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⠀A pained sigh escapes the lips and the note is thrown and burned to ashes with a single breath.

All this time, and he may still be disillusioned.

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⠀that he is still a liar; still a murderer, killing his daughters dreams of a real family; and still an abuser snuffing out his wife’s love from afar. A man like that can’t come home—looking prying eyes in the face—and tell a believable story of redress. - >

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⠀but when he reads this letter, he can’t help but wonder about his rehabilitation. Time after time he breaks his families heart by running away, in spite of his promises. He lead a band of criminals, criminals lie to get by, and he makes it clear to himself - >

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⠀Eventually he’ll have to disclose their family history, and who he, himself, became after that by choice with friends like her mother who cared about him and who he hurt regardless… he rues that day; -
>

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⠀no longer walk the amidst blood and tears into the den of hate and sorrow, and then he’d see his daughters face.

Perhaps that is why he travels so much, to tame whatever beast is lurking within his body, and to do many a good deed so she could be proud of him. - >

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⠀savagery that once dwelled within him and perhaps still breathes the embers of whatever rage would burn in the name of the past. Thoughts of his family kept his fury at bay; sometimes Itachi’s smiling face would drown this impending fire in waters of truth, that us Uchiha - >

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⠀So much destruction, destitution, and agony. Despite it all, kindness continued to exist in their otherwise hardened hearts and Sasuke, whom they’d nicknamed the charitable one, made the decision to aid them in reconstruction and put an end to the savagery abroad; - >

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⠀time of detriment. Bandits overran a village nearby, hell bent on destroying whoever they couldn’t extort. Cattle was stolen, houses pierced by arrowheads and charred by fire—many of those who didn’t survive were buried two miles out from the hamlet. - >

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⠀The interval between the week of his anticipated return had saw him stranded in a ditch somewhere, half alive, drained of Chakra. Luckily for him, he was found by some common folk and nursed back to life and decided to spend his time aiding these people in a - >

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⠀frozen in time, covered in the soil of combat and exhausted beyond reprieve. He had sent his Hawk through the vortex of space to relay his message to Sakura that he’d be coming home, that the job had gotten too stressful, that he needed a break… he needed them. - >

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⠀— understanding, but written in a way that suggests woeful defeatism. She describes Sarada’s disappointment these days as a decaying blank canvas, the more this happens, the more the white starts to rust and tear. He harkens back to a few weeks ago, - >

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⠀Upon reading it’s contents and the terminologies used, he deduced that the author was Sakura, let down and disappointed again by his loose promises to return home and spend time with his family; the letter is too philosophical — ->

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⠀He liked the idea, both their concerns and well wishes being conducted together, but even he knew things were still a bit too volatile. Sakura was too strong to crack in front of their daughter and Sarada was too private to let her mom openly hear her innermost thoughts. - >

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⠀The black ink was more neatly scribed than the last time they’d wrote to each other, which means she’d been practicing, either that or Sarada—who he’d taught properly earlier in age his style of writing — wrote it in her stead with Sakura’s overlay. - >

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⠀His hawk had returned, the only companion accompanying him on this journey of atonement… the young hermit stroked the majestic creature, fed it tasteful rice, and in return it regurgitated a scroll without wetting the contents. He unraveled the scroll—the hand writing was his wife’s. ->

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