Preface

This is for every Kakashi/Sakura fan, an anthem for readers, writers, and artists who support an impossible pairing in canon with a remarkable fandom that any would be proud to be a part of.

The Clan will be an epic story detailing the foundation of a clan in Konoha based around med-nins and the members who will make it possible. It will be longer than 100,000 words, perhaps up to 300,000, and thus a project for both myself, the author Aphaeam, and the readers, to remain committed to. If you like the idea but would wish to wait until its completion to start reading to avoid the agony of anticipation with every chapter, I understand and ask that you leave a review so I know where you stand. When this story is completed it will be compiled into an e-book in numerous formats from pdf to e-reader for your reading or rereading pleasure, so I hope everyone looks forward to that. In addition, it will include an expanded guide of the setting which is going to get more involved than most fan fictions, so it will be worth a look over for every reader!

Releases will be in parts, and major figments of the story in acts of three or more parts, of which there will most likely be ten or more acts. This will be rated R/M, though previously rated PG-13/T for non-explicit adult themes, violence, and language. It takes place six years after Part II from the manga, and is non-compliant to just before the war, though some mentions will be made past that point if appropriate.

I looked forward to your readership, and I hope you look forward to this story.

Extended Summary

With Tsunade's untimely death the prospects of medical ninjutsu's future within Konoha is grim. Sakura decides to found a clan on the principles of her mentor in order to save the dying field, but her bold endeavor may threaten the social order of the village and attract a number of enemies. Even with the help of her friends, now family, their lives could be forfeit to the dangerous trials of politics.

To combat the ills of this ordeal and pave the way forward Sakura and her fledgling clan must strike unsavory deals with unlikely allies, but it will be their private lives that are most affected by their ambitions. When the requirements of recognition calls Sakura to make a personal sacrifice that should be a personal joy, she will seek out a deal that will result in romance embracing the clan in vice, but will it hinder possibilities or save the clan?

Prologue

It was a night where few remained sober.

Four med-nins sat around a battered table in a run down bar in the seediest district of Konoha. They each had their own bottles of sake laying carelessly in their laps. Liquid kept spilling over onto their mourning kimonos from their crippling laughs as they retold hilarious anecdotes from the Godaime Tsunade's life. The alcohol had slipped their tongues and it had been hours since any have expressed that she would finally be with Dan and Nawaki, though they occasionally threw in a jab about her relationship with Jiraiya. It was all they could do to salvage their sanity in the wake of such a sudden and unexpected death.

"And poor Tonton; after the festival last year she almost became Tsunade-sama's dinner!" Ino's voice was garbled from the cheap sake. On any other day she would have turned her nose up at the brand, but it had been the Godaime's usual fare whenever she sought games in this very bar.

The group chuckled heartily for a minute as they recalled Tsunade chasing after the poor pig in want of bacon for her soup. She had been tempted into the idea when a foreign dignitary suggested it over a card game. A few minutes later and the entire village was in a riot over the situation after it had gone to Tonton's favor in the midst of a parade.

"Then she tried again the next morning when she was sober!" Shizune cheered when she playfully slapped Ino.

The Yamanaka doubled over in a fit from the memory. Her cheeks had reddened from the affects of the alcohol as she had not been able to hold herself as well as the elder kunoichi or Sakura. Across from her Moegi sat in a daze; despite her age they all allowed the chunin her own bottle, just one, and the girl was barely coherent this late into the night.

"You should have seen it when she was wasted last month!" Sakura added, pouring herself another cup without any reservation. "Poor Tonton could not look at Tsunade-shishou the same again, and well-"

She stopped herself and looked over at the pig. Tonton was sitting in Shizune's lap and looked as if her entire world had been destroyed. Sakura had forgotten; the pig did not forgive Tsunade for that incident and avoided her until the Godaime had been hospitalized.

Shizune looked down. "Tonton did not want to leave her, but there was nothing to be done..."

Despite all the happy stories they had shared throughout the night their spirits were unable to find solace. Tsunade had passed away just two days ago, and the funeral had been held this morning.

"If only she would have told us!" Ino declared. "We could have done something!"

Moegi, barely sentient, could not restrain her own whine. "Do something? If Tsunade-sama could not cure herself... what could we do?"

The chunin's words were grave, but the reality of the situation they had faced. Tsunade had suffered silently from a disease that weakened her chakra system over time. Her entire body had become paralyzed and she fell into a coma before anyone had understood her illness, and she never woke up again.

