Fire: Waah. I'm going to collapse! (collapses on Kisame)
Kisame: Damn it.
Itachi: Audrey-san wants to know what I was thinking.
Fire: I guess I'll write it then. (sinks wearily to the ground)
Sasuke: What's wrong with raising my son, Aurora-san?
Naruto: But Sakura-chan doesn't remember him!
Fire: Back to the 0.5 lives again? --;; Don't worry, Sekiryu-san. You're not the only one who asked. (sighs and sinks further into the ground)
Sasuke: I'm allowed to raise my son!
Fire: Actually, he's too young to do that. He's only 15 right now, um...16 since it's technically past his birthday. I didn't say who was raising Sasuke's son yet. Sasuke would probably neglect him and Naruto's a half-alive zombi...
Naruto: (staring at Fire) ...
Fire: Ahem. 0.5 lives, right?
Tsunade: Let me explain the medical content. First, in regards to Sakura's amnesia, it's partially from lack of oxygen to the brain and partially from shock. Remember that she was dead for a while before I arrived. Many of the cells in the brain had already begun to die. Then, I wanted to save the children first. Then, there is the shock of dying. It's the same thing that Naruto has. No one remembers their birth. Rebirths are the same. As for the children... I said that Sakura's body was cold but the children were still warm. In terms of physics, when there are two celestial points, point A and point B, connected by a straight line, the object at point A is a certain size, but when a third point, point C, intercepting the line betwen A and B, the object at point A seems larger due to their combined mass. In other words, the two kids were too close together so I can't tell if they were both alive or not. I assumed they were both alive at the time, so it comes out as children instead of child.
Fire: Aurora-san, you haven't read or watched YuuYuu Hakusho, right? --;; This is not easy to explain.
Sasuke: Stop bringing other fandoms into this!
Deidara: It's good that everyone understands my pain, yeah. Except for you! (glaring at Teges-san) It's not funny! You try being this thing's older brother! (pulls up Ino)
Ino: Thing? I'm not a thing!
Fire: Stop talking, you're confusing everyone!
Hidan: (reading Rini-san's review) Mashed potato?
Fire: If Hidan looked like that... (staring at Hidan) Pick on him all you want. (imagining Hidan as a pile of mashed potato)
Hidan: Stop that!
Kisame: You're getting sidetracked.
Fire: Waah! Okay, let's begin with basic cultural references―
Sasuke: We'll just write an essay. It's simpler. Read it at the end. It's going to be long. We've been explaining for the past two chapters. By the way, traditionally, in every part of the world up until the latest few decades, the father names the children, not the mother. Even if I didn't get to raise the child, I'd still have to name him.
Naruto: You said I was naming him!
Sasuke: ...
Sasori: EasilyAmusedReader-san, thank you for understanding my pain. (staring at Sakura)
Sakura: I told you I'd never love you. What did you expect?
Tsunade: Relating to the terms for miscarriage, Aurora-san, I think you're saying the same things as Fire. Sakura didn't unintentionally kill her kids. She knew that they were going to die, so it's not a miscarriage. She knew that the tensei would kill her and her kids, and she still used it. If it's an intentional death like that, it's not a miscarriage. And I would definitely not call an abortion. --;;
Fire: (pointing to Aurora-san's other review) Ahem, Tsunade.
Tsunade: I didn't fall for it. I wanted to make sure. Remember that I left the village for almost two decades. I know that he's an Iwa-nukenin, and I know that he's an S-ranked criminal, but I have to confirm that he's not speaking the truth. Many shinobi leave their villages and join rival villages, like Orochimaru. (thinks darkly about Orochimaru) I wasn't around when most of these kids were born, so the fact that he's a Yamanaka...might really be a fact. He was fighting against us, but that didn't mean that he wasn't originally from our village. What if Inoichi doesn't want me to kill him?
Inoichi: I always wanted a son.
Chouza: He always complained about having a daughter.
Shikaku: (nodding in agreement)
Deidara: I said I left the village before she was born. She wouldn't remember me anyway. I'm around Itachi's age, so you can't say it's not possible!
Fire: Actually, Tsunade wants to send Deidara back to Iwa. She just doesn't want to talk to the Tsuchikage since they're on bad terms. The Tsuchikage would probably say that she was hiding him or trying to assimilate him into her village and use it as an opportunity to attack Konoha.
Ino: I'm not ugly! I'm a beautiful―
Deidara: She looks just like me. Are you calling me ugly?
Ino: I don't look like a man!
