Sakura couldn't remember how she'd originally coped with anger as a six year old. She'd never been one of those children who had loud tantrums and screaming fits, nor did she go sit in corners and ignore the rest of the world until she felt better or they apologized. She'd never even done the pouting scowl thing that children seemed to think was intimidating instead of amusingly cute.
Of course, the pink haired girl had also never been so completely enraged as a six year old, or really, at any age. There were some times that came close (curiously, they were usually in conjuction with either the name 'Sasuke' or 'Naruto') but not even those times could compare to how she felt at the moment.
She'd gone through shock, and denial, followed by a fit of depression so strong that she spent four hours in the room where she'd first found Sai alternately crying and questioning everything from her beliefs to her ability to change anything for the better. Of course, the depression couldn't last long, and very quickly, it turned into anger. Unfortunately, it was an anger with no direction, because she couldn't bring herself to blame her father for anything, knowing he would definitely die soon, and being angry at Danzo only served to cloud her head when she should be planning on how to deal with him effectively.
Her anger came out in the power of her jutsu when training started up again the day after the New Year began. Mei had started off teaching her the seals for one D-Rank fire technique, so she would get used to the unsual feel her chakra would take when it changed into a fire nature. The way she performed it, a tiny stream of flames about the thickness of a pencil and two feet long would be created, and typically used to light a small campfire.
With a combination of Sakura's natural chakra control and her anger stirring her energy up to new levels, it became something more similar to a small flamethrower and charred a log to bits. While Sai had stopped his attempts to use the jutsu in favor of clapping, the future Mizukage had simply stared, as if she didn't believe what she'd just seen. It made sense, considering Sakura's injuries and how small she was.
Unfortunately, being small meant that her chakra reserves were still so pitiful despite months of practice that she could only do that twice before she became too exhausted to form another. Without that temporary outlet, Sakura began to feel her emotional turmoil rising up again, and she had the urge to completely destroy something as well after feeling how therapeutic charring the log had been. She just didn't know what to do with her self.
Luckily, Jinya did. Her white-haired brother had taken one glance at her surly expression as she was walking into the house and abandoned his training group in order to come over. "Sakura-chan, what's wrong?" He asked, clearly worried.
Looking up at him, Sakura was dismayed to feel tears welling up in her eyes. Still, she decided to answer. "I'm sad and angry and I feel weak and nasty and full like a balloon," she mumbled out, wiping harshly at her face. Even if it was expected of her at this age, she hated crying. Crying didn't solve any problems.
Instead of looking at her as if he felt pity, Jinya gave her a little smile, and said, "I think I know a cure for that. Come on, I'll show you what I do when I'm really angry and I can't do anything about it yet." With that, he scooped her up and carried her into the house.
They almost passed their grandmother on the way, but she stopped them with a gentle hand to Jinya's shoulder. "Hello there, Sakura-chan, Jinya-kun. Where are you headed?" Ruriko asked, a kind smile on her face. "Not off to aggravate your wounds, I hope?"
Jin just smiled at her when Sakura couldn't, and winked. "It's a secret, haha. The secretive kind of secret. The secretive kind of secret that's... Secret," the boy ended in a stage whisper. He was silliness rewarded with a few giggles from both his grandmother and Sakura, before his face became more solemn. "I promise we won't be hurting ourselves, though."
Smiling, the auburn-haired woman gave each of their heads a quick ruffle, and nodded. "Alright then. You two come find me when you're done. I'll be in the small dining room, setting a few things up."
"Okay, grandma."
Although Sakura found herself curious about what her grandmother could want with them as she was carried off, she was more focused on Jinya's 'secretive kind of secret that was secret.' It must be something effective, the pink-haired girl found herself thinking. I don't think I've ever seen him acting angry, even when he should be... Unbidden, an image of his enraged face when he saved her from the Root member appeared. Not unless you're an enemy, I suppose...
With her mind on that night, she was understandably surprised when Jin's secret method of anger management was a pillow. "...I don't get it."
His reply was simple: "Scream."
Blinking, Sakura looked up into eyes identical to her own, then back at the pillow, confused. Scream...? And then it clicked. "But how is that going to help?"
He just kept smiling. "Oh, it does help, trust me. You know you're doing it properly when the pillow's all wet and you feel too tired to make yourself get up. Just try it. And remember, think about whatever's bothering you and just scream as loudly as you can. That's what the pillow is there for. Nobody can hear what you're saying except you."
