SWNOVELXO Chapter 5: Chapter 3
Chapter 3: A Brotherhood Forged in Bruises and Bravado
In which fists speak louder than words, and a strange boy with a grin full of fire invades the fortress of a broken prince.
Naruto stood at the edge of a forgotten empire, the bones of the once-proud Uchiha clan crumbling quietly in the summer heat. Konoha's sun bore down like a judge, impartial and uncaring, as he perched atop a rotting wooden beam—high above the dust and history. The Uchiha compound spread out beneath him like a battlefield long since lost, its silence more oppressive than the screams that once echoed here.
He watched the last heir dance.
Below, Sasuke Uchiha cut through the air like he wanted it dead. Shuriken spun in orbit around him—little silver moons destined to bite bark, soil, and occasionally flesh. The boy moved fast. Fast enough to impress the old fools who still believed in destiny, legacy, blood.
Naruto's lips curled into a smirk, a twitch of amusement rather than joy. So serious, so angry. He doesn't even know he's already lost.
Sasuke's aggression betrayed him. His body shouted when it should whispered. His eyes flickered with fire, but lacked the cold patience of killers. To most, he was a prodigy. To Naruto, he was a piece on the board. A talented one. But still a piece.
"Playing with himself," Naruto murmured under his breath, tongue scraping the last of the ice pop from his teeth, the wooden stick already bitten clean in half. "How apt."
He dropped the stick, let it fall like a judgement to the cracked ground below.
It hadn't been a hard decision, coming here. Rias had followed—red hair catching the light like a flare sent skyward—and though her power was nascent, the blood in her veins whispered of something old, and dangerous, and useful. She would come in handy.
But Sasuke? Sasuke was the kind of pawn that turned into a queen, given time. And Naruto didn't believe in waiting for things to bloom on their own. He liked ripping out roots and replacing the soil.
From his perch, he studied the boy. Every step. Every throw. Every tightening of the jaw and flicker of Sharingan. The brat didn't have it active yet—but it was there, sleeping in those coal-black eyes like a wolf in the dark.
He's broken, Naruto thought. Just enough to be molded. Just enough to be useful.
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The wind whispered across the broken tiles of the Uchiha compound, cold and hollow like the breath of ghosts. Long-dead pride still clung to these shattered walls. Naruto stood on the edge of a forgotten balcony, arms crossed, the wood creaking under his weight but not daring to break. His eyes, not of royalty nor clan, but of something more primal—unwanted and forged in rejection—watched the lone boy below.
Sasuke Uchiha moved like a blade without a sheath—sharp, beautiful, and dangerous even to its wielder. Each shuriken he threw sliced through the silence with the promise of violence. There was rhythm to his madness. Pain made poetry. Vengeance gave it verse.
Beside Naruto stood Rias Gremory, red as spilled wine and twice as dangerous if awakened. Her gaze held no cruelty, only the lingering ache of understanding. She had seen men turn to shadows, watched ambition gnaw at the soul until only hollow desire remained. Yet here, in this foreign world with foreign rules, she found herself small. Humbled.
"Vengeance makes a man fast," Naruto said, voice low, almost amused. "But not smart. Not free."
Rias didn't answer. Her eyes were fixed on Sasuke. She could respect his skill—yes—but in his narrowed eyes and clenched jaw, she saw a future of cracked mirrors and bloodied hands. She had seen such futures before. Too many. A lesson from her world, now repeated in this strange new one.
Her own world—how distant it felt now. Back there, she had been a symbol: the sister of a king, the heiress of an ancient line, a trophy dressed in crimson. Her power had never needed to be honed. Why sharpen a blade never meant to be drawn?
But here…
Here, power was survival. And she had none that mattered.
Her magic could level buildings, yes—but what was destruction when she couldn't even read the movements of a boy two years her junior? Her muscles were soft. Her instincts dulled. Even now, she relied on flight because her body lacked the swiftness to follow this world's predators.
"My brother could lift a mountain," she said aloud, softly, almost bitterly. "Move faster than the human eye could follow. And I… I played dress-up with spellbooks and tea ceremonies."
Naruto smirked. "Sounds like royalty."
"Sounds like failure."
He turned, expression unreadable now. The usual grin gone, replaced with something colder. Sharper. Like the village's glares, but honed from within. "Power's not in bloodlines," he said. "Not here."
