His Duty and His Longing

The wood of the council table was polished to a deep, dark sheen, and if Naruto stared at it long enough, he could see a distorted version of his own face looking back. He had been staring at it for some time. A man whose name he could never remember was explaining, in excruciating detail, the logistical challenges of reinforcing the northern trade route before the winter rains. The man’s voice was a low, persistent drone, the kind of sound that vibrated in the bones and made sleep seem like a viable alternative to consciousness.

Naruto lifted his cup of green tea. It had gone cold. He drank it anyway, the bitter liquid doing nothing to sharpen his focus. He set the cup down and ran his index finger around its rim, again and again. The porcelain was smooth under his skin. The repetitive motion was a small, physical anchor in the abstract sea of policy and protocol. He could feel the eyes of the elders on him, could feel the expectation in the room. They were waiting for a comment, a decision, a sign that the Seventh Hokage was listening.

He was, in the way he was always listening now. Part of his mind was tracking the conversation, cataloging keywords—caravan security, budget allocation, shinobi deployment—while the rest of it floated free. He thought about the stack of papers on his desk, a tower of requests and reports that never seemed to get any smaller, no matter how many hours he spent signing his name to them. He remembered a time when his greatest challenge was mastering a new jutsu, when exhaustion came from a day of brutal training, leaving his muscles screaming and his chakra depleted. That was a clean sort of tired. This was different. This was a slow erosion, a grinding down of the spirit by a thousand tiny, administrative cuts.

He was the most powerful shinobi in the world, and he spent most of his days in a chair, fighting a war of ink and diplomacy. He had saved the world, and now he was tasked with running it. No one had ever told him that running it was so profoundly boring.

A flicker of movement from the window drew his attention. A single leaf, brittle and brown, spun in a sudden gust of wind before plastering itself against the glass. He watched it for a long moment, this small, dead thing trapped against a barrier. A familiar pressure built in his chest, a quiet, crushing weight that had become as much a part of him as the chakra humming in his veins. It was the weight of the hat on his head, of the robes on his shoulders. It was the weight of every life in the village, a responsibility he had craved for so long and now felt suffocating him.

He was surrounded by people, but he was fundamentally alone. They saw the orange coat, the title, the hero. They didn't see the man who was so tired he sometimes forgot what his own laughter sounded like. He was an idea, a symbol of peace and strength. It was a lonely thing to be.

The droning voice finally stopped. The room was silent. Everyone was looking at him.

Naruto forced his gaze away from the window, back to his own distorted reflection in the table. He cleared his throat, the sound rough in the quiet. "The budget is approved," he said, his voice flat. "Double the patrols until the first snow. Use the reserve funds."

The man, whose face was a mixture of surprise and relief, bowed low. "Thank you, Lord Hokage."

Naruto gave a short, mechanical nod. He wanted to get up. He wanted to smash the window and just run, to feel the wind on his face and the burn in his lungs. Instead, he reached for his cold tea and listened as the next item on the agenda was announced.

The council members shuffled out, their murmurs and the rustle of their robes fading down the corridor until the only sounds left were the ticking of the clock on the wall and the quiet sigh of Naruto’s advisor. Shikamaru hadn't moved from his position, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, his expression as weary as Naruto felt.

"That was a drag," Shikamaru said, pushing himself off the wall. He walked over to the table, his footsteps unnervingly loud in the sudden emptiness. He picked up a single, tightly bound scroll from the stack he’d been holding and placed it on the polished wood in front of Naruto. "This just came in from the perimeter."

Naruto looked at it without much interest. It was just another scroll, another report to be read, another problem to be solved or filed away. He reached for it out of habit, his fingers brushing against the rough paper.

And then he felt it.

It wasn't something he could see or hear. It was a sensation that bypassed his senses and went straight to the core of him, a low thrum of energy sealed within the scroll. It was familiar, a signature as known to him as his own. It felt like ozone after a lightning strike, sharp and clean and dangerous. Spiky.

