Chapter Text
Fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven…
He caught her by the forearm, and Sakura was almost hanging off him, her full weight pressed against his shoulder, her face buried in the hollow of his neck. Her breathing was uneven, scorching his skin with every step. He ran as fast as his condition allowed, and every sharp movement echoed through her body—she flinched involuntarily, her breath breaking against his ear.
One of her hands was clenched desperately in his cloak; the other was pressed to her side, her abdomen, where a dim green light flickered beneath her palm. Sasuke kept shifting his gaze—down at the ground, measuring every step so as not to catch on stones or fallen trees, then back again, over and over, to her stomach. He could see the mass of chakra inside her circulating unevenly, shuddering, as if it were about to come apart, and something deep beneath his ribs tightened painfully at the sight.
“Why did you follow me?!” the words tore out of him.
Forty-three, forty-two, forty-one…
Everything inside him was boiling. Of course, it was easiest to blame her—it gave him a way to spill the helplessness and the dull, grinding rage drilling through his body from within. Lashing out at her, he was trying to drown out the voice inside his own head, the one accusing him instead: you told her yourself to run after the boy. You didn’t hold her. You let her fall. Damn useless idiot. And now you dare blame her for it? Shut up and run faster.
He tried to pick up the pace, but the poison was still binding his movements—his muscles felt heavy as lead, slow to obey his commands.
Thirty-five, thirty-four, thirty-three, thirty-two…
Right by his ear, through his own ragged breathing, he heard Sakura’s sobs.
Well done. She’s crying because of you. Say something—anything.
“I can see the chakra in your stomach! Just… keep healing!”
He tried to sound calmer, but tension and fear still broke through his voice. Her fingers tightened on his cloak, lightly scraping his left shoulder. She nodded, and the green glow in her hands flared even brighter.
Thirty-two, thirty-one…
“Sasuke-kun, please… faster…”
Her plea, torn out through pain, only sharpened his fear. Forcing himself, Sasuke looked at Sakura’s face—and felt a surge of horror. She was drenched in sweat; her hair clung to her forehead, her teeth were sunk into her lower lip, and tears had left pale tracks on her dirt-smeared cheeks after the fight.
“Byakugō,” Sasuke blurted out nervously, racing through possibilities in his head. “Why aren’t you using it?!”
“I can’t!” Sakura forced out through the pain.
Sasuke didn’t question her further and simply kept running. Trees flashed past around them; the light filtering through the canopy began to flicker faster than it had ten seconds earlier—the poison was gradually receding, and he was already moving quicker than before.
Thirteen, twelve, eleven, ten, nine…
Ahead, a massive fallen tree lay across the path. He leapt over it and landed heavily. Sakura’s breathing grew even more labored and uneven as she clung to his shoulder with all her strength, holding herself up with her one free hand.
“Are you okay like this?” he asked, guilt creeping into his voice without slowing his pace.
She shook her head.
Sasuke was angry at himself—and at her, but most of all at himself. Whether from rage or simply because enough time had passed, he felt it: his body was almost fully under control. His running speed returned to normal, and he once again sensed command over his own chakra.
Three, two, one!
Susanoo.
A massive surge of violet chakra flared around him and Sakura in an instant—and to his relief, it formed a complete manifestation of the technique. The chakra lifted them upward, nearly a hundred meters into the air, and beneath their feet took shape the body of a long-nosed warrior clad in heavy armor plates, its broad wings unfurling.
Susanoo beat them several times, carrying them above the treetops.
Sasuke carefully lowered Sakura to the ground and dropped to one knee himself. She awkwardly rolled back, bracing against his leg, and pressed close to him, breathing heavily. She was still writhing in pain, yet she didn’t stop directing the green healing chakra into her side. Sasuke kept his eyes on her stomach—the mass of chakra inside was still trembling faintly, unevenly.
“The Grass Village isn’t far. We’ll get there quickly,” he said, trying to steady both Sakura and himself.
“Everything will be fine…” she replied faintly. “I’ve been through worse.”
A memory flashed before Sasuke’s eyes—Madara piercing her through, just as he had once pierced Sasuke himself. Back then, it had felt as though his soul had fled through his heels; it was in that moment he had realized just how powerful Sakura’s regenerative technique truly was. After a wound through the chest, he had crossed to the other side and returned only by a miracle—while for her, such an injury had been no more dangerous than a mosquito bite.
And yet now she refused to use Byakugō.
As if reading his thoughts, Sakura spoke softly.
