「 𝕌𝕔𝕙𝕚𝕙𝕒 𝕊𝕒𝕤𝕦𝕜𝕖」

「 chapter three」

"The ballots are in."

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Five very excruciating minutes later, after the Hokage had counted the votes, and then at which Danzo had retorted, and counted the votes himself, and then at which Fugaku had retorted and counted the votes himself, the Hokage opened his mouth to reveal the results.

"Four people voted no and three people voted yes. Uchiha Sasuke's mind will not be searched. That is all."

"What?! Hokage-sama, tell me who voted no!" Danzo shouted, banging his hand on the desk, causing Sasuke to jump.

"No. This is why we do a ballot, Danzo-sama." The Hokage closed his eyes once more and rested his head on his palms. "I declare this meeting as finished. You are dismissed."

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"Isn't it great, Sasuke-chan! We won!" Mikoto held the boy up and swung him around the room.

"Hai!" Sasuke grinned. "I kinda wanted to see how it felt like though..."

Mikoto set the boy down and bent down to his level. "Aw, come on. We can have a tomato salad for dinner."

"Yay! Where's Itachi-nii?"

"He should be home any time soon...he said he was going to pick up some dangos."

"Hmph! Itachi-nii only eats dangos." Sasuke pouted. "I want onigiri!~~ Maybe Itachi-nii can pick up onigiri." Sasuke muttered to himself. During the days of the war, Sasuke and his team had survived solely on potatoes. While potatoes aren't that bad, he wanted some onigiri. Maybe even some tomato salad if he was lucky. It got so bad that he swore he would name his first child "Sarada" after salad.

The front door slid open then, indicating that his nii-chan had come home.

"Itachi-nii!~~" He ran to greet his brother.

Itachi smiled as he took off his shoes. Sasuke stopped. It was hard acting young, especially when he was technically older than his brother.

"Did ya bring back food?" 

"Only dango."

"Aw! You only eat dango. What about onigiri? I. Want. Onigiri!!" he stomped his feet. Sasuke winced on the inside. He felt like Naruto. 

"Sorry otouto. Maybe next time." He poked his brother on the forehead.

Sasuke felt a rush of emotions. That poke was important to him, even when he died. 

Itachi paused, watching his brothers face. It held fear, then guilt, and emotion that frightened the Uchiha the most.

A deep sadness. Itachi had been on the battlefields enough times to know that that's what someone looked like after they lost a loved one.

Sasuke flinched and then returned to normal. He walked backward before turning around and running to the kitchen. "Kaa-san, Itachi-nii only brought dango!"

His heart hammered. He almost screwed up! Itachi was now definitely on his tail.

Itachi stood there, his bag of dango resting by his thigh. He was confused, something was wrong with his brother nowadays. He must watch him.

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The next day, Sasuke planned headed out, in search for his old sensei, Kakashi. Now, Sasuke mused, Kakashi must still be an AMBU. This means I can follow Itachi-nii!

But he had to hide his chakra. Sasuke winced at that. Itachi would be more suspicious if Sasuke had followed him there, and Itachi couldn't sense him.

Sasuke sighed.

"Kaa-san! I'm heading out!"

"Don't get lost, Sasuke-chan!"

"Don't call me Sasuke-chan!" he pouted.

"Of course, Sasuke-chan!"

"Kaa-san!~~"

Sasuke grabbed his coat before heading out. He would think of something along the way.