His hand froze over the scroll. The dull exhaustion that had been fogging his mind for hours vanished, burned away by a sudden, intense clarity. The blood was moving faster in his veins. His stomach tightened, a low, coiling knot of something he couldn't put a name to. It wasn't unpleasant. That was the problem.

He picked up the scroll. The chakra felt stronger in his grip, a contained power that seemed to vibrate against his palm. Sasuke. He was back. The mission was over. That was all it was. Relief. He was relieved that a valuable asset to the village had returned safely. He was pleased that the mission to track the remnants of Orochimaru’s network was a success. He formed the thoughts in his head, testing them, trying to make them fit the feeling in his gut. They were logical, rational explanations. They were also lies.

The feeling was a sharp, unwelcome excitement. It was the thrill of a fight, the jolt of a worthy opponent stepping onto the field. It was the feeling he got standing on a cliff edge, the terrifying, exhilarating pull of the drop. It was a feeling that had no place in this quiet room, no place in the life he had so carefully built. It felt like a threat to the man who sat in this chair, the husband and father who went home every night to a warm house. It was a pull back to a different version of himself, a boy who had chased Sasuke across countries, who had fought him in the rain with killing intent and a desperate, aching need to drag him home.

"Naruto?" Shikamaru’s voice cut through his thoughts.

Naruto realized he had just been staring at the scroll, his knuckles white where he gripped it. He forced his hand to relax. He looked up at his friend. "What?"

Shikamaru’s gaze was steady, perceptive. He saw too much, he always had. "You looked a million miles away. Everything alright?"

"Yeah," Naruto said, his own voice sounding distant. "Just tired." He unrolled the scroll, his eyes scanning the precise, economical script of the report without really reading the words. Rogue ninja apprehended. No casualties. Awaiting debrief. Standard. Clinical. Nothing in the text hinted at the energy buzzing just beneath it. "He’s requesting a debrief."

"As scheduled," Shikamaru confirmed. He tilted his head. "He’s at the west gate. Waiting for your summons."

Of course he was. Sasuke wouldn’t just walk back into the village. He would wait for permission, for the Hokage’s official word. A formal procedure for a man who defied all formality. Naruto rolled the scroll back up, the motion slow and deliberate. The knot in his stomach had not gone away. It had settled, a heavy, warm weight deep inside him. Apprehension and anticipation. He wanted to see him, and he dreaded it.

"I’ll see him tonight," Naruto said. "In my office."

Shikamaru nodded, his expression giving nothing away. "I’ll let the gate guards know." He turned and walked to the door, pausing with his hand on the frame. "Try and get some rest before then. You look like hell."

Then he was gone, leaving Naruto alone in the vast, silent room. The setting sun cast long, orange stripes across the floor. He was alone with the ticking clock, the endless stacks of paper, and a single scroll that felt heavier than all the rest combined. It pulsed with a familiar chakra, a promise of a confrontation that had nothing to do with mission reports. And in the silent, lonely office of the Hokage, Naruto felt the first flicker of life he’d felt all day.

The sun bled across the sky, turning the clouds a bruised purple. The light coming through his window was weak and orange, stretching the shadows of the furniture until the room was barely recognizable. He should have been working. The pile of unsigned documents had not shrunk. He picked up a pen, looked at the top sheet—a requisition for new kunai for the academy—and put the pen back down.

The silence in the office was not peaceful. It was a presence, a weight that pressed in on him. It made the ticking of the clock on the wall sound like a hammer striking an anvil. He could hear his own heart, a steady, too-fast rhythm against his ribs. He pressed a hand to his chest, as if he could physically calm it. He was the Hokage. He had faced down gods and monsters. He had no reason to be nervous.

The door opened. There was no knock. Naruto didn’t startle, not outwardly. He had been waiting for that sound, that specific lack of sound, for the last hour.

Sasuke stood in the doorway, a black silhouette against the dying light. The dark fabric of his cloak seemed to drink the shadows around him. His left sleeve was empty, pinned neatly at his side. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, plunging the room into a deeper twilight. The last of the sunset caught the sharp line of his jaw, the pale skin of his face.

