Disclaimers: Standard disclaimers applied.
Revised 15 Jan 2017
"Courage is inseparable from love and leads to what may arguably be one of the noblest of all warrior virtues: selflessness."
Adaline
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She didn't think anything was different for a long time.
In fact, Sakura continued on with her life like anybody else would. She perfected her techniques, learned some new ones along the way, and had a family.
If anyone had told twelve-year-old Sakura that she would start a family with her lazy, flippantly un-cool sensei, thirty-five-year-old Sakura was sure the poor girl would have had an aneurysm.
But she had married her lazy, flippantly un-cool ex-sensei, and it had been the best decision of her life.
Falling in love with Kakashi was ground-breaking, more so than that incredibly fallible love she once held for her once errant teammate who, as it turned out, was gay. For Naruto, of all people. Sakura's love for Kakashi was the type that snuck up on you when you were doing the most mundane of things—like washing the pack on a hot summer day in an itsy bitsy bikini and catching a soft blush on his cheeks. Or sitting on the couch under a lazy ceiling fan while reading a book, looking over, and thinking, I really do love you.
It had been a shy relationship at first as they were both were uncertain of how to cross that boundary between teacher and student, friend to lover. There was a blatant line in society that was painted in red ink that made them hesitant to go public with their relationship; but Sakura had always been impatient, and she was in love! With someone who loved her back. Imagine that?
There was no way she was going to let some cantankerous old traditionalists get in the way of her happiness, no way. She knew that Kakashi was only keeping it hush-hush for her sake because he really didn't care either way. He loved her, she loved him, and for him that was enough.
But she didn't want to hide him anymore; Kakashi was perfect. He was a good man and all of his odd idiosyncrasies were incredibly endearing to her. She was tired of hiding him, tired of caring what people thought of her or anything else for that matter.
So, Sakura, with all the tact of a rhinoceros, dragged her boyfriend of over a year into the most crowded of market places on the busiest day of the season, and asked him to marry her.
That's right. She proposed to him, and it was incredible.
After the initial shock of seeing her get down to one knee, Kakashi had ripped down his mask and swooped her into a breath-taking, toe curling kiss as the crowd erupted into cheers. There was a lot of crying on her part—it seemed like she needn't have worried what people thought, anyway.
She was twenty-six the day they married, and twenty-seven when her eldest son was born. He was a carbon copy of his father, and he was the most beautiful thing she had ever laid eyes on. Four years later, she had another son, this time with her shock of pink hair but, curiously enough, with her father's cerulean eyes. Genetics were a tricky thing, but when he smiled, (or pouted, or frowned for that matter) he was, for all the world, Kakashi's son.
And, three years later, Sakura bounced her precocious one-year old daughter on her lap as the silver haired, green eyed baby chewed on a lock of Sakura's candy floss hair. It was their father's birthday, and most of the village had turned up to celebrate the Rokudaime's turning of age. Even being an aloof, late, and taciturn individual, Kakashi had been a well-liked Hokage and was still somewhat of a legend.
Their eldest son was showing his proud father the marks he received on his exams in the academy while the youngest—a wonderfully calm, but still mischievous four year old—tried to swipe a finger through the cake.
He was turning 48, and Sakura wouldn't have thought it remarkable under any other circumstances. People age, it's life; and Kakashi had this thing where he was unfettered to the rules of time and never changed. He could be 63 and Sakura was sure that he'd still be reading porn in public and sporting that massive shock of silver hair.
But then Ino had slumped into a plastic chair at her table with a groan, and Sakura's blanket of happiness had unknowingly been snatched away.
"I don't know how you do it, Forehead," Ino moaned as she rubbed at her temples, slouching in her seat as she also rolled her shoulders.
"Do what, Pig," Sakura asked sweetly, cooing at her precious daughter who reached for Ino with a happy gurgle.
"Have three kids and still look like you frolicked in a patch of daisies," Ino reached over for the baby and gently brushed the downy hair from her forehead before whining dramatically, "I have two, and I swear they're going to end up giving me a heart attack and grey hairs before I reach 40. That is so not a cute look for me."
And, catching Sakura's evil eye, because she had two undeniably cute children with grey hair, Ino added with a giggle as she tickled the baby's belly, "But it's cute on you, baby girl! You're lucky, you have your Mama's unfair genes and will always be a beautiful girl," to Sakura she said, "Seriously, Forehead, what's with that? Tell me your secrets!"
