Chapter 549: Feelings That Have No Place to Go
This person was...
It finally clicked. That face -- the one that had felt so inexplicably familiar from the moment he had seen it -- young Naruto finally remembered where he knew it from.
"Is that... the Fourth Hokage?!"
He blurted it out, staring. The resemblance was unmistakable now -- that face was nearly identical to the fourth face carved into the Hokage Monument, the one set highest on the cliff above the village. The face of a legendary hero. And it was lying right there in front of him, eyes closed, completely still.
Satsuki watched him, and felt something quiet and aching move through her chest.
This boy had no idea. The man lying there, and the red-haired woman beside him -- they were his parents. His parents who had died before he could ever know them. He still thought of himself as just the jinchuriki, the one the village despised, a boy who had always been utterly alone.
"What... what did you do..."
Young Sasuke's voice came out in fragments, barely holding together. The scene in front of him was too distant, too impossible, too much like a dream he was terrified of waking from.
What if he had it wrong. What if he was seeing what he wanted to see.
"I brought your parents back," adult Naruto said, his voice calm and unhurried. "Along with the Fourth Hokage and his wife."
"It isn't a particularly difficult thing for me. Satsuki could do the same."
Young Sasuke went still.
Power that could overturn the boundary between life and death -- that kind of unfathomable ability -- was that something a shinobi could actually possess? He stared at adult Naruto's face, at that quiet smile, at those steady blue eyes that reflected nothing but calm. He looked almost like a god.
"Though I'll admit this probably isn't the kind of power a shinobi is supposed to have."
Adult Naruto spoke again, clearly having read young Sasuke's expression. "I just got lucky. I'm not a god."
Young Sasuke was silent for a moment. Then, quietly: "Then why... why haven't they woken up yet..."
The emotions were starting to rise now. Everything he had kept pressed down for so long, everything he had believed he would never be allowed to touch again -- it was churning inside his chest, pushing at the walls he had built around it.
He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that when he actually broke down and wept -- truly wept -- it would be the moment his mother opened her eyes.
Not now.
"They'll wake up today," adult Naruto said. "Souls in the Pure Land exist in a state of sleep. It takes a little time."
"I... I see..."
Young Sasuke nodded slowly. He raised one hand and pressed it flat against his chest. Beneath his palm, his heart was slamming -- hard, rapid, so forceful it felt like it might break through his ribs entirely.
Satsuki shifted her gaze away from young Sasuke and looked at young Naruto.
She noticed something.
After the first shock had passed, young Naruto's face had started moving through a sequence of expressions. There was the disbelief at witnessing a power that could bring back the dead. Then a genuine, uncomplicated happiness for Sasuke, the kind that had no selfishness in it at all. And then --
Something flickered across his face that he had no control over. A quiet dejection.
Satsuki understood exactly where that came from.
Young Naruto still had not realized. The Fourth Hokage lying there, and the red-haired woman beside him -- they were his. His parents. But to him, the idea of being "the Fourth Hokage's son" was something as unreachable as a star above the clouds. He had grown up as the jinchuriki, marked by the demon fox, scorned by the village. How would someone like that ever think to look in that direction?
She glanced at adult Naruto. He showed no indication of explaining anything.
Satsuki understood. They were going to let Minato be the one to tell him, once he woke up.
The dejection passed from young Naruto's face almost as quickly as it had come. His attention moved, and with it, his gaze -- drifting sideways without apparent intention, and landing on Satsuki.
Then his face went red. Visibly, rapidly, undeniably red.
"Um..."
He opened his mouth. The words that came out were halting and slightly strangled, nothing at all like the loud, reckless way he normally talked.
"Satsuki-nee-san... right?"
He scratched the back of his head, clearly trying to look normal, and completely failing. His ears were burning. "How long are you two planning to stay?"
Satsuki looked at him. A quiet flicker of amusement passed through her eyes.
"That's uncertain," she said, her voice noticeably softer than usual. "Once everything here is settled, we'll probably leave."
"Then... would you maybe want to come see Konoha? This world's Konoha, I mean?"
Young Naruto's eyes lit up instantly. He pushed forward before the moment could pass. "I'll treat you to ramen! Ichiraku Ramen is incredible, seriously!"
"Sure."
Satsuki nodded simply. "If everyone has time."
Young Naruto froze.
He hadn't expected her to agree so quickly. Flatly, warmly, without hesitation. In his experience, invitations like this -- the ones he extended to people -- were almost always declined. Iruka-sensei would smile and say yes. Almost everyone else said no.
But Satsuki had said yes. And said it like that.
Young Naruto's face split into a grin so wide and helpless it was almost embarrassing to witness. He couldn't contain it. He didn't even try.
Young Sasuke stood nearby, watching this transformation happen in real time. His brow furrowed.
He had seen that look before. That exact quality of expression.
...Now he remembered. It was the way Ino and Sakura looked at him.
Young Sasuke felt a sudden, distinct premonition of something unpleasant.
"And, Satsuki-nee-san..." Young Naruto was still going. He hadn't noticed Sasuke's expression at all. His voice had taken on a cautious, careful quality. "Will you two come back again? Because I'm going to be Hokage someday, and if you do come back... could we maybe... go out together, just the two of us --"
"No."
A voice cut across him.
Adult Naruto had finally noticed. He stepped in without ceremony.
"Huh? Why not?"
Young Naruto turned, confusion and wounded dignity competing on his face.
Adult Naruto looked at him. Something uncertain moved through his expression. "You little..." He paused, considering how to phrase it.
"Did you just fall for her at first sight?"
"WHAT -- WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT --"
The reaction was violent enough that young Sasuke flinched. Young Naruto's face, already red, went several shades past that -- somewhere well past the point of embarrassment and into genuine alarm. He stumbled over his own words, gesturing incoherently, completely unraveling.
He had. That was the honest truth, embarrassing as it was.
He had been drawn to Sakura mostly because she fit something in his sense of what was beautiful -- that pull toward her, that desire to be near her, he had never been able to explain it more precisely than that. He just thought she looked nice and wanted to be around her.
What he was feeling now was nothing like that. The scale was completely different. Dozens of times more intense than what he had ever felt with Sakura. He was already afraid of saying the wrong thing. Already dreading rejection. Already worried about being a nuisance. Feelings he had never experienced with Sakura at all.
Young Naruto took a deep breath.
"...Yeah," he said, finally. "I guess you could say that. But -- there's no rule that says I can't, is there?"
"Huh. Really?" Satsuki looked at him, genuinely surprised. This version of Naruto falls that easily?
She found it a little endearing. She also had to say no.
"I'm sorry... Naruto?" She addressed him gently. She paused for just a moment over the name -- he shared it, after all. "I'm sorry, I can't let anything come of this."
"Why not?"
Young Naruto raised his head, the dejection open on his face. He didn't understand what he'd done wrong.
The answer Satsuki gave froze both young Naruto and young Sasuke completely in place.
"Because I'm already married," she said, her smile warm and certain and completely at ease.
"And I'm her husband," adult Naruto said immediately, stepping forward and taking her hand in his.