Deidara: Since I'm older, you're trying to look like me. I'm not trying to look like you!
Ino: I'm not!
Fire: Sasuke's not cruel enough to cut Sakura out of the child's life, but she doesn't remember him as her son. She really wants to be the mother of the Uchiha clan, so she'll probably help raise him anyway, but she wouldn't know that she was really the boy's mother. --;; Does that make sense? Naruto's too stupid to raise a child and Sasuke's too cold and uncaring. Sasuke would probably neglect him. He'd die before his first birthday! Waah! Don't let them near the baby!
Tsunade: That's why they shouldn't raise it. They're too young!
Naruto: Sandaime had jounin guardians for me up until I was old enough to take care of myself.
Sasuke: A nice way of saying that he was in an orphanage.
Naruto: I was not!
Tsunade: Yakitori-san, Sakura didn't forget everything from the last seven months. Her memory is fuzzy and she doesn't remember many events. That's all. --;;
Fire: I think we addressed everything. (sighs) I'm going to sleep now. Tobi, the next chapter!
Tobi: I thought I was dead. Why are you doing this to me? (pulls chapter 34 onto the screen)
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Chapter 34: Resurgence of the Past
'T he prince always came in the end. Where was he when the princess needed him the most? Where was he when she was suffering? Did he have to wait until the last moment, after she had endured it all, when she was about to break and die, to come and rescue her? The witch only wanted to protect her from that selfish man who only desired the glory of saving a girl. Any girl would have been enough. It didn't have to be the princess suffering in vain. It didn't have to be the princess who had already grown tired of life. If she had screamed and fought against his attempts to rescue her, would he still have saved her? Would he do it for the sake of love? Would he do it even though he didn't truly know her, when he had met her only a few moments before? Did he want to hold her calloused hands when she wanted to hide them? Did he want to touch that sun dried skin after she had spent so many days outside, toiling? Did he still want to rescue her after she had hit him, had cut him, had kicked him, had thrown him from her side? Did he still want to be with her after discovering that she had already forgotten him and the words of love she had once said?'
A s soon as Sasori walked out of the hospital, he saw his target walking quickly towards the Hokage tower. There was no doubt that Tsunade had already summoned him. There was no other reason for Yamanaka Inoichi to walk so urgently. He had to stop him before he reached the administration building!
"Inoichi-san," Sasori called out without thinking. At that moment, his only goal was to stop him, but now that he had the jounin's attention, he didn't know what to do.
Deidara was an idiot. He didn't know why he was helping him. 'I want to torture Ino,' he reminded himself. To repay him for this favour, Deidara would definitely make Ino suffer.
"What is it?" Inoichi looked at Sasori with suspicion.
However, Sasori never intended to use words. He wasn't naive enough to think that the jounin would trust him. 'I have no choice. I'll have to use THAT technique.'
He had created it long ago, but he had never had time to test it. He wasn't as eager to create new techniques as Orochimaru or Itachi. He never wanted to learn every existing ninjutsu in their living world. It was true that he collected them. Like Orochimaru or Itachi, he collected techniques, but he also collected the creator of those unique abilities along with their skills. He never really needed to learn them, just that the techniques existed was enough to call forth those abilities. After creating something like hitokugutsu, he lost any real interest in anything else.
"It's just some friendly advice," Sasori said as pleasantly as he could manage, "Inoichi-san." His hand rested on the Konoha-jounin's shoulder, partially so that he couldn't run away, partially to draw his attention, and partially to...
"Don't touch me." Inoichi backed away expectedly, pulling his shoulder away from Sasori. "I don't need your advice."
"Hn." Sasori pulled his arm back before speaking. "If you don't calm down first..." It wasn't a lot, but he had forced adequate chakra into Inoichi's body. "...how can you rescue your son?" He could actually test his new technique any time now.
R unning into Sasori like this, at this time when the Hokage had called him, was suspicious. That was partially why Inoichi was worried. The other part was Hyuuga Neji. The Hyuuga genius was a jounin. Jounin just didn't run small errands like this! Normally, the Hokage would have sent one of her chuunin assistants, or Shizune, or even a jounin under the administration branch of shinobi! Hyuuga Neji wasn't even in that department! And the way Neji just vanished without saying anything else worried him even further. He had wanted to ask what it was about, why the Hokage wanted to see him. If it was so important that she would send Neji, he had to rush to the Hokage tower right away!
Then, Sasori stopped him on the way there.