And Sakura had blinked, because she didn't do anything differently than Ino did. She ate and did the same things she did when she was younger and childless; Sakura didn't understand what Ino was asking of her.
"Yes, Sakura-chan," Hinata gracefully sat to Ino's right, holding her youngest by the hand and then sending him off to play with the others, "You must tell us your secrets. You always look so lovely."
Sakura sat there in bemused silence as her other two friends stared at her expectantly. She didn't have any secrets!
"I bet you she's using Tsunade-sama's famous genjutsu," Ino snorted when it seemed like an answer wasn't forthcoming, "And that's why she doesn't want to tell us, Hinata-chan. Don't be selfish, Forehead Girl, tell us the jutsu! We want to look young, too!"
"Are we discussing Sakura's apparent lack of aging again?"
Sakura swiveled her head to see Temari dragging a seat from the next table over with a small smile. She had a juice stain on her usually pristine blouse and Ino sent her a sympathizing grin. Their two youngest were the same age, were best friends, and got into the strangest of things.
"Seriously, Sakura," Temari quipped, her fingers waggling in her baby's face, "Are you using Tsunade's jutsu? You don't look a day over 25."
"Seriously," Ino cried, passing the baby to a softly smiling Hinata, "You don't have any wrinkles, your body is still amazing, and where are your gray hairs? You can't tell me you have three kids and no gray hairs!"
And Sakura, for the first time that she could remember, took a good look at her friends. Ino, who had fine lines on the sides of her mouth and crows feet around her eyes from a life of laughter; Hinata, who had delicate strands of grey in her beautiful indigo hair; and Temari, who was older than all of them and it was starting to show.
She supposed that it was warranted-they were almost to 40, after all.
Sakura's eyes took in the frazzled and tired state her friends were in—a byproduct of motherhood, she knew—and knew then that something wasn't right. But she had merely laughed, blamed it on a good diet and genetics, and the topic changed to that of their children.
But that night, as Sakura stared into the same unchanging reflection she had known for over ten years, she saw with clear eyes what everyone else did: A twenty-four year old woman with unblemished, smooth skin. A young woman with healthy hair and clear eyes in the prime of her youth.
She hadn't changed anything about herself—she did everything she used to do when she had been younger. And perhaps, therein lied the problem. She shouldn't be able to do those things, or she should at least feel some indication of getting older. But Sakura felt fine, she felt great, actually. She felt like she could run to Suna and back in record time.
Yes, that was the problem.
"Is everything alright, love?" her husband's smooth voice cut through her unhappy thoughts as his strong hands settled on her shoulders, "You're frowning pretty deeply at your reflection."
Sakura's brilliant green eyes caught Kakashi's own in the mirror and just as she had with her friends, she took a good look at him—at all of him, not just who she'd always known but who he had become—and felt panic grip her heart.
Her husband was 48 and, without the mask, it showed. Not as much as others, because Kakashi had actually been blessed with astounding genetics, but he looked older. Though his body was still as fit as ever, he had deep creases around his eyes from his famous eye smiles and the dimples in his cheeks showed even as his face remained passive. His brow had a few wrinkles from his days of frowning deeply at some thing or another, and his hands were softer than they were in his youth.
Her husband was aging and she, it appeared, was not.
"Kakashi," her soft voice must have alarmed him, because his hands tightened on her shoulders, "How old do I look?"
He raised a silver brow at her odd question, but humored her, perhaps thinking that it was another trick women liked to play, "Maa, Sakura, you don't look a day over 25!"
Sakura felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand in increasing alarm as she turned from the mirror and grasped his hands tightly in her own, "No, I'm serious. Look at me. If you didn't know me, how old would you think I am?"
Kakashi's face smoothed out as his eyes ran down her form intensely, and Sakura struggled to keep still under the scrutiny. But this was serious, and if he saw what everyone else did, then she'd know her theory was worth pursuing.
"I'd think," he started slowly, a pit of apprehension opening in her belly, "You were, at most, 24. Twenty-two if it was a passing glance."
Dropping his hands as if they burned her skin, Sakura turned from him and raked her shaking fingers through her hair with a curse as she walked away. Her husband blinked at her peculiar mood and slowly lowered his hands, watching with a furrowed brow as she pulled out multiple photo albums from the closet and started flipping through them.
