Life Before Life After

A/N: Thanks so much to those who reviewed-feedback really helps me get the motivetion to keep writing!

“Uchiha-san!” Iruka’s voice was kindly, if not forcibly cheery, but Sasuke took a slight comfort from the familiarity as the man bounced forward, trailed by a few curious students.

“What brings you here?”

“I’ve come to see Uzumaki-san.” Sasuke murmured. “I was told this was his lunch hour.”

Iruka nodded but his eyes were hard, and surprisingly the children (soon-to-be graduates) were not so subtly putting their hands over poorly hidden kunai.

“Why do you want to see Naruto-sensei?” One of them asked coldly, almost cutely ferocious.

“I’d like his opinion on a certain matter.” Sasuke returned, narrowing his eyes. At Sound this kind of insubordination would be unheard of and Sasuke would have every right to punt the little brat into the next country, but this wasn’t the Sound, he reminded himself, so he accepted the stare, replying with his own. Childish, yes, but in the Leaf Sasuke had already sunk far lower than the random intimidation of academy students.

“He should be in the lounge.” Iruka broke through their contest with a small smile, before ordering the brats away. “I’ll take you.”

Sasuke sent one last sneer to the little redhead before allowing Iruka to corral him in the general direction of the old building. It was still battle-scarred, peppered with random kunai and shuriken, but the foundations of the school still looked solid, the practice stumps and dummies still quietly taunting. They were both embraced by the cool shadow of the foyer, and the random noise of too many children shoved into one place. It smelled like, sweat, chalk, and cleaning oil and a minute tension lifted from Sasuke’s mind at the familiarity as Iruka hummed beside him, pointing to the bright rectangle of an open door.

‘Teacher’s Lounge’ it announced in fading stenciled letters, as if anyone couldn’t already tell by the stench of burning, subpar coffee.

“He’s right inside.” Iruka patted him on the back and Sasuke flinched, but the awkwardness was immediately cut by the high-pitched squealing of what sounded like many angry girls.

“That would be Kato,” Iruka huffed, darting away with a look of grim determination already set on his face.

Sasuke took a deep breath and walked into the sunlight, allowing his eyes to adjust before pulling his hand away and checking the room for hostiles.

“All the kunai in the school are blunted, Uchiha-san.” A familiar voice called out from the corner. “You’re safe here.”

“Well, as safe as you can be around a hundred children being trained to kill.” A feminine voice wafted from the side, near the coffee pot if Sasuke’s nose was on course. There was a quiet clink of ceramics before Sasuke found another shadow to stand in, doing his best to avoid the light. He ended up next to an old battered couch, and a chuunin who was looking up at the woman with a grin.

Naruto laughed. “Right you are, Kagome-sensei. I recall my statement, Uchiha, be ready for anything.”

“Uzumaki-san,” The honorific seemed to stick on his tongue, but it was necessary.

“Uzumaki-sensei.” The woman countered, taking a long, pointed slurp of her beverage. Naruto shifted his eyes but didn’t add a thing, waiting, apparently, for the inevitability of Sasuke’s derisive comment. Unlike the evening before, Naruto eyes held a spark of challenge and his sprawl was loose. Ready for anything, Sasuke thought, getting distracted for a moment by the shine of his hair, how it curved and sloped in jagged angles.

“Sensei.” Sasuke murmured, taking his cue, “I fear for Konoha’s youth.”

Sasuke shrugged off the woman’s killing intent and watched avidly as Naruto bared his teeth.

“Though I suppose…” Sasuke just couldn’t help it, “You couldn’t be worse than Kakashi.”

“A little more sadistic, maybe.” Naruto’s growl turned into a grin. “But at least I show up on time.”

“I’ve been told that’s the first step to world domination.” Sasuke nodded, handing the scroll forward with the sudden image of a dog sniffing a foreign hand as Naruto received it warily.

“What is this?” He unrolled it, running his finger down Sasuke’s sloppy kanji and frowning. “Were you drunk when you wrote this?”

“No.” Sasuke allowed a sigh, it was as he expected, no as he’d known. There was damage from the experiments. The woman teacher snickered, until he whispered, “I may be going blind.”

Naruto just rolled the scroll up and snorted. “Always so dramatic. I bet you just need glasses.”

But there was worry there in a brief upward glance, and that was enough to spurn Sasuke to spare Naruto of some of the harsher realities of his return. He didn’t have to know the barbaric methods of restraint being used by his beloved Hokage.

“It sounds more impressive,” Sasuke barely smiled, “to be going blind.”

“E for effort,” Naruto’s lips twitched, “A for asshole. F for-”

“Forgiveness?”

Naruto’s face hardened.

“Failure.” He looked away. “You have to earn your grades around here, Sasu…Uchiha-san.”

“Anyhow, it is a compilation of the information you gave me concerning the budget.” Sasuke didn’t allow what would have been an undoubtedly tense silence. “I thought you might want to go over it before tonight. I figured a kage bunshin would do the job.”

Naruto nodded, looking every bit the young, unbiased teacher as he twirled the scroll in his fingers. Behind them the room took a sudden influx of adults, with Iruka’s laughing voice at the head. They all paused a little in the doorway, and Sasuke’s fingers itched for a kunai with every heavy glance.

“Go get your eyes checked, Uchiha.” Was all Naruto said, acknowledging the various greetings with a single, purposeful nod.