Truthfully, no one in Konoha trusted Sasori. Even though they all accepted that he was staying in their village and that there was no way to rid themselves of him, no one wanted to work with someone like him, someone who could rampage through the streets and kill innocent citizens...all for the sake of killing one person. Kakashi was an important part of Konoha. If Sasori could target him, he could target anyone!
There wasn't even a rational explanation for what he had done.
So, Inoichi wasn't against the idea that Sasori wanted to kill him. When he last saw Kakashi—right before the masked jounin left for another long mission outside Konoha—he had asked him about the incident, out of curiosity. He had thought that Kakashi would at least have a small idea of why Sasori attacked him. Just because he liked Sakura wasn't a good motive. Sakura was in love with Sasori, right? Sasori shouldn't be jealous of someone who had the same affections as he did. But not even the grey-haired jounin knew why Sasori tried to kill him. Without a reason, anyone could be next.
"Don't touch me."
He could be next. The Suna-nin was definitely after him. For something.
"Hn." The ex-nukenin's face was too smug. "If you don't calm down first, how can you rescue your son?"
Inoichi remembered complaining about it to Chouza and Shikaku many times. He always envied them. They didn't have the problems he had. He had to deal with the many troubles of having a daughter. If only he had a son... It was ironic. As the Suna-nin's chakra sank into his brain, pushing all his memories from his head, he realized that Sasori was giving him exactly what he had wanted: a son.
Sasori couldn't stop his hands from shaking, even though he tried. In that moment, he had accidentally released too much chakra into Inoichi's system and blocked out all of his memories. For a moment, he was a human vegetable, with no memories and no thoughts. 'Kuso.' He couldn't control his chakra properly. At this rate, he could kill him, or rather, erase his past. 'I need to focus!' It wasn't easy filtering through a lifetime of memories. He didn't have a lifetime to truly see it all. The images flashed before his eyes all at once, almost instantly. 'Focus!' If only he wasn't in this weak human body... He could easily see everything clearly and implant the proper memories with this new technique if he was still in his puppet body!
"Son?" Slowly, Inoichi's glazed eyes returned to the present as Sasori released the jounin's withheld memories.
"If you don't hurry, Deidara will be sent back to Iwagakure." It was only a suggestion, but Sasori knew the effect it would take, as certain as if Inoichi was a loyal minion.
"I need to hurry!" Inoichi ran away, toward the Hokage tower before anyone could stop him.
Sasori only hoped that he had implanted the memories correctly. It wasn't as if he had tested it before. But he didn't have time to worry. He still had to deal with the memories of Inoichi's wife.
W hen they were finally alone, Sakura thought that Sasori would try to kill her. She was ready for an attack. But as soon as they stepped into her hospital room, as the nurses swarmed worried around her, as she kept expecting him to leap at her with a kunai in his hand, as she kept expecting a puppet to fly toward her, intending to kill her as surely as before, as that time when they first met, it didn't happen. All he did was tell her not to strain herself.
Then he left.
She almost couldn't stop herself. As he turned away, as his eyes left her, as she felt his presence fly from the room, she almost reached out and stopped him. Sasori... 'What's wrong with me!' She didn't understand! She didn't understand why she had wanted him to stay, even though the thought of his feigned benign personality was enough to make her want to slit his throat.
But it was true. As she stared at the ceiling of her empty hospital room, she allowed herself to admit it. She hadn't noticed until he was gone. When he was with her, somehow, the emptiness in her chest had faded away. Now that he was gone, that void throbbed even stronger, eating away the warmth of her body. As she sat up, alone in the hospital again, the dark night beyond her four protective walls only made the room more suffocating. It increased her disappointment. When she looked around, she had expected to see... The room was empty. No one could have been there, but...
Sakura closed her eyes against that reality. Even at home, she was alone. If no one was there, it shouldn't make a difference. It wasn't as if her parents would be sitting there. The hospital would never allow them to stay. They definitely weren't whom she was expecting to see.
They weren't whom she was waiting for.
Beyond her window, the night sky was heavy with thick rainclouds. The wet rush of falling rain filled the silent room. Sakura knew that there wouldn't be any visitors at this time of night. The hospital didn't allow visitors at this time, not even family. They were strict about the recovery of their patients, especially skilled shinobi like her. But when she finally gathered the courage to look around the small room, she kept thinking that...
Pain throbbed through her chest. She was alone. He really wasn't there.
"Sleep! Do you know what time it is?" For a moment, she thought she had imagined the irritated words. There was no one in the room with her. She couldn't be hearing a real voice! But the warm hands forcing her head onto her pillow were real. Illusions couldn't be so solid.
