A/N: The story begins at the end of Sakura Hiden :)

Home, The First Time 'round

A dark haired man walked through the busy streets of the sun-blazed village. The sand penetrating and persisting in his sandals as he sped through the crowd, turban low to hide his face. As much as he could care less about the rumors spreading about him, it was best to avoid any unnecessary confrontation with allied nations' shinobi. So he kept to the shadows.

"Did you hear what's happening in Konoha?" A voice behind him bellowed.

He didn't mean to listen, in fact, he quickened his pace even more. Even out and far away from the village as he was now, he has and always will be a Leaf shinobi. For all he knows, they were talking about the blasphemous rumors currently surrounding him.

"Yeah, sounds serious. It's that lady from the war, right? The medic with the slugs."

The young man frowned, slowing his pace slightly at the mention of this. There were many medics during the war, but there was only two he knew that could summon Katsuyu.

"Is she dead?"

He swallowed hard at the thought. If the medic in question was who he thought it was, well...

"No. Missing. The Hokage cancelled a conference with the other kages to help look for her."

"Damn. Konoha's a mess right now."

"Tell me about it. First the Uchiha, now her. And to think, she was here not too long ago-"

He's heard enough. He moved quickly out of the crowd and into an empty, isolated alley. It was times like this he thanked Naruto for keeping him updated with the goings back home. And as far as he was concerned, Sakura had just gotten home from a conference in Suna a few days ago. He had barely missed her.

A portal opened before him as commanded. It was time to go home.

As soon as he stepped through, he sensed multiple chakra signatures coming his way.

"N-no way-" A masked man spat, stopping himself and several similarly dressed people behind him. "Uchiha Sasuke!"

Sasuke could feel the man's troubled glare behind his mask as they made eye contact.

The man, he assumed to be leading the group of ANBU behind him, turned to his colleagues. "Break up!" He spat at them. "And make sure you take him down!"

The young Uchiha made no move to attack. Instead, he defended and repelled their attacks while looking for the right chance.

As they attacked him with taijutsu and threw kunais at him, he observed quietly as they instinctively fell close together. The fell into a formation and weaved hand signs for water-

He quickly weaved a too familiar sign of his own and as water went directly his way, he disrupted the attack with a fireball jutsu, creating a heavy mist around them. Immediately, he activated his sharingan and put the ANBU corp before him under a heavily induced genjutsu. He stood still as their bodies fell one by one.

He approached their leader, releasing him from the hallucination and searched his memories. His eyes glowed a dangerous red as he searched the ninja's mind.

There, he saw it all: The pill for his sharingan, their kidnapping her and her escape, their scuffle and his defeat.

"We're gonna descend!" A familiar voice broke through his reverie.

Sasuke looked up to the skies and saw three birds and six very familiar faces. Quickly, he left the unconscious ANBUs midst and hid in the forest behind him, cloaking his chakra signature.

He watched from the shadows. The owner of the pair of emerald orbs he worried about widened her eyes as her breath hitched. He let himself smile at the sight of her. She was fine.

The pinkette looked at his direction with strained eyes, but frowned as she couldn't sense his masked chakra.

"Hey, what do you think this even is?" Ino quipped. "What happened here?"

The older man beside them crossed his arms, examining the area. "It looks like someone already took care of these guys for us." He stated.

The blonde woman widened her eyes. "Who could it be?"

Kakashi turned to his team. The new Team 7. "Don't you guys get it?" He grinned, ear to ear.

Sakura smiled brightly. "Yup!"

Sasuke swore his own breath hitched. He expected the reaction from her, but her smile was still something else.

Naruto laughed loudly as he rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and even Sai had realized what the Hokage suggested and nodded with a smile.

The blonde's eyes widened even more. "Ehhh?" She screeched disbelievingly. "You can't mean- Sasuke-kun!?"

The other blond beside him grinned. "Well, yeah!" He yelled.

Ino still couldn't believe it. "The real one?! Are you serious?!"

The Hokage laughed. "It would have to be the real one." He smiled. "I'm sure of it."

"What the...? Why was Sasuke-kun even here?" The young woman pried.

Sai turned to the silver haired man. "He returned from his journey, right? He must have set out again."

"No way." The blonde shook her head. "That's too cold, even for him." She quipped. "The village is right there." She pointed to Konoha's gates a little further behind them. "He could have dropped by and said hi to us at least. Right, Sakura?"

The young Uchiha turned his sights back to the medic.

"Yeah...I guess so..." She trailed, looking back out to the forest.

"I mean," Naruto began with a chuckle. "It's just very much like him to do that." He grinned. "He did what he had to then set back out. Sounds exactly like what he would do."

Sakura shook her head with a smile and a soft laugh. "So true."

Sasuke couldn't help but chuckle himself. They weren't wrong...

"Y'know, though..." Kakashi began with a sigh, arms on his waist. "Since you guys took down Kido's lot and all," He looked pointedly at the pink haired kunoichi. "I thought it was finally going to be my turn to shine." He looked back to the unconscious bodies around them. "However, it seems like Sasuke stole my thunder."

The three girls laughed.

Sai on the other hand, gave him a sincere smile. "If you've got so much energy to burn, why don't you run home, sensei?" He asked. "The five of us will take the birds back to the village."

Kakashi grimaced and immediately replied, "Can we not do such pointlessly exhausting activities, please? That sounds more like something Guy would do."

Listening to their Hokage's light hearted banter, everyone laughed.

Sasuke shook his head at his former sensei's antics and watched on as Sai called for the birds.

His loud, blond friend weaved a hand sign. "My shadow clones will stand guard here." He said. "We can go back to the village and send people to retrieve them."

The Hokage nodded and mounted on one of the birds. "Same partners?" He smiled, reaching out a hand to Sakura.

The sharingan wielder couldn't act fast enough on the frown that formed on his lips when the woman in question took Kakashi's hand and mounted the bird behind him. His frown deepened even more when she wrapped her arms around his waist.

The image stuck with the young man long after the group had left. "I should go back..." He muttered quietly, thinking back to how Kakashi seemed a little too happy to have Sakura wrapping her arms around him.

He closed his eyes and clicked his tongue. "Tch." It was one thing to stray from his mission objective, it was another to get jealous at his former sensei's all too happy smile when Sakura-

He shook the thought out of his head and looked up to the skies with a sigh. "Looks like I'm going home." He said with a slight smile.

A/N: I would love it if you guys could leave a review. I haven't written in a few years, so your opinions would be greatly appreciated!

Once again, I hope you liked it! Leave a review please :)