Disclaimer: One day I'm going to surprise to you all and tell you I own Naruto, but today is not that day and tomorrow's not looking good either.

A/N: Another question inspired by the cannon. Sakura is commonly identified as a genjutsu-type shinobi. Does she ever learn any genjutsu? Well, at any rate, I've realized that this Sakura is a really different character than the Sakura of the original, but this one is more in-canon. But maybe, once I get to new chapters, instead of just rewriting the old ones, I could do the new chapters in both styles. It would be a challenge to my writing, but we'll see what happens.

Five Kingdoms for the Dead

-Chapter Four-

The Red Moon Falls

There were a lot of pressure points and nerve clusters in the human body. Sakura was familiar with many of them. And she didn't want to hurt Sasuke, per se, but she did want to prove herself, desperately, violently. The chakra pours automatically through her channels, as natural to her as breathing, but it feels as cold and sharp as if it were hundreds of thousands of tiny blades flowing through her left hand.

Her jade eyes narrow in an unconsciously intent expression, which in turn makes Sasuke's dark eyes widen. He struggles to pull his hand out of her grasp, but she automatically cycled chakra through the muscles of her right hand, which makes her far, far stronger than him. Sasuke's intention is all directed at freeing himself from her grip, which means he doesn't see her other hand as she pulls him forward, collapsing them together, intent on the pressure point on the back of his neck.

She was quick, but slow too, because the medication hadn't quite worn off. But Sakura knows it doesn't matter how fast she is, because Kakashi-sensei intercepted her strike, moved her body so quickly she is on her knees with her hand twisted gently behind her back, that it takes a moment to realize what happened. And what she'd almost done.

"Gently, gently," Kakashi-sensei chided her, letting her arm go. Sakura stays on the ground, on her knees. "Your control isn't as good as it usually is." Sakura knows. She was channeling too much chakra for that strike, which hadn't really needed chakra at all. All it would have taken was for Sasuke to struggle at the wrong moment and Sakura might have done more than simply knock him unconscious. She could have damaged his vertebrae at the least, maybe killed him at the worst.

You've made your point, Kakashi-sensei, she thought with her head bowed.

"Sorry," she mutters aloud. She peers at Sasuke through her bangs, just to reassure herself that her strike hadn't connected. Kakashi-sensei had apparently knocked him backward when he put her into the submission hold, because he was sitting in the dirt, looking as startled as he could manage without completely losing his dignity.

"That was so cool, Sakura-chan!" Naruto cheered from the sidelines. "What was that?"

Sakura swallowed down what had almost happened. It was done. Nothing could change it. "It was taijutsu," she answered him.

Sasuke had gotten over his surprise and was glaring up at Kakashi-sensei. "Why did you interfere?" he asked. "I thought you wanted me to attack her."

"The problem, Sasuke, lay in her counterattack. I assume you like being a ninja?" he asked in his normal, lackadaisical voice.

Sasuke eyes their sensei uncertainly, but gave him a short nod.

Kakashi-sensei's eyes crinkled shut, like he was smiling underneath his mask. "Then you didn't want Sakura to touch you just then. Right, Sakura?"

"Yes. I'll go back to the hospital," Sakura said in a soft voice.

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto inquired worriedly.

She sent him a reassuring smile. "It's fine, Naruto." Sakura slumped the rest of the way to the ground. "I was just getting tired anyway."

Sakura stayed in the hospital for the next several days. Technically. The records would always reflect that the young pink-haired gennin was checked in, but Sakura spent most of her days as occupied as she might be at home. She'd slunk out once between the nurse's rounds, but Suzuki-san had refused to let her borrow books or scrolls from the archives. He'd said it was against policy, but Sakura had never heard of such a rule.

She didn't have enough time between the check-ins to simply stay and read, so she'd asked the box of scrolls that sat at the bottom of her bed be brought in. Chichi-ue had dropped them off, which Sakura took to mean she and Oka-san weren't talking again. Haruno Toshihiko, her father, never spoke often so Sakura didn't feel too slighted when he went away after exchanging only the barest of greetings. What she felt was lonely.