For a moment, she allowed herself to think that...
"Sa—"
"Hontou ni baka, Naruto-wa," Sasuke grumbled under his breath as he stepped back and sat down in one of the two bare chairs in the room.
Sakura stared at the dark-haired shinobi. "—s'ke-kun?" The words in her head flew instantly away at the name whispered from her careless lips. 'No. What was I going to say?' She couldn't remember the name anymore. There was only the lingering loneliness, the buzzing irritation, the knowledge that this wasn't who she had wanted to see, who she had expected to see.
"Hn." Sasuke leaned back, ignoring his former teammate's stare. "Do you know how much trouble you are?" His voice held scornful annoyance. "Just sleep, Sakura!" With his authority as a member of the Keimu Butai, he had barely made it into the hospital. Tsunade had set up intense security after Sakura's last escape.
Sasuke had tried not to show his emotions, but his words still sounded as if they were shivering. 'Why?' As he watched the pink-haired girl sink toward sleep, he couldn't understand it. 'Naruto, why are you still thinking about her?'
From outside, the library didn't look big, but there were already too many books inside for Sasuke to read in his lifetime. Even if he spent every waking moment sitting with a book in his hand, it was impossible. There was even a shelf of books filled only with names. Before this day, Sasuke didn't think that something like that existed in Konoha.
"I found it!" Naruto shouted as he grinned triumphantly at Sasuke. After hours of scanning silently through the large stack of books by his side, Naruto found the name he was searching for. "The perfect name! Ano-sa, ano-sa, Sasuke, what do you think?"
For a moment, Sasuke stared at the name Naruto had written down before saying simply, "No." He definitely wasn't naming his son that! "We're not naming him Ramen." Naruto was an idiot.
"But look!" Naruto held up the book he was reading. "It says Gohan. It's perfectly normal!"
Sasuke grabbed the manga out of Naruto's hands and threw it to the edge of the table. "It's not normal. Search seriously, Naruto!" It seemed as if he would have to name his son after all. He couldn't trust Naruto with something so important.
"Sakura-chan wouldn't have said no," Naruto complained as he grabbed a thick book from the pile. He flipped it open and read a page before silently mumbling, "I hope she's okay."
At the time, only earlier that day, Naruto hadn't mentioned anything to him, but he was definitely worried. The jinchuuriki probably didn't realize that he had heard him. Naruto's memory was still blurry. He often forgot about things that everyone else knew. It was probably a side effect of being dead for long periods of time, but Naruto was like that even when he was still alive. Sasuke wasn't even sure if Naruto knew that he had said those words. If he had asked him about it, the blond chuunin would probably stare blankly at him and ask him what he was saying. Naruto probably wouldn't understand that he was thinking about Sakura again, that he was worried about her. In spite of not remembering that she was in the hospital, he was still worried about her.
He still loved her.
As Sasuke stood over Sakura, the desire to hurt her, to make her suffer, filled his body. Naruto was his! Sakura had no place in Naruto's heart!
But he couldn't do it. If he hurt her, it would only hurt Naruto. He couldn't do it. Even though he sat in the same suffocating room as Sakura, he couldn't bring himself to make Naruto sad, to face Naruto's tear-stained face. He wanted to ease the worries seeping through the blond shinobi's memories. That was why he was here. He had to remember that.
"Sakura," he said slowly as his mind drifted through his thoughts. If he changed the subject, or talked, he could make those dangerous emotions fade. "If you..." He never intended to ask her, but this was something that would probably make Naruto happy, because all Naruto thought of was Sakura, was what Sakura thought, was what Sakura wanted. "What would you name a child?"
For a moment, silence deafened the air, pulling all sound stagnant. In the lone darkness, Sakura smiled peacefully to herself. "It's obvious." She had been in love with Sasuke for too long not to have thought about it. She had the same dreams as all the other girls chasing after him. There was no name other than the one she had chosen. Even though she knew that she would never have a chance to use it, there was no other name suitable for Sasuke.
T he cold night wind carried the colder rain over his body, but Naruto still sat motionless at the edge of the walkway, staring into the small garden. He was forgetting something. He knew that he was forgetting something. But he was always forgetting something. Since he awoke, since that confusing day on the outskirts of Konoha, he couldn't even hold a thought for more than a few moments before it fluttered away. It was irritating. Even as he sat alone, watching the rain, watching the red rainclouds filtering stained light into the garden, he annoyed himself. He couldn't remember what he was thinking about. Again.
