shield he had never received. She could choose consequences with impunity, and yet the cost for anyone else would have been catastrophic.

He stepped forward, hand moving to deflect her next swing. Every strike she threw carried desire, not strength. Determination, not ability.

Yet the rhythm of her movements faltered, uneven. The words she had spoken clung to him, not as argument, not as defiance, but as something unnameable that could not be deflected, not entirely.

He blocked again, guiding her off-line, but his shoulders felt a fraction heavier. Her breath shook, small sobs caught in it, and for the first time, her resolve seemed to reach beyond the hollow space he had always measured her by.

She stumbled slightly, then pressed forward again. And still, he noticed the way her eyes sought him—not for confrontation, but for acknowledgment, for recognition of something beyond power and failure.

Neji held his stance, jaw tight, muscles rigid, yet he felt the air between them shifted.

She would learn nothing from this, perhaps. But something in her voice and her trembling movements had made the space between certainty and doubt a little narrower than he had expected.

“Enough,” Neji announced, leaping back. His feet landed lightly in the grass, distance cutting between them. “What is it that you hope to achieve by spouting such nonsense, Hinata-sama?’

Hinata-sama lowered her hands, her posture easing back into something less guarded. “Nothing, Neji-niisan.”

Her answer landed too simply. Too cleanly.

“If that is the case, leave me be,” Neji said. His voice dropped, edged, every word dragged through clenched teeth. “I need not your platitudes.”

Hinata-sama flinched at that. The movement was small, quick—almost swallowed by the morning stillness—but he saw it. She stilled, air caught in her chest, before her gaze slid away from him.

She did not argue. She did not insist.

Slowly, she moved toward the base of a nearby tree where her sling bag rested. The leaves rustled faintly as she crouched to gather her things. Her hands were unsteady, but she made no sound—not even when her fingers slipped on the strap.

Once everything was secured, she rose and set off down the narrow path leading back toward the compound.

Her steps were soft, measured, and fading.

Neji did not move. He watched the outline of her form grow smaller between the branches until the forest swallowed her entirely. Only then did he exhale, though not fully. 

Something in his chest refused to settle.

SAKURA

July 16 Year 60, Wednesday

3:51 PM

Sakura tugged at a sleeve, her fingers brushing over the fabric as she tried to ignore the steady thrum of fatigue in her muscles.

“Pig, why are we here again?” she muttered, exasperated.

Ino spun around, hair swinging like a halo, and enunciated each syllable with theatrical precision. “Forehead, fashion. FA-SHION!”

Sakura groaned, dropping the sleeve back onto the rack. The training with Ibiki-sensei had been relentless, leaving her bones aching and her chakra nearly drained. She just wanted to collapse into something soft. “I’m kinda getting tired. Ibiki-sensei’s a slave driver with all of that training. I just want to melt into a goo.”

Ino laughed, the sound sharp and teasing. “Sheesh! Calm your forehead, Sakura. This is for us girls!” She turned to Tenten, her grin widening. “Right, Tenten, my girl!”

Tenten responded with a small, bright cheer. “Hai!”

Sakura felt her gaze soften slightly. It had been a few days since Tenten had started hanging out with them during free time, and she had to admit she found the older girl a pleasant company. Apparently, Ino had gotten close to Tenten while their teams—Team 10 and Team Gai—had stuck together during the Forest of Death portion of the Chuunin Exam. 

“Have you found something, Tenten?” Ino asked, shaking a rack of clothes violently as if brute force might reveal a hidden outfit.

Tenten groaned in frustration. “Ugh! Not yet! Why can’t I just find something both cute and practical? It’s like girls can only be allowed to choose one or the other. Why not both?!”

Ino threw her hands up in mock surrender. “Truer words have never been spoken.”

Sakura felt a flicker of energy pulse through her, a spark she had not realized she was missing. 

Right? Why could she not just be a combat-fashionista? She rolled her eyes at herself. Naruto wore bright orange no matter the mission. Lee-san rocked full-body green spandex. Kiba wore a parka whether it was freezing or scorching. And here she was, whining over a little shopping trip.

“Kyaaa! These are so cute!” Ino squealed, holding up a trio of outfits as if they were precious jewels.

“What is it?” Sakura asked, curiosity prickling despite her fatigue.

“Let me see, girl!” Tenten leaned in, eyes wide, clearly assessing the options like a strategist on the battlefield.

Ino brandished the first set: a sleek purple ninja outfit, the top fitted but flexible, with reinforced stitching at the elbows and knees. It had just enough flair—subtle silver embroidery along the hems—to look stylish without hindering movement.

Next was a black ensemble dominated by mesh panels. More mesh than actual cloth, really, but the panels were cleverly placed to allow for maximum mobility, ventilation, and a hint of daring design. It screamed stealth missions and acrobatics, while still keeping a hint of femininity.

Finally, she held up an indigo-colored set: a lightweight jacket with short sleeves and matching pants, practical yet elegant. Hidden straps on the sleeves and waist allowed for small weapon attachments, and the fabric shimmered faintly in the light, a perfect balance between functionality and subtle style.

Sakura’s eyes lingered on the indigo set. It was practical, but it had enough personality that she would not feel like she was wearing just “mission clothes.” She could actually imagine herself moving freely in it—jumping, striking, even doing taijutsu—without feeling trapped or frumpy.

Ino threw her hands up dramatically. “I’m gonna buy them all! Kyaaa!”

“Eh?” Sakura blinked, caught off guard by the sudden declaration.

“What, Forehead?” Ino wiggled her eyebrows teasingly. “Don’t tell me you’re going to take one of these. Absolutely not! I’m an earning ninja. I have savings. I have the right to these beautiful babies!”

