After the battle, and after a stern med-nin had healed most of the damage in the Uchiha's leg, the couple of dozen genins that had been deployed to follow Sasuke's battalion's tracks reached the area where the fight had exploded.
immediately dedicating themselves to kill the Kumo-nin still alive but unable to run, to signal the Konoha-nin that had survived to the medic-nins, and to steal everything valuable from the bodies.
...
Soon enough, Sasuke found himself in front of a small hole in the ground in which he had lit a small fire with a seal-less manipulation of Katon. 'When you can't train your more flashy techniques, train control with the small things: do you need handseals to breathe out warm air? Do you need a technique to warm up tea? If so, then you're not good enough.'
The young Uchiha grimaced a bit as the words of Daiki ringed in his head without his permission: it said something about his own 'sensei' that he had learned more with the off-hand comments of the abusive on his Clan's land than he ever had from Kakashi' active instructions.
"So," Ino's voice made herself known as she plopped down on the opposite side of the small fire, "Luckily they keep a Nara on the roost near me at all times, since our techniques go well together."
"Hn." he immediately returned to stare the flames, uninterested in the other shinobi now that the battle was won.
"You're welcome, by the way." she added.
"Hn." Sasuke commented as he pulled out a water bottle from his rations, removing the cap and pouring in a measure of red powder.
"What is that?" Ino asked as he recapped the bottle before shaking it vigorously.
"... thank you," she added when it appeared clear that he wasn't willing to answer, making him rise briefly his eyes.
"you kept deflecting a lot of the shit that got thrown around, Shiko told me he could spare so much chakra because you kept doing half of his job for him."
We wouldn't have needed to babysit you were you more mindful of your blindspots. Sasuke thought snidely, choosing to go with yet another: "Hn."
"I'm sorry they disbanded your team." came the quiet voice of Ino, which simply made him scoff: of many things he could feel sorry about, the end of his team wasn't one, and he cared even less for the support of the 'fangirl' that hadn't left him alone since...
Well, now that the Last Uchiha actually thought about it, the blonde menace has basically disappeared from my life the day she had been assigned to Daiki, and during the chunin exams she didn't begin any interactions with me, despite the numerous occasions.
"They did the same to yours." he pointed out, raising an eyebrow as he nurtured the Flame Within, bringing scalding Fire Natured chakra into his hands and holding them close over his bottle, which now was full of a mysteriously red liquid.
She made a so-so gesture, fishing out a ration bar from her supplies and quickly unwrapping it: "We still get a mission together from time to time, but Shika works better with strategies, even if the higher-ups are having him work his way up from smaller scale to the whole war front, and Choji's bloodline is too useful for guarding a stable station."
"And you?" he asked, studying the way the shadows danced on her and the crystalline glint of her too blue eyes in the dark.
"I'm the more versatile of my team, my taijutsu is the best, my genjutsu complements it beautifully, and I can extract information pretty easily from the half-dead shinobi left in aftermath, not that there is much for me to discover." she grinned impishly as she took a bite of her ration, grimacing as the taste of cardboard made itself known on her tongue.
"How was he? As a sensei?" Sasuke asked as he uncorked his bottle, appreciatively nodding at the small measure of vapour that rose from it.
"You know Daiki-sensei?" Ino perked up while Sasuke chugged a bit of the mysteriously red liquid.
"And what is that?" she asked when he lowered his bottle.
Sasuke eyed his interlocutor for a few seconds, before handing over the bottle, which Ino carefully brought to her nose: "Tomatoe soup." she declared after a wiff.
"It's easy to seal away a lot of desiccated tomatoes, I had them in Daiki's greenhouse." Sasuke nodded, accepting back his soup.
"You stole tham from Daiki-sensei?"
"Considering that he built the greenhouse unlawfully on my land, and that I've been the one to take care of it for years, I am entitled to take whatever I want."
"He did that? Wait, you never told me how you know him." Ino took back the offered bottle and took another gulp of warm tomatoes soup.
"He started sqatting in my garden when I was eight."
Ino's mouthful of tomatoes' soup almost caught him unaware, luckily, his Sharingan had many mundane uses: "What!?" she spluttered, cringing a bit at the unimpressed look she received from the Uchiha. It wasn't a Sharingan stare, but it was baleful nevertheless.
Find something that its only yours, be it playing the guitar, writing poetry that you'll never show to anyone, cooking, a bond with someone. Daiki's voice sounded once more in Sasuke's head.
'Why?' Sasuke remembered asking the strange shinobi that gave him tips and strange tasks in order to spar from time to time.
Because otherwise you'll remain only what Itachi willed you to be, and I don't know how you think, but if it was me, and my brother told me to go right after destroying my family, I'd go left.
Sasuke' shoulders lost a bit of their natural stiffness as he moved a bit closer to the small fire that he had created more for a source of light than out of any need for warmth, and studied the dancing shadows on the kunoichi in front of him.
And because one day you'll want to share what's only yours, in order to become something that is only of another. Be it a friend, a comrade, a lover, a son.
"I still don't know why." Sasuke spoke almost shyly, "One day there was nothing, then he planted his tent during the night." a twitch of the lips that could have been a wistful smile on anyone else found its way on the Uchiha's face: "Then one day he offered me a spar in exchange for not setting his stuff on fire..."
As the night slowly dragged its cloak over the sky, and the two chunin exchanged anecdotes about the enigmatic Daiki' antics, a part of Sasuke long left broken in the dark mended a little, and warmth, not unlike the one he manipulated when exercising his Fire Nature manipulation, made its way in the Uchiha's bones.
...
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