Earlier that week, he had tried to find Kakashi. He had run all over the village, looking for him. Then, two hours later, he remembered. Tsunade had told him earlier that morning. Kakashi wasn't in Konoha. He had left for another mission. It was too painful for him to see Sakura and Sasori. That was what Tsunade had said.
Naruto didn't understand any of her words, but that was what Tsunade had said.
However uncertain his memories were, they were always clearer when he was with Sasuke. He didn't understand most of what everyone tried to tell him, but Sasuke always took the time to explain it...slowly...in simple terms. Of course, he didn't like spending hours cleaning and organizing all his boxes and all the contents of his boxes, but Sasuke never complained about filling the kitchen with ramen, even though it was small enough without adding another two walls of boxes. So, he never complained about Sasuke's preferences either. Sasuke always took that extra time to accommodate his needs and his habits. He couldn't make himself shun him.
Then, there was Sakura. When he cleared his mind, she was there. When he concentrated on anything, her face appeared. He couldn't forget her, even if he tried. When Sasuke frowned so pitifully, as he had done earlier that day when they were at the hospital, Naruto pretended that he had forgotten about her condition. But he really wanted to see her. He wanted to see if she was okay. He had to confirm it with his own eyes that she was alright. The sight of her dead body, lying in a pool of blood, was burned into his memory. How could he forget something like that?
He didn't know how to choose between them. How could he choose between them! All he wanted was to return to the days of long ago, to the days when they were all genin together. They were happy then. He didn't know how they had become like this. He couldn't remember. He didn't know how Sakura had almost died, how Sasuke had left his corner of the world to become a member of the Keimu Butai, how... He didn't understand the memories of his death.
As he stared at the rain, he remembered the grey rain of long ago. At that time, his tightening breath, the pain in his chest, the cold sensation of blood leaving his body, the fuzzy thoughts of Sasuke, all of it was filled with terror. And it wasn't filled with terror. At that time, when he told Sakura to leave him alone, when the Kyuubi's chakra burned across his body, only to hemorrhage his lungs further, he almost saw Sauske waiting for him. It was...comforting.
Naruto didn't want to forget that memory. He wanted to hold onto Sasuke for as long as he could before he left him. Because he was still an idiot... Because even now, he was weak... Because his memory was disintegrating... And ultimately, because he wasn't a girl... Naruto knew that he could never fulfill Sasuke's dreams. Because Sasuke definitely wanted a big family... He wanted children. Because even if Naruto tried, he could never give that to him...
Sasuke would definitely leave him one day.
Deidara was prepared to escape as soon as Inoichi told the Hokage that he didn't have a son. The Iwa-nin just didn't understand what had happened, how he had ended up like this. 'Sasori-sama! I know that you did this, yeah!' He didn't know how Sasori managed to do it, but he knew that it was definitely the puppetmaster who had driven him to this hell. The entire Yamanaka family—excluding the loudmouth girl—believed that he was the eldest son!
If he didn't leave soon, he would definitely kill himself.
"I can't believe you decided to come home," Inoichi said annoyedly as he stared at Deidara from across the table. "Do you think we'll forgive you? Do you think we won't be angry?"
'What did you put in their heads, yeah!' Deidara tried to ignore them. It was bad enough that he had to eat dinner with them.
"So, I really have a brother?" Ino tried not to notice the family resemblance. "Why didn't anyone tell me!" She tried not to notice that no one was listening to her.
"Say something!" Inoichi shouted at Deidara.
"What is there to be angry about, yeah?" The Iwa-nin ate faster, cramming the food into his mouth. The sooner he finished, the sooner everyone went to sleep, and the sooner he could escape from this place.
"Did someone hit you in the head while you were gone?" Inoichi stared at his son. "You ran away from home and became an S-ranked criminal."
"It was for the sake of art. You wouldn't understand, yeah."
"You always say that." Inoichi's words came casually, as if it was true, as if he truly knew that Deidara said those things all the time.
'Sasori-sama, what DID you put in their heads?!' At this point, he definitely had to leave this place. "O..." He forced the next words out of his mouth as smoothly as possible without shouting with frustration. "O...tou...san..." He had to change the subject! "Why are they here?" He gestured to the silver-haired head on the table. Eating with Hidan's head by his side wasn't appetizing.
"Do I look like I want to be here, kuso okama!"
"I'm a man, damn it!" Deidara stabbed his chopsticks into Hidan's head. A moment later, he grabbed the replacement pair brought from the kitchen by his mother.
