Chapter Text
Naruto moaned loudly as he woke up. Every single muscle of his body was in pain, but he realised that he was still in the hospital and he couldn’t hate that fact more.
“When can I go?!” he shouted loudly because he was alone in the room. He had been there for almost a week and he understood that he had been close to death after his fight with Sasuke, but he had not once in his life spent an entire week in this horrible place.
It stinks like death, he thought to himself and shouted again: “Hey, c’mon, I need to leave, or I will go crazy here!”
“Stop being a pain in the ass and let me check your arm.” He got a response from Tsunade, who had just walked into the room.
“It’s fine, Baa-chan, see?” he made a fast move with his still bandaged arm which had been transplanted 2 days earlier.
“Stop moving it, you idiot, it still needs to heal properly!” she shouted at him and roughly pushed his whole body back down into the bed. “Kakashi wants to see you, so I’ll sign you out as soon as I inspect it. If you won’t behave though, then I’ll have to chain you to the bed and keep you here a few days longer, just because I can.”
“Gosh, Baa-chan, with that kind of push you’ll break me faster than Sasuke ever could!” the blonde complained, which earned him another push down when he tried sitting up again. “You know what will be the best cure? Ramen! Bring me some ramen and I’ll be all healed. Or better yet, let me go to the ramen shop! If you don’t let me go, the ramen shop will go bankrupt without me!”
“Just when I thought you are becoming more responsible — cause you know, you saved the World — you do everything in your power to prove me wrong.” She responded, irritated, and then finally let go of his arm, finishing the inspection with her chakra and helping him sit up. “Your arm is healing fine, but it might still take you a while to get used to it. Eventually, you should recover a lot of your mobility, but it will always feel a bit different from your own.”
Naruto pushed her gently aside and jumped off the bed, more than ready to get out of there. “You said that Kakashi wants to see me? Is he already in the Hokage office?” he asked. As soon as the war had finished, Tsunade had stepped down from her Hokage duties and Kakashi got stuck with it.
Naruto was a bit pissed that it wasn’t him, but he understood that he was very young – just turned 18 – and even though Gaara became Kazekage even earlier than that, he wasn’t jealous. He knew that his time would come, and that Kakashi wouldn’t want to keep that position for too long.
“Yes. He wants to discuss with you Sasuke’s treatment.” She replied. “I am already working on a hand for him as well, but so far he has refused the transplant. You might want to try to talk him into it.”
“I’ll try, Baa-chan, bye!” he replied quickly and jumped out of the window. Kurama’s chakra couldn’t create a new arm for him but the fox had already healed everything else, so he was almost back to his old self.
It took the blonde only a few minutes to reach the Hokage tower and he entered through the window.
“Naruto, you should use the door and knock.” Kakashi stated calmly without lifting up his head from the paperwork in front of him. He had a lot to handle now as the village was rebuilding and recovering from the war.
“Oh, I didn’t knock ‘cause I didn’t want to interrupt your romantic time with those papers, Kakashi-sensei.” Naruto replied and walked inside, looking at the stack of documents on the desk. “To be fair, sensei, I didn’t know you knew how to read anything other than Ero-Sennin’s perverted books.”
“Better my reading habits than your handwriting, Naruto. The village would collapse in a week if you were in charge of the paperwork. No one would survive trying to read those chicken scratches.” The older man replied but still didn’t lift his head up from the papers in front of him.
“Tch, handwriting doesn’t matter when you’re Hokage! I’ll just stamp everything with my awesome face instead – problem solved! Or write ‘Ramen’ on every page. Instant approval, believe it!”
“Just come in and sit down, Naruto. I have to talk to you about something serious, and the more I talk to you the more I worry this is a bad idea.” Kakashi replied with a heavy sigh.
“What’s up, old man? It’s about Sasuke, right? How is he doing? Are you guys still holding him in the prison downstairs? You know that he is only staying there because he doesn’t want to cause more trouble, right? He can easily leave, and your chakra-limiting cuffs won’t help. I can feel his reserves and his strength ever since the fight with Kaguya.”
“Yes, I wanted to talk to you about him.” Kakashi got up and took several steps towards the windows, looking far at the busy Konoha. Lots of people were walking on the streets, organising supplies for the wounded, training, cleaning. “You are right, he is only downstairs because he wants to make this work. I have no idea how you managed to convince him at the end to try, but somehow, you made it happen.”