Sakura sighed, rolling her eyes but smiling despite herself. “Sheesh. It’s cute, okay.”

Ino giggled, twirling slightly as if the store itself were celebrating her fashion triumphs.

Sakura turned toward Tenten. “Girl, how about you?”

Tenten let out a long sigh, digging through another rack, her eyes narrowing as if hunting for the perfect target. Then suddenly, they lit up. She held up a green qipao-style set: a fitted shirt with short sleeves, a high collar, and slits along the sides for ease of movement. The matching pants reached just below the knees, loose enough to kick freely but tight enough at the waist to hold small weapon straps. The subtle embroidered patterns along the hem gave it a touch of elegance without getting in the way of combat.

“Oh my gosh! It’s cute!” Ino squealed, leaning over Tenten’s shoulder. “Buy it, girl! You deserve that. You worked hard for your money!”

Sakura glanced between them, suddenly aware of her own hands hovering over the racks. “Wait! I’m gonna buy something too! Don’t pay yet!”

Her fingers danced across the fabric, sifting through textures and colors. She then moved to a different section of the rack.

By now, Ino and Tenten had grown comfortable with the racks, holding their chosen clothes firmly in their arms as they chatted idly.

“You know,” Ino said, leaning over to Tenten, “we should ask Hinata-chan to hang with us.”

Tenten nodded, eyes still scanning her selection. “Agreed.”

Ino turned to Sakura with a playful grin. “What about you, Sakura? What do you think? Think we should add Hinata-chan to the fold?”

“Yes, of course!” Sakura replied, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Girl’s probably holed up in the Hyuuga Manor all day.”

Her eyes drifted over the nearby shelf, then froze. Something—no, several things—caught her attention.

“Kyaaa!!!” Sakura squealed softly, unable to contain her excitement.

Two sets lay neatly folded, waiting for someone like her. One was pure white, the other deep black. Both had short sleeves and shorts that fell loosely around the thighs, just enough to allow freedom of movement without clinging to the skin. The cut was practical—made for running, jumping, or taijutsu—but the subtle designs and color choices made them undeniably cute. The white set had soft, pastel accents along the hems, giving it a light, cheerful feel without being childish. The black set had small embroidered patterns in silver, almost like tiny sparks along the seams, adding a touch of sophistication and quiet flair.

Neither set was revealing, yet both hinted at personality. Both promised comfort and agility, perfect for a kunoichi who needed to move freely while still feeling like herself.

Sakura’s hands hovered over them, excitement mingling with that familiar strategic thought: practical, yes, but something about these sets… she could imagine herself feeling unstoppable in them.

She took them.

“I need more,” she whispered to herself, almost unconsciously.

It felt incomplete. Ino said she would buy the three sets in her hand Sakura wanted another one—something that struck the balance between practical, stylish, and just a little bold.

“Tenten, I have a question,” Ino suddenly said.

“Okay, shoot.”

Ino whispered, “It’s about Neji Hyuuga.”

“Eh? Neji?”

Sakura’s hand paused as it hovered over a deep wine-red set on a hanger, fingers brushing the fabric. 

Sakura turned only to be met with Ino’s expression. Ino was smirking, clearly delighted by some thought as if she won something.

“Is he… like, single?” Ino asked, smiling.

Tenten paused, as if weighing the appropriateness of her answer. “Hmm… I don’t know if this is something I should be sharing, but he’s kinda… sorta engaged. At least, that’s what I overheard.”

Oh.

Sakura froze for a heartbeat. 

Neji was engaged.

‘I see,’ Sakura noted.

Sakura felt her lips pressed into a thin line. She did not linger on the thought. Instead, she turned back to the clothing racks.

Her eyes landed on the red set, and she felt the familiar spark of certainty. It looked like her usual qipao-style outfit, but the sleeves were cut slightly shorter for better movement, the hem of the tunic ended just above mid-thigh for agility, and the side slits were wider, allowing legs full range for taijutsu. The red was vibrant without being flashy, bold without overstepping—perfect for blending practicality and style.

She decided, firmly, to take it.

Tenten looked over Sakura. “Look at the colors. They all suit you.”

Ino’s eyes widened, practically sparkling as she approached. “Whoa, girl! Three sets too? Black, Red, and White? Which are you gonna buy?”

Sakura flipped her hair, smirking. “Why buy one? I gotta buy ‘em all!"

AUTHOR'S NOTES: BEHIND THE SCENES

Prior to writing this chapter, I asked myself a very important question: “Hmmm… What would make me suffer?” And the answer, of course, was: “Write three versions of the same silent, broody boy™ stereotype but give each of them subtle differences.”

Anyway… on to our chapter notes (which, by this point, are basically just masking as poor attempts at character study).

First up: Sasuke

Ah, yes. The primary reason this chapter took me forever to write: Broody Boy #1 himself—Uchiha Sasuke. At this point I feel I deserve a tiny pat on the back, because in the early days of this fic, writing Sasuke’s POV sent me into a small emotional coma every time. Now? Well… I am still suffering, but at least I am suffering efficiently.

One trick I’ve learned is to always anchor his POV in something canon-consistent—something Sasuke would genuinely think, say, or do—and then layer the fix-it elements on top. So I began his POV in familiar territory: his analytical reflection on the bite mark Orochimaru left on him. Sasuke processes trauma at this age with textbook precision:

• minimize emotional severity,
  
  
• maximize strategic implications,
  
  
• convert pain into failure analysis.
  Very on brand for him.
  