"I thought Hidan-chan would miss his friends," Anko said with a sly smile as she crammed a piece of meat into Hidan's mouth before he could shout back at Deidara. "Now he's happy." She smiled, as if she wasn't torturing him.
"Kuso," Hidan mumbled under his breath. After eating disgustingly sweet dango and drinking bland tea all day—because Anko didn't feed him anything else, not because that was the only thing she ate and drank—he couldn't complain about the food. "Deidara's not a friend. He's a damn fucking traitor!"
"I said you're happy!" Anko growled as she pulled Hidan up by the hair and forced tea down his throat. It leaked onto the floor from the neck down, but no one wanted to step in and stop the crazed tokubetsu jounin. "You're happy!"
"I never said anything like that, damn crazy woman!" Hidan shouted through the tea.
"Crazy?" Anko's eyes darkened, her mouth pulling into the serpentine grin characteristic of her sensei, Orochimaru. "I'll show you how crazy I am, Hidan-chan!" And Anko rushed out of the room before anyone could say, "Gochisou-sama."
"Don't look at me," Ino said as she caught Deidara's glare. She knew that he was accusing her. After all, she had brought them into the house. "They invited themselves." But they were the ones that announced they were staying for dinner.
After Anko and Hidan left, they had an infinitely more peaceful meal.
S asori already knew that the hospital didn't allow visitors at this time of night, but he didn't care about their rules. He would find a way in. He couldn't stay in the house anymore! Sakura's parents were even worse after he discovered their attempts to hide Sakura. At this point, they were actively trying to drive him from Konoha.
But it wasn't going to work. He wasn't going to let it happen. He refused to leave Sakura again! 'Even if you hate me...' Even though she wanted to kill him, he knew those were her true emotions.
Then Deidara fell from the sky, into his arms.
He stared at the blond man for a moment before dropping him to the ground. "Deidara, what are you doing?" His determination wrapped tightly around his anger as he spoke. He didn't have time to spare. He had to hurry to the hospital before the night passed, before dawn came, and before he wasted even more time away from her.
"Escaping, yeah." The Iwa-nukenin glared at the redhead, as if it should have been obvious. "What kind of insane memories did you plan in those people, Sasori-sama?"
Sasori looked around the make sure no one had seen him... "Only that you're their son. I duplicated the fuzzy memories of Ino's birth and wrote the date as your birthday. That's all. They made up the rest." ...before continuing toward the hospital. "You shouldn't run away from home. You'll worry your parents." That was all the time he could spare for Deidara.
"They're not my parents, yeah!" Deidara understood that expression on Sasori's face. That smug expression hid the twisted plan torturing him. In the past, it had happened too often for Deidara to forget. "What..." Sasori was already far away before he could ask. 'What do you want me to do here, yeah?'
But the truth was, Sasori didn't have to tell Deidara what he wanted him to do. Ino, being the person that she was, being someone that needed almost constant attention, could never handle having a sibling. All he had to do was keep Deidara there, and he would torture her with neglect.
Sasori didn't have time to spare for such meaningless explanations.
W ithin her room, Tsunade slept peacefully. There were a few unexpected events. She didn't think that Inoichi would admit that Deidara was his son. Even though she knew that it was a lie, Inoichi really seemed to believe it. She would let it slide for the time being. It wasn't a danger to have Deidara in her village for a while longer.
As for everyone else, after dealing with Hidan, she would rather just let them sort it out on their own. She was too far behind in her work. Kotetsu, Izumo, Raidou, Aoba, and everyone else assisting her―especially Shizune―would never let her leave her office again if she allowed those piles to grow any larger.
End Chapter 34
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Theories around Life and Half a Life
Fire: If you're here, you're interested in this explanation, otherwise, scroll down.
Tsunade: This is going to be difficult.
Fire: Open your minds and try to understand this difficult concept. I'll try to make it as simple as possible without being too technical.
----
First, a brief overview of how half a life can exist. In terms of time, the greater time in general is infinite. Halving something that is infinite, leaves something that is infinite. So infinite time x ½ infinite time. However, in terms of a human lifespan, we're talking about relative time, which is finite. Humans don't live forever. To use a tensei technique is to think in the fourth dimension, so in terms of the fourth dimension, if you take a finite time and halve it, you have half of that finite time. For example, 400 years x ½ 200 years. If you've read Death Note, it touches on these concepts. Go and read it. There are only 13 volumes and less than 200 chapters.