That made her blink.
He gestured to Sasuke below. "He's got the blood of a clan. I've got the blood of a demon sealed in me. Guess which one's been hunted since birth?"
Rias stayed silent.
"I'm building a team," Naruto continued. "Not for fun. Not for play. For war. For freedom. From them," he added, jerking his thumb toward the distant village roofs where hatred brewed like storm clouds.
"And you want him on your team?" Rias asked.
"I want everything sharp and strong." He grinned. "And I want him pointed away from me."
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The wind tasted of dust and old blood as it slithered past the forgotten corridors of the Uchiha complex — a dead relic clinging to pride and pain. The sun dipped behind the Hokage Monument like a blade sheathing itself, casting long shadows over crumbling walls and echoing floors. It was in this ghost town of memories and fire that the devil walked barefoot.
Naruto Uzumaki had never quite belonged — not to the system, not to the village, not even to the world he woke up in every day. A fox dressed in human skin, they might've called him. A smiling beast that stole bread one day and kindness the next. Five years had taught him many things: how people wore their lies like cloaks, how even power can beg for meaning, and how silence carried more poison than words.
And now he was here — smiling, stupidly perhaps, but with intent sharper than any kunai.
Above, on the skeletal bones of a once-proud dojo, Rias Gremory stood still — an empress cloaked in crimson and doubt. Her eyes traced the boy in the training grounds below, the one who moved with precision and purpose, as if each step was meant to avenge ghosts.
Sasuke Uchiha — the child of ruin, the orphan of vengeance.
He danced alone beneath the sun, weaving steel through air with an elegance that belonged on a battlefield, not a practice ground. Shuriken flew. Metal kissed wood. The air hummed with death rehearsed.
"Is this really a good idea?" Rias's voice whispered in his mind, carried through the ink of a seal carved onto her shoulder — a makeshift bond between demons and thieves.
"Of course," came Naruto's reply. "I've been planning this step for half a year. I've narrowed down every potential, measured every thread. These are the people worth betting on."
"He doesn't look like someone that would listen."
Naruto grinned wider, teeth white and crooked like the edges of a broken crown.
"I know how to make people listen. Just watch. And tonight, you'll get your turn. We'll spar. You'll learn."
Then he stood, stretching like a cat disturbed from sleep, golden hair shimmering under the cruel light. His shirt, white and obnoxious, bore the words "I Am a Social Butterfly" — as if daring irony itself to challenge him.
"Hey, how's it hanging, bro?" Naruto called, the words tumbling down like stones in still water.
Below, Sasuke jolted mid-throw, his footing disrupted, his instincts coiled and lethal.
"WHO!?"
"It's me. Your friendly neighborhood Uzumaki. Here to cheer you up."
There was venom in Sasuke's eyes, sharp and cold, the kind that froze rivers.
"Uzumaki?" The word was spat like an accusation. "There are no Uzumaki in Konoha. Get out before I alert the police."
He looked every inch the prince of a fallen empire: black shirt clinging to a lean frame, fire crackling just behind his irises. The way he stared promised pain — not the kind that bruised flesh, but the kind that echoed in bones.
Naruto raised both hands, palms open. "Chill, bro. No need for a murder attempt. I just want to talk."
"You have five seconds," Sasuke said, voice flat, "before I break your limbs for trespassing."
Not exactly how I imagined it, Naruto thought. His grin didn't falter. His feet didn't move.
'Do or die, then.'
Naruto's voice lost the playfulness — not all of it, but enough.
"How about we have a spar and you decide?"
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Naruto moved like a blade dressed in sunshine. His two shurikens sang across the wind in perfect unison, converging and then splitting mid-flight like twin vultures fighting over carrion. They weren't meant to kill, only to start the conversation—the language of steel and sparks.
Sasuke, barefoot in the dunes of his self-imposed exile, didn't blink. His body obeyed instinct. He jumped back, graceful, sharp—still shinobi despite his scowl and solitude. The moment his feet touched the sand again, Naruto was on him. A kunai sang out and clashed against his own.
Their eyes met—blue lightning versus obsidian shadow. Naruto grinned like a lunatic preacher with gospel in his bones.
"You lack creativity," he murmured, pushing their blades apart. "And a partner."
The words didn't come like a taunt. They came like prophecy. Like salt in an open wound.
