This was written for pinksakurachan as a part of narutogiftexchange on tumblr . Thank you for the mod for organising this, and I hope you'll enjoy this story, pinksakurachan. A huge gratitude also to Sessalisk and theroadkillcafe for beta-reading, and elenathehun for the inspiration.

"Well, here I am. What have you got?"

It was a bright afternoon, but Sakura didn't think Tsunade was frowning just because the sun offended her. "I can do this another time if you're busy…?" she said as she unconsciously searched the training ground for Shizune's shadow, but Tsunade waved her off.

"Naw, kid, you're an acceptable use of break time. Although she's starting to cotton on to that so…" Tsunade glanced meaningfully at the giant boulder before Sakura.

"R-right! Then allow me to show you…"

Sakura never did discover how there was always a boulder ready for her training sessions with Tsunade, but she readily shoved that thought out, and also the afterimage of Tsunade watching her back like a bored hawk. For that matter, she shoved all other thoughts – not the sun, not the grass beneath her sandals, not even the reason she'd dared to petition the Hokage to become her mentor. The world comprised of her and the boulder. And of herself, only her chakra, only the portion diverted to circulate into her fist, and around her fist. Then it was just her breathing. Chakra ever floweth; the trick was keeping the flow steady until it was time.

Then with an exhale – a shouty exhale – Sakura let her punch – and the chakra – loose. The boulder didn't even stand a chance. Giddy, she very primly returned to the right stance and turned slowly. Tsunade's frown hadn't seemed to budge.

"You're not going to take that long in the chuunin exam, I hope," was all Tsunade said.

"Sorry, I don't follow…?"

"How long ago was it that you came to me, all brazen-like?"

"I think… seven months?" And twenty days.

"That long?" The Hokage laughed. "You're definitely ready for the chuunin exam next week."

So Sakura had heard it right the first time. She protested, "But I don't have a team – "

"Asuma's team conveniently only has two genin out of three." Tsunade cocked an eyebrow. "Next excuse."

So then Sakura bit her tongue and wormed her way into Team Asuma. She and Ino suspended their rivalry – or more accurately, they just refocused it – long enough to ace the exam. It was smooth sailing compared to Sakura's first exam. As before, the crowning glory was in the third part of the exam, which by design would always be a showy battle to appease the masses. Sakura made sure that Tsunade was watching before ending her match in one second, one hit.

Tsunade had a hyena-like grin when she handed Sakura her promotion. "They'd say you were only getting this because I was your master, you know."

Sakura made a face. "W-well, whoever they are didn't know you and your… exacting standard," she said with a borrowed nonchalance. It helped that she had her model standing before her.

"Just so." Coming from behind her steepled fingers, it didn't sound exactly reassuring. "Nine months, eh?"

Tsunade said nothing more, so Sakura hazarded a guess. "…Since you took me under your wings?"

"I'd call it throwing a chick out of its nest, really." She seemed to have come to a decision. "I have an assignment for you, and you alone. It might take a while. You might not even come back from it, ever. But if you succeed, you will be that much stronger – and you will achieve what I have never done."

Like staying sober for a week? "W-well, if it's something you can't do – " Sakura meep'd at Tsunade's dirty look.

"It might just be the means to achieve what you've been working on, what you came to me for. A gamble of a lifetime. Will you take it?"

Sakura had learned so much from Tsunade in nine months, even her vices, that she nodded. "I'll take it."

She left a note for her parents. The shortage of manpower after the invasion was severe enough to pull both her parents into rotation duty outside the village. In their own words, it was about time, especially since now Sakura was a full-fledged shinobi and under the Hokage's care to boot.

Euphoria from the promotion took her to Tsunade's office bright and early the next morning, where it died a little at the sight of her mentor grumpy and still in last night's clothes. Tsunade gave her one last frowning inspection, straightened Sakura's forehead protector, and produced a scroll. It seemed neither ancient nor new. When unfurled only two signatures were written on it: Tsunade's, and Shizune's. That piqued her interest even more.

"It's a summoning contract with Katsuyu," Tsunade clarified. "Sign it with your blood."

Sakura already had a kunai in hand and pressed to her thumb before she remembered to ask, "And Katsuyu is…"

A quick bit of a jutsu and smoke, and a palm-sized white and blue slug materialised in Tsunade's palm. "This is Katsuyu – and Sakura is the new candidate, Katsuyu, if you think she's up to it."