  

From that foundation, I rolled in the fix-it aspects:

Sakura: His internal assessment of her post-intervention follows pure Sasuke logic. He does not sentimentalize. He does not praise. He does not soften. But he includes her. And when he evaluates her danger level, he does not lie—not to himself. He cannot. He respects skill wherever it appears, even if his face will never acknowledge it. It is classic Sasuke: accepting someone’s value without offering the emotional credit that would normally accompany it. 

Naruto: Sasuke thinking that Naruto would claw his way out of a grave just to win is exactly the kind of thought he will never say aloud, but absolutely believe. It is not affection. Not jealousy. Just… recalibration. A cold adjustment of expectations. Sasuke mathematically updating his mental model of Naruto. Again—very him.

None of this is warm. None of this is sentimental. Everything is sharp, cold, and honest.

And even though these reflections seem positive, they do not change his trajectory. Every thought he has still loops back to training, falling behind, surpassing others, sharpening himself against threat and weakness. Even his evaluation of Sakura is framed through performance metrics, trajectory lines, and unexpected defiance.

This is the same psychological framework that leads him to his canon choices. The only difference is that in this fix-it, he sees the world with slightly more clarity—because Sakura has already pointed him toward the person most deserving of his hatred: Danzō.

And because Sasuke will eventually see Naruto as a brother-rival, I also wanted to insert a fix-it dynamic where Sakura becomes his intellectual-rival. He internally weighs Sakura’s abilities against battlefield needs, positioning her as a worthy peer. This way, Team 7 stays a proper triad—balanced, tense, mutually catalytic.

Because when Sasuke catalogs Sakura as dangerous—not occasionally, but always—that becomes a kind of bond perfectly consistent with his psychology.

Sasuke does not resent Sakura for becoming strong.

He fears her. And admires her. And envies her. And needs her. And will say none of that. 

So what does it become? Rivalry.

Internal. Silent. Cold. Pressurized. Exactly the type of bond Sasuke actually forms.

But of course, we have to humanize him. One of my biggest gripes with Shippuden is how the narrative made Sasuke too cold in one instance and too flaming in another. I understand the intent—emotional instability, volatility, the pendulum swing of someone collapsing inward—but the execution often stripped him of the small, grounded human cues that made his Part I psychology so compelling.

And for this fix-it, that simply does not work. He already knows the truth about the Uchiha Massacre in this story. His emotional landscape has to reflect that knowledge in a way that preserves momentum instead of flattening it.

So the tweak lies in framing: keep Sasuke on neutral ground, plant the seeds of both fury and ice, but never excise the humanity that canon accidentally sidelined.

This meant returning to the core of the Uchiha identity: love.

Uchiha love is deep, binding, absolute. And when it is injured, it mutates into hatred with equal force.

Darkness does not replace love in Sasuke. Darkness contaminates it. Which means that if something still hurts—if something still tightens his chest—there is something left inside him worth saving.

So the little aches matter.

The tightness behind the sternum.

The “late” sensation he cannot label.

The physical pang that interrupts his analysis whenever he veers too close to the truth he is not ready to articulate.

These are classic Sasuke tells. The same emotional glitches we see in canon whenever: Naruto gets ahead of him, Sakura is hurt, or a bond shifts before he is prepared. It is the same emotional blindness—his heart reacting first, his mind scrambling to make sense of it later.

Which is why his internal hypothesis-testing becomes so revealing:

Hypothesis 1: Was he late realizing she was a rival? No. He already understood that. No sting.

Hypothesis 2: Was he late in training genjutsu? No. He will surpass her. (The defensiveness is loud here. And a little foreshadowing why he suddenly shifted from ninjutsu-major-user from Part 1 to genjutsu-expert-user in Shipudden).

Hypothesis 3: Was he too late for her affections—? And suddenly, PANG. This is the first explanation that is not competitive, not utilitarian, not part of his task-oriented worldview. And his body betrays him instantly.

Before his thoughts can reassert order. Before his pride can deny it. Before he can redirect the discomfort into training metrics or tactical projections. 

His physiology answers for him. Because at his core, Sasuke is still an Uchiha boy whose emotions run so deep that even suppression leaves a residue.

And that’s also the crux of the matter. Sasuke was “too late.” When Sasuke notes Sakura’s gaze losing its softness, admiration, or longing, the prose mirrors how in canon, Sasuke cannot process affection directly but he can detect its absence. Loss, or perceived loss, is the only emotional vocabulary he has.

This brings us to the quiet truth at the center of his POV: Sasuke only realizes something is wrong when the absence of Sakura’s old feelings creates a destabilizing vacuum. This is exactly how a person with low emotional literacy—especially one shaped by trauma—registers a relational shift: the sensation changes first. The cognition comes later, if at all.

And the tragedy is this: he is mourning something he never realized he valued.

Sakura already moved on. Quietly. Without fanfare. Without punishment.

It was not a rejection. It was simply healing.

Who knew healing could hurt someone else? How ironic.

But Sasuke only notices the absence of her past affection now—at the exact moment when it can no longer be reclaimed in its original form. It is like noticing warmth only once the room has gone cold. Or realizing something was comforting only when it is no longer present. Or understanding you were relied upon only when no one reaches for you anymore.

And the worst, most destabilizing part? Sakura’s new neutrality is not punishment. Which makes it infinitely worse for someone like Sasuke.

If she had rejected him loudly—tears, shouting, dramatic confrontation—Sasuke could have categorized it easily:  “Annoying.” “She is being emotional again.” “She is overreacting.”

He could have filed it away as noise. But her quiet moving-on gives him no such defense.

Her care remains. Her steadiness remains. Her support remains.

But the unique parts—the admiration, the softness, the warmth directed only at him—are gone.

And Sasuke cannot fight this because there is nothing to fight.

What makes it even more ironic is this: you cannot be “late” for something you believed you never wanted.

