Disclaimer: theClosetPoet7 isn't the owner of Naruto, Kishimoto is.

"You don't fall in love with a body, you fall in love with a soul. And once in love with a soul, everything about that body becomes beautiful." - A.B.

Chapter Six

In Spring

The life prior to seeing Sasuke again, Sakura spends it as a cherry blossom tree.

It is so fitting, considering her namesake.

When she becomes cognizant as a plant, Sakura's first thoughts are one of trepidation. Because, who wouldn't be alarmed when they wake up and find out that their feet are buried beneath the ground?

Do roots even count as feet?

It's puzzling too, because she cannot pinpoint where her eyes are. But she is aware, fully aware of her surroundings. She is stationed at a park, where she can see similar trees across her and beside her.

And because she's always been a smart girl, and she's always had an analytical mind, Sakura spends a number of years learning about her capabilities.

First of all, she can look around the area on all sides.

It felt like weaving her chakra into a human body when her subconscious travels around her tree form. She could use her trunk, her branches, and when she reaches the age of fourteen, she dabbles in extending her sight through the leaves and the buds that sprout from her.

It had been an amazing view, seeing the sky more clearly. She'd spend several days just channeling her mind onto a leaf's, basking in the sun, and watching as the birds fly by.

Until it falls.

That's another challenge she discovers. As it turns out, once a certain part of her is separated from the main trunk, she loses its sight. Like when a strand of hair falls from your person and you barely notice. Except she does notice it when a flower or a leaf she sends her eyes into fall. It felt like being blinded for seconds.

Still though, she'd do it anyway. It wasn't so scary, because she'd always wake up in her usual spot in the core of the tree.

It is a lovely sight, seeing couples relax under her shade.

Seeing a baby take her first steps as her parents hold onto her chubby hands.

Seeing a girl profess her love to a boy in the spring.

Whenever she observes the lives of these strangers, she gets an ache in her heart and she's reminded of the fact that she still hasn't found him.

Sasuke.

Four lifetimes had gone by, some short while others excruciatingly long, and she still hasn't found her husband.

"No matter where! No matter when!"

She had said those words without any hesitation, always determined to have a life full of love, otherwise it would be worthless.

But it has been a while.

And a while is too long.

She doesn't even know how long "a while" is.

How long is it?

So the more she watches over people's lives, the more she longs for her husband.

But the more she longs for her husband, the more her spirits go up to live this life anyway, because at least they're under the same sky.

If he is here.

They're still under the same sky.

Sakura wakes up one day when the earth begins to shake, it is terrifying considering how it is the first time she experiences something so strong without her being the cause of it. So she plants her roots firmly into the ground while she tries with all her might to remain standing.

It stops in mere seconds, but the earthquake is so powerful, so magnificent that her roots end up getting tangled with another's.

And it isn't long until she becomes aware of who exactly has been beside her all this time.

"Shishou!"

"Sakura?!"

It is a pleasant surprise, a meeting of a student with her mentor and if she could cry, Sakura knows that she'd be crying tears of joy by now. She realizes that they can now communicate through extending their roots to each other.

She had been living her life as a tree for sixteen years by now, and her master had been by her side the whole time.

They spend countless days talking about what they had gone through since they last saw each other. Sakura had died forty-two years after Tsunade did, of course there would be a lot to catch up on.

Tsunade asks her about Konoha's conditions the last time she saw it. And Sakura talks on and on. Though talk isn't the right word, because she is sending messages through their twined roots.

It's a sharing of memories.

When she finally gets to the topic of her experience with Sasuke in the afterlife, Tsunade tells her that she's had a similar experience with her former lover, Dan. And that she had met him in another life, three lives in fact, before she was reborn in this era.

"Have you thought about searching for him in this life Shishou?"

There's a certain hesitation in the fifth hokage's answer before she tells Sakura of her inner thoughts.

As it turns out, Tsunade had indeed tried searching for her love, she had received some training from the tree beside her, when circumstances similar to her and Sakura's reunion allowed her to come into contact with the previous tree who occupied Sakura's spot.

"Uzumaki Mito?!"

"Hai. Baasan was determined to find my grandfather."

It is a sad story. Because Uzumaki Mito had kept feeling that pull, that undeniable pull that told her that her husband was somewhere. In response to that, she developed a technique on her own.

"It's a mix of the Yamanaka clan's expertise, as well as perfect chakra control."

She connects the dots on her own. If her master had a face, she would be smirking by now.