That was life in terms of time. Now, to add to the confusing concepts, we're not talking about time. If Sakura was only transferring time, Naruto wouldn't be able to return since he and the Kyuubi's lives are synchronized. When Naruto dies, the Kyuubi dies with him unless he is removed from the jinchuuriki prior to death. In that case, the Kyuubi won't die. However, being a youma, the Kyuubi's natural lifespan is much greater than a human's lifespan. In Japanese mythology, a nine-tailed fox gains nine tails after 1000 years of meditation. That means that that Kyuubi is already over a thousand years old! To confine him to human time is cruel.
So, in terms of life, there is a second concept. A person's life is not only measured in time―physical life―but there are also experiences achieved over a lifetime―during the time when that person is alive―and the bonds created by those experiences. In other words, if a person changes the choices made in their life, their life would change, so they would be experiencing a different life. It wouldn't be the same. If it's thought of that way, Sakura would have to give up half of her memories to make up half her life. To explain which memories were taken away, the most fragile and unprotected memories are the most recent memories. As with Alzhiemer's disease, the newest memories fade away first, before the older memories. If that is taken into consideration, Sakura would never remember Sasori again since she traded it away for Naruto.
Now to get away from scientific explanations like the last three paragraphs, I'm going to go into religion. Don't say that I didnt' warn you. I said, in the last chapter that there will be many different concepts put into this. Anyway, although most religions don't agree on a lot of points, most religions agree that there is an unknown eternal force in the human body that creates sentient life. Call it a soul, spirit, ka, yuurei etc, there is a word for it. Anyway, in terms of that, it should the same concept as astral projection. In astral projection, technically, a person's soul leaves the body, but the body doesn't die, right? Souls are dynamic substances. There is no such thing as half a soul, so in the end, if Sakura loses half her soul, as long as she has the other half, the lost half would eventually merge back together. --;; I'm not explaining this part right. Think of a soul as a magnet. There is a north and a south pole creating magnetic fields―the soul's aura―around the magnet. If you cut the magnet in half, the resulting half is still a north and a south pole. And as with the magnet, the two halves would attract each other through their magnetic fields and rejoin to form a single magnet again. However, since a soul is dynamic, it would mend the cut as opposed to staying two separate entities. Was that too scientific again?
Okay, another concept of life is from Western philosophy, which is based mostly on the philosophies of Rene Descartes' Discourse on Method. I'm not sure if any of you have studied philosophy but it's the concept of what is alive and what is not alive, created back in the early to mid 1800s. I don't remember the exact date. It has been a while since I read those books. --;; Anyway, according to Descartes, to be alive is to be aware of one's own existence. Ie. I think therefore I am. I exist because I know I exist. I am alive because I am aware that I am alive. However, the flaw is "I think therefore you are." Descartes also leads to the ideas that a person is alive because others know that person is alive. When a person doubts his existence, he doesn't necessarily die. If a person believes that he isn't alive, when that belief is blurred, that―in relation to Descartes―can be deemed half a life. Ie. I don't think therefore I am not.
Finally, in relation to the Naruto manga, and not YYH. --;; Naruto and Sasuke shouted at me for it. Anyway, in volume 31 chapter 274, Chiyo brings up the concept of life energy. When Sasori stabbed Sakura, Chiyo used her tensei technique to save Sakura. Specifically, she said, "Onore no seimei enerugi-o sono mama wake ataeru tensei ninjutsu ja." Translated: I'm giving a part of my own life energy through this tensei ninjutsu. At the time, Sakura wasn't dead so Chiyo didn't die as she stated in chapter 275, "dakara washi mo kono teido de sunda no ja." Translated: So, I also managed this standard. Ie. Sakura wasn't dead, so I didn't die either. This is not the same as "seishin enerugi" or spiritual energy used in creating chakra. --;; Masashi-sensei clearly states "seishin enerugi" and "seimei enerugi" in the raw manga, using different terms. But that's beside the point. Chiyo used part of her life energy to prevent Sakura from dying, and used it fully to bring Gaara back to life. In a sense, she used half her life to rescue Sakura and a full life to bring back Gaara. --;; I hope that was comprehensive.
Now, you're wondering why Sakura still died? Remember that by the time Gaara was revived, Chiyo was already dead. She didn't have time for long speeches, as Sakura did in her death scene. The tensei didn't kill her. So what did? Did you remember what Tobi did before he died? He stabbed her through the chest. That was her reason for using the tensei. She was already going to die, so she wanted to do something for Sasuke. She already knew that she was going to take the kids with her. --;; Bad way of saying it, but it's true. In that sense, Tsunade's rescuing Sakura from death wasn't a great feat. All she had to do was stop the bleeding, heal the lungs and restart the heart. As long as the brain hadn't suffered major necrosis―ie the cells hadn't all died―Sakura should be fine...for the most part. --;;
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Fire: That was my short explanation on what is life and whether or not half a life is possible. I hope that clarified a few things.