And yet Sasuke feels too late. Why?

Because some quiet, unarticulated part of him did value being special to Sakura. He just never examined it. Never named it. Never allowed himself to feel it. So now the loss lands first—sharp, disorienting, completely uninvited.

And then comes the twist I absolutely love (because y’all been asking for some time if Sakura gets a different summon): Sasuke is the reason Sakura gets her Summoning Scroll. His choice of a summon for her is symbolic in the most Sasuke way possible: a restrained, precise gesture of acknowledgment—gratitude without sentiment, recognition without softness.

This is how he processes indebtedness toward someone he respects but cannot allow himself to openly care about. It reinforces the “too late” motif because the very gift that elevates Sakura is also a quiet admission that she already matters to him more than he intended.

Now, onto the fix-it aspect—because this version of Sakura really changes the trajectory.

In this fic, Sakura could have absolutely stopped him from leaving the village. Not through force. Not through pleading. Not through naïve, romantic declarations. But through sheer emotional gravity.

At this crossroads—the most consequential choice of his life—the thing that shakes him is not Orochimaru, not Itachi, not Danzo, not the curse mark, not even the weight of the Uchiha legacy. It is Sakura.

He hates that. He resists it. He fails. Because ironically, the more Sakura grows, the more her opinion matters to him.

And Sasuke already knows the truth he refuses to say aloud:

Sakura would not stop him. She would let him choose. She would respect his autonomy even if it broke her. (That was Sakura’s motif throughout the fanfic. Agency. Autonomy. Choice.)

And the tragedy? 

“Because with just one word from her, he knew he would stop.”

Sasuke is quietly, painfully grateful that Sakura will not interfere.

He is thankful for the freedom she gives him—even though that freedom ensures he will walk into darkness.

Now, let us talk about the “Avenger” fix-it—because I wanted something different from canon.

In canon, Sasuke often feels swept by the tide of tragedy: Itachi’s massacre, Orochimaru’s presence, the curse mark, the Uchiha downfall.  He is reactive, not chosen—dragged by narrative currents.

But in this fic?  I want Sasuke to actively weigh consequences. To understand that knowledge itself carries a cost.

“The truth… had a price. The price was a choice.”

This is what makes the moment genuinely tragic. Moral dilemmas have no perfect solution. There is no path without loss. No decision that satisfies every moral obligation.

Hiruzen presents him with two options: Stay with the village and the lie or leave for the truth and the power to act.

And no matter which path he takes, Sasuke still heads toward hatred, grief, fury, and darkness. The only difference is clarity.

He is not falling by accident. He is stepping into it knowingly.

As for Neji, calling him “that lowly Hyuuga” is a projection. It is not an insult directed at Neji per se. It is the sharp sting of seeing Sakura’s gaze shift to someone he does not consider worthy—or someone he cannot categorize within his own hierarchy of value. He cannot even finish the thought:

"And that very same lowly Hyuuga seemed to—"

Because completing it would force an admission he is not yet ready to confront:

That he notices Sakura. That he respects her. That he sees her value. That she may admire someone who is not him. Beneath the projection and the clipped judgments, Sasuke allows the faintest crack of honesty:

"Sasuke knew all too well what that gaze meant. The look of someone who had found salvation. Sasuke recognized it because he often saw it reflected in a mirror."

Here, on the precipice of monumental choice, Sasuke grants himself a moment of clarity.

He sees himself in Neji. Not as a rival. Not as a competitor. Not as a threat to be overcome. But in recognition.

He allows himself to recognize the feeling:

If Neji’s gaze toward Sakura is one of devotion, of quiet, unwavering attention, of respect and valuation…

Then perhaps he, too, as well.

Okay! That got dark and somber real fast! Hahaha. But let’s lighten the mood a little.

This chapter also introduces some elements that feel very Shippuden-era, especially with Sasuke learning to summon a hawk and integrating Chidori alongside his katana. I had so much fun thinking through the mechanics of it—how the hawk reflects his strategic mind, how the Chidori sharpens his instinctual aggression. Small touches like these are what make the fix-it a little more tactile, a little more alive, even if the emotional weight gets heavy.

And by the way… I never really explained why this chapter took so long to write because of Sasuke. Silly me! Hahaha.

It’s not actually this Sasuke POV section that was the real killer. No… it was the goodbye scene between Sasuke and Sakura. (Oops! Spoiler alert! But honestly, can you blame me? That scene is emotionally volcanic. I’m still not sure how I survived writing it without crying into my keyboard. LOLJK!)

Second: Gaara

In his previous appearance (way back chapters ago), I mentioned that I struggled writing his reactions—and that was Sakura’s POV, not even his! This time, I decided to challenge myself by peeling back his layers directly during his genin era. And let me tell you: it was hard, y’all. The second reason why this chapter took so long to write was because of Red Boy here.

I had to sit myself down and reflect—really reflect—on why he behaved the way he did in his younger years. I even wandered into the Naruto Wiki hoping for inspiration. It was… fine. But not quite what I needed. So I scrapped that plan and just decided to think things through on my own, because too much hesitation would delay the update beyond what my conscience would allow.

I leaned into Gaara’s mental dynamics through the lens of “love-hate,” only to remember that hate is not actually the opposite of love. It is indifference. So Gaara isn’t bouncing between opposites—he’s living on the extremes of the same spectrum. That became my basis.

In this chapter, I shaped Gaara around “Disillusion vs. Expectation,” which is why he behaves the way he does and questions his own actions. But what sits in the middle of those two? Curiosity. And Gaara, by nature, should be very curious.

