When Kakashi awakens, he feels forty years younger and two wars lighter.
He’s laying on the soft sheet of grass that Konoha is notorious for and yet he feels none of the Summer discomfort. There are no bugs swarming him, irritating him, the sun isn’t beating on Kakashi’s face, suffocating his skin and the wind breathes an even chill across his entire body. It’s as if he’s not there, he’s present but he’s also floating. He feels like everything is right, just right. For the first time in his life, it’s alright.
He feels twenty-seven again and it’s when he notices the peace within his own mind that he comes to.
“Ah. I’m dead.” He announces to the air, a verbal confirmation.
He doesn’t yearn for life, though. Naruto is Hokage, Sasuke is healing and Sakura is living . He feels accomplished and complete, this was the natural next step.
More so, he has a genin team and a regretful father to reunite with so he thinks his own kids will be just fine.
Kakashi finally rises from his blissful spot in the sun, he does so with an ease he could only remember of his younger age and it fills him with contentment. He notes he’s not in anything even resembling his standard shinobi garb. He wears a simple cotton blue tee, letting the breeze encompass his skin, and a pair of black Hakama pants. It’s an odd look for him but it feels fitting, in a way, the clothes are so loose compared to the compressing and smothering clothes of his shinobi days but he has been set free from those days, so the clothes are there to match that.
Kakashi stands and surveys the area, it’s identical to Kakashi’s favoured hill of relaxation in Konoha down to the celestial wisteria trees in all their mystery and enchantment. But it’s different, it’s perfect. More than perfect, compared to the grey dull of his Konoha.
He comes to a still though, mind, body and soul freezing when he meets the eyes of his dearest, his long-lost and his solace. Skin still marred with the repentance of his humanity, hair still white after his transformation and grin so bright, like they are twelve again and arguing over who won the spar. Before the vicissitude, before the betrayal…before life .
He sees wisps of light brown hair behind the man, flashes of purple cheeks and a hazy smile, reminiscent of his Halcyon days.
Ah, this is why it’s perfect.
Taking slow, tentative steps and resisting the urge to break into a sprint, Kakashi slowly lowers the mask that has become more stable than his own identity and finally understands what it means to be happy.
As Kakashi departs from the hill he spent most of his empty days in Konoha crushed in mourning, he also departs from the shell of a man he was when he lived, his pumping beating heart decayed and disintegrated but only because it had to fall to allow the new still one to breathe; his dead heart full of gold.
He takes off his mask.
-
Sasuke is the first to go.
It might’ve been the tumultuous instability of his teen years, it might’ve been his slowly decomposing eyesight or it might’ve simply been the weakened defences of his old-age catching up with him but alas, he dies.
Sasuke wakes up on the familiar engawa of his childhood, before the massacre.
He spies the wind chimes his mother had a penchant for collecting and there’s a little cup of tea that has turned ice cold next to him.
Sasuke has long since moved past the reactive, emotionally dysregulated person of his teen years so when he acknowledges that he’s dead all he feels is longing for his partners and children but an aching to see the family he lost.
His eyes are a little murky from the passage of his soul but his heart is a paradox of missing those he had on earth and feeling complete from those he lost on earth.
Sasuke sits up and meets the coalesce of his own familiar colouring, onyx, navy, red and white.
It seems they are all gathered for tea, Shisui and his father are playing a game of Shogi - a foreign thing to Sasuke - whereas Itachi and his mother seem to be discussing something, perhaps bonding over their shared love for cooking.
And Sasuke doesn’t feel the self-loathing, guttural detestment for himself that he felt on earth. The hatred for himself on earth at forgetting his own family, he doesn’t feel it here. Because he knows without a shadow of a doubt his loves will join him soon. All of them and their children. They are bound by their souls in the stars, so Sasuke feels no guilt to let himself be happy.
Sasuke sits up and takes his first step and exhales a breath of disbelief.
His father notices him first. Fugaku Uchiha hears the faint sound of grass being crushed, leaves crinkling and raises his eyes to meet the pained ones of his second son.
The shock radiates through Sasuke, nearly sending him to his Goddamn knees when instead of the pungent disapproval that once never left his fathers eyes, Sasuke only sees despondent guilt with twinkles of love.