"We can push ourselves higher. Together. Come on, partner. Solo's dead weight in a world like ours."
Sasuke responded the only way he knew—with a kick that split the air like a whipcrack. Naruto dipped, rolled, swept. The Uchiha leapt. A flash of heel sought Naruto's skull, but the blond pivoted on sand-stained toes and raised his other leg like a lever of fate.
They clashed mid-air. Sasuke's heel against Naruto's shin. A shower of sparks where steel kissed steel. The younger boy grinned wider—too wide. The kind of grin that belonged on madmen and kings.
Then wind. Not a breeze, not a gust—a focused exhale of chakra-churned air that sent sand dancing like devils. Shuriken flew again. Naruto didn't even look to confirm their path. He knew.
Smoke bloomed. Cold and choking. A chilly trick of chemistry and chakra that swallowed sight.
Naruto pulled his goggles down.
"Isn't it fun?" his voice rang out, disembodied and playful. "Playing with a friend?"
Sasuke's teeth ground together.
"I'm going to enjoy watching you writhe," he hissed, more to the sand than the boy within it.
That voice—it mocked him. Laughed at him. Played with him. And somehow, beneath it all, it understood him.
Naruto was unraveling him—thread by thread—with a smile on his face.
It wasn't just the fighting. It was psychological warfare. Naruto had seen Sasuke's soul and deemed it lonely. That was the insult that stung the most. Not the trespass. Not the spar.
The truth.
Fire bloomed in Sasuke's lungs and erupted from his mouth. The Fireball Jutsu—a signature, an outcry, a desperate demand to be seen as powerful.
But Naruto had already moved. The sand hadn't betrayed him. The fire hissed over empty ground.
Sasuke barely noticed the boy behind him until it was too late. A push—gentle, like a friend would offer—and then he hit the sand with a grunt.
Naruto stood above him, wind-tousled hair and that same damned grin. "Predictable. But we can fix that."
Sasuke spat sand. "You're not normal."
"Nope. I'm better."
He wasn't lying.
Within him, Kurama slumbered with one eye half-open. The Kyuubi's chakra—once poison—had become a part of him. A fusion. He was a tailless beast now, brimming with raw power and wild instincts.
But nothing was free.
His chakra control was laughable, worse than a genin's on his worst day. Genjutsu was a dead-end path. He couldn't cast, couldn't trap, couldn't weave illusions.
But he didn't need to.
Most genjutsu didn't work on him either. Kurama's chakra burned through low-level tricks like wildfire through parchment. Even Sasuke's Sharingan would need to evolve to hurt him in that way.
So he didn't play by the rules. He rewrote them.
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The sand remembered blood. Not Sasuke's—at least, not yet—but blood all the same. The air shimmered with heat, anger, and something stranger: laughter.
Naruto moved like a shadow that had learned to smile. Every grin was a taunt, every step a dance just shy of mockery. He dodged Sasuke's wild downward strike with fluid grace, the kind that made men question whether he was dodging the blow—or simply reading the future in the muscles before they moved.
Sasuke, for all his rage, was no fool. He twisted midair, using the recoil to propel himself into a dual-legged kick that should've sent Naruto sprawling.
Should have.
Naruto, always faster than pain, stepped aside and kicked sand into the boy's eyes with the casual malice of a street urchin picking fights for fun. Then, two fingers sparked. A crackle. A whisper of chakra. And from his fingertips shot a small blue orb—weak by shinobi standards, pitiful even—but that wasn't the point.
Distraction. Smoke before fire.
Sasuke rolled, chakra coating his arms, shoulders, and flanks where he expected impact. The orb hit, flared, fizzled. Minor damage—but enough to knock a breath from his lungs. He landed in a crouch, chakra already pulsing in his feet, and dashed at the golden-haired bastard before him.
Naruto grinned.
This was the moment.
Their limbs clashed—a slap of bone and will. Naruto had been a heartbeat too slow. His chakra surged late. He paid in bruises. But it was worth it.
Sasuke overextended.
Too aggressive.
Too raw.
Too hard.
"I'm having fun, Sasuke. What about you?"
Naruto's voice was a melody of mischief and menace. Sasuke snarled, no words wasted. He pressed forward, using his foot to pivot off Naruto's guard and spin mid-air, delivering a kick that could crack ribs.
