Soft Loving, the Fight for Peace, and Other Fanciful Devotions

-by Uchiha Sasuke

"Our old bodies."

They're sitting up to Naruto's kitchen table. The sunlight is streaming in, only recently risen, just like the two of them. Naruto's sporting a bed hair the likes of which he's not seen since their genin days. Which, given today is genin orientation- no, he can't even think it. This fucking sucks.

Time-travel? That he can handle. Seeing his brother again and dealing with all those fucked up emotions as he saves their lives? A'okay- Well, not a'okay, but he can deal. What he can't handle is-

They're twelve.

Twelve.

As in, four years away from being able to legally marry.

(There's technically no legal age for consent, not for genin. But Naruto looks far too much like a kid right now for him to be interested in that).

Thank fuck that Sasuke'd greedy enough to hoard all the cuddles, kisses, and other soft loving this time can be dedicated to. And become good enough ninja to save the world. There's that too.

.

"Eh, time-travel's never been done before?" Naruto offers with a shrug of her shoulders, more a question than an answer, loudly slurping on her freshly made ramen.

Surprise surprise, she'd had fuck all in her apartment and had probably been on her way out for a breakfast stop at Ichiraku when he caught her, grocery bags in hand. He'd made ramen (first attempt but Uchiha Sasuke is a fucking good cook so of course it's not just edible but tasty too) and now here they are, eating breakfast together as if their last thirty-six hours conscious wasn't occupied by fighting a war together. A war where they'd met up and, for the first time in years, Sasuke hadn't been aiming for the kill.

...He'd never been aiming for the kill, the one time he had, the time Naruto had miraculously blocked his attack, had been more than enough.

He'd screamed himself hoarse for weeks afterwards. Kabuto had given him the good stuff on week three but, stubborn bastard that he was, Sasuke had refused it. He's glad for that, the creepy snake bastard 2.0 deserved to be kept awake at night for what he did to Itachi. In fact, he deserves a hell of a lot more than that... he's in the village now somewhere, isn't he? Heh, an unsuspecting target for when Sasuke's stress gets more than he can silently deal with.

It'll probably be a few weeks until then. Right now, all he wants to do is spend time with Naruto and sleep. Preferably both at the same time. He bets she's ridiculously warm to hold on to.

But... they haven't really talked, haven't had chance between Swirly Face, Crazy Ancestor, and Rabbit Fuckery. Fuck all three of them; Sasuke is not going to be letting them get a foothold in this time.

They can fuck right off.

"Well, Bastard, what are you gonna do now." It's not a question, more a challenge. He's missed that particular tone. He takes a moment to just soak it in.

"Whatever the fuck you want, Idiot. I'm done. Everything I tried, I fucked up. The only thing I've got any interest in doing is following you." Following her into battle, following her mad plans to save the world; hell, the only thing he plans on letting her follow him on is a walk up the aisle.

In four fucking years.

Fuck this shitty time-travel that's stuffed them into their younger bodies.

"We gotta become ninja!" Naruto declares, slamming a closed fist on the table and utterly oblivious to his declaration of intent. He'll have to make the next a bit more obvious. Obnoxiously so. "We gotta be here for the Chunin Exams so I can save Gaara!"

Gaara. If anyone has any intent of winning Naruto's heart, it'd probably be him. And the Hyūga she tangled with back in the Chunin Exams. She's always been close with Shikamaru, Kiba and Choji too...

He's gonna have to make it explicitly clear, isn't he?

Wait, no, he's not going to do that. All he has to do is win Naruto over; she's too loyal to ever consider entertaining someone else if she's in a relationship. He just has to woo her.

"Hey, Bastard? Are you done with that ramen?" Which he's apparently already completed step one of, what with the way she stares adoringly at the food he's made.

"Here," Sasuke grunts, pushing the bowl with infuriatingly small hands towards her. Naruto digs in, happy as a clam, broth splashing against her tanned cheeks. She's an idiot, but she's also the strongest idiot in the world. The strongest ninja in the world. And, for some fucked up reason, she's spent over a quarter of her life chasing after him. The least Sasuke can do is spend the rest of his life devoted to her.

