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“No,” Sasuke replies, turning his face back to the sun.

“Please?” asks the boy. 

There’s something in his voice other than the usual deference. Sighing, Sasuke unfurls his black wings - big, big enough to tangle in the bare twigs surrounding him - and jumps down between the branches, coming to a stop within the tree’s sacred barrier. He regards the tengu boy silently, hands hidden in his robes for warmth. 

“My brother?” Sasuke asks. 

“Your father,” the boy says with a grimace, forgetting himself.

Such is the way of life at the top of Konoha’s highest mountain. Itachi rules the Uchiha clan through love. Their father rules it through obedience. Sasuke lets the slip go: the boy is not even ten years old, and Sasuke isn’t in the habit of shooting the messenger. He steps over the thick rope of the barrier and makes his way towards the main house, tousling his cousin’s hair as he passes. He misses the way the boy’s face lights up with delight, but not the words that drift towards him on a rustling wind. 

“Sasuke, Sasuke, will you come back soon?”

“Always,” Sasuke whispers into his feather fan, knowing the tree will hear him speak. 

But first: his father.  🌸🖤🌸🖤

The tree is older than the Uchiha compound. Older than the Uchiha clan entirely; and when Sasuke was five, the wandering hermit Jiraiya told him that it was older than the mountains of Konoha themselves. 

In general, his family’s attitude towards the tree swings between reverence and avoidance, depending on who is in charge. Fugaku doesn’t much like the thought of anything more powerful than him, so for the last two hundred years it has sat and endured the avoidance of a people who once played amongst its branches. 

So it’s nothing new that his father sits and berates Sasuke for being found by the cherry tree once again. What is new, however, is the news that he’s being sent to the Uzumaki clan until further notice. To reduce that blasted cherry’s influence, or something along those lines, but Sasuke stopped listening after hearing that he’s to be sent away. 

“I cannot stand those kitsune bastards,” Sasuke says without thinking. “I’ll go travelling again, instead.”

Perhaps his father hides a smile beneath his impressive eyebrows; either way, the older tengu shakes his head, ruffling his wings for effect. They’re in the formal audience chamber, which is a terrible sign. His mother is missing, too, which Sasuke knows is bad news. 

“You should have stopped speaking to the tree when I asked you, son.”

“But it’s…”

Sasuke stops himself, because he’s not naive enough to call an ancient tree his friend. But it’s something close, and he’ll miss the afternoons spent high above his family’s land, cradled in welcoming wooden arms. It has been many years since he mastered the whole of the Uchiha arts, and as the younger son he has few responsibilities to take up his time. There’s a boredom to his long life, and the tree has a thousand untold stories. 

“When do I leave?” Sasuke asks instead, hiding his frown behind his hand, clad in black silk robes. 

“The family have sent their heir to accompany you down the mountain,” his father says, toneless. “Your mother is packing your things now.”

Sasuke doesn’t dislike the Uzumaki heir, per se, but Naruto is a different breed from him, outgoing and vociferous even for a fox. This will be a long and gruelling visit, he knows. 

Just as he knows why his father has given him no notice of when to return. How convenient it would be for the Uchiha, to have a loyal son stationed at the foot of their lands.

“Very well,” Sasuke murmurs, bowing his head to his knees. 

His red tengu mask brushes the polished wooden floor, and there’s a moment where he considers dashing it from around his neck. But then the door opens and Uzumaki Naruto bowls in unannounced, greeting the Uchiha head with such irreverence that the older man actually recoils. 

Unnoticed, Sasuke manages to keep his composure one last time, long enough to whisper a farewell into the floorboards: venerable old things made from the boughs of his not-quite-friend.

“Come back soon,” the tree replies. 

Sasuke doesn’t answer, because what does soon look like to one who has lived a thousand years? 🌸🖤🌸🖤

The first few seasons down the mountain pass quickly, even to a tengu’s eyes. The Uzumaki kitsune are everything the Uchiha tengu are not: quick to fall out, quicker to fall in with one another. To his utter chagrin, Sasuke thrives. 

Forbidden from flying to the mountaintop by a stern missive from his father, Sasuke spends his evenings - when he’s thoroughly tired from the rambunctious Uzumaki life - sitting on the porch of his small house and watching the tree from afar. They’re too far to converse, but his secret pleasure is to watch the tree cycle through flower, leaf and fall, and his dreams are full of memories of days spent nestled against its trunk. 

