Chapter Text
pt 1: slipping
By the southern tip of Fire country, Sakura dropped her bags once she spotted two colossal rock formations jutting out of the ocean. Wood erupted from the ground, shaping itself the way she wanted. By sunset, a one-roomed house with big windows stood on the beach.
Days bled into one another. Sakura gathered stones to lay a path and explored the tide pools. Her cat, Hime, claimed a sunny patch on the kitchen counter as her own. The salt and humidity in the air curled the ends of her long hair. From her bed in the loft, Sakura watched waves crash against the rock formations, the giants resting in the surf.
It was not long before he appeared. He arrived in the normal way, materializing from particles of air.
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On the eve of Sasuke’s seventh birthday, his stomach dropped as if he had skipped a step. On one end of that feeling, he was half-asleep in bed. On the other end, he was standing in a bright kitchen as a tingle faded from his fingers.
A woman swooped into the room. Her eyes brightened. “Hello there,” she said, placing a hand on her pregnant belly.
Sasuke’s mouth opened, scrambling to explain his presence. He did not want to scare her, especially if she was having a baby. But the woman’s brow remained smooth and unworried, like she was expecting him.
That’s how Sasuke knew he was dreaming.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“People can’t eat in dreams,” he scoffed.
She crossed her arms. “Why not?”
Sasuke shifted on his bare feet and shrugged. He didn’t know enough about dreams to argue his case, and she was clearly a dream creature. Her hair was odd—pink like springtime flowers—and her eyes were too green to be real.
The woman placed a bowl on the table, and he took a seat. She served a breakfast of miso soup, rice, and grilled fish. Sasuke’s stomach growled at the smell.
“Am I still in Konoha?” Sasuke asked as he ate. The view from the window looked familiar, but greener, somehow.
The woman touched a finger to her chin. “Yes. But not the Konoha you know.”
Sasuke nodded. It was a dream, after all. “What will your baby’s name be?”
“Sarada,” she said, then her eyebrows shot up.
“What is it?”
The woman pressed a palm to her stomach. “She just kicked. Would you like to feel?”
Sasuke’s fingers were tingling again. Chopsticks slipped from his grip. He frowned at his hands.
“Looks like you’re going, Sasuke-kun,” the woman said.
Sasuke had not told her his name, but her knowing did not startle him. He offered her a smile, but he was back in his bed. He drifted asleep.
In the kitchen the next morning, his mother stifled a knowing look and set a fish on the counter. “Good morning. Will you help with the rice?”
“I’m not hungry,” he said, but he measured and rinsed the rice like she had taught him.
Mikoto stopped halfway through deboning the fish. “Why’s that? Are you feeling sick?”
“I ate in my dream,” Sasuke mumbled, feeling foolish. He set the rice over the stovetop—he was tall enough to reach now.
“Sounds like a pleasant dream,” Itachi said from behind. Sasuke turned. His brother leaned down to tap his forehead, wearing the smile he reserved only for Sasuke.
Mikoto produced a plate of freshly-sliced tomatoes. “Happy birthday, Sasuke-kun.”
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“Ichiraku’s?” Naruto begged, as Team Seven crossed the gate into Konoha. The setting sun bathed the village in a warm glow. After weeks of traveling, the noise of sizzling street food, wooden carts rolling over stone paths, and distant shouts overwhelmed Sasuke’s ears.
“I’m pretty tired,” Sakura said, hopping to adjust the weight of her travel pack. The three teammates all wore dirt, grime, and rumpled bandages as marks of their recent mission.
“It’ll be on me!” Naruto patted various pockets for his frog wallet and frowned at its contents. “Hey, sensei, can I borrow some money?”
Kakashi turned to face his three students. He rubbed the back of his neck. “What a shame—I don’t have my wallet on me. I’ll leave you to it.” Beneath his mask, his expression grew serious. “Good work, you three. Take the week off.”
Kakashi’s praise was hard won, and this time, well deserved. Team Seven’s assignment in the Land of Waves—their first serious mission as a team—had not gone according to plan.