He watched as her frown grew more and more pronounced with the turning of each page until she shoved them away from her with another loud curse to cradle her head in her hands.
"Sakura?" His voice projected his confusion and concern and it did little to ebb the anxiety buzzing under her skin, "What's going on?"
Lifting her head from her youthful hands, Sakura grabbed the album closest to her and flipped to a random picture, "Look, Kakashi," she spat, not unkindly, "Look at this picture and tell me what you see."
His grey eyes lowered to search for what she sought, but his voice was as bemused as before when he replied, "I see my family—from five years ago?"
There was a pregnant pause where Sakura wanted to screech because he didn't get it, and Kakashi wanted to scratch his head because he didn't get it. The pause was broken by her husband's exhale as he sat on the bed, took the album from her hand, and then pulled her to sit down beside him on their downy comforter.
"Sakura," he sighed, pushing an errant lock of hair behind her ear, "If this is about me being older than you—"
"No, Kakashi, it's not about that!"
Snatching her hand away from him, Sakura flipped frantically through a photo album once more.
"Look," she stressed, pointing at a specific picture, "This is us on our wedding day. Look at my face."
"You were beautiful, dear, I don't unders—"
"And look here," Sakura interjected, already flipping to another picture, "This is us a few months after our eldest son was born," Kakashi opened his mouth to speak, no doubt to say something sweet, but Sakura barreled on with another picture, "and this is me with our youngest son," another picture, "and then our daughter, a year ago."
Her expectant eyes lifted to search her husband's, who was tracing her smiling face in each picture, and then narrowed when he sighed again.
"Sakura," he drawled, shaking his head, "What are you showing me? You look the same; what am I supposed to be looking for?"
"Exactly, Kakashi! I was 26, 27, 31, and 34 respectively, and I look the same!"
"But isn't that a good thing? That's what women want, right?"
Sakura wanted to tear her hair out, but she instead pulled out her oldest of photo albums reserved solely for pictures of Team 7, and urgently turned the pages until she stopped on a picture of her smiling face identical to the four before that.
"And look at this," she said softly, pulling the picture from the album and placing it in his hands, "I was 24 here. It was taken a week after the…incident. Please tell me you understand what I'm trying to show you."
And because—even in his old age, her husband was a genius—his eyes widened in dawning realization before he himself flipped through each picture they had taken of her in the last decade. He examined each photograph for the next ten minutes, slowly absorbing each detail and then periodically glancing at her face until he shut the album with a resounding snap.
His eyes sought hers by the light of their bedside lamp, "You're not using Tsunade's jutsu. I would know."
Sakura chewed anxiously on her thumb nail, getting up to pace around the room. Kakashi, even without the Sharingan, could detect a genjutsu for miles away, so it was sort of reassuring to know that she wouldn't have to try to prove that she wasn't under one.
Turning to him, Sakura's voice came out as a whisper, "I don't—I'm not…Kakashi, I'm not aging."
"How?" Kakashi inquired as he rose to his feet, the picture of her smiling 24 year old self still in his hand, "How is that possible?"
"I don't know," she cried, "It doesn't make sense! But how else am I supposed to explain the fact that I still look like I'm twenty-four?!"
"It's not genetics," she continued, her voice quickly dissolving into hysterics, "Because my parents did not age gracefully, and it's not a jutsu because I feel fine. So how, how is this possible?"
"Sakura," Kakashi crossed towards her in two long strides. "You need to calm down, we'll figure this out later. But right now, I need you to calm down."
Nodding mutely, Sakura let herself be guided to the bed as she breathed through her nose. He was right, she needed to calm down lest she wake the children. But her mind was whirling with the thoughts of how physically impossible it was to remain ageless while everyone else succumbed to the rules of time. She felt the bed dip under her husband's weight and let herself be drawn into his arms, her head falling to rest on his chest.
"We'll figure this all out tomorrow," he spoke into her hair, rubbing her arm soothingly, "Let's go to bed, we've had a long day."
That night, Sakura went to bed with a profound feeling of dread dragging its way up her body to her throat. As she lay in her husband's arms, she prayed to every deity that was listening that it'd be something as simple as genetics.
But four days later, a meandering nurse had wandered into the pathology lab and found the Director of Medicine sobbing over a pile of blood spattered charts and a tipped over microscope. Alarmed, the new nurse had rushed to the rosette's side with wide eyes, but the older woman stood up sharply with a shake of her head and silently walked out of the lab.