He didn't move further into the room. He just stood there, by the door, as if he were a courier waiting for a signature, not the second most powerful shinobi in the world.

"Sasuke," Naruto said. The name felt strange in his mouth, too familiar for the formality of the room.

"Hokage-sama." Sasuke’s voice was low and even. The honorific was a wall between them, deliberately placed.

Naruto gestured vaguely towards the chairs in front of his desk. "You don't have to stand there."

Sasuke ignored the gesture. He remained by the door, his single eye fixed on Naruto. The distance felt calculated. Safe.

"Your report," Naruto said, forcing his tone to remain professional. "Shikamaru said it was successful."

"It was," Sasuke said. "The targets were apprehended."

"All of them?"

"All four." A pause. "They were former Sound ninja. Still loyal to Orochimaru's old ideals. They'd been modifying his curse mark technology."

Naruto leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. This was business. This was something he understood. "How modified?"

"Accelerated application. No gestation period," Sasuke explained, his voice a flat monotone. "But it was unstable. It burned them out from the inside. They were desperate." He shifted his weight, and the fabric of his cloak rustled. The sound was loud in the quiet room. "They were based out of a series of caves near the Kusagakure border. They had a lab. I destroyed it."

Naruto nodded, processing the information. It was a clean report. Efficient. Just like Sasuke himself. He should be asking about the specifics of the technology, about potential links to other Orochimaru hideouts, about the political implications of operating so close to the Grass Village border. Those were the questions the Hokage should ask.

But he wasn’t asking those questions. He wasn’t thinking about curse mark technology. His attention had snagged on the muscle working in Sasuke’s jaw, a tiny, repetitive motion that betrayed the flat calm of his voice. He watched it clench, then release, then clench again.

Naruto’s gaze drifted. He noticed the faint purple shadow under Sasuke’s visible eye, a smudge of exhaustion that pride couldn’t entirely erase. His shoulders were set in a rigid line, the way they got when he was pushing past his limits and refused to admit it. He had been on the road for weeks, fighting, tracking, sleeping in forests and caves, and he had come back looking honed to a razor’s edge, but frayed. Worn thin.

The way he stood there, half-swallowed by the encroaching darkness of the office, solid and unmovable, pricked at something in Naruto’s memory. The formal debrief, the title of Hokage, the polished desk between them—it all dissolved. The air grew thick and heavy, charged with the smell of rain and wet earth. The quiet ticking of the clock became the roar of water.

He was on his back, the unforgiving stone of the valley floor digging into his spine. Every part of his body screamed with a pain so profound it was almost silent. Rain fell in cold, hard sheets, plastering his hair to his skull, blurring the world into a wash of grey. Over him, blocking out the sky, was Sasuke.

His hair was black and slick with water, clinging to his forehead and the high curve of his cheekbones. Water streamed down his face, carving clean tracks through the dirt and blood smearing his skin. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling in sharp, ragged movements. One hand hung limp at his side, dripping red onto the stone next to Naruto’s head. The other held the searing, electric power of his Chidori, a screeching ball of lightning that illuminated the fury and the devastation on his face.

But it was his eyes that held Naruto captive. They were black holes in the storm, wide and fixed on him. They held hatred, yes, a deep and bottomless well of it. But there was something else swimming in the darkness, something twisted up with the rage. It was a flicker of agony, a flash of something that looked terribly like regret. It was the look of someone who had just won, and in doing so, had destroyed the only thing that mattered. He was looking at Naruto as if he was seeing a ghost, as if he was the one who had been struck down. The expression was raw, unguarded, a wound torn open for a split second before the mask of indifference slammed back into place.

The memory vanished.

Naruto blinked, and the office swam back into focus. The roaring in his ears subsided, replaced once again by the steady tick-tock of the clock. Sasuke was still standing by the door, exactly where he had been. The room was quiet. Too quiet. Sasuke had stopped talking. He was just looking at him now, his single eye narrowed slightly, waiting.