Sakura took after her father in looks, but not in personality. Chichi-ue was taller than Kakashi-sensei and while not outrageously broad across the shoulders, he had more muscle there than most of the ninja she'd seen. He the same broad forehead, though it looked better on him as it was matched with more masculine features. Sakura had yet to discover where her hair color came from. Oka-san's hair was dark, almost black, and though her chichi-ue died his hair, Sakura had seen that his roots were almost the same color as her eyes. It made sense in a skewed sort of way, because chichi-ue's pupils were about the same color as her hair, but Sakura doubted anyone had ever made fun of him because of it.

Though Ino also looked like her father, she at least had the advantage of looking attractive because of it.

But Sakura didn't linger long in self-pity. Instead she'd turned to two pursuits that made her time in the hospital bearable, if not entertaining. One was of course reading, memorizing, and restoring the scrolls, though she'd cried the first time she'd opened one. There was no rush to return them now. The Third Hokage was dead.

The second was meditation, which she'd always found a pointless exercise because of Inner-Sakura. It was hard to have quiet inside your head with a split personality. But she used it as an exercise to stretch her senses, listening to the nurses in the next room, memorizing chakra patterns until she could pinpoint all the nurses she knew in the hospital no matter what floor they were on.

That brought her to the present. A fresh set of funeral robes was waiting, neatly folded, on the bed, but Sakura was sitting on the floor, leafing through the scrolls from the box. She'd already discovered some treasures among the otherwise mundane techniques. There had been a beautifully illustrated copy of the legend of Amanozako rolled inside a treatise on the use of the air element in a justsu meant to decrease wind resistance when traveling at high speeds.

Amanozako, whose name meant 'heaven opposing everything,' was a goddess born when Susanoo's furious spirit had built up inside him and he'd vomited her out. Despite the talent of whoever had painted it, Sakura still though the goddess was grotesque, with her fangs that could chew through steel, beastly face, and great dark wings. She'd pulled the scroll and sat on the stand near the window, the ends weighted. It had been furled too tightly and she was waiting for the delicate paper to flatten so she could roll it properly.

Sakura reached into the box again and her hand encountered not a scroll or a loosely bound text, but instead a scroll case. Pulling it out, Sakura noticed something peculiar about it. It was larger than any of the other scroll cases she'd seen and one of the corners appeared to be peeling. Curious, because it hadn't looked like it'd been covered in paper, she picked at it with her blunt nails.

A small cry of triumph escaped her as she managed to separate the layer from the box. What in the world? Someone had paneled the exterior of the scroll box with thin strips of wood. From the loosened side, Sakura could tell there were paper seals on the box, which had previously been hidden. Her natural curiosity was roused and checking the time, she busied herself with removing the rest of the wooden strips.

It wasn't unusual for scroll boxes or even the scrolls themselves to have seals on them. Anything containing A-rank information or higher was supposed to have a seal on it by order of the Hokage, which had been in effect since the creation of the village and the first ninja wars, where theft of information was a common occurrence that could change the flow of a battle for better or worse. Ninja clans often created distinctive sealing techniques to contain information about their family jutsu. And because shinobi were just generally paranoid, sometimes they just sealed things for good measure. Like diaries. Ino had always kept her diary sealed.

Those are some hardcore seals, Inner-Sakura observed. Nothing we can't handle, though.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that. Look at how these seals intersect," she indicated the overlap, barely aware she was speaking aloud. "You'd have to break them both at once. And because of the way the symbols amplify each other, it will be different than breaking them separately."

Sakura's eyes narrowed. This box was sealed and confiscated during the reign of the First Hokage. Should I really be trying to open it?

Technically, Inner-Sakura pointed out, we have authorization from Hokage-sama to break the seal of any scroll in this box.

Yeah, but I don't think he meant that permission for a situation like this. Sakura sighed, glancing up at the clock again. At any rate, she didn't have time. She needed to get dressed. She'd agreed to meet with Naruto and Sasuke, so they could attend the Hokage's memorial service together. Irritably, Sakura swiped at the tears that started to gather again. She took a deep slow breath, bringing herself to that quiet place between her and Inner-Sakura. She wouldn't cry.

