The silence after that was more comfortable than ever, even if the Akimichi twins disturbed it less than a minute in. We departed at the western entrance with the promise that the brothers would deliver each of us our own bear pelt vest in a few weeks and the four of us returned to the missions office to report our success.

Well, we were until I realised we were close to the sectioned-off Uchiha Compound. They let me go easily enough and I wondered if our conversation earlier had to do anything with it before shaking my head. I couldn’t expect them not to treat me differently so soon after a massive reveal like that.

The usual chatter of the village felt distant, muffled. I could still feel the weight of our earlier conversation, the shock and curiosity in Choji and Hinata’s eyes lingering like an afterimage. They’d be talking about it, for sure, but I couldn’t dwell on that now.

The road ahead was quieter as I approached the Uchiha Compound. The once-bustling district now stood like a forgotten relic, taped and posted with signs warning trespassers. Its grand gates were closed to the public and the air was thick with a stillness that only deepened as I passed a barrier meant to keep others out.

Eerie silence pressed in on me from all sides. The buildings, once home to one of the Leaf’s most powerful clans, were in various states of decay. Some stood tall, defiant against time, but they all looked abandoned. The emptiness in a place as big as this was oppressive and I could see the old Military Police base and its Uchiha sigil despite the Military Police transferring out of the compound years ago.

I made my way down the main street, my footsteps echoing off the stone path beneath me. The Uchiha crest, faded but still visible on the walls and gates, seemed to watch me as I passed. It was strange, being here alone, surrounded by the remnants of a clan that had once been so prominent in the village. Even stranger was the fact that I was here to see the last living member of that clan, someone I had called a friend, though we hadn’t spoken much since… well, since everything.

I stopped in front of a large, imposing house near the compound’s centre. It looked no different from the others, but I knew this was where Sasuke would be. The place had a certain aura, a feeling that I couldn’t quite place, but it made my skin prickle. I took a deep breath, steeling myself before stepping forward.

The door creaked as I pushed it open, the sound loud in the quiet, and I slipped inside. The air was cooler in here, the dim light filtering through dusty windows, casting long shadows across the floor. I could feel the weight of the past here, too—an almost tangible presence that seemed to wrap around me as I walked further into the house.

“Sasuke?” I called out, my voice low but clear, cutting through the silence. There was no immediate answer, but I knew he was there.

He had to be.

I continued forward, my senses on high alert Finally, I reached a large room at the back of the house. The sliding door was slightly ajar, and I could see the faint outline of someone sitting in the centre of the room, back straight, posture rigid. Even from here, I could feel the intensity of his presence.

I pushed the door open a little more and stepped inside. “Sasuke… it’s me.”

He didn’t move, didn’t even acknowledge me at first. It was like he was carved from stone, so still and silent. I waited, letting the quiet stretch out between us, knowing better than to push him too quickly.

Finally, he spoke, his voice low and cold, cutting through the gloom like a blade. “What do you want?”

My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I saw his fingers, blistered and raw, peeking between bandages and Sasuke himself looked like he’d seen better days. His pale skin was sallow and deep bags circled his eyes.

“I heard you were back,” I began, tucking my hands into the pockets of my flak jacket, “so… I thought I’d pay you a visit.”

“What do you want?” he repeated with those blank eyes of his boring into me.

I didn’t know what he saw on that mission, but Sasuke looked like a dead man walking. And yet, deep down, I knew the only way to get him to open was to fight him. Even in the dark, he looked so tightly wound that it made me tense.

His voice was sharp, and I stopped for a moment, knowing I was probably the last person he wanted to see but I wasn’t about to back down.

“I wanted to see how you’re doing,” I said, taking a few steps closer. “You’ve been cooped up here since you got back. People are starting to talk, you know.”

“Let them talk,” he replied, his tone dismissive but still sharp. “It’s none of their business and it’s none of yours.”

“Maybe,” I conceded, shrugging. “But you can’t keep shutting everyone out forever.”

He finally looked at me then, his eyes narrowing. “Why do you care?”

I hesitated, feeling the weight of that question. Why did I care? Was it because he was a tentative rival? Because he was someone whose help I could use? Because I felt bad for him? No, personal feelings wouldn’t work here.

Not when he was like this.

“Because you’re not the only one who’s gone through stuff,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “You don’t have to face things alone.”

His eyes flashed—was it anger? It was hard to tell, but I could see the way his body tensed, hands balled into tight fists.

“Oh, so you think you’re so better than me because you can?” he said, voice low, and I could hear danger there. “You basically hand me Rookie of the Year because you thought you were so much better than I am and now you’re here to check in on me?”

“Come on, dude,” I frowned, “you know I don’t look down on you. I skipped school a couple days a week because I didn’t think it was worth my time—not you or any of our classmates.”