In canon, he assesses danger instinctively and often swings toward extreme violence because he is curious about measuring himself against threats like Sasuke and others. He is also curious about what would happen if he tried to emulate Naruto—and look where that got him! He gained followers, repaired his bonds with Temari and Kankurō, and became Kazekage! Achieving all of that, considering who he was as a genin, took major character development. But development only happens when someone is willing to try. And willingness begins with imagining a possibility. Imagining begins with curiosity.

So, in this chapter, I gave him that exact same variable that would keep him from swinging to either extreme: Sakura. Throughout the fanfic, she has been someone I desperately tried to portray as the middle ground. And once I placed her beside him, the thoughts finally began to flow. From then on, I used curiosity as the core of his personality—shaped by his upbringing (hyperlogical, hyperobservant, emotionally detached, culturally alien, socially uncomfortable, and deeply Suna-coded in every instinct). He does not misinterpret the world. He interprets it through the wrong emotional lens. He processes Konoha like an analyst, not like a child soldier who desperately needed ordinary life but never received it.

For the food: canon says his favorite dishes are salted tongue and gizzards, and that actually makes perfect sense when filtered through this lens. Suna food = survival. Konoha food = comfort. He evaluates the world based on necessity, not pleasure.

For people: Suna teaches children to survive. Konoha lets children live. So Gaara’s fixation on Sakura not checking in with her family reveals more about him than about her. What is ordinary to Sakura feels radical to Gaara. Safety, for him, is conditional. Freedom is foreign. Autonomy is suspect.

For hospitality: this is a mundane concept to Sakura. She mentions it casually, with zero emotional weight. But for Gaara, it becomes the pivot that dredges up his lived experience with fear-based civility. And once again, this calls back to the earlier point—his tendency to swing between extremes on the same spectrum.

As a genin and the son of the Kazekage, Gaara has probably visited foreign nations before. The hospitality he knows is a weapon sheath, a performance, a polite mask placed over revulsion—a ritualized form of fear management. So when Sakura uses that same word so casually, the cognitive dissonance hits him like a brick. He must examine it. Her demeanor shatters his entire working model of human interaction.

Because in a world full of clans and secret jutsu, what is Sakura’s power? Normalcy. She is normal. And that normalcy is the strangest, most destabilizing thing Gaara has ever encountered. In his POV, she walks ahead without checking if he is behind her, she gets annoyed when he does not move, she talks to him like he is a mildly irritating foreign tourist, and she does not measure her breathing, posture, or tone.

(Or maybe Sakura was just that good at acting? No, not really. Yes, there is some of that, but remember her conclusion from their last interaction: that perhaps it is better to treat Gaara the way Naruto would.)

The result is that Sakura treats him normally even before his redemption is earned. Most stories only give Gaara true acceptance after the Naruto fight, after Chiyo’s sacrifice, after he becomes Kazekage. So I wanted to try something different: someone treats him as a person first, not as someone who will hopefully become a person later.

Then comes the question: “But is it really just hospitality?” And the answer is no. It was not meant to be sentimental, dramatic, or hopeful. It was simply… normal. And that normalcy becomes the spark that destabilizes everything Gaara thinks he knows.

It is analytical because that is who he is, and yet a small part of him still yearns to be cared for and loved (because that is the core want buried under all that trauma). The line was meant to convey something like: he does not know what real kindness looks like, he does not assume her motives are pure, he has no frame of reference for someone who treats him as an equal—and yet, he is drawn to it anyway, like a moth to a flame.

Now let us move to the idea of two souls. Gaara does not trust kindness. He does not understand warmth. But he does understand fear, power, survival, self-control, danger, internal voices, and the presence of “something else” inside a person. So what does he do? He tries to categorize Sakura using the only schema he has: “Is she fearless because she has another entity inside her—like Shukaku?”

And because he is curious by nature, Gaara cannot help but be drawn in. Inner Sakura’s emergence during Sakura vs. Ino becomes instrumental here. Through Gaara’s lens, people do not act because of personality or upbringing—they act because of monsters. That is the framework that saved his childhood. And yet Sakura does not radiate the madness that compounds him. She becomes an exception that breaks his worldview.

In short, Sakura is not a threat. Sakura is a contradiction. And contradictions destabilize Gaara more than enemies. Why? Because “Gaara is not bouncing between opposites—he is living on the extremes of the same spectrum.” She disrupts that spectrum simply by existing.

As for Sakura: her lack of fear is not played for comedy or ego. She is calm because she is competent by this point in the fic. She has interacted with him before, she sees a hint of Naruto in him, and she is still subtly gathering information in a natural, effortless kunoichi way (because she is a boss, let us be honest). She talks to him like a person because she actually sees him as one. And Gaara being thrown off by that is narratively delicious.

It is not “Sakura is different.”
It is “Sakura refuses to treat him like the sum of the whispers around him.”

And that is exactly the kind of interaction that would snag Gaara’s attention like a burr. That is why I snuck in this exchange:

“Johyō Girl.”
“Red Boy.”

Dry. Clipped. Understated. Exactly how two teenagers with their personalities would throw shade at each other without admitting that they are, in fact, throwing shade. It is a tiny spark of social friction that also doubles as connection.

Now, in relation to his curiosity: everything he notices irritates him. Everything that irritates him intrigues him. Everything that intrigues him threatens his neat, rigid understanding of the world. Gaara expects fear or deference; Sakura gives calm reasoning and mild insolence. Which is exactly what Sakura represents to him.

I wanted to write it as a subtle (I know, I keep using this word, but subtlety is the only believable way I could portray Gaara at this point in the timeline—pardon moi for not conceiving something more sophisticated than this. Feel free to suggest, hahaha) form of early connection-building that does not break canon characterization for either of them. Sakura refuses to fear him. Gaara, having never been treated this way by someone outside his team, cannot look away. And all because of… yes, our beloved culprit: curiosity.