"You're a good cook! Why did you never cook during missions?" Because then Sakura would never have stopped fawning.

Not that she ever did.

"Tch, I'll cook for you whenever you like, idiot."

"Whenever?" Naruto repeat with a greedy gleam in her eyes, levelling her chopsticks in his direction. She certainly doesn't look absolutely shattered by the time travel, doesn't look like she had to struggle to even get out of bed like Sasuke did today. "Even twenty years from now? When I'm Hokage and running the village?"

"Of course."

"And won't your wife mind?" Naruto clucks, snapping her chopsticks together to gather up more noodles, inhaling them at a speed that would probably be unsafe for a normal child.

"Well, I'll marry you then. Problem solved."

Naruto fucking chokes but she doesn't dispute his declaration so Sasuke takes it as a win.

.

They're both late to team assignments, so late that Kakashi's already there to pick them up. They stare at each other; Sasuke offers no explanation and Naruto just laughs. As for team introduction...

"My name's Uzumaki Naruto! I love ramen, I hate having to wait the three minutes for the instant to cook, and my dream is to break the cycle of hatred and become Hokage, 'ttebayo!"

Then... well, then Sasuke makes his introduction. It goes down about as well as could be expected.

They're about what he expects so far.

Well, okay, Naruto being late is wouldn't be a surprise, but Sasuke joining her had almost prompted a raised eyebrow. Almost. There's a chance he was at his family's graves though, sharing this milestone with them the only way he knows how, so he lets it slide.

So, yeah. About what he expects.

Sakura with her pink hair and dreams spun of sugar.

Naruto with her hair so blond and her smile so wide it almost causes a physical ache in his chest.

Sasuke, with his adoring dark eyes staring at Naru-

Kakashi blink, scanning the Uchiha again but, nope, it's exactly the same as he'd just seen a moment ago. He'd been expecting a more emotional (angry, he'd been expecting angry) Itachi/Fugaku cross-breed. He sure as fuck hadn't expected the Uchiha the kid reminds him of to be Obito, of all people.

Kakashi swallows past the lump in his throat, points a finger to the only boy (because Kakashi is a man, thank you very much) on the team.

"Alright then. Broody, you're up."

Uchiha Sasuke tears his eyes away from Naruto, assessing him, almost as if he's weighing his sins and virtues, tallying them against whatever fucked up system the Uchiha have installed in him. Kid can't possibly know he has a Sharingan under his headband, otherwise the feral little gremlin would be trying to claw it right out of his skull given how pissy he reportedly gets about Uchiha related things.

"My name," the kid starts, not going for an unaffected tone but genuine boredom, "is Uchiha Sasuke. I like tomatoes. I dislike sweets. I guess cooking is going to be my new hobby." The last sentence comes after a pause, like he's trying the words out to see how they sound when spoken aloud.

Kakashi, well, Kakashi has zero problems with a student that can cook. It'll save him from field rations when they're out on missions (because apparently he's not allowed to fail this team 'the Council have been on my back about this all year, Kakashi, so help me Sage, if you even dream of failing them-'). Hell, with any luck, the little hellion will actually be good at it.

Then, Sasuke comes completely out of left field with his dream.

"My dream is to make sure Itachi doesn't die of a fucking wasting disease and that he lives a long, healthy life as the prime babysitting to my kids, when I eventually marry Naruto."

Kakashi, Kakashi doesn't know which part of that he needs to start unpacking first. Because; wasting disease, kids, long life, marrying Naruto.

That last point seems to have been the only part Sakura catches.

The girl screeches, loud enough it sends the birds rocketing into the sky with panicked caws in an attempt to get the fuck away from whatever was making a human create that god awful sound.

"M-M-MARRY NARUTO?!"

"MARRY ME?!"