At his fathers still in movements, the rest of his family stop to look at him and Sasuke cannot help but stumble as he meets his brother's eyes.
Sasuke doesn’t know what to do as Itachi’s mouth drops a little and he gives a slow-blink, like a cat looking at the thing they love.
It sends him to the stratosphere at how healthy Itachi looks. Gone are the signature tear troughs, a sign of his brother's sorrows, and now replaced with roundful apples on his cheeks. Where his skin used to mould to Itachi bones, sickly and sucking like a vacuum- it flourishes in the Afterlife. For all the hilarity and contrast of his own thoughts, Sasuke thinks with flickering amusem*nt, that Itachi looks alive .
Death is enlightenment and Sasuke now has two arms again.
The Uchiha are not a family with visible emotional displays; no benevolent demonstrations of love like colliding in tight hugs and tears of relief and no bellows of another’s name. They are a family of silent vows of their love and adoration for one another. And, regardless of what transpired when they were alive, they do love each other. Just not in a way most can comprehend.
So, Sasuke takes serene and steady steps to meet the family who consumed his long gone childhood.
But he feels everything leave him; his grasp on his emotions, his ability to will himself to keep standing and the heart-shattering agony he only succumbed to deep in the night with no one to witness.
For the first time in decades, Sasuke allows the tears to drop as his mother - who he last saw lifeless and cold - meets him halfway and hugs her son with everything she has. Neither one of them are able to stand, weighed down by their own love and melancholy for one another. Gradually they come to their knees and Sasuke wraps the arms of his twenty-five year old self around his smaller mother, tucks his head into the crook of her neck and feels an astounding sense of finally finding his place in the world. Sasuke went on years long atonement trips for the sins of his human-life, for the way he cast aside the ones who stuck with him but he thinks, in the raging thunder of his mind, that a simple embrace with his mother could've been done with years to do. A mothers comfort is something he has desperately craved in his weak, weak moments where he despaired for a light hand to sweep through his hair, for a sweet reassurance to be uttered to him or to lie at night, sleeping peacefully with his mothers scent of home surrounding him.
It’s different now, though. Sasuke is over a foot taller than his mother is and his muscles are large compared to her more demure posture and yet, Sasuke feels as though nothing has changed. Despite it all, in his mothers arms, he’s five years old again and crying because he accidentally killed a bird while practising the Great fireball. At his core, Sasuke is gentle, just someone who has been altered by the course of his once-life.
His mother strokes the back of his hair, streaking her fingers through his spiky locks, “You’re so tall now.” Is all she can say, unable to resist the urge to quell her own tears in the instinctive act of reassuring her child.
Her eldest may have sealed her fate and her youngest may have been the one to find her corpse, but these are her children, and Mikoto always wanted to be a mother.
He just laughs, incredulous and overwhelmed because he can hear her voice . Because the worst thing about losing his mother at seven was forgetting what she sounded like. Was her voice airy and light, like the housewife she was forced to become? Or was it indulgent and giggly with a hint of snap when he misbehaved? He was fortunate enough to carry a relic of their crumbled family in a faded and damaged photo, so her features were something ingrained into his brain. It helped that when he looked in the mirror he saw the shell of Mikoto Uchiha, he was his mother’s son. But he never could remember the exact twinge and elegance of his mothers voice, that made her his mother.
He can feel two warm palms grabbing his cheeks and moving his face upwards. And then, in the blur of tears and elation, Sasuke meets the eyes that he had to wear after he turned sixteen, his brothers. Itachi kneels behind his mother (who Sasuke is still gripping as if she was his lifeline) and strokes the soft skin of his under eye. Itachi doesn’t speak anything, just brings their foreheads together but not soon enough to miss the slow raindrops of contrition bleed from Itachi’s eyes.
Sasuke can’t even feel himself form a coherent thought feeling the touch of his brother again. Even after everything, even the many years he had to reconcile with himself, coming to a point of acceptance for his brother's tribulations and sacrifice is something he’s never been able to do. But now Itachi is here, in front of him, and Sasuke feels his world go technicolour, basking in the fact his older brother is with him again.