The girl was baffled; what could have happened to make Haruno-sama so upset? Taking a glance at the charts—and the general disarray the desk was in—the nurse couldn't find anything remotely distressing. After all, Haruno-sama had only been looking at DNA. What was so saddening about that?
Shrugging, the nurse walked out of the lab and pegged it as simple PMS. That, she thought, she could understand.
And Sakura?
Sakura had launched herself out of the nearest window and made her way home to fall to her knees in a hysterical mess after crossing the threshold to her bedroom. Through muffled ears, she heard her husband's quick steps on the floorboards and startled voice before he dropped to his knees beside her.
"Sakura?" Kakashi's blatant concern only made her sob harder into her hands while his own hovered uncertainly at her shoulders, "Sakura, what's wrong?"
Collapsing into his arms, Sakura buried her face in his throat and let her tears mix with the water dripping from his hair. He was clad in only a towel and had most likely jumped out of the shower once he'd heard her wails, and her heart filled to bursting with love for this man who would drop everything to come to her aid.
But the sorrow sinking its grip into her chest would not make room for it.
How could she tell him? How could she tell the love of her soul that they would never grow old together? That the world would turn and change, and only she would remain constant? How could she tell him that she would outlive him, their children, and their grandchildren? How?
She couldn't.
She couldn't.
Whatever had caused her infinite existence had changed her DNA so thoroughly it was irreversible.
So instead, Sakura wiped her tears, mumbled something about PMS and a patient passing, and Kakashi had nodded sympathetically while rubbing a comforting hand up and down her back. He was heedless to the way her heart broke with each kiss he placed against her face, oblivious to the ache in her soul as he tucked her disheveled hair behind her ears.
After dressing in sweat pants and a t-shirt, he held her hand as they walked to the kitchen together where he volunteered to prepare dinner for the family, and squeezed her shoulder when she sat down at the table.
"Did you discover anything about the whole aging thing? The baby's sleeping, by the way."
His question made her freeze with her hands tightly clasped together in front of her. Biting her lip, Sakura watched his back as he set about taking ingredients out of the pantry and refrigerator with the dexterity that came from being a father and a family man. Kakashi was her husband—her love, the end of her red string—and she couldn't tell him.
Maybe it was selfish of her, this secrecy, but she couldn't lay that burden on his shoulders and Sakura had always been a little selfish. Kakashi deserved to be happy with the image of his perfect family seared into his heart, not that of an immortal wife who would remain forever youthful when they were supposed to grow old together.
No, she'd shoulder this burden on her own; she'd find a way to make things right.
"Sakura?"
"Um," she blinked, "yes, darling, I did."
"Oh?" Her husband turned his head to look at her, a spatula in his hand and a grain of rice stuck to his cheek, "Care to share?"
"Yeah," her lips curled into a tremulous smile as the sound of a door opening with childish greetings and laughter filled the home, "It's really just great genetics after all. Nothing to worry about."
Kakashi hummed as he turned over the sliced eggplant on the grill pan, "Well, in that case, aren't the children lucky?"
"Why are we lucky, Daddy?" Her four year old latched onto his father's legs, begging to be coddled and hugged after a day at Naruto and Sasuke's house, "Are we getting yum-yums?"
"No, otouto," her eldest sighed after giving her a quick peck on the cheek and a hug, "We don't get yum-yums until we finish Mama's list of chores for the week. 'Member?"
"Remember, sweetheart," Sakura corrected as she drew both of her boys into her arms, "Big boys say whole words."
"Yes, Mama," her two babies recited dutifully, giggling when she sloppily kissed them both on the cheek.
"So, why are we lucky?"
Sakura was saved from having to lie to her children when her daughter started crying and she walked away to retrieve her as Kakashi explained the science behind genetics and genes ("Not the kind you wear on weekends, boys.") and how blessed they were.
Picking up her baby, Sakura nuzzled her nose against her soft hair and inhaled her lovely scent as a single tear rolled down her cheek.
With the prospect of infinity hanging over her head, she had no choice but to enjoy her family while she could.
Time does as time is wont to do and inevitably passes.
Her children grew, her husband aged, and Sakura refined Tsunade's technique so finely that she made it seem like she aged with them—gradually, of course. She still had the guise of amazing genetics to maintain, and she was sure even her genius of a husband couldn't break the technique.