Her expression was dubious, but she decided to give it a try anyway. At first, she just felt silly, but as she kept taking deeper breaths and screaming as loud as she could, she was startled to feel herself beginning to cry. And with the crying came words between the screams: 'why?!' 'Daddy!' 'I loved you! I love you! I hate you! Why would you do that?!' The best part was being able to rage and kick her feet around and hit the pillow with her fists and scream everything out without hurting anyone or having someone hear the words when they shouldn't.
At the end of ten minutes, where she lay with her face in the pillow and Jinya rubbed her back, Sakura was all screamed out and she felt more boneless and relaxed than she had in a while. When she lifted her face up, she knew that she'd done it 'properly' because the pillow was soaked and she felt exactly like Jin said she would. She was silent as he led her to the nearest bathroom and washed her face for her, but afterwards she gave him a bright, watery smile which he returned.
"Feels loads better, doesn't it? And now that you're all tuckered out, you can think clearly without feeling like you're about to explode. It's a good method. Now we can go find grandma." Trailing off into a tuneless string of humming, Jin scooped her up again and started on the journey to the small dining room, leaving her to quietly collect herself.
When they reached the small dining room, not only was Ruriko sitting at the table, but Nadeshiko and their aunt Saeko were sitting there as well. The three seemed to be chatting quietly over a box sitting in the middle of the table, and between the youngest two, a scroll was being referred to.
The conversation stopped when Saeko waved them over with a cheeful smile on her face, having noticed them before they reached the door. Nadeshiko opened her mouth to ask if Sakura was alright as Jin took a chair for both of them, but she decided against it when she noticed that her youngest daughter was smiling despite the clear signs of crying on her face.
Ruriko greeted them with a smile. "I've been meaning to speak to you two, especially Sakura-chan, for a few days now." Turning her attention fully to her pink-haired granddaughter, she gently asked, "Could you tell me how you knew that something was wrong when all that happened, Sakura-chan?"
"Um..." Crap, I was hoping they would forget about that, Sakura thought, biting her lip but inwardly panicking about what to say. "I was going to the bathroom to wash my face when I started feeling really, really sleepy..." I'll just play it off, she decided mentally. I'm supposed to be a genius, right? "And I decided to go to sleep. And when I was walking, I noticed that everybody was going to bed, except when I was walking to the room, four of my uncles weren't. And I thought that I didn't know who they were. I was going to ask, but I was really sleepy, so I didn't. But I was really curious. But I was also really sleepy. And then I was really confused because I was really sleepy and really curious at the same time. And then I thought there was probably something wrong."
"And what did you do then?" Saeko prodded. The redheaded woman suddenly seemed very interested in the story. She can recognize genjutsu at her age?
"I did this," Sakura brought her fingers into a hand seal, "And I used my chakra and said 'dispel.' But only because my friend Sasuke-kun's big brother Itachi-san's friend Shisui-san sometimes plays tricks on Sasuke-kun that make him confused like that and that's how Itachi-san taught Sasuke-kun to get out of them and Sasuke-kun showed me how to do it," she explained. And then she smiled, because smiling always made people believe Jinya and it usually worked for her too.
Oh, she's so precious! Ruriko thought, unknowingly echoing both her daughter's sentiments as they all looked at the girl. She didn't notice that Jinya had an amused look on his face, like he was thinking of something funny. "And what about after that, Sakura-chan?"
"Um... I stopped being confused when I did it, and when I looked back, the uncles weren't uncles at all. They looked like they were ANBU, but they had different masks and they didn't have the swirly tattoos." Crud, I can't say that I sensed more of them upstairs, what do I do? ...Ah. "I sneaked up the stairs to see where they came from and I saw more of them up there, but I thought that since nobody else noticed them, maybe everyone else was confused too? So I did 'dispel' again, only I did it like my friend Naruto does, because he has lots of chakra and when he does it everybody can feel it, not just him. But then they noticed me and I got scared so I screamed, and everybody woke up and I think Aunt Chizuru saved me. And then everything gets all blurry and I can't really remember what happened until the house got covered in ink and all the shinobi got pulled away."
Decidedly, Sakura had no intention of mentioning the seal on her locket, which she'd found was also on a pair of earrings that her mother had received and a chain Jinya had. While she'd never truly understood seals, she had learned and memorized quite a few of them in the future, mostly for the sole purpose of helping Naruto when his acted up during healing. Luckily, the one that she and her close family had was simple; it was a sort of sensor that started pulsing if a specific pattern of chakra came into contact with it. They were extremely easy to dismantle.