Naruto spoke again, but Sasuke did not hear him. He was returning from this mission with two things: a newly-awakened bloodline trait and a near-death experience. He rubbed his forearm, dispelling phantom pricks from the memory of Haku’s senbon.
“…so tomorrow, then?” Naruto said, drawing Sasuke back to the present.
Sakura blinked, dropping her eyes from Sasuke’s face. “What’s that?”
“Tomorrow we’ll train like normal. Kakashi-sensei said that’s fine!” Naruto said, pointing to Kakashi’s retreating form.
“Great. Thanks, Naruto,” Sakura chided.
In solidarity with Sakura, Sasuke rolled his eyes, but he was not displeased with the change in plans. He liked training. He was used to his teammates.
“Yeah, no problem!” Naruto flashed his teeth. “Let’s get dinner.”
“Shouldn’t we drop off our stuff first?” Sakura asked.
“But I’m starving,” Naruto wailed.
“You don’t have any money,” she pointed out.
Sasuke stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Let’s just go,” he mumbled.
Naruto’s eyes widened. He gripped his teammate’s shoulders. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Sasuke scowled and shrugged away Naruto’s hands.
“Can I please get an extra egg with my order? Please please please?”
Naruto ordered two extra eggs. And extra chashu. And gyoza, "For the table,” he insisted, situating the platter next to his own bowl.
As they ate, Naruto sighed with contentment. “Sakura—you’re great and all—but Sasuke-kun is my favorite teammate right now.”
Sasuke rolled his eyes and cast a glance at the vanishing gyoza.
“I’m very hurt,” she said cordially, then frowned. “Stop hogging the gyoza.”
Team Seven might always bicker and rub each other the wrong way. But traveling, sleeping, fighting beside each other for the past few weeks had forged a strange new bond between them. Somewhere they had crossed a line, and now Sasuke would protect his teammates without a second thought. In turn, they would protect him. They already had.
For a moment in that battle, Sasuke had closed his eyes, fully believing he would die and leave Itachi the last Uchiha. Instead he had woken to Sakura’s face. She had not let him out of her sight since.
Sakura stole the last four pieces of gyoza, dividing them between her plate and Sasuke’s.
“You finished it,” Naruto complained. Sakura clicked her tongue in regret.
Naruto lived suspiciously close to Ichiraku’s. After the meal ended, he darted home with a smile, leaving Sakura and Sasuke alone outside.
Sakura smiled. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“The dobe wouldn’t shut up otherwise.”
“Naruto will never leave you alone now,” she teased. This was also new.
“Whatever,” Sasuke said. But he did not mind footing the bill. In all likelihood, he would do it again.
“Where do you live?”
“Near the Academy.” He did not know who had arranged his housing, but they had chosen well: a busy area full of shops and restaurants, walking distance from the Uchiha compound, but not within sight. “You?”
Sakura named a nearby neighborhood populated by working-class, civilian families. Sasuke inspected his shoes. “All right,” he said, and started walking in that direction. After a couple steps he scowled. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Ah,” Sakura exclaimed. She fell into stride beside him.
Sakura was unusually quiet on the way home. They reached her door, narrow and flaking with old green paint. She dropped her bag and sat on the stoop. Sasuke accepted the unspoken invitation and took a seat.
“It’s strange to be back, after all that,” she said, cupping her cheeks, elbows balanced on her knees. “It doesn't feel real.”
Sasuke understood better than most. No matter what happened, the world went on.
“I’m really glad—” She swallowed, lip trembling. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”
Sasuke mumbled, “Yeah.”
Sakura flung her arms around him. She smelled like the soap they bought in the Land of Waves, and also something sweet, like the fresh forest air around Konoha. Her elbow jutted painfully into his ribs, and pink hair tickled his nose, but he didn't move. After a breath, he grazed her back with his fingertips, so light he didn’t know if she could feel.
“I don’t think things should be this way. Don’t you think?” Sakura’s quiet voice was close enough to his ear that he had no trouble hearing. At his silence, she pulled away. “We shouldn’t have to fight this hard. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.”
“This is how things are,” he said. He didn’t know any other way. He had been fighting for so long.