Whatever it had been the disease had acted too fast and would have taken up far too many resources to treat in time even if it had been possible. Since the war ended the med-nin of Konoha had dropped to a fourth of what they originally had been. Already they were overworked; when Tsunade did not go to the hospital for a week because of a 'cold' it had become apparent to everyone how much the med-nins had weakened and relied upon her. When it came to complex medical treatment a number of med-nin were necessary... a number Konoha did not have. And without Tsunade they would have never been able to make up for that loss when she herself fell sick.

"Even if we had a large division the field of chakra-affected illness is a mystery." Shizune said. Of all of them she had the most experience and a vast knowledge of the capabilities of medical ninjutsu. Even now Sakura deferred to her, because she often did not understand her own limits. "I looked at the lab results with Moegi; I had never seen anything like that virus. It acted quickly and I am not entirely sure if we were able to register all the symptoms in time."

Ino dropped her head to the table. It was difficult for her to handle this news. "Nothing could be done is what you are saying. Not counting Moegi, we only have two other disease specialists left." she said, and then with fear: "If Tsunade's disease were to ever hit again we still have no idea how to treat it!"

With only a senior and the two junior students, one of which was Moegi, the disease specialization subfield was the most endangered division of the med-nins in Konoha. But even before the war there had only been five.

"Shishou knew that..." Sakura said. "She always talked about forcing the council to fund R&D for the Disease Specialization Department. Everyone wrote her off. Even me!"

Shizune could do little for anyone in that room, so she patted Sakura on the back. "Tsunade-sama did not suffer for long." she said. It was what they could hope at least. For how long had she felt the effects? They could only surmise, not assume. "From what Moegi observed in the lab she only had it for a few months. She probably did not diagnose herself until she got that 'cold.' Ninja do not expect to contract a disease... we expect to die on the battlefield! Why would Tsunade think anything different for herself?"

"Just a few scrolls contain all the occupational diseases known to shinobi, and Tsunade-sama's sickness was not among them!" Moegi's word were slurred, and she had teared up since the discussion began. Even so, her words went without question.

Med-nins had been a rarity until after the second ninja world war. Most villages only had a few, if they were lucky, and some of them were not even very good. Until Tsunade helped to pioneer the field and her reputation proceeded her, Konoha's funding of med-nin education had been a joke. But even now were still problems recruiting med-nins in other villages, even in the major ones such as Konoha itself.

It was a tragedy because ninja suffered diseases and trauma that normal civilian doctors could not even hope to treat. Medical ninjutsu had not gone far enough to treat what was being discovered in the labs from specimens of mysteriously fallen comrades. Most of the med-nins in the world were really just glorified super-nurses.

No one alive was at Tsunade's level, and no one at the table could even hope to match her in a decade. But what was frightening about that was that Sakura and Shizune were likely the best living med-nin in the entire world.

"Tsunade's death symbolizes something more critical outside of our own personal loss." It was difficult for Shizune to say, because Tsunade had been one of the most important people in her life. "Our field may die."

"Without adequate funding and training, medical ninjutsu will be crippled within our lifetime. In five years we may begin to see a significant drop in effectiveness everywhere." Ino said. "No one appreciates what we do until they are moments from death. After Chouji had been injured in the second chunin exams, I knew that I had to find a way to protect my team. If Sakura had not been there, he would have been dead. If he were lucky, crippled. But disease?"

"If Tsunade-sama could fall, anyone can." Moegi replied.

Sakura sighed. She gripped the neck of her bottle until a crack formed along its side. Her efforts to relieve tension resulted in a soiled kimono. Had it not been black Sakura would have cursed. But really, she hoped to never have to wear it again.

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

"I don't know." Ino said. "I just don't know."

Everything in their lives had been shadowed since her death, and all prospects a pessimist's nightmare. Even with Naruto as Hokage it was difficult to get the council to make any move in their favor.

The council! Sakura thought with sudden clarity. The wheels inside her head whirred as she made connections, some a bit silly, but it resulted in an idea which she would have been proud of sober.

"What if we could convince the council to appropriate funding for a track at the academy?"

It had been Tsunade's dream, her mission which she pursued tirelessly while alive.