Candidate for what? Sakura thought, but then the slug's tinny voice answered for her. "She is a little too young to be my summoner, Tsunade-sama."

It was a one-two punch as Tsunade said, "I meant for her to start training as a sage," and the slug replied, "She's also too young and too weak for that, Tsunade-sama."

"Um…" said Sakura.

"She has excellent chakra control, almost as if she's completely in tune with every molecule in her body. Isn't that right, Sakura?"

"I wouldn't put it that way – "

Tsunade had already turned back to Katsuyu. "Either way, I'd like to start her on meditation, and see if she's to your taste."

Sakura had a terrible premonition, as though the slug was assessing her for its dinner. "I can do that. Will you come with me, Sakura-chan?"

She nodded, and placed her hand on the slug when asked. Then she was tugged, folded through a narrow passage, and dumped on her knees. When she opened her eyes she was no longer in Tsunade's office. She was in a forest.

There was a big vertebra under her hands.

Sakura scrambled to her feet. Trapped within a rock was a fairly intact skeleton, though it was not quite like the bones she was familiar with – was this what a textbook called fossil? Half of it seemed to be submerged in the ground still, but its skull jutted out, as though frozen in the moment of gasping for one last breath. It was big, bigger than her head, and with canines that could tear her apart in one bite.

Goosebumps rising, Sakura instinctively went on guard. The forest seemed to stir with her arrival – on the edge of her awareness it was teeming with life. But it was also completely still.

"What's wrong, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura jumped; she had forgotten about the slug Katsuyu. Crap, it was supposed to be assessing her, wasn't it? "Nothing's wrong!"

"Then please follow me." The slug then melted into the ground. Sakura stared at the spot where it'd disappeared. The forest bristled. There was no wind. Sakura hastily picked a direction and scrambled. She followed the light softly falling through sparse aspen growth. Something cried out – a bird, not too far from her trajectory. She debated bolting away from it, but something kept her on course. What course is that? Whatever was opposite the dread lurking in her spine, apparently.

Once, she nearly slipped on the moss carpeting the ground coming across a bird on the ground. The swallow was still alive when she found it, crying pitifully. Something about the way it laid on its left side seemed unnatural. Sakura wondered why when she hadn't seen signs of blood or stray feathers. Maybe it it had simply landed on its left wing, badly. Then the swallow sank a little into the sea of moss. Suddenly she understood: it wasn't injured, the swallow was capsizing. As she made a move to help it, a voice called out to her.

"Please do not bother yourself with the bird, Sakura-chan." Sakura rounded at the source, nearly stepping on Katsuyu, suddenly right next to her foot. "Please follow me."

Once again it melted into the ground. When Sakura looked at the swallow, she saw only the flash of a drowning beak, leading her to wonder if it had been her imagination. Or rather, an illusion. She took a moment to probe for genjutsu, just in case, perhaps coming across the first time she was disappointed there was none. Sakura took off, determined to not look back. The further she went the more she saw of the slugs, all of them identical to Katsuyu. More fossilised skeletons, too, even a few that looked like they had belonged to humans.

And then there were the statues. Sakura paused despite herself, noting the Konoha forehead protector, the stunned expression of the man, legs unfolding from a meditative pose. And his wasn't the only one. There were others caught in candid positions, all of them shinobi from all over the land, in uniforms she didn't recognise, and one she did from an old photograph buried in Tsunade's sake drawer.

"What's wrong, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura jumped, and found a Katsuyu sitting on a concentrating Konoha kunoichi's head. It looked small and harmless, but Sakura was beginning to connect two and two together. She had never been able to sense the slug in this forest – because it was a part of it.

Steeling herself, she said, "I don't understand what's going on, Katsuyu-sama. What happened to these people? What is it that Tsunade-shishou wanted me to do here?"

"They attempted to transcend themselves and failed. But don't worry, Tsunade-sama doesn't want you to attempt it yet. It's not much further now, please follow me."

Sakura grabbed the slug before it attempted its disappearing trick again. "Where am I going? What is this place?" she snapped. She might have also shaken it a bit. If the slug was perturbed it didn't show it.