“Heh, easy! All I had to do was to chase him all over the World for several years, let him stab me a couple of times, break half my bones, and nearly blow up the Valley of the End… no big deal! It was still less effort than making you actually pay for a bowl of ramen for me.”
“You sound hungry. Anyway.” Kakashi dismissed his antics and looked at him directly, showing him that it’s not a time for jokes. “The council is putting a lot of pressure on me to agree to euthanise him for his crimes without even a trial. I am afraid they are so committed to it that if we don’t do something drastic, they will replace me with another Hokage just to make that happen. They view him as a threat, Naruto, and I am running out of options to fight them.”
All will for jokes was gone in an instant as soon as Uzumaki had heard it. “They cannot do that, Kakashi! I haven’t worked for the last few years to bring him back just to lose him again because of some old bastards. Is it because they are afraid that we will find proof and expose what they did to the Uchiha clan?”
“Possibly,” Kakashi replied, “but I don’t think it’s just that. They do not think he can be controlled.”
“There must be a way to prevent this, we need to do something, Kakashi! I won’t let them hurt him. If I have to fight them, I will. The only way they will get to him is over my dead body.”
“It’s good to know you are keeping your word, usuratonkachi.”
Naruto turned around and realised Shikamaru and Sasuke had walked into the office. The blonde was so distracted and outraged he didn’t even hear them. His skills were still a bit rusty after the war and the fight with Sasuke. Shikamaru most likely escorted him as a prisoner here, even though he didn’t stand a chance against Sasuke. No one did anymore, apart from themselves.
“So, what’s the plan then? Do I stay or do I go?” he asked as Shikamaru took off the handcuffs that wouldn’t stop him anyway after he closed the door behind them.
“You are staying. Kakashi, what the hell? Tell me he is staying, or if Sasuke is leaving, I am leaving too. When I was still at the hospital, Gaara visited me before he travelled back to Sunagakure and he said both me and Sasuke are welcome to visit, so we will just go there and then the council can go fuck themselves. They’ll lose both of us.”
“Stop speaking before you think, dumbass. If we both go, you won’t be able to become a Hokage.” Sasuke replied with a sigh.
“I told you before and I’ll tell you again. I don’t deserve to become a Hokage if I cannot even protect one friend!”
“You protect your friends all the time, but that’s not why we are here now. Focus, Naruto.” Shikamaru replied, catching everybody’s attention for the first time since he entered. “We do have one solution that will force the council to accept Sasuke in the village and will still allow you to become a Hokage, Naruto, but you both probably won’t like it. Regardless, it might be the only option available to us right now.”
“Or they will like it, don’t judge it too quickly Shikamaru.” Kakashi replied and smirked a bit. “You both need to get married.” He said, sounding way too happy and pointing with a finger between the two of them.
“Whaaaaaat?!” Naruto shouted and started moving his hands around and pacing. “How would that solve anything?! I cannot marry Sasuke! We aren’t even gay. It will never work, no one would believe it!”
“Are you sure, Dobe? You were pretty obsessed with bringing me back. People will probably believe it more easily than you think.” The brunette replied with a smirk.
“Shut up, Teme! You don’t know anything. I am a stallion! I get asked out a lot nowadays! Nobody thinks I’m gay!”
“At the end of the day it doesn’t matter, Naruto. It’s not about your sexuality. If you won’t marry Sasuke, he won’t be permitted to stay in the village and in the best-case scenario, he’ll have to leave again. At the worst, the council will try to assassinate him.”
“Shit.” The blonde replied and bit his lip. This was an impossible situation. It’s not like he didn’t know that he was a bit… over the top with wanting Uchiha back. But he was his first friend, for gods’ sake! But the thought of Sasuke leaving again… He couldn’t live with it again. Just no.
“We’ll obviously do it.” Sasuke spoke calmly and Naruto looked at him with a shocked face. What did he just say?! His jaw fell all the way to the floor.
“You cannot be serious! What about Sakura?!” Naruto shouted at the brunette.