Sasuke can sense his father isn’t joining them, preferring for their own reunion with just them later and for once, it’s perfectly fine. He feels a hand draped on top of his head, just above where his mothers hand still maternally caresses his hair and feels light when he raises his gaze to see the fond eyes of Shisui, watching the scene like it’s his prize, his reasoning for everything.
And Sasuke supposes it is, Shisui and Itachi fought and sacrificed their all so that Sasuke could live and he did.
His mother moves to bring Itachi into the hug, still kneeling on the floor, and Sasuke finally, finally knows he’s home. For good.
-
Naruto never knew the love of his parents. He starved for them, for parental love and validation and he wept for them, on the day of his seventeenth birthday. But he never knew them.
However, that’s not to say he didn’t know love.
He knew the begrudging love of his Godfather, he knew of the uncoordinated love of his sensei, he knew of the fond love of his friends, he knew of the unbearably adherent love of his teammates and he knew of the environed love of Iruka.
So, when he met his parents in the afterlife, it wouldn’t be fumbling and unfamiliar territory like it might’ve been had he passed much younger but the instability of love in Naruto’s life coming full circle.
When Naruto awakens in the after, he’s twenty-five and sitting in Ichiraku.
His bowl is empty and he doesn’t see the Old-man up front so he takes it as his queue to exit.
It’s fitting really, he’d wake up in the one place of consistency there’s been in his family before he was even born.
He runs a hand through his golden locks and stretches and cracks his bones in a way that gives him such relief. He didn’t enjoy the restrictions that old age brought.
It’s all picturesque outside and the scenery of his home is as comforting as it always is but it lacks the one thing he desires, his people.
He finds a lone bench after exiting the stall and he ponders on the whereabouts of his other halves.
Sasuke is as predictable as Naruto is; for all the blonde is aware, Sasuke could be on different planets or he could be napping. Sakura is undoubtedly always at the hospital, saving lifes and being the angel she always is.
The Uzumaki collapses on the bench, newly carved and not worn down from years of usage.
He rests his chin in his palms, lightly tapping his cheeks in solitary boredom.
It feels like he’s on the edge, teetering on the arrival of his completeness but there’s something that’s just…staggering. Stagnant, waiting on arrival. His or someone else's, he’s not sure.
The afterlife is despairingly vacant and he craves for soothing ice and a sweetness of familiarity.
When Naruto thought of his death, he thought of parties and celebrations; banners of Welcome, Naruto and greeted by the sobbing faces of his passed family. That doesn’t happen, and he feels okay with that.
As Naruto aged, Sasuke and Sakura taught him the art of romanticising the mundane and finding contentment in the small and minute.
He saw there was an art form of routine: waking up everyday to complete Kage duties with a distinct way of making his coffee. He found that there was a tenderness in the little stolen moments of the early morning and late night where Sakura would take the time to massage the stumps of their severed arms. He found that there was a build up of an unnamed emotion in the ways Kakashi would survey them, a mixture of pride, humour and sheer love but despite never choosing the voice it, it was so present in the way he looked at them.
However, the newfound appreciation for the small and the monotonous didn’t mean he forgot his partiality to the grand and obscene.
He traces the little rocks of gravel his feet rest upon with his eyes, still sitting on the bench.
The thing that’s missing-
Someone hands him one and a half of a poorly broken ice lolly
-there it is.
Taking the dripping blue sweet, Naruto finally raises his head, “Pervy-sage.” He greets, smiling indulgently and all seventy-eight years of life hidden behind the reminiscent smile of his twenty-five year old face.
Jiraiya grins and signals towards his entourage to greet the blonde, “Hey, Kid.”
Naruto looks at the rest of the figures, uncaring of the dripping ice, and sees everyone.
To the side of Jiraiya, stands his mother and father; looking at him like they did the first few minutes he was born and to finally witness that- it settles the cumbersome and teetering doubt and unsureness in the chambers of his heart.
Behind them is Iruka, Kakashi, Obito Neji, Shikamaru, Gaara and if he squints he thinks he may even see the electric red of Nagato and his two others.
Jiraiya gives him an amused raised brow, “Are you just going to sit there, googly eyed, like a bumbling baboon or are you going to meet everyone who’s been waiting to see you again, huh?” and tosses the stained lolly-ice stick in the air. Naruto watches, enraptured, as it disintegrates into sparks and dusts of magic.