So caught up in this reminiscence is Sasuke that he completely misses the arrival of The Girl. Appearing unannounced from Shikkotsu and yet being granted a place within the family head’s household, her arrival sets the entire Uzumaki complex astir with who she could possibly be. 

Sasuke is the only young yōkai in the neighbourhood not to become immediately infatuated with her, a fact which causes Naruto much amusement. 

“I can’t believe you haven’t spoken to her yet,” says Naruto, drinking his sake with the usual reckless abandon. “She’s beautiful.”

Sasuke smirks. “I’m not interested in beauty.”

It’s true: as the younger son of the Uchiha, he’s had decades to rove around the wondrous places of the world and drink in the sight of beauty both preternatural and immortal. It all pales in comparison to a solitary thousand year old cherry blossom. 

Naruto makes a dismissive gesture. “Rather, I’m surprised because she’s called Sakura, like your favourite thing.”

“So? I’ve met a hundred cherry trees and not been moved.”

“Have you seen her yet?”

Sasuke shrugs a no. He’s busy teaching during the day, wrangling the kitsune cubs into a semblance of decorum, and in the evenings he’s busy training to keep his edge sharp. The whereabouts of a mysterious girl hold little interest for him, Sakura or not. At his response Naruto grins like a fox, all teeth. 

“You’ll see,” the Uzumaki heir says. “You’ll most definitely see.” 🌸🖤🌸🖤

Ever the contrarian, Sasuke spends the next season trying his very best not to meet this Sakura. It’s not difficult: his schedule is very rigid, and even his drinking sessions are carefully slotted into his days.

Oh, he sees her from afar, sure; the complex is big but he is bound to it by his father’s word, and there are no other people with pink hair amongst the blonde-and-red Uzumaki. He is unmoved by her beauty, as it is not striking from a distance. 

In fact, he doesn’t think much of her at all, until spring rolls around, and the Uchiha cherry blossom puts out no flowers. Flying as high in the sky as he dares, Sasuke sees that it’s completely bare, without even the hint of a bud.

The matter is serious enough to the clan that Sasuke’s brother Itachi makes a rare trip down the mountain. The Uchiha pretend not to see the tree, but a thousand years of protection are hard to ignore.

“What do you think could be wrong?” Itachi asks.

“I can’t tell from here,” Sasuke replies, striding back and forth across his garden. “Did Father say I could return home to take a closer look?”

The other tengu’s grimace tells Sasuke all he needs to know. No, Uchiha Fugaku has not given leave for his younger son to return to the roost. From this distance Sasuke is as clueless as the rest of the Uchiha, and twice as worried. 

“I’m sorry,” Itachi says, spreading his hands in apology. “Mother and I are trying, but-”

“But Father is as immovable as the mountain itself,” Sasuke finishes. It’s a well-known proverb amongst their family. “In any case, please… keep me informed.”

Itachi nods, poking Sasuke’s forehead affectionately before taking off. It’s hard not to feel jealous of his elder brother, Sasuke thinks, watching the Uchiha heir’s black wings blot out the sun. Born to a blessed position and rising to the challenge, Itachi is the kind of man that other yōkai dream of following. His presence is so large that Sasuke must make do with a reputation for defying their father, and being enamoured with an ill-favoured old tree in the courtyard. 

It hurts and helps in equal measure that Sasuke loves him greatly. 

Itachi’s visit distracts Sasuke from his sadness until it’s time to return home from the main hall of the Uzumaki complex (nothing but the best for the Uchiha heir), where he spots a thatch of pink hair disappearing around the corner. 

“It’s her,” Sasuke mutters under his breath, annoyed at the pink-haired interloper despite himself. 

It is not The Girl’s fault that his tree is beleaguered, and yet he finds himself hurrying to catch up with her all the same. He doesn’t know why, only that his ill-temper needs an outlet, and this new face is beloved enough that one detractor would barely make a dent in her happiness. Rustling his wings as they catch on his robes, Sasuke rounds the corner only to find Sakura sprawled on the floor, her hand grasping one slippered ankle. 

It is hard to be angry at someone who has fallen to the ground, but Sasuke gives it a shot. 

“What’s this?” he says sharply, wincing as she looks up from her foot to meet his gaze. 

His voice is brusque, and his mask is foreboding. It’s no surprise that her round lips tremble and a tear rolls down her cheek. But this is not what Sasuke notices as Sakura looks at him for the first time since her arrival at the Uzumaki complex. 