She cherished every moment with her family like a woman starved.
She snapped pictures at each of her children's weddings, sobbed joyfully at every birth of a grandchild, of every great-grandchild, and slept in the arms of her old husband all while knowing that she had not changed at all in the last fifty-three years.
It was devastating to watch the wrinkles form in her daughter's face while her own remained smooth like porcelain, to watch as her sons retired to be with their families while she could still probably go on dangerous missions and come out victorious.
Sometimes, in the privacy of her bathroom, Sakura would drop the genjutsu and poke at her skin to see if there had been any changes—any wrinkles, any gray hairs, anything—and was always disappointed despite years of finding none.
But it was watching Kakashi age that sometimes made it hard to breathe. It was painful to watch his once steady hands shake when doing simple things, to watch as his strong back bowed with old age and his hair fade from moonlit silver to snowy white. It suffocated her, sometimes, to see how things had become much harder for him and know that her time with him was running out.
And eventually, the day she dreaded with every fiber of her being had arrived.
Kakashi—her husband, her love at the end of the red string, her soulmate—lay on his deathbed in the comfort of their home, and all Sakura could think about was how time and fate could be so cruel.
The medic presiding over his care (because Sakura had retired long ago) shook his head silently as he walked out of their bedroom, stepping aside as the ever-growing Hatake clan filed in.
"He doesn't have much time," the young man said softly as tears welled in her glassy genjutsu clouded eyes, "I don't think he'll make it through the night, Sakura-hime. It's best if your family starts saying their good-byes."
Sakura nodded her head sorrowfully, her genjutsu's snowy hair fluttering before her eyes, and dismissed him. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, hard enough for stars to blaze behind her eyelids, and leaned against the wall as a dry sob erupted from her throat.
"Mama?"
Not bothering to wipe her tears, Sakura straightened and turned to her youngest son (her youngest son with gray hairs in his pink and clear blue eyes pulled down by worried lines) and walked towards him to take his calloused hands in her seemingly weakened ones.
"It's time to say goodbye to your Father," she whispered, the words spilling out shakily over quivering lips.
How many times had she said those words to her children over the years? When dropping them off at the Academy, at someone's house, when Kakashi went to work? Never had goodbye sounded so absolute, and it didn't seem real to her. None of it did.
Her son nodded, his lips pressing into a grim line under his beard and tears spilling over to roll down his cheeks. "I'll go tell the others."
She took a moment to compose herself before walking into the bedroom that smelled of home with the underlying currents of antiseptics. As the matriarch, she had to be strong for her family—even if she felt anything but.
There were quiet sniffles as everyone took their time saying their last words to the patriarch of the Hatake Clan; Kakashi was adored by his family, even by the youngest ones who hadn't known him very long and didn't quite understand why they were saying goodbye. And Sakura remained stone-faced throughout it all, not daring to break even when Kakashi asked that he say his own private good-byes to his wife.
The family left the room sadly, their children taking time to press lingering kisses to his face—to stroke his hair one last time, to inhale his scent of fresh grass and Konoha's trees before it was gone forever. Her daughter—the Daddy's girl that she'd always be—was the last to leave, and she walked backwards towards the door as if searing his face into her memory.
When the door shut behind her, Sakura hurried over to her husband's side and clasped his delicate hand gently between her own.
"Kakashi?" She breathed as she held his hand to her face, closing her eyes as his soft fingers stroked her cheek.
"I was hoping for one last Icha Icha reenactment," he breathed, and his voice was so, so weak and weathered, "What do you say, Sakura?"
"You idiot," Sakura laughed, despite her tears, oh how she loved this man, "I'd kill you—even with my old bones."
"But you're not old," and he sounded so sure that for split second, Sakura froze.
"What are you talking about? You're not blind, look at me, I'm ancient!" Her laugh trailed off weakly when his steely eyes showed no signs of mirth. She was reminded of those looks he used to give her when she was caught lying as a Genin, and Sakura resisted the urge to curl in on herself.
"How did you know?" She asked weakly, actually feeling her age for once.
"I've always known, love," her still brilliant emerald eyes widened the more he spoke, "I've known since that day you came home decades ago. It wasn't hard to put two and two together—I've never seen you so distraught over a patient or PMS before or after that. And did you really think I couldn't see those layers and layers of genjutsu you've worn since then?"
