TH: And the winner is... Sakura gets her own abilities! She will (eventually) be able to do the things she could do as a human, once she's relearned how to use her 'screwy-because-she-was-turned-into-a-fox' chakra and figured out how to get around handseals. Thanks for voting!

Also, silly Minato and silly Sakura. Why didn't you think of that? Okay, okay, I guess you were a little preoccupied...

Thanks for everyone's comments, they are much appreciated.

Going Sideways

Chapter Eleven

Theme: Soft

'In shock' would be an apt description of Sakura's mental status. Alternatively, 'in extreme distress' would work. But she was going to pick one word to describe how she was feeling after finding out that she was trapped here, in his body, forever it would be: damn-it-all-I'm-stuck-in-this-body-forever-oh-shit-what-if-I'm-also-stuck-with-a-fox's-natural-life-span?

…Okay, maybe she cheated a little on that, with the hyphens. But the sentiment was there.

She sat down hard, staring blankly into empty space. Dimly she heard Minato, asking desperately: "There's nothing we can do? Nothing? What about…"

"Minato," Jiraiya said gently.

"What about a mass re-conformation seal, with a—"

"Minato."

"—sustained-draw coupling and—"

"MINATO," Jiraiya's firm interjection cut the Yondaime off. Minato winced and looked at his sensei, a little guiltily. "There is nothing we can do. Attempting would just make things worse. The is no power in the world that can undo what natural chakra has wrought."

Minato looked at Sakura with a rather pained expression, and the thought slowly trickled through her numb mind that he felt it was partially his fault she'd ended up like this. Stupid spiky-headed blond. He was just like Naruto.

Sakura had never liked it when Naruto beat himself up over things that weren't his fault. Damned if she was going to let his father do the same thing.

Galvanized out of her own melancholy, she jumped down from the desk, went up to Minato, and reached up to pat his leg with her front paws.

"It's okay, really, it's fine. I'm alive, right? And you're alive, and now Naruto has a father, and that's great, and it's all I need. This life is better than what I left behind, trust me!" she tried to say, but it all came out as a soft churring sound, like a purr almost. The sound of a fox trying to comfort another.

Sakura wished she could speak, for the nth time.

Still, it seemed she could get her point across, because the Yondaime knelt and stroked her ears. Funny. He knew she was a person, had a human mind, but he still petted her like any other cute fuzzy animal. Not that she minded—she understood, now why pets shoved their heads into their people's hands. Petting felt good. Like a massage.

She yipped, and put a paw on his knee.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah, okay. I get it."

"You know," Jiraiya said slowly, watching. "I wonder…"

Sakura and Minato looked up at him as the Toad Sage strode over to the desk and started riffling around in it.

"Please, by all means, help yourself," Minato said sardonically. Jiraiya ignored him, and opened another drawer.

"Ah. Here!" And the Toad Sage laid out a large piece of paper and a wide-mouthed ink pot on the ground in front of Sakura. "No speech? Then write."

Sakura stared for a beat, and then barked happily, bounced in place, rubbed against Jiraiya's shins like a cat, and sat down in front of the paper, tongue lolling.

"Good idea, sensei," Minato said, excitedly. He leaned forward, toward the paper.

:Why didn't I think of this earlier?! Writing! I could write what I want to say!: Sakura let her fox instincts translate her happiness into a purr. :I should probably use my paw… my tail's more brush-like, but it doesn't have the same control of motion that my paws do.:

She delicately stood over the paper, dipped a paw into the ink, blotted the big drips off against the edge of the pot, and started.

The characters were blocky, large, and somewhat shaky, but they were clear enough. She wrote out what she wanted to say first very slowly, carefully. Her fox limb didn't have the same articulation as her human arm would have, so she had to make some strokes differently.

Finally, she sat back.

Minato and Jiraiya leaned forward, and together read: "It's not your damned fault, Hokage-sama."

Minato blinked.

Jiraiya burst out laughing.

"She sure pegged you!" he hooted. "Ah, and you were all ready to take on the guilt, weren't you!"

"Funny," Minato said, mouth pulling down into a little moue. But there was humor in his eyes, so he wasn't really upset. He looked at her. "The first thing you can say, and this is it?"

She inked her paw again. "It was important. Not your fault I'm a fox."

Minato smiled slightly. "Thank you."

His expression brightened, then, and he said: "Oh, hey! You can tell us your name now!"

:Er…: Sakura paused. Could she give them her name? Minato had seen her human form, if briefly, and pink hair wasn't so common. It was possible that Minato would eventually make a connection between her and this time's Sakura.

Maybe she could just pass if off as parents being particularly uninspired in their baby-naming. Her name seemed to be the only thing she'd kept from her previous life, besides the memories, and she didn't really want to give it up.

With a bit of a mental shrug, she wrote: "Sakura."

"Sakura, huh? No clan name?" Jiraiya wanted to know.

She shook her head 'no.' Wrote: "Alone."

"Ah," Jiraiya said, watching her. His sharp eyes might have made her nervous, but it was Jiraiya, and what she'd said was essentially truth. In this time, she was alone. He would find no reason to doubt her word. On this, anyway. If he started asking awkward questions, she might be forced to… bend truth a little.

"Sakura-san. Thank you for what you did with the seal," the Yondaime said, solemnly. Sakura turned her head to meet his blue gaze with her green one. He looked at her with all the gravity of his office. "However, I do have to ask you: Do you intend Konoha or its people any harm?"

Sakura's ears went back, an instinctual reaction to the flash of indignation she felt. They flicked forward again almost immediately; she knew he had to ask. He had to make sure. Still, it hurt a little to be mistrusted.

She wrote, with a firm paw: "I will never bring harm to Konoha or any of its loyal people."

"Can we be sure of her word?" Jiraiya murmured to Minato, sotto voce. Sakura, with her sharp fox hearing, caught the words. She growled a little, so low the humans couldn't hear.

She lifted her paw, hesitated at the thick black ink on it, and switched to the other paw. Biting the pad so that blood flowed, she put paw to paper again.

"By my blood and by my blade, I will fight to protect my Village of Konohagakure, its people, and my comrades. Should that cost me my life, I will gladly pay the price. This I do swear."

She called Jiraiya and Minato's attention to it with one sharp bark. They turned from their whispered discussion, and looked at her writing. They blinked a few times.

"Tha-that's the Oath, Konoha's ninja oath," Minato said.

"Written in blood…" Jiraiya murmured. "That hasn't been done since the time of the Shodai Hokage. Now, it's just spoken words."

Minato chuckled. "She's trying to send us a message. I think it says: 'trust me.'"