Sakura wasn't sure how to say it, but she'd never felt more in step with her team than when they'd met in that alley, all dressed in funeral black. No one had spoken. No one had needed to.

She'd been discharged the day after the Hokage's funeral. Her Oka-san had said her first words to her in days, though it had been a demand to help with the housework. Sakura knew her mother didn't understand her only child, so Sakura loved her despite that.

Sometimes, when Sakura was training, she'd wondered what had inspired her to be a ninja in the first place. Her family, as far back as the records traced was a successful clan of merchants, traders, civilians. She had only dim memories of her first motivation. Sakura knew why she was a ninja now—she loved her village, would complete any mission in its service in order to keep the ones she loved safe.

But there was no direct threat to Konoha. There hadn't been in years. She understood the motivation of someone like Tenten, who was the only other successful ninja in their age group to come from a civilian family. In her case, her parents had been caught up in the Kyuubi's last attack on the village, leaving her an orphan without any other way to support herself. Given that they were a hidden village whose main resource and source of income was its ninja forces, those children who went unadopted by civilian families were trained as shinobi and kunoichi.
Sakura was fairly certain things had been a little different for Tenten, as after she'd shown considerable promise at the Academy, one of the lesser clans had taken her in. She'd heard by way of Lee, who by virtue of them both being in the hospital had spent a lot of time visiting, that Tenten's dream was to become a famous kunoichi like Tsunade.

Sakura admired the other girl for have such a solid goal right from the start, but Sakura was beginning to think of higher goals. She wouldn't be a famous kunoichi. Sakura would be measured by the same standard as her male teammates—she'd become an excellent shinobi. Like the Third Hokage, who'd been so kind to her during his brief mentorship.

Sakura shook off her thoughts as she walked the streets of Konoha, hoping to find Kakashi-sensei. He hadn't set a date for training today, but she'd seen the messenger hawk summoning Sasuke.

We'll give him fifteen more minutes of wandering, then we're going to go back to the archives for research on that frickin' seal, Inner-Sakura growled, already frustrated with the exercise.

Sakura bit her lip. She'd been running faithfully through her katas, even when she'd been in the hospital, but live combat was the only way to really practice. Even if she'd known Naruto's Kage Bunshin technique, only really experienced practitioners gained real insight into their technique by fighting themselves. Until she was more confident in her taijutsu, she wanted to fight against someone else, someone she'd be forced to not only pit her body but her mind against, someone who thought very differently from her. Any of her teammates would do, really.

But she hadn't even seen Naruto and kami-sama knew he was easy to spot, with his loud orange jumpsuit and distinctive voice.

After the promised fifteen minutes Sakura still hadn't spotted any of her teammates, though she'd waved hello to Shikamaru, who had seemed to be in the process of being herded somewhere by his mother.

It's too nice a day to go straight to the archives, she decided. She'd been studying during her time in the hospital and she missed the fresh air, so she didn't feel too guilty about her decision.

Let's go down by the river, Inner-Sakura suggested. Where we first asked Gai-sensei to train us. We can call it an anniversary. It'll be nostalgic, she coaxed.

Mm, Sakura agreed. She liked to sit on the banks, looking down into the water. The river wasn't constant. It was impossible to dip her feet into the same water twice. It reminded her that human beings had the same capacity for change and the Sakura she saw reflected today didn't have to be the Sakura that was reflected tomorrow. That Sakura could be a better person, a stronger shinobi. That was the Sakura of endless possibility.

When she actually came to the river though, she found she didn't feel like sitting passively on the bank. Stretching carefully, her hands high above her head, Sakura felt liberated and slightly guilty. While she'd been in the hospital everyone had been helping with the reconstruction efforts if they weren't training. There was no rule that said she had to spent every waking moment in study or training, no proctor or sensei to look over her shoulder, but it was what she'd become accustomed to. It was what she enjoyed, to be quite frank, but rest was as important as training. Or that was what she thought her chichi-ue had meant this morning when he'd seen her out the door, telling her that "silence was as important as sound."