"HA!" Ino laughed, but it was not in jest. "How many years has Tsunade-sama been trying for that? How many times has she failed? In this village only the clans have power in the council to affect change, and they are unwilling to do anything at the cost of higher taxes."

Shizune muttered something about heiress apparent, a sly snub at Ino which she could not ignore.

"The Yamanaka is comprised of only twelve people, and half are not even ninja. Our influence on the budget is minimal in comparison to the Hyuuga or Sarutobi."

Sakura found their antagonistic nature towards the structure of the village disheartening, but valid.

"It is a shame that there is not a med-nin clan!" she spoke gravely, as if it were a slight on Konoha itself. "Then we would have a real voice in the council, just like the Yamanaka, however soft our whispers may be."

"Our elected representatives only have minute power. They can only lobby our interests to benefactors in the council." Shizune said. She did not like the current means of government, which was both difficult to work with and impossible to change without the consent of the Daimyo, which he would never give with his affection for traditionalist methods. "But no clan has been founded in the last three decades, so it is unlikely that a med-nin clan could emerge. The village is antagonistic about us. To them, we are a waste of chakra!"

"They never say that when an artery has been severed in battle!" Moegi shouted, indignant at the idea of being seen so lowly when she mattered so much.

For a few minutes they chattered on at the idea, however unrealistic it was, and wishing it were a reality. Eventually, they calmed down to Sakura's distress. She could not let the idea go, because she had just discovered a way to honor Tsunade's memory and salvage their deteriorating situation.

"Let's do it!" she declared, loud enough so that her voice pierced through the papery walls and out into the hallway of the bar. "Let's create a clan for med-nins!"

Shizune turned to her in disbelief, worrying that perhaps she had a little too much to drink. "Are you serious? Sakura, that could never happen."

"Why not?" Sakura asked definitely. "We could represent our field in a way that has never been done before! In the council our votes could change how funding in channeled into the academy and the hospital!"

Moegi, also born a civilian, was willing to support her. "The track at the academy that Tsunade wanted could really happen!"

But Ino, who actually was a part of a clan, knew that this was a difficult ambition, perhaps only a fleeting dream. "Forehead, you don't understand what it means to have a clan, let alone to create one. Has there ever been a clan that just... appeared because someone wanted it to? Did it ever succeed? It's not a business, it's a family of ninja. Most who even attempt to apply to the council are usually absorbed by other clans within the month or they are bankrupted through financial sanctions by the other clans. And the application itself? The sheer cost is phenomenal!"

Had Sakura been anyone else, someone who was less stubborn and apt not to fall victim to her inner ego, she would have been deterred. But Ino's doubt only pressed her forward, just as it did when they were children at the academy.

Before she could say anything to defend her idea though a soft knock on the door interrupted her. The rude owner who had bartered them up on every price of their outing ushered them up and out the door, complaining the entire way. The others complied, too drunk and miserable to fight closing time and gathered at the front of the bar.

To them, everything was settled, at least for the night. They all had to wake up the next morning and go to work nursing their hangovers as they nursed the patients at the hospital. They ignored Sakura's pressing to listen to her, and said their goodbyes and made their respective ways home.

For Sakura, it was the wrong way to end a horrible day, but she walked on in silence back to her small apartment. Around her the village was dead even though she was in the middle of the night sector where businesses stayed open into the early morning, like the bar she had been in or the food stands like the Ichiraku. But the funeral that morning caused the early closure of half the town so they could pay their due to the leader they had loved who had suffered countless times to ensure their survival during the war.

No one else was on the streets that night except Sakura who bumbled along in a tipsy and depressed manner. Occasionally she would sing one of memorization songs Tsunade had written in order to help Shizune learn healing techniques after they left the village. Tsunade refused to acknowledge them, embarrassed at their quality, but Shizune was adamant that the Godaime had really written them.

If someone were to peer out their window that night, which was likely for she was loud, they would have assumed she was drunk off her ass. They would be wrong; it was difficult for her to get completely drunk. Sakura had never told Ino that she and Shizune had learned to diffuse their chakra to lessen the more harsh affects of alcohol in their bloodstream to make them merely tipsy. It had become habit whenever Tsunade convinced them to spend the night out; it was really the only way they could pull Tsunade away when she became too inebriated to remember her own name.

Sakura had found those times, rarer as Tsunade became more serious about her job, trying, annoying. But she would have given anything to go again.