His head tilts, a signature grin blossoming on his face, “Huh.” and drops his ice-lolly alongside.
He feels a hand grab his own, soft skin and something so uncommon he pauses. He glances downward, it’s his mother.
For the first time in his life, his mother is holding his hand. This is what Naruto felt missing when he first awoke in Ichiraku.
They follow on, Jiraiya taking point and joined by Kakashi it seems. No doubt discussing the lore behind Icha-Icha and where Junko will traverse next.
He’s not sure where they are going but it’s a path that still feels right to him. Like he was destined to walk it soon anyway, except now he’s joined by the ghosts of his human life.
Squeezing his mothers hand and fist-bumping his father, Naruto looks ahead and sees-
Sasuke.
Ah. Of course he knew he was going the right way.
He was going to Sasuke after all.
Sakura would join them soon, for now he felt pacified to wait.
When Naruto died, he had expected fanfare and celebrations in his name. Cries and snivelling that he had finally joined them.
What he actually gets is a greeting so normal, it feels like he only went away for a week, not a lifetime.
Sasuke and Sakura taught Naruto to appreciate the simple, the casual and the lax.
It is the perfect greeting to the Afterlife.
-
Sakura awakens in a swirl of winds, leaves and cherry-blossom petals. She feels like she’s flying, like a tornado has seized her and is spiriting her away. It isn’t an awakening like the ones she has heard of in fantasy books or even the estimated awakening in the afterlife like the scientists presume.
It isn’t a calming rippling Ocean, it’s a ten-foot wave in the middle of the night. It’s chaotic, overwhelming and entirely unnecessary.
Sakura awakens to the feeling as though she is about to miss her stop, as though something deeper and further has sought their sights on her and is yanking.
She can’t see much - her eyesight corrupted with the opaque winds devastating her but she thinks she can sense something, outside of the winds.
She can sense the burning fire of light- calling out to the winds to release her and gearing up to combat the wind with a swirling power of his own wind.
She can sense the lightning and electricity beating down the wind grasping her - a sword and weapon of bolts and chirping birds.
It’s all too much, she fears she may never pass on peacefully, the evil minxes- the spirits- they are grasping and takinghertakingher- HELP-
A pause.
And then-
A thick, heavy body full of power and fire and rage barging into her, gripping her waist and falling onto another thick body behind-
-she’s with her boys, once again.
Naruto is the one they fell onto, him supporting Sakura sandwiched in between him and Sasuke.
Sasuke grumbles bitterly and slumps to rest in her clavicle.
Automatically, an instinct for when Sasuke does this, she brings her hands up to card through his locks. She sighs, thoroughly exhausted and minorly offended she couldn’t even get a pleasant passing.
“What the f*ck was that?” Sasuke groans, voice a little muffled.
Sakura clicks her tongue, “Clearly higher powers are sought after me.” she responds, sardonic and dry.
Naruto gives a sharp laugh from behind, “Trust one of us to have the weirdest f*cking awakening and trust it to be Sakura. I’ve seen my fair share of awakenings and that has quite literally never happened. Ever.”
Sakura rolls her eyes from behind her closed eyes, “It you two. You and your dramatics and your soulmate-ry rubbing off on me.” she huffs, just about resisting the impulse to pinch the bridge of her nose.
They stay silent after that, rejoicing in the concealed emotion of being reunited together.
All three of them had felt the missing presence of the others down to the very marrow of their bones - closed eyes and full hearts.
“Are you going to get up? Or are you continuing with the show? I could get popcorn…” A low voice drawls from behind Sakura.
Sakura’s eyes burst open and she starts squirming between the team seven sandwich, “Sensei! Kakashi-sensei!” she exclaims, exhilarated and overjoyed.
Sakura wouldn’t ever admit it but she hated being the last one to go. It was isolating, dreary and she missed her boys so, so much.
Her entire body freezes though, when she looks behind her sensei to see Naruto and Sasuke’s families watching on in thinly-veiled affection for the heart-warming scene before them.
Naruto is a bubble of affectionate touch and bold declarations so this isn’t so alien to them but to see Sasuke partake in such an open display of his devotion to Naruto and Sakura, it throws them off-kilter, throws his family at Sasuke’s unequivocal fervour for his two most precious.