“What about her? It has nothing to do with her. Also, we were joined by Hagoromo and managed to defeat Kaguya together. Maybe we can just tell everyone that by doing so, we now belong together? Make up some destiny stuff? That will probably make the public believe it.” Sasuke replied, still being completely stoic which pissed Naruto off.
“Can you at least move a muscle in that stone face of yours when you speak about something like this? I swear I have seen rocks with more expression than you, Teme!”
“That’s a good idea,” Kakashi replied, completely ignoring Naruto’s outbursts. “I’ll make it happen.”
“We don’t have much time. I’ll be back shortly with your outfits. Kakashi needs to go now and prepare for the assembly which will happen in an hour, where he will announce you two will get married there and then. We’ll do the ceremony for everyone to see. In the meantime, you two should talk… and prepare… as the ceremony needs to finish with a kiss.” Shikamaru said and then disappeared, together with Kakashi.
“Hey!” Naruto shouted but they didn’t even hear him, he realised as he looked at the empty space and then turned to Sasuke. “You seriously want to go through with this, Teme? We aren’t even gay; we need to find another way out!” Before the blonde realised what was happening or managed to react, he got pushed at the wall and Sasuke’s singular arm was at his throat, using much more strength than Naruto thought he should have considering he was still recovering.
“Shut up, you idiot.” Sasuke responded slowly and pushed Naruto even further into the wall, making their whole bodies touch. “You run around and tell everyone who was willing to hear how you’ll do anything to get me to come back to the village and now when I finally agreed, we stumble at this last minor hiccup and you can’t even get over signing a stupid piece of paper and having a single kiss?”
“It’s not that…” the blonde replied but he felt like he couldn’t focus. He tried to move away from the wall, but Sasuke just increased the pressure on his body and he had to bite his lip not to make any embarrassing sound. “Sakura was waiting for you for years. Will you really give her up and marry me instead?”
“You are more stupid than I thought. I thought that you matured in all the years, that you grew up… But I see you are still a child.” Uchiha responded and pushed through, placing his lips on his. Naruto’s eyes opened incredibly wide from shock, and he tried to say something, but as soon as his mouth opened, Uchiha’s tongue got inside. His breath caught in his throat, his entire body stiffening as though frozen in place. Every instinct screamed at him to shove Sasuke away, to yell, to turn this into another one of their endless arguments – but his arms didn’t move. They felt like concrete. His heart hammered wildly against his ribs, faster and louder than any battle drum, and with every beat came a fresh wave of confusion.
The kiss was forceful at first, almost suffocating, and Naruto released an embarrassing sound he was not in control of. Then Sasuke tilted his head slightly, his mouth moving with surprising intent, and the pressure changed. Softer. Warmer. It made Naruto’s stomach twist, made heat pool low in his gut, and he hated that his body leaned forward instead of away.
When Sasuke’s tongue brushed against his, a sharp shiver shot down Naruto’s spine, leaving goosebumps racing across his skin.
“Looks like you might be a little bit more gay than you care to admit.” Sasuke said with a smirk and made a movement with his hips that made him rub against Naruto’s hard member. Only then the blonde realised he was actually hard, and he pushed Sasuke away from him as strongly as possible. Sasuke took a couple of steps back, but the smirk was still on his lips.
“Shut up! That’s just – just a reflex! Like sneezing! Doesn’t mean anything, Teme!” Sasuke’s smirk widened as Naruto’s face turned crimson.
“You really think anyone’s going to believe you are straight after that noise you just made?”
“I didn’t make any noise! And even if I did, it was only because you shoved me, bastard!”
“Keep telling that to yourself. Just remember to moan for me nicely when we’ll have to kiss in front of the whole village later. I have a reputation to uphold.” Uchiha responded and then dodged right away the kunai that got thrown at his face.
“Citizens of Konoha, today we stand at the beginning of a new era. The scars of war are many, but together, we are healing. The Hidden Villages are cooperating, the Kages are in agreement, and peace — for once — feels within our grasp.
But peace is not just written in treaties. It must be forged through bonds. Which brings me to our two heroes: Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha.
Now, Naruto has been… how shall I put it? Relentlessly devoted. Some might say obsessed. He has chased Sasuke through forests, over mountains, across entire countries — really, the kind of pursuit you’d expect only from a man hopelessly in love. Even when Sasuke nearly killed him, Naruto smiled like he’d finally gotten what he wanted. Frankly, it was embarrassing for the rest of us to watch.