She followed the river downstream and for the first time since she'd begun training, she looked around with something more than simply an awareness of her surroundings. The songbirds, Japanese white-eyes, bull-headed shrikes, Eurasian tree sparrows, and other more uncommon birds, were pretty, their calls musical, not simply an indicator that there'd been no enemy disturbing their nest. A tension that kept her chest tight, that she hadn't even realized was there, relaxed.

Konoha is beautiful, Sakura said to herself, suddenly reminded what is was that she fought to protect.

Suddenly their song was cut short as ahead of her a flock of birds rose from the trees. Just as quickly as it had left, the tension returned. Taking to the trees and the shadows, Sakura cautiously approached the area. Her trained ears soon picked up the voices of the two jounin that mentored the other successful candidates of the Rookie 9, Asuma-sensei who was in charge of Team 10, and the female jounin with the red eyes who was assigned to Team 8.

She couldn't hear what they were saying though, so she crept closer, finally finding a tree with heavy enough leaf cover it would be unlikely she'd be seen. Careful to keep the branch she was balanced on still, because she was on the narrowest part, Sakura cautiously parted the leaves in time with a natural breeze. Cloaking her chakra and focusing on erasing her breathe, Sakura was almost certain that even a jounin level shinobi wouldn't be able to detect her.

Her jade eyes narrowed as she took in the situation. They were facing two men in black cloaks covered with red clouds and their stance was antagonistic.

Intruders to the village? Inner-Sakura asked.

Looks like it, Sakura answered her.

She'd arrived after Asuma-sensei had challenged the shinobi, so she watched with trepidation as the slighter of the two foreign nin brought a purple-nailed hand to his bamboo hat. Removing it slowly, he unsnapped the first few closures of his cloak with his left hand. Sakura nearly fell from her perch when Asuma-sensei identified him, though her slow breathing didn't even catch.

Inner-Sakura had the advantage of not being heard and she utilized it, starting violently, Uchiha Itachi?

Would that make him…how is he related to Sasuke? Sakura was bright and analytical. It didn't take long to make the connection between the Massacre and this new Uchiha, when Sasuke was supposed to be the last. I wonder if he's the man Sasuke wants to kill.

Sakura snapped her attention back to the situation unfolding before her, because she was suddenly certain she'd stumbled on something extremely dangerous. It would be smart to retreat, but it wasn't practical. Now that they were no longer distracted by the approach of the other, they would notice her movements. And with luck, if she didn't advance or retreat, neither party would consider her a threat worth investigating if they did detect her.

Uchiha Itachi's companion had just said something about introducing himself. Sakura wasn't really all that surprised when he took his hat off. Seeing someone related to Sasuke who was apparently an infamous missing nin had prepared her for six-foot plus blue shark men.

Sure, Inner-Sakura drawled. Keep telling us that. We wouldn't really want to fall off this branch. It would give surprise attack a whole new meaning.

Sakura barely breathed through the confrontation that followed, having her suspicions about Itachi's relationship to the Uchiha Massacre, and watched as two respected jounin-sensei were brushed off like they were gennin. Then Kakashi-sensei came and it only got worse, because it became apparent that there was a vast difference in Kakashi-sensei's mastery of the Sharingan and Uchiha Itachi's. His sheer speed was unreal.

Almost like it moved without her permission, her fingers crept gently toward her kunai holster. It was only when she felt the cold metal of the kunai that she realized what she was about to do.

This is insane, Sakura thought frantically.

You are telling that to your alternate personality. I believe that's the classical definition.

Tiny droplets of water hit her face as Itachi detonated his shadow clone. Her arms began to tremble, infinitesimally, and she stilled them. If she was going to do this, she couldn't afford to miss.

Sakura chose the kunai with the tiny grooves etched into their handles. Those were the ones with exploding tags. She'd always used them to compensate for her lack of taijutsu, ninjutsu, and generally all other close combat skills in the past. Neither Naruto nor Sasuke carried them on a regular basis.