"My favorite color's orange. What's yours? Blue? Red?" Naruto teased, grin splitting his face like the sun behind stormclouds.
Then he caught him.
No flash. No trick.
Just a hand.
A grip.
And suddenly, Sasuke—prince of pride, heir to ashes—was flat on the ground like a sack of rice spilled on market day. His legs pinned. His glare impotent. His fury simmering, then fading, swallowed by the absurdity of it all.
'What kind of grip strength is that?' he thought, baffled. The world stopped making sense. And for once, it felt... safe.
"Who are you?" Sasuke finally asked, breath sharp.
"Naruto Uzumaki. Normal Class 1."
"What?" The words hit him like cold water. "Why aren't you Elite?"
"I like my privacy."
"You're losing out on resources."
"You gotta sacrifice something to gain something." Naruto's tone shifted. Less joker, more prophet. "And we have you for that."
"You want my knowledge."
"We scratch each other's backs. Climb higher together. A proper team."
"I could hire a jounin tomorrow," Sasuke replied, all logic and disdain.
Naruto chuckled. "Sure. But people grow faster when they fight their equals. When they bleed together. You and me? We could be monsters, Sasuke. But better monsters."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Not happening. Not even if you break my leg."
Naruto's grin faltered—not completely, just enough to hint at exhaustion. Not from the fight. From this talk. From people never seeing what he saw. From vision turned burden.
'Why are people so difficult sometimes?'
He exhaled.
"Think about it," Naruto said. "I'll come back tomorrow. Beat you up again."
With a chuckle that echoed long after his footsteps vanished, Naruto leapt back into the wild.
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Sasuke sat still, the sand settling slowly into the folds of his clothes like judgment from the heavens. His chest rose and fell with fury—not the bright flame of anger, but the low-burning coal of humiliation. His limbs ached not from injury but from being handled like a rag doll. And by whom?
"Naruto Uzumaki, from Normal Class 1."
The name echoed in his skull like a bell that wouldn't stop ringing.
He had blinked—and Naruto had vanished.
He had fought—and Naruto had danced circles around him.
He had spoken—and Naruto had mocked him with that unshakable grin.
Gone. Just like that.
Sasuke clenched his fist, fingers digging crescent wounds into his palm. A genius of the Uchiha clan, defeated. Not by an Elite, not by a prodigy trained in noble blood—but by a boy from the dregs of the village. An orphan. A "nobody."
But that nobody had moved like smoke and struck like lightning.
And the worst part? He hadn't even used real jutsu—just a chakra ball, the weakest of techniques, thrown with such control that it felt like a slap in the face.
Why? How?
Sasuke had the best scrolls. The best supplements. A room of his own and access to the compound's dojo. His days were structured, calculated, filled with training until his muscles tore and bled. He had earned his strength through pain. So what the hell was he missing?
His breath slowed. Cold logic replaced the heat of his temper.
Is he special?
That thought scratched at the walls of his pride like a rat in a cage.
Or am I just... not as exceptional as I thought?
He hated the idea. His pride retched at it. But the seed was planted, and its roots were growing.
The village feared the boy—truly feared him. That part he couldn't ignore. He had heard the whispers. The way jounin hesitated when Naruto passed by. The silence of the streets when his name was spoken too loudly. He had always thought it was nonsense. Rumors. Paranoia. But now?
Now he wasn't so sure.
He looked down at his leg—the one Naruto had gripped like a vice, unmovable and absolute.
"What kind of grip strength is that?"
Sasuke shook his head.
No. I won't bow to him. I won't follow his vision.
He rose slowly, brushing dust from his shirt like clearing shame from his soul.
If he's that strong, then I just need to get stronger. Stronger than him. Stronger than all of them.
"I'll hire a jounin," he muttered to himself. "Money. Skill. Resources. That's what wins battles. Not flashy tricks or orphan grit."
His fingers curled again, and this time they trembled—not from anger, but from the first chill of doubt.
Still... I'll keep an eye on him. Just in case.
He turned toward the compound.
The wind whispered behind him, carrying a distant chuckle.
Naruto's voice, light and amused:
"Think about it for some time. I'll come back tomorrow... and beat you up again."
Sasuke's jaw tightened. But he said nothing.
Because deep down, something darker than doubt was rising.
Curiosity.