Tsunade: In other words, if Sakura wasn't already dying, she would have survived. Lives are rounded up, remember?
Fire: I already said that in the last explanation. --;; 1.5 lives. There is no such thing as part of a life so the answer is rounded up, like a radical in math.
Sasuke: (sleeping) ...
Naruto: (confused) I don't get it.
Sakura: Um...I don't want to know what kind of gutting Tsunade-shishou did to my body. Can we stop talking now?
Fire: Short explanation. Very enlightening, right? Anyway, if you're still confused, tell me and I'll try to elaborate more.
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Fire's English tidbits for those who care:
For those of you who haven't studied Shakespeare, here's something interesting from the play of Romeo and Juliet. Okay, two interesting things. --;; Brace yourself. First, Juliet's name is Juliet, pronounced with a short "t" at the end; however, with Romeo being in love with her, he lengthens the "e" to soften the "t" in Juliet's name and pronounces it Juliette. Everyone else uses standard pronounciation. Second interesting thing comes from actual English. Um...not that the first part wasn't interesting, but this is an English tidbit, not a playwrighting tidbit. Anyway, in her famous soliloquy where she says, "Wherefore," the meaning of that word from middle English is "why" not "where." --;; It's not that confusing, right? So, as an example, "Wherefore art thy hat crooked?" would be translated as "Why is your hat crooked?" "Wherefore" means "why." "Art" is the second person conjugation of "to be" which was replaced with "is" and "thy" is the second person possessive replaced with "your" in standard, modern English.
Fire's babbling:
Sasuke: --;;
Fire: A small explanation first about this chapter.
Naruto: I was reading Dragonball Z.
Fire: Earlier in this chapter, Naruto was reading a manga. The name he pointed to was "Gohan," who is the son of Son Goku, the main character of Toriyama-sensei's Dragonball series. It's not in the glossary, but I'm referring to a parallelism. Naruto wants to name his son Ramen while Goku named his son Gohan. Gohan is japanese for meal or cooked rice. It's probably not the same kanji since it's a japanese pronounciation of a chinese name, so only those who understand Japanese and has an English mind will understand this joke.
Sasuke: They haven't read it yet.
Fire: Waah! No!
Naruto: This isn't the Dragonball fandom.
Fire: But it's a good joke!
Kisame: I'm not laughing.
Fire: It would be scary if you were laughing. You only laugh when you're killing people.
Kisame: ...
Itachi: At the end of the prequel, I was―
Fire: Don't tell them! That's for the last book in this series!
Sasuke: I killed you! Stay dead!
Fire: You wouldn't believe what happened to him.
Itachi: I'm not dead.
Sasuke: Yes you are!
Naruto: (staring at Itachi) ...
Sasuke: Stop staring at him!
Naruto: But you're going to leave me anyway.
Sasuke: Stop thinking stupid thoughts! I'm never―
Fire: That's it for this chapter. It was late because I spent some time writing the Life theories. --;; And they're not finished snce I only spend an hour and a half on it. It's all from the top of my head. Sorry if it's confusing. They're complilations of only a few weeks of research. I usually get bored of something right away and stop studying it. I learned a lot of this stuff years ago, when I was still in high school.
Sasuke: Fire has unofficial ADD. I mean, all forms of media has become too boring and predictable so we write stories. --;; Get the idea?
Fire: Anyway, remember to review and tell me your thoughts. Did that explanation make sense? Do you think Hidan should stay in Anko's care?
Hidan: Hell no! Are you insane! I wanted a―
Anko: (stuffing Hidan into her kunai pouch) Hokage-sama said I can use him as a paperweight, but he'd make a better kunai, right?
Fire: Someone tell her that Hidan's not a kunai!
Sakura: What's wrong with you! (shaking Fire) I don't love Sasori!
Fire: But you're thinking about him!
Naruto: If no one has noticed, I'm pushing Sasuke toward Sakura... (crying) ...because I want them to be happy together.
Fire: Yeah. That. --;; You'll really notice it in the next chapter. Naruto's rejecting Sasuke before Sasuke can leave him! Well, see you next chapter! And review!
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