His whole POV is also meant to foreshadow his Kazekage-ship in Shippuden. I also tried subtly weaving in some geopolitical nuance into his genin characterization—Gaara analyzes his environment like a weapon. Even shopping becomes a tactical breakdown: climate, supply chains, merchant routes, preservation methods, geographical choke points, storage seals. His world is a battlefield disguised as a marketplace.

When Sakura interacts with him, Gaara observes the exact things he desperately needs but cannot articulate yet—inner balance, identity without violence, connection without fear. Sakura becomes the living example of a life he cannot even imagine for himself… yet.

First, Gaara notices something he has never seen: a “monster” who is not a monster. He assumes Sakura’s calm must come from something inhuman inside her—because that is his schema.
Shukaku makes him brutal → therefore “two souls = violence.”
But Sakura’s “two souls” show no violence at all. This forces Gaara to confront an uncomfortable new question: “If she has two souls and is still peaceful, then why am I not?”

That seed of curiosity is exactly what would help (not fully cause, but help) push his character toward who he becomes in Shippuden. Because ultimately, Gaara’s arc is the assertion: “I am not only what Shukaku made me.”

Second, it foreshadows Gaara’s belief in coexistence (Shippuden Kazekage arc), where he becomes an embodiment of balance:

He and Shukaku can coexist. His anger no longer dominates. He leads without succumbing to bloodlust.

Gaara is witnessing the future version of himself before he even knows it is possible. Sakura functions as the prototype of what Gaara will eventually become: someone who houses inner turmoil but lives with grace and control. This is why he watches her mannerisms so closely, and why he is drawn to her even though he does not understand the pull.

Third, this foreshadows his longing for connection (Naruto’s influence later). In canon, Naruto teaches Gaara that bonds give meaning to strength. But in this fix-it, the first person who transitions him—or becomes the middle ground, the model of a bond without fear—is Sakura. And this happens not through friendship speeches, and not through dramatic battles (those belong to Naruto later). Sakura simply exists as proof that human connection does not always come with conditions or danger. Her presence does not “change” him, but it primes him.

Naruto does not need to “break through” a wall—Sakura has already cracked it open.

Fourth, it foreshadows Gaara’s Shippuden leadership style. Shippuden Gaara is defined by:

• calm decisiveness
  
  
• gentle authority
  
  
• rationality
  
  
• protection of others
  
  
• trust-building
  
  

In this chapter, Gaara analyzes Sakura’s behavior—not to judge her, but to learn from her. He studies her reasoning. He considers her worldview seriously. He does not dismiss her perspective simply because it contradicts his. And that is the mental discipline of a future Hokage-tier leader.

Sakura is not just helping him look for food. She is giving him his first model of nonviolent power—the kind of power that transforms without coercion, the kind of power Gaara will one day embody as Kazekage.

But will this lead to anything romantic? I have not decided yet. I am allergic to straightforward harem stories unless the “harem” isn’t purely romantic. So the most likely direction is: people (the “harem”) gravitate toward Sakura because she is the IT GIRL™—magnetic, competent, grounded—and everyone notices, even if she does not.

Besides, if Sasuke is “too late,” Gaara is “too early,” because he meets Sakura at a moment when she is only beginning to become the kind of person he will one day understand—but not yet the person he could realistically connect with romantically. He is someone who does not even know what normal human warmth is. So when Sakura treats him like a person, not a monster, it strikes him in a way he has no vocabulary for.

He is not falling in love—he is experiencing bewilderment, the first seed of trust, the first moment of being treated without fear. This is not romance yet. This is the first connection of his future humanity.

The second reason is simple: Sakura is too far ahead of him emotionally. She has the stability, nuance, and lived experience he lacks. She is fluent in social cues he has never learned. She is operating in a paradigm of kindness and competence he cannot yet even imagine.

So for now, GaaSaku being romantic is nothing more than a wistful, quiet “what if.”

And honestly? I mean—come on—I refuse to suffer alone. All of us must suffer. MWAHAHAHAHA!

Anyway, by the end of their interaction, Gaara is destabilized—and not by murder, trauma, or bloodlust, but by a very mundane question:

“You have teammates, right?”

Sakura asks a normal, social, friendly question that assumes: teamwork exists, camaraderie exists, shared responsibility exists, someone might think of others when buying food.

To Gaara—whose entire childhood has been the opposite of those assumptions—this is a linguistic intrusion into his worldview. In Gaara’s world, there is no teamwork, there is no shared responsibility, there is no teasing because emotional intimacy does not exist.

Sakura treats him like a peer. Gaara treats the world like a battlefield.

And yet his world cracks a little because—

He remembers Temari likes sweet chestnuts and kenchin soup, and Kankurō always demands steak.

He remembers. Easily. Instinctively. Effortlessly.

Which means: he has been observing his siblings. He has been storing details. He does care, in a way he refuses to admit. His isolation is cracked—not absolute.

And the irony? The funniest part? The most Gaara-coded twist?

It is not Sakura who causes this crack. It is his own memories, resurfacing because of his innate curiosity—his fatal flaw, his saving grace, his entire character arc compressed into one small moment.

Curiosity nudges him. Memory answers. And for the first time, the battlefield inside him shifts.

Third: Neji

Okay! So—yes—you might have noticed that Neji’s POVs have been multiplying like rabbits. I promise this is not favoritism (probably). It is simply because we are inching closer and closer to the Chūnin Exam Finals, where Naruto finally shatters Neji’s fatalism into fine, glittering powder. And naturally, to appreciate the big smash, we need to watch the little cracks beforehand, spreading and splintering like glass under pressure.