“…Byakugō stimulates the body’s proteins, forcing cells to divide rapidly and restore tissue instantly. But a fetus has to develop naturally. If I accelerate cell division now… I don’t know how it might affect the child. I could disrupt the stages of her organ formation.”
Sakura’s breathing grew heavy, as though she had spent the last of her strength on the explanation, and her gaze dropped despite herself. Beneath them, the forest still stretched on, split by turbulent rivers.
“I can already see the village on the horizon. Hold on,” Sasuke said, gripping her shoulder and biting down on his lip.
“The teenager… that was Ranmaru*. I recognized him. He has a dōjutsu too.” Sakura’s fingers spasmed around the edge of his cloak, forcing his attention.
Now everything fell into place. He needed to follow Sugaru immediately—too many signs pointed to his connection with Chino’s disappearance. Reason demanded that he change course at once and go after him. But as he looked at Sakura’s pale face and felt her uneven breathing against his shoulder, Sasuke was torn apart: for the first time in a long while, the mission slipped into the background.
The Grass Village hospital stood out among the surrounding buildings by its sheer size. After circling the village a couple of times—sending the locals scattering in panic and drawing the attention of shinobi leaping across rooftops to stare at the enormous purple, winged giant—Susanoo finally came down with a heavy landing in front of a three-story building with a large 医 sign by the entrance.
Sasuke kicked the hospital doors open, Sakura in his arms, throwing the staff and patients into chaos. One of the nurses—the first to recover from the shock of the strange visitors and the armored giant who had appeared in the courtyard as suddenly as he had vanished—quickly rushed a gurney over to them. Sasuke carefully laid Sakura onto it and immediately tightened his grip on her hand.
“Where’s the doctor?!” he demanded, his voice rising as he shot a quick look around.
Several more medics hurried over and began wheeling Sakura toward the corridor of examination rooms. Her fingers started to slip from his grasp, and he reflexively caught her hand again, following the gurney. Sakura pushed herself up on her elbows, trying to hold on to him as well.
“Relatives aren’t allowed any farther. Clear the corridor,” the doctor said briskly.
“We’ll be fine. Go after Sugaru,” she smiled through the pain. “Help that boy and Chino.”
Sasuke wanted to say something, but they weren’t given the chance. Her fingers slipped from his hand, and Sakura was taken away for good. He stood frozen with his arm outstretched until the gurney disappeared around the corner of the corridor. His fingers slowly curled around nothing.
And then anger washed over him.
Sasuke turned sharply and strode away, his Sharingan flaring as he stared straight ahead, past people and walls alike.
⸻
The sun was slowly sinking beyond the horizon, staining the sky with thick, unsettling shades of crimson. The forest cooled and darkened, stealing the last remnants of daytime warmth with every step. One by one, the sunlit glimmers faded until they vanished completely. A shadow flashed between the treetops—huge, black. It surged forward, pushing off with such force that bark cracked beneath his feet.
A small snake was coiled around his wrist, its forked tongue flickering almost imperceptibly as it pointed the way. Sasuke only glanced at it now and then, immediately returning his gaze forward.
His vision gradually narrowed, stretching into a tight corridor. The forest around him seemed to retreat and dissolve into darkness, and ahead—through branches and shadows—only a single figure remained, the target he was inevitably closing in on, feeling the urge swell inside him to catch up, knock him down, and crush his throat.
Sasuke was satisfied that he had recently put his blade in order—sharpened it, washed it with the last of the sake, polished it to a cold, clean gleam. That meant the strike would land precisely, at the right angle. He already knew how it would happen: the blade would slide smoothly into the neck, and hot drops of blood would spray across his cheeks. He would lean a little closer—not out of curiosity, but to hear better how the man beneath him choked on his own rasping breath.
Beneath him lay himself.
The only person worth pointing a finger at, upon whom every arrow of malice should be loosed, whose face deserved to be spat in. The one who should be beaten with a wet whip, again and again, ten thousand times if need be, and then sent to hard labor for the rest of his days.
It was himself—Uchiha Sasuke.
How recently he had spoken to Sakura with absolute confidence, claiming he was the famed Uchiha, master of all elements, the Fourth of the Six Paths, strong enough to protect his family. And yet was he still as useless as he had been back when he was a shinobi of the lowest rank? Did he once again need to rely on someone else to protect Sakura? Because on his own—he was a weak, crippled thing?
He pushed off the next branch with such force that it couldn’t withstand it—cracked, snapped in two, and fell into the darkness of the forest below. Sasuke didn’t even look back.
Exactly.
