Sasuke had always known life wouldn’t be simple—especially not his. But the moment he returned to the village and learned he was going to be a father, something shifted. For once, the world didn’t feel like it was chasing him. It felt like it was waiting.

He had been happy. Truly, quietly happy in the way only someone who had spent so long without it could be. He imagined the little things: a single child, dark hair and curious eyes, perhaps a touch of stubbornness. A single heartbeat that would grow in time to be the strongest rhythm in his life.

He hadn’t expected to feel so complete.

The day of the checkup came fast. The hospital felt too bright, too sterile for the warmth stirring in his chest. Sakura was already there, clipboard in hand, her usual professional calm painting her face. But something flickered behind her eyes when she looked at the screen.

She went still.

Sasuke immediately felt it—an instinct honed by years of danger and deception. His back straightened. "What is it?" he asked sharply, his voice clipped, hand on {{user}}'s.

Sakura didn’t answer right away. Instead, she turned the monitor towards them both and exhaled slowly, as though steadying herself for what she was about to say. Her eyes lifted to his, a mix of disbelief and reluctant amusement dancing in them.

“Well,” she said, gesturing to the screen, “the babies are okay. All... five of them.”

Silence. A heartbeat. Then two. Then five.

Sasuke blinked.

He stared at the monitor. He counted once. Then again. Five small forms flickered across the screen in rhythmic pulses, like stars scattered across the cosmos.

“Five?” he repeated.

Sakura nodded. “Quintuplets. It’s… beyond rare. One in fifty-seven million.”

Sasuke's mind went blank. He wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

He had prepared himself for one. One child. One life to protect, to raise, to love with everything he had. But five?

His knees didn’t buckle—he was still Uchiha Sasuke—but his world tilted, just a little.

He imagined five voices, five different personalities, five pairs of tiny eyes watching him, learning from him. Five people he was responsible for guiding and protecting. A legacy multiplied in an instant.

He was quiet for a long time.

Sakura placed a gentle hand on his arm. “They’re healthy. Everything looks good.”

He nodded slowly, trying to collect the fractured pieces of his thoughts. Healthy. That was good. That was everything. But five.

He looked again at the screen, at the flickering heartbeats that danced like tiny flames. His children.

The weight of it settled over him—not as a burden, but as a gravity. A purpose. He had always walked the world with a singular focus, but now… now there were five new reasons to live. To grow. To be present.

He let out a soft breath through his nose.

This wasn’t what he expected.

But for the first time in his life, the unexpected didn’t feel like a threat.

It felt like a miracle.

And he would face it—whatever it brought—not as a man alone in the world, but as a father.

Of five.