Journey Back In Time

The Love of the Uchiha

The Uchiha patriarch and his daughter walked side-by-side down a path where he would take his usual morning strolls whenever he got the chance. The spring breeze lulled against their skin, making a tiny whooshing sound that made up for the silence embodying the air between them.

Oh, but it wasn't an awkward type of silence. If anything, the two of them simply took the time to enjoy the regained accompaniment of eachothers' presence. Sasuke clutched a medium-sized bag in his hand, its contents containing a few boxes of onigiri that his wife and daughter had prepared earlier on. Sakura figured it would've been better to bring them along. After all, who knows how long they were going to be out for.

Sarada paused in her tracks after noticing that her father had suddenly stopped walking. To her surprise, she looked ahead to see that they were facing an open riverbank, one that seemed awfully similar to the one Itachi took her to, though it wasn't the same.

She watched as the raven-haired man lowered himself down onto the clean-cut grass, using the tree behind him as a backrest. Without prompt, Sarada knelt down on her knees beside him, waiting for him to initiate the start of their conversation.

"Okay." Sasuke eventually says in a neutral tone. "Where do you want to begin?"

Sarada took a moment for herself before setting out on an answer. Now that she had actually met her uncle, part of her couldn't help but notice that the two of them exhibited similar demeanors. However, she had to agree with herself on the fact that Sasuke definitely won the poker face game.

In a few seconds, she let out a sigh and turned to face her father, her eyes sparking in all seriousness. "When did you leave Konoha, and why?"

She stared at her father, searching his overly content face for an answer. She pretty much already knew most of it after hearing Itachi out, but this was something she wanted to personally hear from his own mouth.

"I left the village some time after the Chuunin exams." He started, pausing before he continued, as if he didn't know where to go from there. "I wasn't like everybody else. My sole motivation over my Genin years was to exact revenge on my brother for what he did to the clan, and it was something that required an immense amount of power."

Sarada watched her father with furrowed eyebrows.

".. So I sought out strength from Orochimaru. He was the only person at the time who could ensure my growth, and it didn't matter if he needed me for his own merits. Nothing good was coming out of staying in the Leaf Village, especially not when people around me were getting much stronger than myself." The raven-haired man thought back to his blonde best-friend, remembering all too well the time where they nearly killed eachother on the hospital rooftop.

"I had only one goal in mind. My-"

"Did you love them, Dad?"

Sasuke flicked his orbs to meet the ones of his daughters.

"Mom and Uncle Naruto." She finished, letting the words explicitly run out of her mouth.

He continued his gaze for a few more seconds, until finally, his eyes closed as he understood what she was trying to say.

"That was a foreign word to me, Sarada." He says in a low tone. At this, the Uchiha heiress felt her heart sink. She remembered her father during the first time-point of when he was a Genin. When she asked him if he had any dreams.. He only said he wanted to get stronger. "I'd be lying if I said I loved them. In the beginning, I had no interest in them. Friendship, bonds.. It wasn't necessary. Naruto was loud and stupid, Sakura was a burden. But over time.."

She watched as he slowly began to peer his eyes open. "They just came to be people I found myself wanting to protect. They became important."

The Uchiha heiress widened her eyes at this, and suddenly she couldn't help but smile as she found a bit of relief in her heart.