What he notices, instead, is this: eyes as green as leaves in summer, and hair that is not pink thatch but rather blushing blossoms, curling and delicate. A kanzashi in her hair that is shaped like a steady branch, made of polished dark wood. Her celestial scarf, cherry-red and floating as though borne on a mountaintop wind. 

And finally, her expression, which is indignant through her tears. 

“Aren’t you going to help me stand?” she says, with all the pique of an imperial princess. 

Sasuke jolts back to the present, clawing his attention back from the gentle rustling of her hair. He feels himself blushing under his mask. 

“No,” he says abruptly, turning on his heel. 

He hears her hiss at his back, the sound of it razor-sharp against his spine. 

Well, Sasuke thinks, trying to walk as though he is unaffected, Itachi always was the one known as a gentleman. 

“Come back!” she demands, but he is already committed to leaving, and her words do not spark the memory that they should. 🌸🖤🌸🖤

That night, as Sasuke lies in bed and stares at the ceiling, he thinks back to The Girl (he refuses to call her anything else) and how she’d looked in the corridor, her angry surprise at his lack of assistance. 

The next night, it’s how her hair had curled over her cheek. The night after that, he cannot stop thinking about the girl’s celestial scarf, deep and fruited red. The rest of the week is lost in her pale green gaze.

“This cannot go on,” Sasuke murmurs after a fortnight has been laid at The Girl’s feet. 

Even then, it takes him another week to find her. He is busy, he reasons, and tengu love routine. When he does chance upon Sakura, she is sitting under the ancient maple by the kitchens, her head tipped back against its trunk. It looks for all the world as though they are conversing, though her lips are pressed tight shut.

“What’s this?” she says as he stops before her, looking down past the red nose of his mask.

The mimicry is not lost on Sasuke. He chooses to ignore it, sitting with the grace of someone who has spent lifetimes learning how to move like liquid. They say nothing for a while, long enough that the sun creeps downward and their stalemate loses its teeth, becoming companionable instead. The kitchen busies for the evening meal before Sakura opens her eyes. 

“What’s this?” she repeats. 

“Where did you come from?” Sasuke asks, ignoring her question. “Do you have anything to do with that?”

He points to the left, where his thousand year cherry grasps the rays of the evening sun. The Girl does not look, not even for an instant. 

“I’m from the Shikkotsu Forest,” she says, smiling with all her sharp, pointed teeth. 

“There are no girls like you there,” Sasuke retorts. 

Shikkotsu is a damp, dark place, a rainforest of drowning marshes and secret springs. She does not, he knows with the instincts of his long life, belong in such a place. He doubts very much whether she has ever even ventured to it. At his response, Sakura only laughs. 

“And what kind of girl am I?” she asks. “A celestial maiden, come down from the heavens? Am I an oni, sent to tempt young yōkai from the righteous path? Or I could be the slug princess, perhaps.”

She is making fun, Sasuke realises, of the young men who have followed her around since she arrived, of their speculation and their gossiping ways. And she is making light of him, too, for his behaviour on their first meeting. It ruffles his feathers, so to speak.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he reminds her. 

“You did not ask the right one,” Sakura replies, tipping her head back against the maple.

She says nothing else, not even when he gets to his feet. Her hands rest on the ground, and if not for his keen senses he would say that The Girl is asleep. Her disinterest galls him in a way Sasuke does not want to understand. Is he really the same as the rabble of the Uzumaki, to be so interested in a girl of not-quite-otherworldly beauty? Surely not. Adjusting his robes, Sasuke unfurls his wings in a luxurious stretch, blocking the last of the sun. 

He’s vindicated when she opens her eyes, frowning at the sudden darkness. 

“I’ll see you later,” he mutters.

“Come back soon,” Sakura replies, her voice slow and drowsy and familiar. 

Because Sasuke is too preoccupied with taking off in a way that’ll cause the budding maple leaves to fall on Sakura’s head, he misses her words until that night, when they drift into his dreams. As it has a thousand times before, a whispering voice speaks into his ear, hoping he’ll visit again soon. That it has more stories, should he wish to hear them.

Only this time, instead of bearing him deeper into sleep, the whispering voice of his friend sounds like The Girl’s voice, and it makes Sasuke sit up in a sweat, black hair stuck to his forehead. His robes are in disarray, his wings caught under him as they haven’t been since childhood. 

“Wait,” he barks aloud in the quiet of his bedroom, “it’s you?” And somewhere in the depths of the Uzumaki compound, a dry laugh echoes through the halls. It’s loud, and disturbing, and irritated, like the bare branches of a thousand-year cherry tree that should be in full bloom.

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