At the notice of their voyeurs, Sakura starts wiggling a little. This is a moment of vulnerability, of exposure that isn’t meant for others' watchful eyes. It feels a little too akin to baring her own soul; these are her boy's families but they aren’t hers and the only person here she feels comfortable with is Kakashi.
Already in tune with her every movement and twitch, Naruto and Sasuke free her only for her to circle all her energy and jump into Kakashi’s arms.
She falls into his lap in a fit of giggles and happiness; ignoring his “oomph!” at the sudden weight.
Eventually, he complies with her wishes and wraps his arms around her waist, “Ah, my favourite, most precious student has finally graced us with her presence.” he drones out. Sakura notes the ease of Kakashi’s shoulders, the lack of burden in his posture.
“Sasuke was your favourite. Don’t lie” Sakura replies back, giggly and just about resisting the fresh tears blooming.
He squeezes her waist once, before slowly drawing her backwards and shrugging, “Yes but then he went nuke-nin and played terrorist, so I revised that.”
“Was I not even a consideration?” Naruto whines, moping on the ground and sends his middle finger when Kakashi shakes his head solemnly and blandly responds, “Loud. Impulsive. Can’t take orders. Rasengan.” He finishes with a shudder.
Sasuke, satisfied to simply watch, doesn’t engage with their banter but he closes his eyes and revels in it. This is what he’d been waiting for, their completion. They’d all felt the missing pink piece, even after reunions and even in this afterlife, they were not yet complete. The experience, the feeling of arriving somewhere and your other half hasn’t arrived yet. Maybe he should feel a little more embarrassed for the spectators watching them but he cannot muster the energy to. He thinks a reaction that was any less dramatic wouldn’t be fitting for them. Team seven are an institution of profound and conflicting emotions for each other, since the very day they met, so it feels conclusive that they’d come together in the afterlife this way. Throughout the paths of their time on earth they have spent a magnitude of time chasing one another, then denying their feelings for each other and now they are here and there isn’t anything stopping them rejoicing in being together .
He remembers Naruto’s father calling it the team seven curse, shortly after his awakening. The means to an end. The turmoil, the slaughter and the emotional torment. But, it will be worth it, in the end.
Disrupting his musings, Sasuke senses as Naruto clambers to his feet and feels the vibrations of the blonde’s voice as he demands to Sakura that, “You can find Baa-chan later! Come on , Sakura-chan, there’s so many people for you to meet.”
When Sasuke was a little boy, his brother told him about the vast and mystifying noun that is Home .
It took him a massacre, abandonment, a War and then years of atonement to realise what Itachi had been trying to engrain in Sasuke’s brain. Home isn’t Konoha, home isn’t the Uchiha compound, home isn’t even here, in the Afterlife. Home can only be created when those you love are with you, those that you accept to love and be loved by - their presence makes a home.
Konoha was home because his brother died for it, Naruto ruled it and Sakura fought for it. Now, the Afterlife is his home and finally, everyone has arrived.
Omake
Sakura never really thought a time would come where she’d be discussing the mechanics of a seal she created with the Niidaime, Yondaime and Uchiha Itachi, of all people, but she’s dead so not much does make sense.
“So you control minds?” her teammate’s brother questions, bluntly.
Sakura makes a ‘so-so’ gesture, “Control? Not exactly. More so, influence.” she vaguely defined.
Tobirama squints in response to that and she tries not to smile at how much he resembles a disgruntled cat.
“Using genjutsu?” Her other teammate's father affirms.
Sakura just reluctantly shrugs, “Essentially, yes? Primarily it is the usage and knowledge of medical ninjutsu that allows me to do so, aided by genjutsu and finalised with fuuinjutsu. Just think of it as a fancy mind-block seal.” and takes a sip of her tea.
Minato raises a brow at her wording and huffs in amusem*nt.
Itachi just shakes his head in mild astonishment, “So you just were able to replicate a one-of-a-kind Mangekyou Sharingan ability?” and Sakura actually rolls her eyes at that.
Flicking her hand up in a put-upon gesture, she blows her bangs out of her eyes, “Well not all of us have pretty eyes that give us a massive power-up by high level emotional distress, Uchiha.”
And at that, Tobirama? Tobirama laughs.
Fin.
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