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The smoke curled like coiling vipers, rising in whispered tendrils through the shattered quiet of the alley. Naruto had tossed the bomb without ceremony, a trick more suited to street brawlers than noble warriors. It worked all the same. Chaos, confusion—his domain.
"Let's go before he calls the police," he'd said, half a laugh under his breath, already a blur in the wind.
Rias followed. She didn't have much of a choice.
Her legs pumped beneath her, steps rushed and uneven, the cold slap of reality still stinging her skin. The fight hadn't lasted long—just long enough to unravel her assumptions and shatter a few dangerous illusions. The enemy hadn't stood a chance. And more importantly, Naruto had never truly been at risk. Not once.
His movements were artless but efficient, lacking the flowery gestures of magic circles or spell-chants she had been raised with. He moved like a predator born in shadow, forged in dust. A creature shaped by necessity, honed not in academies but through the raw whetstone of survival.
It unsettled her.
It fascinated her.
She remembered the way he had maneuvered the fight—not just reacting, but controlling, orchestrating it with seals hidden on his flesh, traps beneath his fingertips, and an eerie calm in his eyes. Not fury. Not joy. Just clarity.
And when she'd gone down, clutching at her ribs with pain bubbling in her throat, he hadn't spared her a glance.
That, more than anything, had burned.
This boy… No, this thing—because Naruto didn't move like a boy. He didn't speak like one. He was too precise, too composed, like a machine running on unspoken rules. She had thought herself clever, the heir of a devilish bloodline, descended from ancient power. But Naruto?
Naruto was something else. Something dangerous. Something remembered in the whispers of old shinobi who still feared his name.
She'd seen it in their eyes. Those killers, those veterans—they hadn't underestimated him. They'd feared him. As if he were some feral legend given flesh. No surname of weight. No noble crest. Just Naruto.
"Who the hell are you?" she had wanted to ask.
But she already knew the answer wouldn't matter.
Because what mattered was the aura of him.
Power wrapped in irreverence.
Cruelty tucked behind a grin.
Loneliness masked by calculated charm.
She couldn't afford to let him pull her in. She was not some wide-eyed girl to be seduced by strength. Not anymore.
Still…
Rias clenched her fists as she ran, tasting her own frustration like blood on her tongue. She hated being used. She hated being weak.
But most of all, she hated that Naruto was right.
She did need someone like him. She was no warrior. Her magic was decent, but her instincts were green and slow. She couldn't survive like this—not if she wanted to reach her goals. She had secrets to uncover, enemies to face, and a legacy that would drown her if she didn't claw her way to the top.
And Naruto… Naruto could teach her the climb.
He wouldn't be kind about it.
But he'd be effective.
Just as he intended to use her for her demonic knowledge and infernal access, she would use him in return. She'd learn how to fight like him—mercilessly, with purpose. She'd decipher his seals, his movements, his mind. And when she no longer needed him…
No. That was too far ahead.
First, she needed to survive him.
As the smoke cleared behind them, and Konoha's lights flickered in distant warning, Rias Gremory ran forward with a silent vow burned into her bones:
Don't trust him. Don't pity him. Don't forget what he is.
Use him. Learn him. And one day, surpass him.
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The moon still loomed above like an indifferent immortal—half-curious, half-bored—as Naruto led Rias away, smoke curling behind them like laughter. They were shadows flitting through streets that had long forgotten their names, dancing past closed doors and silent warnings. Sasuke's compound was already a memory, fading like heat in a battlefield's aftermath.
Naruto jogged ahead, carefree in stride, the same boy who had just baited an Uchiha like a cat toys with a snake.
Rias followed with the kind of caution that came not from fear, but from understanding. She wasn't afraid of Naruto. No—what she feared was how good he was at this. At manipulation. At battle. At turning a confrontation into a canvas and painting it with humiliation, dominance, and just enough chaos to make it impossible to look away.
She had watched him fight now, really fight, not posture with playful arrogance or meaningless bravado. No, tonight she saw the blood that ran in the veins of his craft. It wasn't just chakra or magic or whatever nonsense her old world clung to. It was rhythm. It was artistry. It was murder wrapped in theater.
And he had no mercy. When she'd been knocked down by stray shockwaves and chakra clashes, his eyes had flicked toward her with no more concern than one gives a leaf falling in the wind. No pity. No help.
Only data.
He catalogued everything, even her.
