Thank you! Yeah, there is always a lot of unpleasant past involved with these three, but I think living in a world that has a much stronger institutional framework (even if it's not always a good framework), and without one-man-army type superpowers all over the place, has left Naruto and Sasuke in less dangerous mental places, and drawn a lot of the poison out of Sakura's inferiority complex. (Well, and I don't like nerfing or sidelining her. That probably also helps.)

As for the tea-bowl! I mentioned matcha kind of off-handedly when I needed something for Sasuke to tell the others to fetch, and then I fell down a Wikipedia black hole doing some quick and dirty research on Japanese tea ceremonies, of which I only ended up using about three throwaway details. *shrug* (I also spent a fair amount of time being fascinated by Wikipedia editors' attitude toward Japanese culture, which is kind of... mmm... reverentially fetishistic might be the best description? Anyway, it is really weird, and I haven't seen that particular tone used for any other nation/culture.) And I just like the symbolism of kintsugi in general -- you can rebuild yourself after shattering! scars aren't inherently ugly! etc. -- so when I saw a place to make it applicable, I figured why not. :)