And all Sakura could do was stare at him silently, her heart tearing to shreds with each passing second. All those years of keeping it a secret and he had already known; all those years spent drowning in the knowledge of eternity alone and he had known.
"Why didn't you tell me?!" She cried, not ungently, and Kakashi shrugged his frail shoulders.
"I figured you had your reasons, Sakura. It wasn't easy."
She didn't doubt for a second that it had been hard on him. If it were her, she knew she'd have blurted it out hours after discovering it. She pressed a kiss to the palm of his hand; Kakashi was a good man, and she loved him, truly and deeply.
"You're immortal aren't you?"
When Sakura nodded, a horrible silence settled into the room and the only sound that filled it was her husband's ragged breathing.
"Humor me," he said after he collected his breath, it was the most he had spoken in a long time, "Drop the genjutsu."
When she hesitated, he gently shook her hand once and added, "Please. I want to look at my wife as she is, not who she wants me to see."
So Sakura nodded, a sob spilling from her lips, and dropped the genjutsu.
Kakashi's smile was as dazzling as it had ever been when he saw her twenty-four year old face—though contorted by sorrow—and the vibrant pink of her hair. He ran a shaking hand through her short locks, then trailed his fingers over her smooth unwrinkled skin, before stopping at her lips.
"Beautiful," he murmured, "You have always been so beautiful."
Oh, how her heart was in agony. Her youthful lips pressed kisses to his fingertips while his other hand reached to play with her hair.
"I've always loved your hair," he said, reverently, "It made you, you. I've missed it."
"Kakashi," she sobbed, uncaring of how splotchy her face looked or how ugly she sounded, "How am I supposed to live without you?"
"You'll be fine, Sakura," Kakashi replied gently, beckoning her to climb onto the large bed, "You have our kids, so a part of me will always exist somewhere."
Sakura rested her smooth forehead on his chest, mindful of how shallow his breaths were. They didn't have much time.
"I can't tell them," she whispered brokenly, "I can't tell anyone. I can't."
"I know," he muttered into her hair, his voice growing weaker, "I know."
A desperate thought came unbidden to her, and Sakura gently extracted herself from his arms to grasp his aged face between her graceful hands.
"I can die with you," she pleaded, "Two weeks from now, I can stop my own heart with medical jutsu and no one will know. I can."
With surprising strength, Kakashi grasped her shoulders and shook her once, his eyes blazing as he spat, "Hatake Sakura, you will not, under any circumstances, commit suicide. You are a strong woman, the strongest I've ever met, and you will get through this. I believe in you."
"Promise me you'll live," he begged, and when she didn't say anything, shook her again, "Promise me!"
"I promise," she wept, her tears clouding her vision so thoroughly she could barely make out his face, "But how, Kakashi? I need you. How will I get through this without you?"
A sudden burst of chakra made her glance up in surprise, and she could write such terrible poetry about the way it felt to be met with the countenance of her lover from fifty-five years ago.
"You'll see me again," his voice is once again that rich, smooth baritone that she had fallen in love with and would always love, and he is so sure that she believes him, "In whatever lifetime, wherever you go, find me, Sakura."
He holds her face in the strong, calloused hands of his thirty-eight year old self, locks his clear grey gaze with her sea glass orbs, and says with familiar conviction, "Find me."
And Sakura nods desperately and curls herself around him.
"I will," she says to his soft lips as she peppers them with frantic kisses, "I will," she promises his closing eyes as she climbs off the bed to once again hold his aged hand against her chest.
"I will."
Hatake Kakashi dies at the ripe old age of 94 surrounded by his flourishing clan and loving wife, and the loss of a village hero is felt keenly throughout Konoha. Thousands attend his funeral.
Five years later, his wife, Hatake Sakura, dies at the age of 82 surrounded by her children and their families. She is the last of the infamous Team 7 and Rookie 9 to pass, and thousands attend her funeral.
And, as occupied as Konoha is with a village hero's funeral, no one notices the young woman with an astonishing resemblance to the recently deceased Haruno Sakura making her way out of the village and into the trees with one last lingering look behind her. If they had, they would say it was one from the clan departing on a terribly timed mission, or that it was her spirit joining her lover.
And Sakura?
Sakura has a hundred lifetimes to look for him.
.
.
tbc