A dull ache bloomed in the center of Naruto’s chest, a phantom pain from a wound that had scarred over years ago but never truly healed. He had missed something. Sasuke had been detailing the mission, and he had been lost in the rain at the Valley of the End. He had no idea what Sasuke had just said, what question he might have asked.

"So," Naruto said, his voice a little too loud in the stillness. He cleared his throat, trying to cover the lapse. "The scrolls they were using. You secured them?" It was a safe question. A logical follow-up. He hoped it was, anyway. He tried to project an air of command, of a leader processing tactical information, but he felt like a fraud. He felt like a boy again, lying broken at the feet of his rival, staring up at a face he could never, ever understand.

Sasuke’s visible eye didn’t move from Naruto’s face. The silence stretched, thin and tight, before he answered. "Yes. They're sealed. I'll have them delivered to the Intelligence Division in the morning."

His voice was flat, devoid of inflection. He knew Naruto had been gone. The knowledge was there in the unwavering stillness of his gaze, a quiet accusation that needed no words. He offered no further details, no elaboration. The flow of the debrief had been broken, and he made no move to repair it.

Instead, he gave a stiff, formal bow, just a slight inclination of his head and shoulders. "If that is all, Hokage-sama."

It was a dismissal. He was ending the meeting. He was leaving. A sudden, sharp panic seized Naruto, cold and irrational. The room felt vast and empty again, the way it had before Sasuke arrived. He couldn't let him leave like this, with the cold honorific hanging between them like a shield. Not after that memory, so vivid and violent it felt like it had happened a moment ago. He needed to say something, anything, to tear through the sterile formality.

Sasuke turned, his cloak swirling around his ankles with a soft whisper of fabric. His back was a solid wall of black. He took one step towards the door, then another. His boots made no sound on the wooden floor.

"Sasuke."

The name came out of Naruto’s mouth before he’d fully decided to speak it. It sounded raw, too loud in the oppressive quiet of the office. It was a plea.

Sasuke stopped. His hand was inches from the doorknob. He didn’t turn around, but his entire body went rigid. The line of his shoulders was tense, braced for an order, or perhaps an attack. He just stood there, waiting, a silhouette poised for flight.

Naruto’s heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. He searched for the right words, for the Hokage’s words, for something that would make sense in this room, in this life he had built. He found nothing. There was only the dull ache in his chest and the ghost of rain on his skin.

So he said the only thing that felt true.

"Welcome home."

The words were quiet, stripped of all authority. They were just his.

For a long moment, Sasuke did not move. Naruto watched the unyielding line of his back, half-expecting him to just open the door and leave without a word, to pretend he hadn't heard. The silence was absolute, holding a thousand unspoken arguments, a decade of blood and anger and obsession. Naruto held his breath.

Then, Sasuke’s head dipped forward in a nod so slight it was barely perceptible. A fractional movement, a concession measured in millimeters. It was an answer, but one given grudgingly, unwillingly.

The doorknob turned with a quiet click. The door opened, spilling the dim light of the hallway onto the floor, and then he was gone. The latch clicked shut, a sound of finality that echoed in the stillness.

Naruto was alone again.

He stared at the door, at the solid, impassive wood where Sasuke had been. The room felt colder now, the shadows deeper. He slowly lowered himself back into his chair, the leather groaning under his weight. A faint scent lingered in the air, sharp and clean, the smell of ozone that always clung to Sasuke after he’d used his Chidori. It was the smell of lightning, of a storm that had passed through and left the air charged and strange.

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. It came out as a long, shaky sigh. He leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. The rough skin of his palms scraped against his cheeks. The silence pressed in, no longer just an absence of sound but a heavy, suffocating blanket. It was the same silence he lived with every day, but Sasuke’s presence had given it a different quality. His departure made it feel a hundred times more profound, a hundred times more lonely. The ache in his chest hadn't faded. It had sharpened into something new, something that had a name he still refused to speak.