“Don’t pity me,” he spat.

“This isn’t pity, it’s a reality check. Keep pushing yourself like this and there’ll be more than blisters and ripped skin to deal with.” I started to smile, taking my hands out of my pockets. “Besides, who the hell will I have to fight if you lose steam before ever getting strong?”

He stood up so suddenly that I stepped back, and then he was in my face, eyes alight with a burning fury. “Is that a challenge?”

Seeing how volatile he was, this was the only way to get him to vent it out: provocation. Sasuke was nowhere near being able to simply talk things out through conversation, at least not at first.

So, my only real choice was provocation.

I stepped back, meeting his gaze. “And if it is?”

Without another word, he swung at me, and I barely had time to react, ducking under his fist. I could feel the wind of his punch just grazing the top of my head, and I countered with a quick jab to his side. He dodged, of course, his reflexes as sharp as ever, but I could tell he wasn’t holding back.

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We circled each other, the room feeling smaller with every step we took. He came at me again, this time faster, more precise. I blocked his strike with my forearm, the force of it reverberating through my bones. I retaliated with a quick series of blows, my fists moving faster than usual thanks to the brief burst of chakra out of my feet.

He noticed. His eyes flicked to my hands, then back to my face, and I saw the briefest flicker of surprise before he masked it. I wasn’t going to give him time to analyse it and pressed the attack, forcing him to move, to react. I was faster now, stronger, and I could tell it was throwing him off.

Sasuke’s lips twisted into a snarl as he stepped up his speed, but I kept up and exceeded his, my enhanced strength making every strike count. He dodged, deflected, and countered with precision, but I could see him flagging.

I wasn’t fighting to win but he was—and he wasn’t succeeding. His frustrations bled into all his strikes, slowing him down, but that only seemed to feed that fire even more.

Maybe if I overwhelmed him to the point that he gave in, he’d be ready to talk. And so I kicked things up a notch further. For every punch that he threw, I returned with three more. I split his guard open with swift uppercuts and smothered his half-formed swings with limb traps that I used to hit him even more.

Then, his eyes changed, the black of his pupils bleeding into the crimson of the Sharingan. Two tomoe swirled in each eye, locking onto me with a deadly focus. I stopped my next punch just inches from his face, his left hand half-raised to catch the blow. Sasuke’s chest was heaving, his eyes still locked on mine, and for a moment, neither of us moved.

The tension in the room was thick, the air uncomfortably heavy.

I sat down opposite him and caught my breath. “...The Sharingan, huh?”

He touched his face, dojutsu still active, almost in disbelief.

“When did you awaken it?”

“...On our mission to the Land of Waves,” he said, the red of his eyes slowly fading to dull black. Sasuke swallowed, staring at his feet. “You know about him… Itachi Uchiha.”

I grimaced. “He killed your clan and left you as the sole survivor, right?”

He shook his head. “He was there, in the Land of Waves, to kill the person we were meant to guard.”

“...Just him?” I asked, chilling unease slithering down my spine.

“No,” he replied, equally as grim. “He’s allied himself with some kind of terrorist organisation called the Akatsuki. There was another missing ninja with him. Kisame Hoshigaki, one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen.”

“What happened?” I asked. “It was you, Sakura, Shino, and Kakashi-sensei against two exceptionally powerful shinobi, right?”

A dark look flashed across his face and I wondered if I’d overstepped. “Kakashi fought Kisame Hoshigaki. My brothe—Itachi Uchiha put the rest of us under genjutsu. He knocked Shino and Sakura out and then made it look like he’d snapped their necks.”

I pursed my lips. “...That explains the Sharingan.”

“When I awakened it, I finally thought that I’d be able to put up a fight against him but…” Sasuke trailed off, fists clenched tight once again. “Nothing changed. He was still so much stronger than me.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I warned, already seeing his hackles rise, “but how did you guys survive?”

I almost regretted asking the question.

Sasuke exhaled loudly, not responding for a long moment. “Honestly? It was Kakashi. I was fighting Itachi Uchiha with everything I had, but then he stopped fighting me to stare off into the distance. I slugged him as hard as I could and he got up and left.”

“Left where?”

“I followed after him and that’s when I saw Kakashi on the ground and Kisame Hoshigaki staring at the bottom half of his own arm,” Sasuke replied with his voice returning to the bland, emotionless tone it held before. “Itachi Uchiha ordered a retreat. For a moment, I thought they were going to kill us. Do you know what he said?”

“What?” I replied.

He gritted his teeth. “That I still wasn’t worth killing. After that, he knocked me out and when I came to, Shino and Sakura were setting up a campsite and making sure Kakashi didn’t die—we had to feed him a soldier pill just so he didn’t keel over.”