She should have let herself get wasted with the others, though Shizune had done the same as Sakura. It was not inappropriate; Shinobi did it all the time. Sakura just did not want to appear upset to everyone which she always did when she was drunk. Sakura was not prepared to deal with Tsunade's death yet. It had not been of age, but purely vocation. Tsunade only fell to it because of her age.

Any one of them could have caught it, or so Sakura assumed. No one really understood what happened to Tsunade, not even enough to put a name on it! This made Tsunade's death all the more real. Sakura had expected Tsunade to die of old age if she were to die outside of battle, or at least liver failure. Shinobi are only supposed to die in the hospital from a trauma wound or a poison.

Not disease.

That had been why she suggested creating a clan. Med-nins held no power in Konoha. But the Hyuuga? They controlled the council because of their wealth, and now that their heiress was married to the Hokage it seemed as if they were able to bully their way on everything. The Nara? Tactile geniuses! They always managed to muddle themselves into the politics without anyone the wiser. There were a dozen powerful clans shouting in the council. The Yamanaka, though a mere handful of ninja, were at least able to be there, sometimes able to shout louder and avoid being completely drowned out. They at least had a voice, even if it was hoarse from their efforts.

The med-nins of Konoha had no representation in the council at all. Sakura could not drop the idea of creating a clan. She just could not!

Sakura had never heard of a med-nin clan elsewhere in the world. It would revolutionize everything about medical ninjutsu. It could keep her comrades from dying pointless deaths. A kunai piercing the heart was not the only way they could die, and she realized that now. Could Tsunade's death become common? Would it happen to someone else she knew? How mortal were they as ninja?

"You don't look so good."

Sakura turned at the sound of Kakashi's voice. She was surprised to see him out so late, and noted that he was still in his mourning clothes from the funeral. It took a moment for Sakura to process that he was there, because it was just so unlikely to meet him by chance in the village. He was so elusive.

Judging by the direction he came from, Sakura assumed he had been at the memorial. It must have been two or three in the morning, and it would not have made sense for him to still be there. Sakura and her fellow med-nins had been the last to leave. He must have gone back. Sakura figured to mourn not just Tsunade, but everyone he had lost in his life; it had been too many. Tsunade's disease reminded her of her own mortality, Tsunade's death reminded Kakashi of the mortality of everyone he had already lost.

"I should be rejoicing." Sakura said. Kakashi's eyes widened significantly, not yet understanding where she was going to go with this. "Tsunade-shishou lived a long time, longer than most of us will. She did not have any family, but she lived as well as she could most of the time and had a lot of friends. She became my family."

Sakura had never lost a family member before. Even her grandparents were still alive. She forgot how old Tsunade really was, but for a moment she considered the longevity of the Godaime's life.

There was no where for them to sit out in the middle of the street, so they stood without pretense for where they were. It did not matter.

"I'm sorry." Kakashi said. "I know nothing could have been done, but I'm sorry."

"That's just it sensei; something could have been done." Sakura laughed at his sincerity, her tipsiness edging in her voice. Kakashi made no note of it, probably drunk himself. She would never know, he was too good at hiding it. "She could have lived longer. Tsunade-shishou should have lived longer."

"I don't follow you. There was no cure." Kakashi was visibly confused, perhaps agitated. He had had no intention of crossing anyone in the streets tonight; Sakura supposed he had been walking as mindlessly along as mindlessly as he could, and did not recognize Sakura in her mourning clothes. She never wore black.

"There could have been a cure."

Kakashi sighed and shrugged back his shoulders. "Konoha lost someone legendary. With Tsunade-sama it had been difficult to make advances. Had she been alive, had she realized what happened maybe there would have been, if she had not already decided against it. But without her it is impossible to hope for something that extraordinary."

He was never one to lie in such a dire situation, though Sakura had not been aware of how educated he was on what happened and what would happen now that she was gone. Kakashi rarely concerned himself with anything, and that infuriated Sakura sometimes. He concerned himself with this, which only meant that the severity of his statement was true.

"I'll change that." Sakura replied. If there had been anything she learned from Tsunade, it had been to press forward. She had gambled indiscriminately despite losses, and Sakura would do the same. "I'll convince the council to channel more funding for the med-nins. It won't be impossible without Tsunade to change things, to cure people!"

But even Sakura had to admit it would be unlikely. High risk, high reward!