"You've noticed right? The fact that you can see into the world through all your parts. Except when they fall."

The first hokage's wife had developed a jutsu, one that will allow her to channel her life force into a single flower.

"Five centimeters per second, a sakura blossom falls five centimeters per second."

"But with the right estimations, knowing the laws of physics, and taking into account the weather..."

"She can go beyond this park."

It's a big risk, considering how short a flower's lifespan was, but, if Mito had taken the risk then...

"She felt him didn't she? Had felt so strongly that he was nearby."

"I've lived a hundred years already Sakura. I've seen so many battles, so many lives, by her side. One day, baa-san felt him. She woke up and just knew that he was somewhere."

Uchiha Sakura lets out an internal prayer to kami that Uzumaki Mito had been successful in her attempt to reunite with her former love.

"And you shishou? You can't feel Dan-san in this life?"

"If I did, then I would've done the same thing baa-san did."

Sakura extends her roots further into the ground as a form of comfort. Then she feels that determination yet again.

"Teach me."

It is a difficult jutsu, one that she supposes is similar to Chiyo baa-sama's life transporting technique, combined with storing chakra into her byakugou seal. She focuses her transfer of life force into the branch which reached the farthest. In a few months, it will bloom, then, she'd channel everything into that single bud.

Something tells her that he's here.

Sasuke is definitely in this life.

So she gathers and stores.

Gathers and stores.

Until on March of that same year, she feels a tug.

It takes her ten seconds before she sends Tsunade her last message.

"He's here."

"Go Sakura. Before he gets farther."

And he is.

The string is being stretched thin.

So as she once did during the fourth shinobi war, Sakura releases her seal. Instead of a surge of chakra going through her though, she finds herself being pulled into a tiny space. She's in a blossom. If her calculations are correct, a strong wind will...

Ah, there.

The winds come on lightly yet persuasively as Sakura is separated from her stem, and she rides it.

She rides the wind to find him.

To find her husband.

The cool breeze carries her a few miles away from the park, then she ends up in the very heart of a city, with countless citizens, going about their business.

She panics when she nearly slams into a car but is blown away by the force of others.

Sakura goes around the center of this enormous place; with high glass buildings and large metallic bridges that she has never seen before in her previous life.

Just as she's about to get too distracted with the sightings, she feels that tug again. So she allows the breeze and she allows her heart to lead her.

.

.

.

She lands on top of a woman's head.

Her hair is black.

Her eyes, a deep obsidian.

And she had this certain look on her that reminded Sakura of someone.

A firm hand picks her out from the dark tresses.

"What is it Anata?"

There's a look of puzzlement on the man's eyes which were stern looking but had a certain softness to it. He had a head full of spiky brown strands and a scowl that told her it was him.

It was Uchiha Fugaku.

"A sakura."

"Oh? I don't think I've seen a cherry blossom tree nearby."

He tucks the flower behind his wife's ear.

"She must have traveled a long way."

Sakura feels the warming of the woman's cheeks when the man takes her hand in his, her other rests lightly on her pregnant belly.

There.

The tug is pulling her there.

"That gives me an idea, Sakura is a pretty name for a daughter huh?"

"I thought we decided on Sasuke no matter what gender."

She giggles in a way that fills Sakura with a sense of familiarity because she had seen her smiles once upon a time, when she had been a child; when Sasuke's mother had been alive.

"For the next one. I want a daughter."

"Whatever you say dear."

Uchiha Sakura realizes that she won't be able to reunite with Sasuke after all. Because life as a blossom is too short. She had thought that she'd be satisfied with merely seeing him but Kami has granted her more than that.

He has allowed her to take a peak into her husband's new life.

"I pray that he'll be happy in this world. It doesn't have to be with me. As long as he's happy."

When the time comes for her to die again, Sakura thinks that this life isn't so sad. Because she had spent the remaining of her days, floating on a bowl next to Uchiha Mikoto's bed.

The last thing she hears is her mother-in-law's lullaby as the expectant woman sings her unborn child to sleep.

.

.

.

And just because she had been selfless in her last wish.

As she always has been.

Kami plans her next rebirth in the same world.

.

.

.

Though it will take her fifteen winters before she remembers.

.

.

.

The fact that her soul mate is somewhere in Okinawa.

Author's Note: Ugh, I couldn't help it. I had to do something like this. Hope you guys enjoyed it! Thank you so much for your reviews. Naruto pug is perhaps coming next. :D I've kinda used the Japan setting a lot of times, but I just love it. ;D