Chapter 545: Shame and Familiarity
"...Your future self?"
Adult Naruto's expression did something complicated the moment he heard the request. It was difficult to describe -- somewhere between wanting to smile and not quite being able to.
Young Sasuke noticed the shift and blinked. "Is that not all right?"
"No, it's fine."
Adult Naruto shook his head. "But -- as I mentioned before -- even though you and my Satsuki are counterparts from different worlds, you're not technically the same person. I want to be clear about that."
He paused, considering how to phrase it more precisely.
"Even if you've had similar experiences -- in my world, the Uchiha Itachi there also made the choice to massacre the clan, so that part is the same. But similar doesn't mean identical. Going through the same things doesn't make a person into the same person."
"That's enough."
Young Sasuke cut him off. "Please..."
His voice was still rough, but there was more steadiness in it than before. "I just... genuinely don't know what to do..."
He didn't know what to do, where to go, who to hate, who to forgive, who to hold onto and who to let go of.
The questions were too heavy. They pressed down on him until breathing was difficult.
Maybe meeting another version of himself -- someone who had lived through the same darkness and somehow found a way forward -- could give him something like an answer.
"...All right."
Adult Naruto was quiet for a moment, then spoke.
"Satsuki -- my Satsuki -- is nearby, actually. She came with me, but she's been staying out of sight."
Young Sasuke blinked.
Satsuki? That name -- the last character of it sounded a little different from what he was used to.
Something in the tree line moved faintly.
Young Naruto, standing nearby, heard adult Naruto's words and his eyes lit up at once.
The future version of Sasuke -- what would they look like? Cooler? Better-looking? Stronger? He couldn't quite form the image in his head.
Something else also came back to him.
When adult Naruto had flung him backward earlier, he'd been about to hit the ground hard -- and then someone had caught him by the collar and set him down cleanly. He'd turned around and seen nobody.
At the time his head had been too full of Sasuke to think about it.
Now it made sense. It had been the future Sasuke. Watching from nearby without showing themselves.
Adult Naruto raised one hand and gave a gentle wave in the direction of the trees.
The next moment -- the wind shifted.
Leaves stirred and rustled, scattering through the sunlight, and a figure materialized in the clearing without having visibly crossed the distance between there and here. The speed was extraordinary -- the kind of Body Flicker that only comes from taking that technique as far as it can go.
Satsuki stood in the clearing. Sunlight fell across her, settling over her in warm tones.
Her feelings were somewhat complicated.
From her position watching, she had understood the shape of what had happened to this world's Sasuke. Consumed by hatred because of what Itachi had done. Choosing the path of power and abandonment.
She had met another world's Sasuke before -- the older one, steady and calm, still carrying the past but walking forward anyway.
She also understood clearly: in this world, the father and mother she had known were already dead, killed by Itachi.
Although she had no real blood connection to this world's version of herself, thinking of that gentle mother, that stern Fugaku -- she decided she wasn't going to be hard on this solitary child.
After all, the things he had lost were the things she still had.
So she came to stand where she had been summoned, and looked at young Sasuke with calm dark eyes.
Young Sasuke's reaction was not calm.
Those eyes, hollow just moments ago, went blank in a completely different way when they fell on Satsuki.
He simply stood there. Frozen. As though a paralysis technique had been applied without warning.
"...Who is that?"
That was what came out when he finally came back to himself.
His voice was full of disbelief, full of confusion. If she had been dressed a little differently, he might have thought he was looking at a ghost of his mother.
The face. The bone structure. That indefinable quality of presence. All of it carried echoes of Mikoto.
But different.
Where his mother had been warm and gentle, this person's eyes held a pride and coldness that were not cultivated or performed -- they were simply part of her, something she had been born with and never thought to soften. And the resemblance, while real, wasn't complete. She was younger than his mother. And beautiful in a way that was entirely her own -- sharp-edged, striking, nothing like the soft warmth of the mother he remembered.
Then a thought crossed his mind and stopped his breath.
He remembered something. Something many people had said over the years.
The older members of the clan, the ones who had known his mother, would sometimes murmur as he passed -- this child has his mother's face. He really looks just like her. Like Uchiha Mikoto.
He looked like his mother. Like Uchiha Mikoto.
So this woman who also carried echoes of Mikoto, who had also come from another world --
Young Sasuke understood.
She was him. Another world's Uchiha Sasuke, who had grown up as a girl.
The realization hit him like something poured from a great height. It was too much. Too strange. Too far outside every framework his life had given him.
He took a step backward without deciding to. Something in his body wanted to be further away.
The pallor that grief and confusion had put on his face was replaced by color -- rushing up from his neck to his cheeks in a way he had no control over whatsoever.
He covered his face and turned slightly to the side, radiating a very strong desire to not be where he currently was.
Young Naruto's reaction was the exact opposite.
That loud, entirely unguarded boy who had apparently never learned what restraint was for -- in the instant Satsuki appeared, he went completely still.
The face that was almost always occupied by a wide, sunny grin was turning red at a speed that was visible to the naked eye.
She's so pretty...
That was his first thought, fully formed and coherent. It lapped around in his head and made his face even redder.
He hadn't fully sorted out what was going on.
He only knew: this older girl looked somehow particularly familiar.
Particularly beautiful, in a way that made it a little hard to look directly at her.
This was only the second time in his life, after Sakura, that a girl had hit him this hard and this suddenly. The sensation was strange and new, leaving his head empty and his words completely unavailable.
He had no idea that beside him, young Sasuke was going through his own private crisis. He didn't notice the color change from white to red, didn't register the attempted retreat.
Every bit of his attention was on the beautiful older girl in front of him.
"Um..."
He spoke, and his voice came out slightly stumbling -- which, for someone who usually said whatever he wanted with complete confidence, was genuinely unusual.
"Who are you, big sister?" He scratched the back of his head, working hard at looking normal. "Oh -- did you come with my future self?"
He was thinking of the adult Naruto standing nearby, remembering what he had said earlier.
"And where is the future version of Sasuke?" he asked, his eyes scanning the area as though looking for another figure who might have stayed hidden.
Satsuki looked at this young Naruto.
Compared to her Naruto, this version carried a noticeably different quality. But Satsuki felt no distance -- quite the opposite. Something about him felt unexpectedly familiar in a way she couldn't immediately place.
Her Naruto was gentle and settled, the kind of presence that made people feel safe. This young Naruto -- he was loud, all his expressions right on the surface, a specific kind of earnest sincerity that was almost too transparent to be real.
Like someone else she knew.
Uzumaki Kushina.
Her mother-in-law. The woman whose warm smile, in Satsuki's eyes, carried the same light as Naruto's own.
Her Naruto's personality resembled his father. But this world's Naruto -- he was more like his mother, wasn't he.
The thought came, and without quite deciding to, some of Satsuki's usual coolness softened.
"I'm from another world," she said. Her voice came out gentler than she had expected.
"And --"
Her gaze settled directly on young Naruto's confused eyes.
"I am the other world's Uchiha Sa--"
She stopped mid-sentence. Held there for a moment, considering how to put it.
"First, let me be clear about something. In my understanding, I have always grown up as this gender. From the very beginning. I have lived in this world as a girl, my whole life."
Her tone carried the specific quality of someone establishing the terms of a situation before the other person has a chance to make it weird.
"If either of you finds that strange or embarrassing, that is your problem. Not mine."
"...Huh?"