Sasuke huffed but he paused at the threshold, focusing on the sharp shine of gold.

“Be on time, Sensei.”

He ducked the blunt kunai with ease.

****

“Tsunade-sama…do you want me to hold him down?”

“We have it, thank you, Shizune. Fuck, you little-”

“Don’t hit him! He can’t help it!” Sakura’s voice screeched through his ears and Sasuke only bit down harder, dazed by a sudden wallop but unrelenting. Tsunade cursed again and Sasuke released her hand at the next blow, allowing her the precious moments needed to strap his head and arms down to the table.

“I told you to give him more sedatives,” Sakura sighed, crossing her arms.

Sasuke licked the blood off his teeth and then shivered, watching Tsunade heal herself in a green glow. She looked furious, scowling, but nowhere near the homicidal rage from when they had first met, which was comforting, but the creeping paralysis did absolutely nothing for his nerves.

“It must be something about the sharingnan,” Shizune mused, taking a few steps closer and peering down, “None of the Hyuugas I’ve treated have responded like…that.”

Sasuke growled and she flinched back.

“It is.” Tsunade traded glare for glare, unflinchingly. “I tried to stitch up an Uchiha during the war and almost got myself disemboweled for the trouble. It got to the point where we had to teach them to fix their own damned head wounds.”

“You broke it, bitch.” Sasuke slurred. He stared at her for a moment in the resulting silence and forced his brain to review what had just exited his mouth.

“You broke it…hokage-sama.” Sasuke amended, forcing each word out with painstaking attention.

“This is the fun part.” Tsunade smirked as her assistants edged closer. A flash of pink caught Sasuke’s eye and all concentration left him along with fairly important and cultivated cognitive abilities.

“Come closer.” Sasuke told the pink flash.

“No, I don’t think so.” The pink flash answered.

“You’re safe with me.” Sasuke tried a smile, “I don’t like sweets.”

Someone giggled. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“And then the psychosis sets in.” A voice said dryly. It was rather loud and unpleasant and Sasuke made a grab for the pink thing but found himself unable to move. “Sasuke, Look this way please.”

Sasuke set his eyes into a white, bright light, and saw-

“Aniki?”

“Tell me when it hurts.”

****

Sasuke woke in the operating room, dazed and sore under the clever brown eyes of his torturer. Tsunade was smirking, as was her habit whenever Sasuke was in view, and spinning a piece of metal in her hands.

“You look like shit, Uchiha.” Her painted lips twisted into a satisfied smile, “Feeling the pressure?”

In fact he was, not that he’d ever admit it out loud. On top of the stress of his official task there was a sort of burning press in his temple that made it feel like his forehead was in a vice.

“Why don’t you just cry it out for big momma Hokage,” Tsunade mocked, shoving a tissue into his hands, “Or do you even know how?”

Sasuke bit down on his tongue until he tasted blood, the arch of sharp pain overwhelming the dull ach and the need to crush her head with his hands.

“No, really.” Tsunade smirked, her brown eyes mocking, “If you don’t start bawling soon your eyeballs will probably pop out. We’ve managed to relieve the pressure by giving the blood…never mind it’s way too troublesome to explain. Should I go get an onion or-”

Sasuke hissed at her in a low curse and twisted the skin next to his seal as hard as he could. The pain was as excruciating as ever as the automatic defenses kicked back, and for the first time since he received the black marks Sasuke let the sharp sting in his eyes progress into something else.

“Well,” Tsunade looked a little disappointed, “That’s one way to go about it…” She laughed as Sasuke pressed the tissue to his cheeks, “but you have one impressive hickey now, idiot.”

Sasuke ignored the taunting for the sake of a low, thrumming pleasure as the pressure was relieved from the back of his eyes.

“Will I be able to use my doujutsu?”

“Nope.” Tsunade grinned, “And the best part is this.”

She finally stopped spinning her hand long enough to hand Sasuke a bit of metal frame and oval glass.

Glasses.

“So I’m not going blind.” The relief was overwhelming. As much as he’d joked with Naruto the thought of losing his sight had been a horrifying one. There were shinobi who learned to function with the loss but those shinobi weren’t known to live long. Sasuke had known men to retire after losing only one. Depth perception was an absolute must for an active shinobi as it increased survival rates by nearly ninety percent.

“No, you aren’t.” Tsunade actually looked a little disappointed, crossing her arms over her ample chest. “The chakra seals we put on your eyelids have warped the tenketsus in your irises, altering your perceptions.”

“Will they degenerate any further?” Sasuke wiped his cheeks clean and set the glasses on his nose, sucking in a surprised breath when the world around him suddenly came into sharp focus.

He hadn’t realized how much he wasn’t seeing, he knew it was bad, but- Tsunade’s face came into view and Sasuke was fairly tempted to pull the damned things off again.

“No, they’ve altered as much as they’re going to as long as the seals aren’t tampered with.” She grinned, “But if you just happened to remove them…who knows what might happen?”

Sasuke nodded and pocketed away the dirtied tissues, attempting to reign in his killing intent and the scowl that was slowly winning over his resolve.

“If that’s all then I’ll be going.”

Tsunade’s smile evaporated into a cool mask and she nodded slightly, as if giving permission.

“Yes,” She said, “You will.”

And that, as they said, was that.