"This place is also known as Shikkotsurin. Tsunade-sama said it meant a forest of dry bones." Sakura glowered at it. "Would it make you more comfortable if I ride with you?"

"Well, I do trust Tsunade-shishou," Sakura assented grudgingly after a beat. She put the slug on her shoulder, and then regretted it as she felt the mucus on her hands, and more mucus seeping on her shoulder.

"So do I," the slug said cheerfully. "Now, it's not too far from here."

The place seemed to be a cave by a cliff. She could hear the trickle of a stream not too far away, but the cliff took her attention. Sakura hadn't realised she had been travelling on elevated land.

"Are we on a mountain?"

"In a manner of speaking – Wait!"

Tired of the mystery, Sakura went over to look down the heights. It was higher than she had thought, a steep climb with a smooth face. She could barely see the bottom, and what could be seen looked… empty. Barren, like nothing was there. Disappointing was the other word. The cave she was less sure of – didn't bears live in caves? – but a quick inspection revealed an empty, shallow gouge, enough to shelter from the elements but not deep enough to get lost in.

She turned to the slug on her shoulder. The dread hadn't quite vanished in this place – more accurately, she'd gotten used to it. But at least here was the open sky and an escape path if she was so urged to throw herself off a mountain. "So… what do we do here?"

"Since Tsunade-sama thought highly of your chakra control, she'd want you to hone that."

Sakura waited.

The slug also waited. Eventually it said, "Would you like to start with meditation?"

Sakura scowled.

"If you'd like to go home instead – "

"No!" Sakura said before she could really think about it, though after she did, it was the only choice she would take. Dropping Sakura into an otherworldly place, alone, with the vaguest of instruction and objective – there was a good chance it was one of those practical jokes Tsunade sometimes indulged in. There was an equal chance it was a test of Sakura's dedication. If Tsunade thought Sakura could be scared into failing before she even began, she would just have to prove her wrong.

And it was only meditation. Sakura could do meditation. She sat then and there, seiza, hands falling into the meditation mudra. Breathe in, breathe out, the weight of the slug on her shoulder faded from mind, and with it the sun, the wind, the forest that would swallow her if she sat still for too long, like that poor bird…

That poor bird, coming to a rest on a lonely journey, having fallen behind his flock, only to find the cool, secluded forest his grave. A mighty tiger who nevertheless had to flee the frailer beings and their not so frail weapons. But there were others who knew what they were getting into, even sought it themselves. Power, or wisdom, or the liminality between humanity and something else, for whatever reasons men and women had come, and made this forest their final resting place. Look, here comes another one…

Sakura pinched herself awake. She found herself still sitting in the same position; it was, as best as she could tell, the same morning still, the same hour. When she brought her hand on her shoulder it squelched, so even the slug hadn't moved. She abruptly stood, the movement sending her blood pumping, and jolting her out of the the meditational trance. "What was that?"

"Well… you had your eyes closed and you weren't moving, so I think you were meditating."

"I was! trying to, anyway. But meditation normally doesn't – " Even as she was protesting the memories faded away, and trying to describe it was like trying to catch water between her fingers. "I felt like I was someone else, something else! A lot of something elses within this… endless existence. And I saw through it for a while! What the hell was that?!"

The slug squirmed under her hand, and coming back to her senses, Sakura let it go. "Is that not supposed to happen?"

"No," Sakura repeated a tad more forcefully than necessary, "Meditation is a form for focusing one's self, to connect with every fiber of your being and to fully control your chakra. Instead I was drawn – no, I was sublimated into – I don't know! The forest?"

"Tsunade-sama was right, your aptitude is remarkable, Sakura-chan." The slug seemed to perk up. "Rare is the human who could attain sagehood, but you might just succeed."

Remembering Tsunade's initial proposition to the slug, Sakura was at first emboldened. Then she remembered also the statues she saw along the way, and more pressingly, the souls intruding on hers just a few moments ago. "Um, may I ask a question? Those statues we passed on the way here… you said they were people who had tried to reach for transcendence?"

"It would seem human bodies cannot harmonise with natural energy. It brings them into a standstill." Literally, Sakura added in her mind, not that it was helpful. "But to those who managed to not be overcome and attain sagehood, all possibilities under the sky were granted to them."