“Why?” Sakura asked.
Sasuke had never thought to ask this question. He frowned. Somewhere down the alley, water was dripping upon stone.
“Okay, I’m done.” Sakura exhaled. “I’ll stop annoying you now.”
“You don’t annoy me,” Sasuke mumbled. His palms tingled as the words left his mouth.
Sakura’s eyes sparkled, but she did not comment, and Sasuke was grateful.
They rose and Sakura and placed a hand on the door handle. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, then scowled. “No thanks to Naruto.”
The door creaked softly as it shut, then Sasuke was alone. He dropped his pack at the door of his silent apartment and set out for training ground twelve. Secluded and near the woods, it was a place where he spent many sleepless nights.
As Sasuke threw kunai at targets he could barely see, a shiver ran down his spine, and his head spun. The kunai slipped from his grasp. When the sensation passed he was no longer in the training ground.
The first thing he heard was a small sniffle. Smooth wooden floors and walls came into focus around him. A figure sat on the ground with their head lowered. Even though he couldn't see their face, Sasuke knew who it was.
“Sakura?”
She looked up. Tears clung and trembled upon her eyelashes. “Hello, Sasuke,” she said, with a watery smile.
“You…you’re different,” he accused, narrowing his eyes.She was not the Sakura he knew so well. Short pink hair fell to her chin. Her limbs were longer, her shoulders straighter. She wore the uniform of a chunin. He wondered if he was dreaming. “How old are you?”
Sakura wiped her cheeks with the heel of her palm, and the rest of Sasuke’s questions fled his mind.
“Who hurt you?” Sasuke did not know why he assumed this. Sakura was not visibly injured, and there were plenty of things that might cause her to cry. But she drew a shaky breath, and he knew he was right. She was upset. She was in pain. His gut clenched in anger.
“Who?” he demanded.
Sakura’s lip trembled. “Don’t worry, Sasuke-kun.”
Sasuke sat. With his jaw locked, he threaded his fingers with hers. Sasuke hated unnecessary physical contact. But it was not the worst thing in the world to hold Sakura’s hand. His own Sakura would never know, and the loophole emboldened him.
Her eyes shut. After a long few seconds, she gave his fingers a gentle squeeze.
It struck Sasuke that Sakura was not at all surprised by his sudden appearance. “What is this? What am I doing here?” he asked. She would tell him, if she knew.
Sakura folded her arms across her chest. She cleared her throat. “It happens, sometimes—us meeting like this. It will happen again. When you go back, it’s best you don’t tell anyone.”
“Why is this happening?” Another question occurred to him. “If you’re here,” he asked, “then where am I?”
Sakura said, “We love you, Sasuke. Kakashi, Naruto, and me. Always. I hope you know that.”
If these words had come from his own Sakura, he might have scowled and said something rude. But this Sakura would see straight through him. So Sasuke nodded. He knew.
Sakura’s mouth curved up, and her eyes crinkled shut. It was a smile so soft and warm that Sasuke thought he imagined her earlier tears. Sasuke knew Sakura was pretty in the same way he knew springtime was pretty. But now, somehow it was more. It ached.
Sasuke’s fingers were tingling again.
Through the ringing of his ears, he heard Sakura say, “Thank you for coming. I feel better.”
Moonlight glinted off the metal of an abandoned kunai at his feet. Cicadas shrilled in the darkness. Reaching for the kunai, Sasuke realized Sakura had not answered his last question. But the way she smiled at him, he knew that wherever he was, he was okay.
Sasuke felt off the next day.
First, he was late to training. “I overslept,” he muttered. His teammates gaped, because when they traveled together Sasuke was always the first awake.
Then there was the matter of Sakura. Sasuke was alarmed, because looking at her now set off a curious, soft pang in his stomach. He stared at her until a flush colored her cheeks, which somehow made everything worse.
“What?” she asked.
Something strange is happening. I saw you. You had short hair. You were in pain.
“Would you ever cut your hair?” he could not help but ask.
Sakura frowned and touched the ends of her long hair. “I don’t know. Should I?”