Arrogance and pomposity did nothing to adorn a cripple. They only underlined the truth—that he was a jester. If people were laughing at him, he would step into the same circle and laugh along with them, at himself.
But there was no whip, no jeering crowd eager to mock him—no one but himself. And Sakura, if she knew about these obsessive thoughts of his, would say he was far too cruel to himself. That was precisely why Sugaru would fall under his hot hand now. Everything he had been storing inside would come crashing down on him—the full weight of this self-flagellation.
What he wanted to do to himself, he would do to him—after tearing the truth out of him.
One long, invisible thread pulled him forward—toward where the beckoning snake pointed, the one he had ordered to track Sugaru after the man seized the teenager and slipped away while Sasuke was occupied with Sakura.
Another thread tugged him backward, toward the hospital. It was stretched so tight it cut into his chest, crushing his breath. The moment he slowed, stopped even for an instant, it would have yanked him back with a sharp, relentless pull.
He had to finish with Sugaru before the end of the day—and return as quickly as possible.
Sugaru. Sugaru. Sugaru!
Chakra surged from his palm—long and dense, like the Kusanagi blade forged from lightning itself. It shot forward, cutting deep into the forest, leaving behind a crackling roar and blinding flashes of light.
⸻
Three men and a teenager were settled in an open clearing, hemmed in on all sides by the dark forest. The sun had slipped below the horizon, leaving a crimson band smeared across the sky. Three small birds were roasting over the fire—fat dripping into the flames, hissing and flaring, breaking the thickening silence.
“Aren’t we feeding this one?” asked the man with the scar across his face.
“Waste of meat,” Sugaru replied, casting a glance at Ranmaru, who sat with empty eyes, staring at a single point between his knees. “He doesn’t understand anything anyway.”
The scarred man waved a hand in front of his face, but Ranmaru didn’t react.
“Fifteenth on the list. There are about six left somewhere. You weren’t tailed, were you?” asked the third man, with short red hair.
“Uchiha Sasuke,” Sugaru answered.
The other two fell silent. Once again, only the crackle of the fire could be heard.
“We need to get back to base as soon as possible. We’re not in a state to deal with him right now,” the redhead spoke again. “Looks like Konoha finally decided to set him on our trail.”
Sugaru snorted without lifting his gaze.
“We eat, then we move,” he said, reaching for the meat.
He lifted one of the birds from the fire and brought it to his mouth—when suddenly he realized his hand was no longer obeying him, going numb.
His gaze slid downward: the meat slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground, and just above his chest protruded a blade of chakra, threaded through with lightning. Slowly, he raised his eyes along the entire length of that blade—to where it vanished into the depths of the dark forest. His companions stared in shock, their faces flicking between him and the gaping wound in his chest.
From within the forest came the rustle of leaves, followed by the sudden cry of countless birds taking flight. And in the very next moment, a tall, imposing young man stepped out from beneath the shadow of the trees, dressed entirely in black. The lightning in his hand flooded the forest with a cold blue light, tearing figures from the darkness and making his young, impassive face look even harsher.
Sugaru’s two companions sprang to their feet. One of them kicked the campfire—embers scattered, and the clearing was instantly swallowed by darkness.
The only remaining source of light was the glow of Chidori Eiso, flooding the clearing with a cold blue radiance and tearing sharp movements from the dark—shinobi desperately trying to form hand seals and use any technique at all against the Uchiha.
They didn’t make it.
Their bodies seized abruptly, fingers freezing mid-motion, unable to form the required signs. Almost at the same time, both lifted their gazes upward, somewhere above the Uchiha’s head. Their faces twisted, sweat beaded at their temples—and in the next instant, they screamed in pure terror and collapsed to the ground as if cut down.
Sasuke advanced toward Sugaru, his arm extended forward. Sugaru stared at him intently, defiantly, but with every step the waves of electricity coursing through his body grew stronger. His muscles locked, and he fell onto his back, completely stripped of control.
The young man approached unhurriedly. Stopping directly over him, he kicked the fire—embers scattered and burned Sugaru’s ankle, leaving a smoldering mark on his skin. Sasuke crouched before him, looming like a vast black arc. Sharp strands of hair fell forward, revealing only the right side of his face, washed in cold blue and crimson hues.
“I know you’re from the Aburame clan,” the Uchiha finally spoke, his voice even and cold. “I saw one of your insects crawling over you. Bugs like that don’t live in these parts.”
Sugaru smirked as much as his numb body allowed. All the insects inside him were paralyzed as well. Sasuke glanced aside. Ranmaru was still sitting motionless, paying no attention to him or to his captors, now scattered across the clearing in defeat.
