Sakura's Letter

Part 2: Sasuke

Uchiha Sasuke held the folded piece of paper indecisively in his hand. He had only read it once; he didn't need to read it again. It was a letter, he had come to understand, addressed to his wife. After his daughter had nervously handed it to him, he had just stared at it for a couple of seconds before realizing he was meant to read it. After doing so, he folded it back the way the bends of the paper encouraged him to, just as it had been before either of them had handled it.

Looking back over to his daughter, Sasuke had asked her where she had found it. Sarada had looked down at the book in her hands and opened it up to a detailed illustration of an arm, saying "Right here."

She had pushed the book over into his lap and stared at him intently. After a few minutes of silence, Sarada began to assault him with questions he didn't know the answers to: "Who is Morio? Why was he writing Mom letters? Did something happen between them?"

Uchiha Sasuke didn't know and therefore didn't have anything to tell his daughter, whom he knew to be very curious about the two of her parents. However, he was aware of his daughter's determination, recalling another situation he remembered all too clearly. Sarada had come to confront him when she became suspicious of her birth, taking it upon herself to personally investigate all the hospitals in Konoha, searching and not finding any record of it. Sakura had relayed the details to him once their battle with Shin had ended. He knew he had to tell her something in order to pacify her if only for the time being in order to prevent her from causing any trouble.

Coming up with nothing, he had simply said, "There's nothing to worry about."

What he had received in return, was nothing short of a glare. After some convincing, Sarada had finally agreed to leave the issue alone, but not after making Sasuke promise to teach her some new jutsu and instruct her training later that afternoon. Although exhaustion still weighed heavily on him due to the strain of his completed mission, he had agreed. He just hoped that in the meantime, Sarada would uphold her part of the promise and leave her mother to her work at the hospital.

Suddenly, a rather loud and obnoxious voice came from downstairs and he heard the front door open.

"Chouchou!" his daughter had exclaimed and hurriedly raced downstairs, leaving the confounded Uchiha to himself.

Leaning back against the sofa, he sighed. He had not expected for his day to involve any complications. Although it was not true for the village itself, Sasuke's home was usually where he could live with expectation, not necessarily having to worry about any surprises.

Sasuke peered at the letter in his right hand. His eyes then traveled to the book in his lap. Where he had once passed over the book with indifference, he now evaluated it more closely. He raised a suspicious eyebrow and began to flip more attentively through the pages, wondering if he might find another letter from this Morio. He scoffed at himself. Was he beginning to act like his daughter, or was she only taking after him?

Finding nothing else, Sasuke shut the book more forcefully than intended, resting it beside him on the sofa. His glare flickered to the rest of his wife's collection on the shelves, equally suspicious of what the other volumes might conceal. He dismissed the thought entirely.

A confliction of emotion stirred inside of the Uchiha. There was a part of him that wanted to ignite the damned letter with his Amaterasu. However, the more reasonable side of him—the smaller of the two—knew he had absolutely no right. Uchiha Sasuke, a man who was once so lost in darkness and so deeply involved with countless of crimes, had absolutely no right to question his wife about the letter. But yet, the letter bothered him more than he was willing to admit.

Sasuke stood and walked over to the small window in the back of the room, distancing himself from the letter. He wanted to walk away from the piece of evidence that exposed the revelation that Sakura could have had a different life—one without him.

His left eye pained him suddenly and he reached up to cover it with a slightly sweaty palm. Sasuke felt ridiculous getting worked up over such an annoying, stupid piece of paper. The Sasuke Uchiha from the past wouldn't have even given it another look, or even a second thought for that matter. But of course, the man he had been before wouldn't have loved the woman that he did now, or have a family to call his own again because of her. In fact, his former self had little regard for Haruno Sakura's feelings at all, giving her more than enough valid reasons to move on with her life.

Turning back around, he glared at the letter once again. Sasuke didn't doubt that other men had seen value in his wife during a time when he hadn't. He often reminded himself that he had been too blinded by darkness and his lust for revenge to see anything. However, it wasn't the thought of other men that had troubled him about this letter. What he seemed to be most bothered by was the idea that maybe Sakura had wavered, if just a little, in her love for him. She had kept it after all.

Sasuke knew himself to be completely unreasonable in this matter, but the letter continued to burn a hole in his vision, as if he had been staring at the sun. Unjustifiably frustrated, the Uchiha stalked toward and towered over the letter that rested on top of the book that had protected it from him for all these years. He wanted it out of his sight.

With what little resolve he could summon, he left the letter untouched, walking away from it and out of the room. Although he still hadn't fully recovered from his mission, Sasuke could only think of one thing that would return him to himself, finding it rather appealing at the moment to challenge his loser of a friend to a sparring match. Despite the Hokage's busy schedule, Sasuke knew that Naruto couldn't resist a challenge from him. A battle between them had long been overdue and he suddenly felt the need to fight someone.