"Why do you think," Itachi's low, fascinating voice asked, "that the Uchiha clan is known by all and feared by all?" Sakura lost his next words, because she was already in motion, her arm snapping forward, releasing her wave of kunai, moving almost before they left her fingers. But not before.

She saw Asuma-sensei and Kurenai-sensei's eyes widen at the attack.

Don't be surprised yet, Inner-Sakura cackled.

Sakura, you're so stupid! She'd already used her speed, formed the handsign, watched as carefully as Gai-sensei had ever taught her in the smoky aftermath of the explosion.

She'd kept to the trees, choosing to stay in cover, but her movement had put her nearer to Kakashi-sensei and the other Konoha jounin. Only later would she realize what a mistake that had been. Because of course Uchiha Itachi wasn't going to be killed by an attack by a gennin. Sakura didn't know what she'd hoped to accomplish. Because at that moment she met Sharingan eyes and she was swallowed by crimson.

It was a world with an ochre sky, where wispy black clouds were blown on a wind that didn't ruffle her hair or the water she was standing on. Black water. In fact, except for the sky, it was all in monochrome.

"What's this technique called?" she asked levelly.

From behind her came the calm reply. "Tsukuyomi."

Sakura turned and there he stood, his red clouds all in black. "A genjutsu produced by a kekkai genkai. Can it be broken using normal methods?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not," Itachi allowed. "You do realize how pointless it was to attack me."

"Yes."

"And while flashy, it was inefficient. You could not see me for the mist your attack created. You are like Kisame in that way."

"I panicked," Sakura admitted. "I thought it might serve as a distraction." She was feeling strangely calm, resigned almost. She was waiting for him to hurt her. Inner-Sakura had gone very quiet and still, almost to where Sakura couldn't feel her.

"For whom? Your allies were more surprised than I. Though your chakra control was admirable, I must admit. It was a pity you didn't think to cloak it until the last moment."

Sakura was startled by his compliment. She was beginning to understand that not only was Itachi dangerous, he was a different kind of beast altogether from any ninja she'd ever met before. "I wasn't expected to stumble onto a battle," she said.

There was silence between them. "What is this genjutsu meant to do?" she asked at last, because the waiting seemed intolerable

Itachi tilted his head slightly to the side. "It's a very… functional jutsu. At present, I am torturing Hatake Kakashi and though it will seem like only a moment to those outside, he will have suffered for seventy-two hours within my illusion. He will not last. He does not have the strength or stamina of one who came by our kekkai genkai naturally."

Sakura blinked. "Kakashi-sensei doesn't have the strength to break your genjutsu?"

Itachi looked consideringly at her. "Tsukuyomi cannot be broken by those inside the illusion. And as I said, to those outside it will seem but a moment. By the time they realize he is in danger, the damage will have already been done. Tell me, are you one my foolish otouto's teammates?"

"Yes," she said warily.

"I see," the illusion Itachi replied. He slowly closed his eyes. "It is unfortunate for you, but I'm afraid I cannot let you leave this illusion world unscathed. Take this lesson to heart, little kunoichi. When you challenge those greater than yourself, you must accept loss as the inevitable outcome."

Sakura found her heart was in her throat as a black cross rose behind her, binding her to it. And when Itachi pulled a katana from the depths of his cloak, she wondered if it might try to escape. Sakura knew jutsu. And she knew genjutsu and the rules for breaking them; that was the one thing, besides walking up trees, that Kakashi-sensei had managed to teach her.

But this was a genjutsu from a kekkai genkai—her thoughts were abruptly cut off as Itachi rammed the katana through her abdomen, just missing her liver. Blood flecked her lips. Sakura ignored the pain, ignored it as it was magnified. Because she had one advantage over genjutsu.

Genjutsu took control over an opponent's chakra and senses and used their own power against them. That was why it was so difficult to escape. But Sakura's mind was fragmented. It was impossible to catch all of her mind in an illusion. She had someone on the outside here on the inside.

