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“We’re almost home,” Naruto almost sings as they run, the trees a blur of green. Sasuke flanks his left while she runs on his right, a careful distance between them.
(And this is something that went both ways, this memory of death: her needles were dipped in poison just as his hands were firm against her neck.)
“I hope Sai didn’t read something stupid while we’re gone.” She shudders at the thought, remembering the last time he had to stay behind during a mission.
They are not quite a three-man cell, not quite a four. Instead, they rotate between the two, between members, depending on what is needed in the mission and their duties.
And she still doesn’t know how to react to Sasuke. Doesn’t know, even though Naruto asks her to believe and that everything will be fine.
It isn’t that simple anymore.
Naruto chuckled, grinning at the thought. “Maybe he’ll start slapping everyone again.”
“That was—watch out!”
She dodges herself, flipping under the branch she had landed on. Above her, an explosion occurs, and without a second thought she runs to the spot the kunai came from.
A surprise attack, probably by one of the rogue groups that have been travelling around after the war. There were so many these days, people who wanted to take advantage of the confusion that remained even though everything had been settled.
A leaf flutters behind her and instinctively, she twirls around, her foot already kicking the spot where her opponent stands. A small crunch and he flies back, crashing into the tree, blood flowing from where she landed her hit.
There’s no one else here and she turns to head back to the others. The rest of the group must be there. There is noise on the ground below and automatically she leaps down, her fist already emblazoned with chakra as she dives to the earth.
Two seconds later, she walks out of the crater, several bodies crushed in the debris.
It is unexpected when a particularly strong punch knocks her over. The attacker disappears before she can catch his face, the punch the only thing remaining and one that disorients her as she lies on the ground, her wind knocked out of her.
Before she can get up from her position, she sees a hand proffered. Her opponent lies still on the ground, a sword sticking out of him.
Looking up at his impassioned face, she contemplates the person standing in front of her.
(And she remembers watching him smirk at Naruto’s taunts, at his hands helping build a house wrecked in his attack, in the way he sometimes glances at her neck, eyes darkening as he does so.)
He is not the same Sasuke she fawned over as a child, but he is not the Sasuke she tried to kill either.
He is a stranger she is coming to know.
Maybe she can’t believe in him like Naruto does.
What she can do, however, is trust, and she places that in his hands.