And in Neji’s POV, that pressure? It is Hinata. It is always Hinata. Or rather: what she represents.

When we open the scene, the entire passage is built around Neji’s observational precision—both a character trait and a narrative tool. Every detail matters to him: Hinata-sama’s foot dragging half an inch too far, her elbow dipping a fraction late, the slight stutter in her kata. He does not simply “see” Hinata falter. He dissects, categorizes, annotates—because he is a prodigy who has spent years watching the Main Family for weakness. His Byakugan is not just a bloodline ability. It is a worldview.

But sight does not equal truth. It only offers perception.

Hinata thinks she is showing “change.” Neji perceives only “persistence born of duty.” And I want the narrative to hold that tension. I do not want to tell you who is correct. I want to show what Neji has the emotional, political, and spiritual bandwidth to see. And right now, that bandwidth is… narrow. Like, Hyūga-clan-politics narrow.

So Neji is both correct (Hinata’s form is objectively compromised) and incorrect (Hinata’s actions are driven by genuine conviction, something he simply cannot conceptualize yet). Why? Because Neji is a deeply biased and deeply unreliable narrator—even when the spotlight is fully on him.

His unreliability does not look like emotional turbulence. Neji does not have emotional outbursts. His trauma is quiet, clinical, and encoded in the precise, almost mathematical way he interprets Hinata’s movements. His fixation on whether Hiashi “allowed” this. His irritation at the logic of her choices, not the danger of her injury. His dismissal of her words as naïve because Main and Branch cannot, in his mind, ever occupy the same moral dimension.

He is not overwhelmed by feelings. He is overwhelmed by a worldview that has imprisoned him from childhood.

So I want to bring him closer to his canon sharpness—that cool, chilling edge beneath the calm surface. Neji’s most cutting lines should not sound like insults; they should feel like diagnoses:

“Preposterous.”

“You expect me to believe that…?”

“You’re here stuttering like a frail little lamb…”

These are not tantrums. These are conclusions. His cruelty is not emotional; it is rationalized oppression. The horror is that Neji does not think he is being cruel. He thinks he is being objective.

That is the root of his unreliability: ideological blindness.

He was raised in a system so rigid that he literally cannot interpret Hinata’s motives outside of that system. Every one of his interpretations is filtered through indoctrination. He believes Main Family actions are inherently self-serving, that their “change” is illusion, that Hinata’s weakness is structural rather than situational, and that she cannot ever truly act from agency—only obedience.

These beliefs were carved into him by years of imbalance, the curse mark, Hiashi’s treatment, and the clan’s narrative about fate.

So when Hinata finally moves from genuine choice, Neji’s entire ideological framework simply cannot compute it. He does not understand it, so he translates it into something he can understand: duty. Obligation. Pressure from above.

His unreliability comes from social conditioning, not from dishonesty.

And from that foundation of “cold calculus,” I wanted to escalate things—dramatically. (Hinata fans, I swear I am begging on my knees: I do not hate her. I actually like her a lot. She is just, unfortunately, the perfect spark for Neji’s fury, precisely because everything she is represents everything he was denied. In that sense, the two of them are mirrors turned at painful angles.)

So when Hinata speaks of Naruto, something sharp flickers in Neji. Naruto’s name is an irritant to him—because Naruto represents disruption, unpredictability, idealistic nonsense that refuses to follow the blueprint Neji has resigned himself to. Naruto is a glitch in Neji’s worldview.

But when Ichitaro is mentioned? Oh boy. Neji practically combusts. Hinata invoking Ichitaro is a pressure point so deep it borders on cruelty—not because Hinata means it that way, but because Ichitaro symbolizes everything permanent and merciless about Neji’s reality: the Branch family’s disposability, the clan’s systemic violence, and the grief embedded in his father’s fate. All of it is suddenly live ammunition.

And in that state, Neji begins to weaponize:

• He weaponizes Hinata’s privilege against her.
  
  
• He rewrites her intent into Main Family arrogance.
  
  
• He interprets her tremors as hypocrisy rather than pain.
  
  
• He assumes a moral high ground that he does not actually possess.
  
  

So in this moment, the contrast sharpens:

Hinata is trembling, weak, barely upright—but determined.

Neji is physically immaculate, technically perfect—but emotionally destabilized.

Hinata’s body is failing.

Neji’s ideology is failing.

Both of them are unraveling in real time—but Neji, bound by his worldview, acknowledges only her unraveling, never his own.

Because at this point, he is no longer analyzing—he is reacting.

He is no longer observing Hinata—he is projecting onto her.
He is no longer interpreting her actions—he is indicting the entire Main Family through her.

And when Hinata mentions Sakura’s name?

Oh, that is not just anger. That is volcanic, because Sakura’s name strikes the deepest, most contradictory wound inside him. To Neji, it feels like a desecration—not because Hinata means harm, but because of everything Sakura represents in his internal landscape.

First: Sakura is Neji’s unreachable sacred ground—the only person who ever chose him.

Neji’s life is defined by dehumanization: the Main Family stripping autonomy, Ichitaro being treated as disposable, his father dying for politics dressed up as duty. And then one civilian-born girl defied all of it. She saved Ichitaro when no Hyuuga would. She was expelled from the hospital because Neji asked for help—because she helped someone the clan deemed unworthy.

Sakura, in Neji’s worldview, becomes the single moment he was treated like a human being instead of a seal-bearer.

So when Hinata—Main Family, heir, sheltered, protected—speaks Sakura’s name, Neji experiences it as intrusion. Like a sacred space being stepped on with muddy shoes.