“Never mind.”
She grinned. “Why? Are you offering?”
Naruto appeared beside them. “What’s this about haircuts?”
“Nothing,” Sasuke grumbled.
“Are you cutting hair now, Sasuke?” Naruto asked.
“I don’t think you’d be very good at it,” Sakura kindly informed him. Sasuke scowled. This was not a skill he intended to master, but he was offended all the same.
Lastly, at the start of their lunch break, Sasuke leaned back against a tree and fell into a short, shallow doze. When he jerked awake his surroundings trembled in a perfect clarity. He could count the feathers of the hawk soaring above him.
“Sasuke?” a voice called. “Don’t you want to eat?”
Sakura knelt beside him. Her brow furrowed. She did not drop her gaze, looking straight into his red eyes. His Sharingan jumped to memorize every detail of her face.
Sasuke blinked hard. Sometimes the smallest triggers activated his new bloodline trait: a twig snapping, a cold breeze on the back of his neck, the motion of waking up from sleep. Sasuke’s vision swam as the scope of his awareness returned to normal. Naruto approached them, swinging his bagged lunch, and the movement made Sasuke’s head throb. He shut his eyes.
“Seven thousand, one hundred and twenty-eight,” he murmured, as Naruto sat beside him.
“What?” Sakura asked, voice soft.
After a beat of silence, Naruto said, “Sasuke-kun, you need a longer nap. You’re slipping.”
Sasuke experimented with opening his eyes and this time was successful. He fixed his teammates with a stern stare and jerked his chin up. “That’s how many feathers are on that bird.”
As one, Sakura and Naruto looked up to the bird circling over their heads.
“He’s right.” Kakashi’s shadow fell over them. Shading his eyes from the sun, he tilted his head towards Sasuke. “It gets easier to switch between, as time goes on.”
Sasuke stilled. Once, a whole clan shared in the dizzying experience of wielding a Sharingan. Now there was only Kakashi to guide him.
Kakashi wandered off, and the genin ate lunch together in the shade of the tree. They sat in their normal arrangement—Sakura in the middle, Naruto on her right, Sasuke on her left. As they traveled, this was the way they sat down to eat. It was even how they arranged their bedrolls at night. Everything was as it should be.
Except Naruto’s word stuck in Sasuke’s mind. Slipping. That’s exactly what it was. He had slipped through the cracks of his time and into another.
Sakura bumped her knee against his own. “Are you all right?”
Sasuke nodded.
He felt seen. It was not such a bad thing.
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With training and preparing for the chunin exams, the slipping fell to the back of Sasuke’s mind. Then in the Forest of Death, he awoke to see Sakura with newly shorn hair. She was one step closer to the girl he saw in that waking dream. He had failed to protect her, and now she was in pain.
The dark lines of his new curse mark leaked over his skin, and he unleashed all his power against the ones who hurt her, until Sakura begged him to stop. Only her touch brought him back to himself.
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Sasuke was leaving Konoha in the night when he slipped again.
It was sudden this time, violent, like the ground giving way to a pit beneath his feet. Daylight blinded him. His head spun. Pins and needles pricked his fingers.
“Sasuke-kun,” someone said.
Sasuke couldn’t speak. It had taken every last shred of his willpower to leave. And now she was in front of him again like it had been nothing.
“I see,” Sakura said. “You’re leaving now, aren’t you?”
She was taller than him. They were on a dark street, but he could make out the white coat she wore.
The worst part was the kindness on her face. The understanding. Like she knew .
His eyes stung.
With a jolt Sasuke returned to his own time. He was alone in the dark woods, three hours from Konoha. Still close enough to return. Sasuke touched his face and discovered he had been crying.
He wondered if Sakura was cold where he had left her.
His curse mark itched, then it throbbed. Sasuke set off again.
Two days later, Naruto caught up with him. They confronted each other against the waterfall.
“Sakura told me not to come,” Naruto said. “She said you’d come back.”
“What does Sakura know?” he scoffed.
They fought. In the end, Sasuke was the one left standing. He left everything and everyone behind. He was strong.
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