She felt Inner-Sakura stretch inside her mind, searching for the distinctive tells that would allow her to break the genjutsu.

How…weird, Inner-Sakura commented. His chakra burns or something. It's strange.

Can you break it? Sakura demanded. She whimpered as Itachi dug the blade in again. You just need to interrupt the chakra flow.

O-kay, Inner-Sakura warned, but this is going to hurt. I'm going to disturb the chakra from inside, so, if your heart stops, don't panic.

Sakura felt a spreading numbness in her extremities and she quickly realized what Inner-Sakura was doing. She was stealing all Sakura's chakra, pulling it into the nothingness inside her mind where she existed.

If this doesn't stop my heart, it's going to hemorrhage my brain, Sakura panted, panic welling as the dimension began to swirl.

"What are you doing?" Itachi demanded and Sakura thought she really must be dying, because the impassive expression on his face had broken. "You're going to kill yourself."

"You have no idea how true that is," Sakura whispered as the last of Itachi's illusion swirled away like bloody water going down a drain. The ochre sky took on the tint of the black water, and crimson stars with trailing tails replaced black clouds.

I always knew Sakura was an unlucky name for a shinobi, Sakura thought to herself and her thoughts felt slow and soft, liked they'd been wrapped in cotton. Too much transience.

She didn't realize that she was quite literally thinking aloud as Uchiha Itachi, for the first time in many years, was perplexed by this challenge to his Tsukuyomi. What had been a vast still lake of black water suddenly bloomed with the white and blasted skeletons of dead cherry trees. Before the kunoichi could entrap them both in the fracturing of her mind, he released his genjutsu on her.

Sakura's body tumbled out of the tree she'd hidden in, making an ugly fleshy sound as it hit the ground. A heartbeat later, Kakashi collapsed as well.

In the end, it was Gai who saved the day. But, somehow, when Uchiha Itachi had tonelessly ordered his companion to retreat, there was no sense of victory. As Kurenai and Asuma supported Kakashi between them, Gai leaped to the wide boulevard beside the river.

As soon as he saw the pink hair that crowned the crumpled figure, he knew. Blurring out of sight, he reappeared at her side. She'd fallen awkwardly without the control of her body and one arm bent strangely beneath her.

"Sakura-chan," he whispered, but there was no response.

Checking her pulse he found it weak and slow. Even this close he could barely detect her breath. Pulling his sometimes student gently into his arms, he noticed a slow trickle of blood from her nose. It wasn't surprising, given that she'd fallen face-first, but when he noticed similar streams of blood from both her ears, Gai felt a moment of panic.

"We need to get them to the healers," he commanded the others, barely waiting for them to follow.

The healers couldn't find the damage that kept Kakashi in a coma. As they rushed to stop the bleeding in her brain, they all knew what was killing Sakura, but couldn't do anything except keep the swelling down, drain the blood, and try to determine what was putting stress on the blood vessels.

Neither of them were aware when Sasuke joined them in their comatose state. The danger to Sakura caused not a ripple, but the Elders were understandably upset over the loss of one of the village's strongest jounin and the last loyal Uchiha.

The search for Tsunade, the third of the Sannin, took precedence over everything besides the normal function of the village. For the people of Konoha, it was for the protection and leadership that only a Hokage provided. For Naruto, it was his only chance to heal Sasuke, and though he did not know it, Kakashi and Sakura as well.

A/N:…It started off at only four pages. And I really should stop using Japanese, as I always have this terrible feeling I'm butchering the language. Author rant-question number two: If Naruto and Sasuke kill each other, does that mean Sakura gets to be Hokage? Because that would be poetic justice. Which means it won't happen. Is my physical characterization of Sakura believable? She is a twelve year old with massive self esteem issues, after all, but let's all admit it. Even after the time-skip, she's the least feminine of all the kunoichi. Only in my story, instead of bemoaning that fact or suddenly becoming this knock-out as soon as she hits puberty, I'm going to let Sakura make that work for her.