Sakura mulled this over. "So it grants great power?" If ever there was a proposal at once prosaic and tantalising… And dangerous, don't forget dangerous.

Disappointment reverberated from the slug down to Sakura's spleen, and she felt compelled to defend herself. "T-there's someone I need to save, but unfortunately there's not much I can do without power… and I don't want to be a burden anymore."

The slug wriggled, as close to a shrug as a slug would get. "I understand. You are a shinobi, after all, just like Tsunade-sama."

The thing was, Sakura didn't know whether it was meant as praise or scorn, but at this point in her training she hadn't been compared to her mentor often enough for it to not be novel. She took it for the courage it gave her.

Sakura settled herself in the cave. Katsuyu assured her no wild beast would wander this far – the forest would eat them first – cave-ins, earthquake, and volcanic activity were entirely of no consideration. Sakura should have wondered why the slug had thought she needed assurance about those; Tsunade had taught her better. But the fact was Tsunade was also at least half of the reason she was eager to retreat into the cave. (The other half was always herself.) It was meditation in and of itself. The world darker, quieter, and with the slug retreating, lonelier. Even so her thoughts chased each other, anything to avoid going back into the forest.

But there she is now; it is winter and the rivers are frozen in the mountain where she has descended from. The forest is green however, and she thinks she will miss this hue, this colour of life when she must eventually brave the desert back west, to breathe life in it. It is power that she wants, power that the slug scorns her for even as it invites her into itself, power to carve a sanctuary for herself and her family, and let Ashura and Indra and their ilk war amongst themselves to oblivion.

She was falling, drowning. She was sublimated, substance pulled apart at such speed as to disperse and regroup simultaneously. But this time she let go of herself, sinking, shrinking.

She is small, insignificant, of a lifetime best measured in days, months if she is lucky. She doesn't even understand the significance of the body she comes across and takes into herself. Days become months become years, and she doesn't stop growing. She finds words, and people to use them with, creatures who in another life would have eradicated her kind without so much as a thought, now turning to her for her wisdom, such that it is.

She is now too big to move comfortably, too big to commune with others comfortably. But at this point humans have stopped being delightful curiosities. She finds a secluded area and stops there. Where she stops, life grows and comes to her all the same. Humans still find her. While she does not mind sharing her power, or helping them to transcend their humanity, she does sometimes wish it is not only shinobi. She wishes their nature doesn't consume them in the process, as human nature is wont to do.

When Haruno Sakura opened her eyes she found they were level with the ground – they were the last part of her she could still move. Because only half of her head was still unclaimed by the earth. And eyebrows to frown with. She would miss them, she thought. Then she closed her eyes and resumed meditation. In, out, in.

Somewhere and sometime far away, as far away as three years later…

Her village was destroyed. For the moment, her people survived. Tsunade knew this, because she poured her soul into ensuring it. She had wrung out the last bit of chakra she had left to empower Katsuyu, with none left for herself. As far as deaths go this one wouldn't be so bad, defending Konoha with her life in the tradition of her predecessors. It was just the terrorist before her – Pain or something equally tragically unimaginative like that – just wouldn't shut up.

Finally, one of the puppets attacked. Tsunade had just enough for one final attack. Never let it be said she threw her punch at the last moment. But she was slow, or severely weakened, or the puppet fast, and the interloper faster still. Pain's puppet seemed to liquify as the force descended on it. At the same time a familiar chakra entered Tsunade, healing her. Familiar for all that she'd been missing for three years.

"Here you are now," she grumbled. "Took your time."

"Tsunade-shishou! I'm sorry I'm late!"

Tsunade glanced at Sakura – for it was her young prodigal apprentice, come home at last. She was nigh unrecognisable, and not solely due to the changes brought by puberty. The constantly shifting sheen to her skin, the dark eyes of one who had no need of light, the sheer inhuman energy swirling around her, could only mean…

"Well, what have you got, o Sage?"

Sakura grinned. In a lesser time, Tsunade might have noticed the girl's anxiety for Tsunade's reaction to Sakura's long, technically unauthorised absence. Sakura pointed to the remaining Pain puppet, helpfully there for a demonstration. "Allow me to show you."

Sakura cracked her knuckles. The earth trembled.