Kakashi was not convinced by her determination. Tsunade's lack of success meant impossibility to him. He would have liked to believe her, and Sakura knew that, but his face could not hide his lack of reluctance to even support her. It was a deranged idea; he did not like deranged ideas.

"You should go home, Sakura. Get some sleep before you do something foolish." Not a suggestion, but an order. He stretched his arm out and pushed her forward to what he believed was her apartment, but was in actuality the direction of her parents' pre-Pain home. "You'll only mock Tsunade if you charge in like she does. It sounds like you are blaming the council for her death."

Sakura was hesitant to admit the truth. "I'm not."

"That's what you're implying."

Sakura found him to be unfair. She stared at him for a moment and realized that he stood rigidly. The death of anyone as a ninja was upsetting, even though they were supposed to be desensitized to death. Kakashi was normally rude and distant, he did not want to comfort even when he should, and Sakura supposed it was unfair of her to demand him to act the way she would expect Shizune to act, who had disappointed her this night too.

Kakashi patted her head just like when she was a genin. This was as much as she was going to get out of him; he was neither going to rant and rave against the establishment or drink to the Godaime.

"I wish you the best." he said. "I can't wish you anymore. Tsunade can not be brought back, but of all the ways for her to die, as you said, she left in a position we as ninja almost never do. Accept that some things cannot be changed, and be thankful it happened this way."

Sakura was astonished at his words; perhaps he was drunk to say so much, but it was probably the only mediation to their current situation he could meager out.

But he was still assuming what Sakura would not accept. Med-nins were not powerless.

"Tsunade-shishou won't die in vain."

Kakashi looked flustered and flighty, fearing that his former genin student would react in a way expected of half of Team Seven. Emotionally. Wrathfully. After all, Naruto had closed down the council for a month in retaliation for ill funding of the hospital per the med-nin's outrage, and that had been two years ago. It had not worked. Kakashi still worried what he would do now, but at least Hinata was a pacifying presence to him in marriage.

But Sakura was not as impulsive, so Kakashi decided to expect this all to be the alcohol.

"Let's meet for a training session soon." he offered in distraction, walking past her. "All of us."

For Kakashi, this was how he mourned. This was how he shared in mourning.

Sakura, seeing that nothing would come out of pressing him tonight (and not wishing to let any of her plans slip) agreed and moved her way past him toward her home. He seemed surprised for a moment at her direction before it dawned on him his own forgetfulness.

The kunoichi figured he was more bothered than he cared to show. Unlike him she was willing to share her feelings, so she offered them:

"The council will listen."

And with that she left.

The next morning Sakura walked into the staff room of the hospital only slightly hungover from the previous night, but she was even more determined.

She announced to no one in particular after the daily briefing that she had something of importance to discuss to her friends and excused everyone else from the room.

Shizune, Ino, and Moegi looked up at her dumbfounded. They each held their own clipboards to their chests and looked just as miserable as expected from a night out drinking, and in some cases completely miserable, as well as continually mournful. The night had succeeded in nothing for them, and none felt at peace on the death of Tsunade.

"What is it?" Ino asked, annoyed. Her attitude was less than ideal hungover.

"I've made a decision." Sakura responded, standing tall. She had spent the night in deliberation, frantically considering all her options before favoring her first.

"About what?" Moegi asked in a more friendly tone, though she was holding her head in agony, perhaps swearing off alcohol for the rest of her life.

Shizune, who was clearer-headed than the other two, widened her eyes in shock when she realized Sakura's body language, the sort she had whenever she demanded Tsunade to teach her something new after she mastered something that was expected to take twice as long as it did.

"Sakura, that was just some idle talk! While we were drunk no less!"

"No." Sakura said. "It was not!"

The other two finally caught on, though Moegi still looked as if she were confused. She probably could not remember everything discussed that night and even her own support.

"I am going to make the council listen." Sakura motioned in a way that demanded attention, in only because she looked silly, not quite ready to stand so defiantly. "Med-nins will have a voice because we will have a vote in the village!"

"We?" Moegi asked. She was cautiously optimistic, her support beginning to show once again.

"If it takes until my death, then I will die doing so! The med-nins of this village will no longer be silenced in matters pertaining to the lives of our friends and family!"

"But Sakura, what you are wanting is-"

She did not let Ino continue, shaking her fist in the air for emphasis on every word she had to say. "We will found a clan for med-nins, and I invite you all to join me!"