It seemed that even when her father had turned against them, he was still looking out for their well-being. But that wasn't enough... Sakura forcibly pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind, and tuned back in to reality, where her aunt and her grandmother had started conversing in quiet tones. She decided to use this time to ask something she'd been wondering about. "Hey, grandma, what was that? When the house grabbed all the shinobi and pulled them away?"
Ruriko blinked, then smiled at her inquisitive granddaughter. "Well, that was something that your aunts and I have been working on for a few years now. It's a really big seal that, when it has enough chakra put into it, searches the entire house for anyone that shouldn't be there and pulls them all into one place where we can find them and make sure they aren't intruders."
"But how did it know who was considered an 'intruder' or not?" Jinya questioned, a curious look on his face to match his younger sister's.
"Do you remember when you first got here, and you took a picture and used a bit of your blood to make a finger-print in that big book in the kitchen?" Saeko asked, taking over from her mother. "Well, when you gave your finger-print, it turned into a sort of key to the house and the seal. Anyone without a key would get snatched up."
Sakura desperately wanted to know, then, how her father had been caught - he had been added as well. But she couldn't ask because she wasn't supposed to know that he had been apart of the Root forces. Some part of her, however, was hopeful. Maybe... He turned himself in...? No. Stop thinking like that, Sakura. It's better to just... Just... Move on or something...
"...reason we could do something so large is because when I was very little, perhaps your age, Jinya-kun, instead of going on missions for Uzushiogakure, I was taken in as an apprentice to Uzumaki Daigo." Ruriko smiled when she noticed both Sakura and Jinya perking up at the name. "It was from he and his family that I learned how to use seals to such devastating effect. Because he was my sensei, I would and will be forever grateful to the Uzumaki. I was very sad when my village was destroyed and they were wiped out, but Nadeshiko-chan has been telling me about a friend of yours..."
"Naruto?" Sakura piped up, eyes wide with curiosity. She hadn't expected that her older family members would let her in on something as potentially big as this. "But he's an orphan," she continued, hoping that they would get to the point. "Nobody knows who his parents are."
"Well, that's what your mother told me, but I think I do know. An Uzumaki from our village went to live in Konoha a long time ago; her name was Kushina." Oblivious to Sakura's mental cheering at the name, Ruriko continued, "She was one of the only Uzumaki left when Whirlpool was destroyed. Our family was in a lot of chaos in the years after that, and we were so busy trying to find and contact each other that we never took the time to get in contact with her. We figured that our last chance to reconnect with the Uzumaki clan was gone when the news came that she passed away a few years ago."
"But it seems that your friend Naruto was born right around the time that she passed away," Nadeshiko continued gently, smiling at her children. "And once mother heard about him, she decided to give him some things she has carried that belonged to the Uzumaki." She patted the box on the table, then continued, "We thought, since you are his friend, that you would like to give him the news and this package. And maybe one day, he can come with us when we visit here, and he can learn even more about his family. Do you like that idea?"
More than you could ever know! Sakura thought, nodding enthusiastically with widened eyes. "Yeah!"
Seven days after New Year's, the end of the reunion came, full of tears, hugs, and the trading of contact details. Each of the children who'd decided to become a shinobi was given a scroll of simple excercises to help them learn how to use the signature techniques of their bloodline, in addition to whatever they might learn from their parents and siblings.
The groups departed by their country of origin with a few hours between each departure, so that they wouldn't crowd up the docks waiting for more boats to ferry them. Since Wave was closer to Fire Country than Water, the groups that would need to trek in that direction to get home were the first to depart. This meant that the Haruno brood would be leaving with Sakura's uncle Genji and by proxy, Sai.
Once they got on the boat, Jinya started up a game of cards with the same group of cousins that he'd been defeating throughout the past week or so in different games, and Sakura found herself holding Sai by the hand and explaining random things on the boat and in the water that he asked about. The easy question-and-answer repartee between them was surprisingly relaxing.
Relaxation was just what Sakura needed at that point. If she wasn't remembering different moments with her father, she was thinking about Naruto and how he'd react to hearing about his family. If that wasn't on her mind, she was pondering her brother, who had quite suddenly stopped asking her questions with answers that slowly advanced in skill level each time. When she managed to lay that topic to rest, she found herself thinking about how Sai would be returning home with his father to the Bellflower town, not Konoha, and how she didn't know when she'd next get to see him.