“What list were you just talking about?” he asked, turning his gaze back to Sugaru.
Sugaru only breathed heavily, staring at him through clouded eyes.
“I see…”
The lightning-infused chakra stopped flowing from Sasuke’s hand, and Sugaru relaxed for a brief second. But in the same instant, Sasuke seized him by the jaw and sharply snapped his head toward him. The man’s gaze caught on the scarlet flower blooming in the iris of Sasuke’s eye, and in the next moment, everything swam and dissolved into darkness.
“What list was that?” the Uchiha asked again.
“A list of kekkei genkai users… for resale to smaller countries and villages…” Sugaru replied, his words coming out in broken pauses.
“How many of you are there?”
“Three,” Sugaru murmured. “Aburame Goro. Shimura Tenkei… Okada Ran…”
The second name struck him like a blow. Shimura. Even after death, the old man continued to haunt him.
“You’re ANBU?” Sasuke asked, testing his suspicion.
“We’re former ROOT ANBU…” he spoke in clipped phrases. “Left after Danzō-sama’s death…”
“Aburame Goro—is that your real name?”
“Yes…” he breathed, barely audible.
Sasuke tightened his grip on his jaw. Sugaru couldn’t swallow—saliva spilled from his mouth, running over Sasuke’s fingers.
“Where is Chino? And the others on the list?”
“Tenth hour direction… about forty kilometers from here… red torii gates by the river… a ruined cave…”
“And which relative of mine were you talking about today?” Sasuke asked his final question, never taking his eyes off him.
“Uchiha…” Sugaru managed to force out.
In the next instant, his body began to swell, bulging with heavy, distorting masses—first his arms and legs, then his entire torso. His mouth and eyes flared with blinding light. Sasuke leapt back at once, grabbed Ranmaru, and tore away. An explosion thundered behind them, and the shockwave swept across the clearing.
⸻
The moon was slowly paling, and the sky in the east was beginning to lighten.
By the time Sasuke finally reached the cave, the outlines of the terrain were already clearly visible. Below, a river flowed calmly, cutting through a long ravine. The forest around it was starting to wake—sporadic birdsong echoed through the canopy. From the water rose enormous red torii gates. They stood directly in the riverbed, marking the entrance to what had once been a cave.
Sasuke jumped down toward the cave—or rather, what remained of it. Piles of massive stones lay scattered everywhere, and in places rusted senbon jutted out of the ground. A battle had clearly taken place here once, leaving behind nothing but destruction.
He circled the area until he came upon a stone with a paper seal affixed to it. A single glance was enough: the paper flared with black flame and crumbled away. The stone shifted aside on its own, revealing a stone staircase descending downward.
Sasuke continued on. The steps led deeper and deeper underground; the air grew colder and heavier, and the light of dawn was quickly left far above.
Below, a wide, uneven chamber opened up. Along the walls, in the half-light, people sat slumped. Heavy shackles bound their hands and feet; chains were driven roughly, immovably into the stone. Some leaned against the walls, others lay sprawled on the cold floor, heads unmoving. A heavy stench hit his nose—damp stone, human sweat, filth, and congealed blood.
Sasuke walked along the captives, searching for familiar features: small stature, a childlike face, short light-colored hair. Some lifted their eyes to him in confusion, others with wary fear; muted whispers crept through the room.
He stopped at the center and swept his gaze over them once more. The familiar figure wasn’t there.
Then, in a corner, he noticed something like a sleeping roll. Inside it lay a small person, no taller than a child. Sasuke felt a surge of relief and stepped forward slowly. But with each step, doubt grew, his chest tightening more and more. The figure inside didn’t react to his approach.
“Chino,” he called.
The shape beneath the blanket didn’t stir. It was pulled tight, and only by its outline could he tell that someone lay on their back.
“Chino,” Sasuke repeated, already lowering into a crouch.
By now, anyone asleep should have moved—stretched, brushed the blanket from their face, looked up to see who had disturbed them. But after the name was spoken, nothing followed.
He carefully pulled the blanket down, revealing short, light-colored hair. His heart had been pounding so long that its blows echoed in his head, stealing his breath. He didn’t know what he wanted more—to rejoice at finally having found her, or to hope it wasn’t her at all, since the person beneath the blanket hadn’t responded to his voice or his touch.
He forced himself to go on. When the blanket slipped away completely, the serene, bluish face of someone he knew was revealed before him.
Sasuke lowered his gaze and turned away.
You can be as strong as you like—but never stronger than lost time.