I blinked. “...That certainly answers my question.”

Sasuke looked at me and I could see him close up in real-time. “You got what you came for. Now, get out.”

“...Are you really going to leave things like this?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

Any answer I gave would set him off, the question was what would set him off the least? Right now, Sasuke wanted revenge, plain and simple, so what if I offered to help?

Surely that’d work, right?

I stood up with a lazy shrug. “I won’t give you the usual speech about how revenge is all-consuming because I believe there’s nothing wrong with desiring vengeance for the things we’ve lost.”

“What would you know about loss?” Sasuke scoffed.

“Careful there,” I replied, glaring. “I told you earlier, you’re not the only person in the world who’s suffered. Whichever madman let the Nine-Tails loose killed my parents and, one day, I’ll kill him too. See this?” I pulled out the photo of Sasuke’s mother and mine along with the note. “This is one picture of hundreds from my mother’s photobook.”

His mouth fell open and I saw a deep longing in his eyes that felt like looking into a mirror. For a moment, I was assailed by unimaginable self-loathing towards myself, but in the end, this was for his benefit as well. He read over the note countless times and then moved his gaze onto the picture of his mother.

“...Thank you,” he murmured, “for bringing me this.”

I smiled. “Our mothers were friends. I’ve got a few more photographs of your mother. There’s even a couple of your father that someone managed to sneak in there. I’ve got suspicions that it was one of them.”

“Really?” Sasuke whispered.

“I’ll get them copied and send them over soon,” I said and placed a hand on his shoulder. “All I have of my mother and my father are pictures. Pictures and diary entries of all the things they never got to do. Of the parents they never got to be. So, if what I feel isn’t loss, then what is it, Sasuke? You tell me.”

“What’s your point?” Sasuke asked, his voice lower—and unless I was hearing things, gentler. “Stop beating around the bush.”

I took a deep breath to steady myself. “...Maybe having someone to help you out with your revenge would be neat.”

“Help?” He was in my face now… and boy was he angry. “Who says I need your help, huh? It’s none of your damn business, Naruto!”

I stepped back, raising my hands at the impressive frown on his face. “Alright, I hear you. My point is that you can get further with four hands than you can with two. So, here’s my offer: until we get revenge, we can be training partners.”

He was guarded, but curious. “...Go on.”

“We’ve got our own teams, so I doubt we’ll have much time, but I think that’s good. It means we can develop away from each other and find each others’ weaknesses whenever we do spar.” I put my hands back in my pockets. Sasuke was growing more relaxed with each word. “Besides, with teachers as work-averse as ours, we might learn more from each other than them.”

“In that case, I don’t mind sparring every once in a while.” Sasuke snorted. “Until our revenge comes to pass, we’ll be training partners.”

He said it like it was a promise, the seriousness in his eyes so intense that it circled back to being comical, but I returned his nod.

“Talking about teachers, go check in on Kakashi-sensei, will you? My team visited him the other day and he’s been complaining about a certain ungrateful student. Shino and Sakura are pretty worried about you too.”

Sasuke blinked, actually looking away at that.

I slowly walked away. After a conversation like that, he probably needed some time alone to parse it all—I know I would.

But then a thought occurred to me.

“Would you like the photos laminated?” I asked.

He flinched, both at how loud my voice was, but he also seemed to forget that I was there at all. “W-What?”

“The photographs,” I repeated, quieter this time. “Do you want them laminated or not? I recommend you get them laminated. Stops them from yellowing and stuff.”

“...That’d be nice,” he replied, walking me out of the building.

He started to bow when we made it outside but I stopped him, sticking out my hand instead.

“If we’re going to be training partners, we’ll shake hands instead,” I said, clasping his hand in mind and pumping it once.

He looked confused but didn’t press me on it, so I turned to walk away. In the end, a handshake was a relatively small thing and meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but it made the exchange feel less one-sided and me a little better about myself.

As I approached the gates, I found myself thinking about the future—about the possibilities that lay ahead for all of us. The road was still long, and the obstacles would be plenty, but I wasn’t alone. And neither was Sasuke, whether he realised it or not.

The sky above was streaked with orange and pink, the sun dipping low on the horizon, casting a warm glow over the village. I glanced back one last time at the Uchiha Compound, from the outside, now. The shadows cast by the gates grew longer in the fading sunlight, but they didn’t seem as dark as before.

With a small, almost imperceptible smile tugging at the corners of my lips, I turned away and walked toward the village, feeling lighter with every step. The past would always be there, but the future was ours to shape. And for the first time in a long while, that thought didn’t feel so daunting.

It felt… strangely hopeful.