Later that day, however, Sakura found that her last concern wasn't quite valid.
"...What?" She found herself asking.
Smiling brightly, Nadeshiko repeated what she'd just said: "We'll be going with Genji-kun and Saichi-chan to the Bellflower town first so we can burn down their house."
"Why?" Jinya asked, looking mildly horrified at the thought.
This time it was their uncle Genji, a tall, broad-shouldered man with thick reddish-brown hair and hazel green eyes, who answered. "Well, kid, I've been looking to move closer to family for a while now, and since Saichi-kun here seems so close to Sakura-chan, I thought, why not Konoha? But it takes too much time to notify all the proper authorities and get papers together and the house was useless anyways, so the way I figure it, we can just seal everything important into scrolls and burn it down in the middle of the night! That way I get insurance money and a free pass to search out housing in Konoha." And then the man laughed, loudly, only to stop and clutch at his bandaged side in pain. "Ouch... Forgot about that damn wound... But no wound is gonna get me down! HA!" And he began laughing again, clutching his side all the while.
Staring at her uncle, laughing and at her mother, smiling as if nothing was wrong with anything they'd just said, it occurred to Sakura for the first time that maybe she wasn't the only person in her family who was just a little off-kilter mentally. She wondered how she'd missed that, and then discarded the thought, deciding to just go along with it.
Family is family, after all.
At three in the morning on the day that her house was finally emptied of visitors, Karibi Ruriko stood in a clearing of the forest behind her home and stared at the silent, kneeling form of her last living prisoner from the attack a week ago. She didn't restrain him and he didn't attempt to get away.
Ruriko had lived through two wars and countless minor disputes throughout her life. She'd seen every type of ugly to be had in the Elemental Countries, and more than once, she had taken part in that 'ugly.' There was more blood on her hands than water in the lake behind her home. She'd become tired of death and struggles and pain many, many years ago, and that was why she'd chosen to settle down in Wave, a place with no shinobi and very little contact with other countries outside of trade. She just wanted peace and family in her life.
In her opinion, family was everything. It didn't matter where they lived or who they worked for, so long as the family itself stuck together. It was the reason why, despite her family having many different shinobi from so many villages that weren't necessarily allies, she still managed to bring them all together peacefully and promote the ties between all of them.
Because of this, she'd managed to see something in Haruno Daisuke that was really the only reason he was still alive. He was a man that helped to nearly destroy her entire family from the eldest to the infants, but his saving grace was that as the conflict began, he had turned around and disrupted what could've been a far stronger genjutsu without his interference; it was probably the only reason his daughter had managed to break it. He was family, in any case, and he'd still prioritized protecting her daughter and grandchildren (in his own way) while in the midst of everything else. For those reasons, she would give him a chance.
In front of the kneeling man, she laid a white kimono, an unsheathed dagger, a pen, and two small scrolls. One scroll was blank, and the other, to the side, was sealed with wax. "Daisuke-kun..."
The man flinched at the familiar address.
"...You have loved my Nadeshiko-chan since she was thirteen. You helped build this house when our first was destroyed, and you made your own home for my daughter to show me that you could take care of her. Later, you gave me two beautiful, intelligent grandchildren. And recently, you helped to protect them from your own wrong choices. No matter what you've done, you will always be a part of my family, even if you did stray down the wrong path." Pausing, Ruriko took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down and keep the tears from falling out of her eyes.
It took a minute or so, but when she regained her equilibrium, she continued, "There are two choices in front of you. I am giving you the chance to commit seppuku and regain your honor in death... Or you can take that scroll and try to right your wrongs. Either way, when I return in two hours, that other scroll will no longer be blank. Whether it is your death poem or something else is up to you."
Daisuke didn't look up from the kimono and dagger as she walked away. The white haired man had made many mistakes in his lifetime, and his most recent was the one that hit him hardest. The image of his young daughter, bandaged and bruised, staring up at him in shock would haunt him for the rest of eternity, whether it had been a dream or not.
Honor and family, he mused, trailing his fingers along the edge of the dagger and watching the blood well up. Can I really make things right...?
A/N: Apparently when you commit seppuku, you write a poem? I guess? Blah. This was shorter than the last two, I know, but this is a bit of a transition chapter. Explanations for things and wrapping up loose ends. And a cliffhanger, I guess. But next chapter, we get back to Konoha. The chapters about Konoha feel differently than these ones, don't they?