And so, in recognition of their bond — or maybe just to save us all from Naruto’s constant shouting about bringing Sasuke back — we are making it official. As of today, Naruto and Sasuke will be married.
Some might call it destiny. Personally, I call it a relief — at least now Naruto’s screaming about Sasuke will finally have a proper explanation.”
Naruto’s blood ran cold the moment the words left Kakashi’s mouth. Married. To Sasuke. In front of the whole damn village. His heart hammered so fast it felt like it might crack his ribs. Every instinct screamed at him to bolt — to yell, to protest, to climb onto the roof and vanish like he used to when Iruka gave him detention. But there was no escape. Not this time. He knew if he refused, the council would win. Sasuke would be cast out, hunted, maybe even executed. The thought of losing him again was worse than any humiliation.
So he stood there, forcing his legs not to tremble, his fists clenching tight at his sides. I don’t have a choice. I have to do this… for him.
The crowd reacted instantly, like a bomb going off without a sound jutsu to contain it. Gasps rippled through the assembly, followed by hurried whispers.
“Did he say… married?!”
“I knew Uzumaki was obsessed, but this…?”
“Well, he did chase Uchiha for years…”
“Honestly, it makes sense.”
Naruto’s ears burned red as the words stabbed at him from all directions. He caught a glimpse of Sakura, her mouth half-open in shock, eyes darting between the two of them like she wasn’t sure if she should laugh, cry, or throw a punch. The council members looked stiff and uncomfortable, but none dared to speak against Kakashi here, not with the whole village watching.
And then his eyes flicked to Sasuke.
The bastard stood there with his usual stone-faced calm, dark eyes unreadable, shoulders perfectly straight, not a muscle out of place. Like he wasn’t about to be publicly married to his rival, his friend, his… whatever they even were. Naruto’s stomach twisted with frustration. Does nothing faze him? How can he just stand there like this means nothing?
But then — just as Naruto thought Sasuke would stay carved from granite forever — the corner of his mouth tugged upward. A smirk. Small. Sharp. Mocking. The kind of look that said, Enjoy your humiliation, dobe. You brought this on yourself.
Heat rushed straight into Naruto’s belly, leaving him dizzy. He hated that smirk, hated how smug it was… and hated even more the strange, fluttering sensation it left behind.
Kakashi, of course, was enjoying every second. His visible eye crinkled in amusement as he stepped forward, arms folded casually like this was just another dull mission briefing. “Well then,” he said with that infuriating calm, “I think our happy couple should step forward.”
Before Naruto could protest, Kakashi guided them both toward the center of the stage, his hand light but firm on Naruto’s shoulder. The crowd parted slightly, all eyes glued to them. Naruto’s feet felt like lead as he shuffled into place, standing side by side with Sasuke under the weight of hundreds of stares.
Kakashi cleared his throat and his smirk deepened. “As the Sixth Hokage, it falls to me to officiate this marriage. And I must say, it’s not every day you get to marry off two war heroes who also happen to have spent years trying to kill each other.”
The villagers chuckled nervously, which only made Naruto’s face burn hotter. Kakashi tilted his head, pretending to think aloud. “Of course, I was their sensei once. I watched them fight more than they trained, argue more than they studied, always already behaving like an old married couple… but you know what they say: the more they fight, the more they like each other. I guess in their case, all that sparring was just… foreplay.”
The crowd broke into some laughter, and Kakashi’s eye curved with amusement as he added, “Honestly, it makes sense. Even as kids, no matter what else was happening, they only ever seemed to notice each other.”
Kakashi raised his hand to quiet them, his voice shifting into something solemn — but his eye still glinted with amusement. “This union will symbolize more than just the bond between two shinobi. It will stand as proof that even the deepest wounds can heal, that even the fiercest rivals can become… partners. A reminder that peace is built not just in treaties, but in hearts.”
Naruto swallowed hard, his throat dry, his chest tight. He couldn’t look at Sasuke anymore; the heat of his presence at his side was already too much.
“And now,” Kakashi continued smoothly, “we’ll proceed with the vows.”
Naruto’s heart nearly stopped. Vows. He was supposed to say vows. Out loud. In front of everyone.
Oh, crap.