She would not forget that.
When they finally slowed, the trees once again grew tall around them, whispering secrets in their old, leafy tongues. The village's edge sighed with silence.
Rias glanced sideways at him, voice barely above a whisper, "Are you sure he won't call the police on you?"
Naruto snorted, a grin slashing across his face like a knife across parchment. "I'm sure. His pride won't allow it."
He turned to face her, walking backward now, lazy and smug as a prince who knew the game was already rigged in his favor.
"He might not want to join me right now," Naruto added, "but oh… he wants to beat me up now."
Rias blinked. "Is that a good result?"
Her question was genuine—unfiltered confusion in a world that no longer obeyed her logic.
Naruto clicked his tongue like a disappointed tutor correcting a slow student. "Tsk, tsk. You really don't know much about us guys, do you?"
He looked at her then—not as a partner, not even as a conspirator—but as a child being handed an answer she didn't understand yet.
"Through battles like this, friendship is formed," he said. "Bonds stronger than any handshake or promise. Through pain, through bruises, through knowing exactly how the other moves and breathes. That's where it happens."
Rias frowned. It sounded so utterly primitive… so manga.
"You hit each other… and then you trust each other?"
"Exactly!" Naruto's eyes gleamed. "A punch tells more truth than a thousand words. Sasuke now knows what I am. He hates it. But he'll think about it. That is the seed."
Rias didn't respond immediately. She couldn't. Her world was filled with politics, pacts, and arranged futures. This world Naruto spoke of—this blood-forged brotherhood—it reeked of madness.
But maybe… that madness was the truth of power here.
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Rias didn't know what to say, so she didn't. That in itself was rare—devils usually had a clever word or five to toss into the air when silence reared its maw. But not this time. Not after what she'd seen.
She nodded instead, obedient and unsure, like a page girl in the court of a mad king, waiting for her cue in a play drenched in blood and smoke. Naruto's words slithered in her mind. Friendship through violence.
She'd read that in some manga once, in between panels of absurd battles and power-ups that defied logic. But this wasn't fiction. This was a world where boys smiled while breaking bones, and where "comradeship" meant you might get stabbed slightly less next time.
She followed him now, her steps light on the rooftop tiles, trailing the boy who had become something of a riddle soaked in crimson and cruelty.
The wind caught her crimson hair—his eyes flicked back to catch it dancing, then away just as fast. His mind was already a thousand battles ahead. And hers… hers was struggling to make sense of where she had landed.
This was Konoha.
Not the charming slice of faux-Japan she had once seen on screen with pastel skies and stoic heroes. No, this was the real heart of the village hidden in the leaves—a forest of secrets, madness, and seals carved into trees like old scars.
They stood atop a water tower now, rust peeling like blood from iron. Below, the city murmured, unaware. Above, the sky wore clouds like bruises.
Rias' eyes wandered, taking in the jagged skyline—paimmortala rooftops, watchtowers, the echo of shuriken slicing air somewhere distant. A world caught between steel and silence.
"This place… it's more developed than I thought," she said, her voice soft, broken by wonder. "Guns. Bikes. Radio. But no internet. No phones. No cars. It's like time cracked and stitched itself back with jutsu and wood."
"Hashirama's trees," Naruto replied, pointing lazily at the endless green beyond the walls. "He made the forest. Each tree strong enough to stop the destruction of the city. They trap you. Choke you. Try to grow into your mind."
He didn't elaborate. He never did.
"There are seals," he added. "Everywhere. You walk in without permission, and the trees walk you back out. Or not at all."
She shivered, half from the wind, half from the knowledge. The world outside didn't know Konoha existed—not really. The other hidden villages were the same.
Cities? They had outposts there. Messengers in plain sight, agents behind curtains. But the heart of their power? That remained buried in myths, cloaked in stories. That was how ninja survived: by not existing at all.
"What now?" she asked him, standing side by side now, heels on the edge of the tower, toes flirting with death.
He didn't look at her. The wind tugged at his coat. The sun lit his scars in profile.
"I go for my next target."
Her brows raised. "And then?"
He looked at her then. Those eyes—blue, like a glacier with a grudge.
"Then we go home."
And just like that, he leapt—off the tower, off the edge, off reason.
She stared after him, heart caught somewhere in her throat.
"Home," she repeated, not knowing where that was anymore.