Second: Hinata has never paid the price Sakura paid.

From Neji’s perspective, Hinata’s life is full of safety nets: pushed when convenient, shielded when convenient, allowed to fail without consequence. Meanwhile, Sakura was punished for saving a child’s life.

So what Neji hears beneath Hinata’s innocent “Sakura-chan” is:

“I, who lost nothing, will now invoke the name of the girl who paid a price I never will.”

In Neji’s mind, this feels like appropriation—not in a malicious way, but in a gut-wrenching, existential way.

Third: Hinata compares herself to Sakura—and Neji refuses this equivalence.

This is where his temper truly ruptures. Not because Hinata speaks Sakura’s name, but because she uses Sakura as inspiration.

To Neji’s trauma-twisted logic, this is almost obscene. Hinata has never saved anyone. She was powerless to save Ichitaro. Her suffering, to him, is “privileged suffering”—pain wrapped in safety nets.

But Sakura? Sakura defied hierarchy, defied medical protocol, defied the Hyuuga itself. Sakura risked everything.

So to Neji, the idea that Hinata can stand beside Sakura is simply impossible. Hence his sharpest line: “Do not ever let me hear you utter her name. You have no right to speak of her as if you’re her equal.”

This is his closest brush with unhinged intensity—and ironically, the clearest window into his devotion.

Yes, we joke that it is NejiSaku propaganda (which, fair), but this moment is meant to show us the dark side of devotion. The kind that threatens to eclipse everything else.

Let me pivot for a moment here. I just want to clarify something here because the dark side of devotion is, in fact ,truly dangerous. Neji’s world is an iron cage so whhen Sakura breaks that script during the Ichitaro incident, she becomes the one data point that contradicts everything he has been taught. This is good and all but traumatized characters latch onto contradictions like lifelines. This is how devotion can start to resemble ideological rebellion disguised as affection.

Next, sacredness is beautiful, yes—but sacredness can also become protectionism. Neji’s violent reaction to Hinata invoking Sakura’s name is not primarily about Hinata. Sacred devotion, when rooted in trauma, becomes territorial. Even if the character is not conscious of it.

Neji’s devotion becomes dark because it operates under the guise of: “I am simply stating truth,”
“I am protecting reality,” or  “I am guarding what is right.” When devotion hides behind logic, it becomes more controlled, more precise, and more merciless. Something far scarier than emotional outbursts.

When Hinata unearths Neji’s memory of Sakura, it becomes a foundation of agency. When Hinata speaks Sakura’s name, Neji’s dark devotion flares because he feels: “You are taking the one thing that is mine,” “You are touching the only moment of freedom I ever had,” or  “You are entering the space where I am human, not branded.” This is the dark undercurrent:  devotion shaped by scarcity.

Next, Neji uses his devotion to justify sharpness, territorial anger, ideological rigidity, and emotional defensiveness but he does not use it to comfort himself. He does not indulge in fantasies or hope.

This makes the devotion dark not in outcome, but in structure. It drives action outward, not inward. It wounds others, not himself. It manifests as judgment, not longing.

This is the same mechanism that drives fictional characters to become yandere.

The good news is, as his arc accelerates toward liberation, his devotion will lighten, mature, normalize, become respect rather than one-sided sacredness, become connection rather than fixation. 

But the dark phase is necessary. It is the shadow before clarity. As I have said beforehand, this is the time to lean Neji into his darker persona in canon.

Continuing on…

Fourth: Sakura symbolizes the one moment Neji broke out of the cage.

That night—running through the dark with Ichitaro dying in his arms—is Neji’s axis. The moment that defined his shame, guilt, rebellion, hope, and helplessness all at once. Sakura occupies that memory. Hinata occupies the system that caused it.

So when Hinata says “Sakura-chan,” what Neji hears is:

“The heir of the system that destroyed us is invoking the only person who saved us.”

It is unbearable.

Fifth: Hinata speaking Sakura’s name trespasses on Neji’s private grief.

Sakura is his secret, his miracle, his shame, his gratitude, his forbidden attachment. That night is a locked room in his heart, barred and dark.

Hinata unknowingly steps right into it.

And that—more than anger, more than ideology—is why Neji flares so violently. He is guarding sacred ground with the only weapon he has: fury disguised as logic.

But as much as Neji is tangled in darkness, bias, and beautifully flawed reasoning, something finally pays off. Because if Sasuke is “too late,” and Gaara is “too early,” then Neji occupies the final, strangely satisfying temporal slot:

“Just in time.”

Neji stands right at the threshold of change—where fate begins to crack and choice begins to shine through. And Sakura fits into this newly forming paradigm. His respect and devotion (no matter how dark it is right now) for her emerges at the exact moment he is rewriting himself. She becomes a fixed point in this reframed worldview, a constant around which his new understanding can stabilize.

He is not late.

He is not early.

He is timely.

Neji is meeting Sakura at the one moment he is capable of seeing her clearly. And even though he is currently exploding like a repressed volcano with excellent posture, we all know what this leads to. His arc bends forward—toward connection, toward healing, toward valuing people beyond fate.

And every time Sakura appears in his POV, he keeps choosing her. Unconsciously. Instinctively. As if she is the calibration point for his internal compass.

His “just in time” is the beginning of a partnership—a spiritual alignment with her emotional wavelength.

Because Neji is introspective, perceptive, observant. He listens beneath words. He notices the temperature of silence. He reads the emotional micro-shifts that other characters stumble right past.

And Sakura—whose entire emotional landscape in this fic is built on things she does not say aloud—needs someone who can read those silences.

Neji is the only one who truly can.

Fourth: Sakura

So, Sakura-chan? Which color will it be? Black? Red? or White?