He honestly has no idea why Sakura's freaking out so much. Well, that's a lie. He knows she's been dreaming of some fucked-up Fairytale where he acts the gallant prince who sweeps her off her feet and plants her back down in the role of Uchiha House Wife. But that's not going to be it for him.

He wants Naruto. Brash as fuck, won't be shoved into a household role if it was the last job on earth, I'm going to be the Hokage, dattebayo, Naruto.

Genetically, it makes sense (no matter what the ancestors may be screeching in the Pure Lands). Uchihas have a lot going for them, but bottomless chakra supplies is something they're sorely lacking. Luckily enough, a big chakra reserve is exactly what the Uzumaki are known for (excluding the whole seals business, but Sasuke's studied enough of them under Orochimaru to pass that on to their children). Whatever. His point is, strong man and strong woman make extra strong babies. It's logic.

Not to say he'd drop Naruto if some woman stronger than her came along. Naruto is it for him. That she's the strongest woman (girl, she's twelve, fuck this time-travel shit) in the world is purely a bonus. He just has to make sure he keeps up with her.

Kakashi seems to have finally managed to switch his brain back on. His one visible eye blinks twice, locking back on to Sasuke as he smiles. It's not a nice smile.

"Maa, Sasuke-kun. Your dream's a little surprising given everything you've been saying for the past five years. Anything else you want to add?"

Is there anything else he wants to add? Oh, there's fuck loads he wants to add. He can feel is chakra pulsing behind his left eye, can feel his brain slugging through all the emotional trauma his time-travel memories have brought back. Itachi's eyes might be physically back in his sockets in the present, his brother might still be breathing, but Sasuke's got the memories of a dead big brother who loved him more than anything. He can feel the promise of the Mangekyō in hie eyes. Just like he can feel the lingering ghost of the Sage's chakra; the Rinnegan's still in his left socket, it's just not active at the moment.

At the moment.

With all that, with all his techniques and powers and just a body he will quickly get up to scratch and a jinchūriki girlfriend (not-girlfriend-soulmate, she's definitely his soulmate) who can wield the power of her Biju… well, what the fuck is stopping him?

"Yeah, I have, actually," Sasuke decides, rising to his feet so he can pace the roof of the academy, stopping to glare at the Hokage mountain: the First had been an idiot when they met; the Second relatively impressive but tarnished by the link to suspicion of the Uchihas; the less said about the Third, the better; the Fourth…

A quick glance to Naruto.

Well, he owes the Fourth for Naruto's existence, so he'll let that one slide.

He rounds on Kakashi, the jōnin staring at him with one wide, judgementally surprised eye. Naruto's flat out gawking from the side-lines and Sakura- well, it appears Sakura's fainted. He doesn't really care; she'll catch up with it all eventually, she has the brains for that.

"I have a shit-list of people who've fucked me over that's about six feet long, a shit-list for people who've screwed Naruto over that's about six miles long. This fucking village is too busy kissing Danzō's ass to realises he's running a secret organisation under the Third's nose that consists of shady dealing with Orochimaru and the Akatsuki, my brother's out there somewhere hacking up a lung and plotting his own death via Fratricide to ease his guilty conscience and let's not even get into the utter fuckery that is my deranged cousin attempting to resurrect my deranged ancestor so they can release the fucking Moon Rabbit to really fuck over the world."

Kakashi stares. Sasuke can't blame him. But he's not gonna dance to their tunes, not again. Dancing had gotten Shisui killed for attempting to help. It'd loyally fucked Itachi over. Fuck that. Sasuke's turning the music off and burning the dance hall.

The warm blitz of Naruto's chakra hits him a mere millisecond before her punch does. It's in the arm, not the temple, thankfully. The latter would probably knock him out.

He rubs at his arm, scowling even as he melts into her side.

"Er, Sasuke, maybe you should have opened with the whole 'we've travelled through time, surprise, Kakashi-sensei?"

The last in the '-by Uchiha Sasuke series', which includes the other two time-travel fics with similar titles.

Hope you're all safe and sound,

Tsume
xxx