Thank you for all your nice reviews! They made me feel all nice and fuzzy inside! I do so love hearing from you guys. And wow, this story got more than 2000 rviews! You guys are awesome! I hope you like this new chapter that I post early to celebrate! (Oh yes, things are coming along quite nicely, and just about to get more complicated…hehehe)
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Naruto was no fool despite his happy-go-lucky persona. Getting to read people's thoughts on their face and body language had become something of a second nature to him. For a pariah like him, that was almost a necessity. After all, if he could spot dangerous thoughts on people's minds from afar, he could more easily escape. It had saved him many a beating in the past. And now that particular skill came in handy.
For the last few months, he had noticed a lingering tension in many of the shinobi who jumped from roof to roof daily. And it was not the only thing worrying him. From time to time, he sent letters to his beloved nee-chan, but recently, she hadn't responded to any of them. Was she angry at him? Was it because he couldn't write well? That hadn't seemed to bother her all that much before; she had always answered his letters quickly before.
Since the movements of the ninja didn't really concern him, he merely noted their tension as a third party. But as for the matter of Sakura's avoidance of him…
Time for a visit to jiji!
-:-
Sarutobi Hiruzen was an old man. And nowadays, he felt older than ever. The Council was on his back and being a pain as always—though the 'pain in the ass' bit seemed to have gone up a notch or two—and the Elders firmly disapproved his decision to keep spies on the lookout for any news of Sakura's whereabouts. Which in turn brought tension from the ninja Clans who insisted he kept his men on the lookout—and probably did some research on their own anyway. And then came the civilian part of the council, which was divided on the subject. Some thought her village would survive without her anyway, so there wasn't a need to look for her so actively after so many months; others thought that her loss would have too much impact and that her knowledge should be shared instead of lost seemingly forever.
All in all, his ears were ringing with the amount of shouting that was done nowadays. And Sakura was still no closer to being found than months ago, when she had first disappeared.
And then his worries increased as he came back to his office to find a blonde knucklehead troublemaker waiting for him in his chair.
Oh boy…
"Naruto-kun, what are you doing here?" he asked with a smile that felt fake even to him.
"Jiji! Why is it that Sakura-nee-chan is ignoring me? I know you know, since you know everything!" exclaimed the child loudly, pointing an accusing finger at him.
Of course.
"Naruto-kun…Your nee-chan is quite busy nowadays with the creation of her medical village. Maybe she was too busy to answer your letters," he said, trying his best not to break the poor boy's heart with bad news of the first person to actually care about him except for himself.
"I know she is! But that's not it!" replied the boy angrily, eyes flashing. "She always answered before! Jiji, did I do something bad? Is she angry at me?"
The vulnerability in those clear blue eyes was painful to watch.
"Don't worry, Naruto-kun. She would never hate you. Trust in her, ne?" he said, putting a paternal hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Yeah…"
He felt bad lying to the dejected boy, but that was better than telling him the truth. He didn't need to be burdened with it.
"Come on, I'll treat you to a meal at Ichiraku's."
-:-
"This smell…"
Hana's soft murmur made her teammates stop and look at her curiously.
"What smell?"
"Well…I don't know…I mean, it smells a lot like Sakura-sensei, but at the same time, it's different."
"Different? How?"
"I don't know, just…different."
They all looked at her. How could a smell so similar to her but at the same time different appear in Konoha?
"Well, let's go see!"
They followed Hana as she sniffed at the trail and took off rapidly. She zigzagged through the streets swiftly, intent on nothing more but the smell. Storefronts became blurs, people disappeared, and only that scent remained.
Why had she never noticed it before? She couldn't say. Maybe it was that she was so used to ignoring scents unless she was on missions that she had never took this one into account. Or maybe it had not existed before. She really couldn't say, and it drove her mad.
And then the scent became much stronger and she stopped abruptly, eyes wide. Her gaze remained trained on a long expanse of pink hair; she didn't dare breathe in case she broke the moment.
But then the child turned around, and her wide green eyes were expressive, and she was dressed in a red Chinese dress with a white circle on top, and she was too young to be the person she was looking for. Her hopes fell to the bottom of her stomach heavily. That child was not Sakura-sensei, no matter how much she looked like her.
"Sorry," she uttered despondently. "She smelled so much like her…for a moment, I…"
Itachi shook his head.
"Iie…Even I, for a moment…"
But the illusion was broken, and with it, their moral sank to a low.
In the playground, the pastel-haired child continued to play, alone, on the swings.
"I know that girl," murmured Itachi. "She has a crush on my younger brother. I believe her name is Haruno Sakura."
"With hair like that, that name doesn't surprise me," noted Shisui.
"Hn. A similar name…similar appearance…similar smell and chakra signature…"
"Do you think they may be related, oh dear cousin?" asked Shisui, glancing at the younger Uchiha.
"It may be possible. We don't know anything about Sakura-sensei's mother, so she may well have been related to Haruno Sakura-san's family. Maybe they are distant cousins."
"This is worth investigating."
-:-
Apparently, Haruno Sakura's mother and father didn't know if they had distant family, bastard siblings or otherwise. Which didn't mean it wasn't possible that Sakura-sensei's mother was related to either of them, but it was hard to prove.
And since the medic had never told anyone where she originally was from—and seeing as Jiraiya travelled around a lot and went after anyone who could call herself female—she could be from anywhere. Presumably, her mother was dead, so it would be nearly impossible to find her. Thus, they didn't know in which part of the world she could reappear if she went back to her birthplace or her mother's grave.
"Another dead-end," murmured Sarutobi Hiruzen tiredly.
"Hokage-sama, if I may," said Itachi, "I may have an idea. Hana-san said that Haruno Sakura-san's chakra and smell are almost identical to sensei's. Maybe she could open sensei's cabinet, especially if they share the same bloodline."
The Sandaime looked shrewdly at the Uchiha heir over steepled fingers. There was a definite possibility that the medic and Haruno Sakura were sisters, especially if the older girl was a bastard child. It was quite possible that the younger girl's mother had had an affair and had abandoned her baby. In that case, it was possible that Jiraiya wasn't really her father, even if both of them thought he was. Or it could have been Haruno's father who had an extramarital affair. In both cases, it would make it absolutely impossible for the Sannin to open the cabinet if, on the odd chance that a close family member could open it, he tried to do it.
"Alright. Escort her to Sakura-sensei's home and make her try to open the cabinet. It is worth a try."
Things became quite complicated whenever the child medic was concerned, it seemed.
-:-
Satoshi looked at the team bemusedly. In the last year, he had had virtually no news of his ojou-sama, and while he had managed to run the hospital, her loss had been felt. Sure, she had left clones behind, but they were not the same as the real thing, and without Sakura, the hospital just didn't feel the same, despite thriving and expanding according to the plans she had entrusted to Jiraiya.
And now…
"Why exactly have you brought this child here?" he asked, looking the girl over. "She looks a lot like ojou-sama, but I hope you don't want her to pose as my young mistress."
"That wasn't our intention," replied Itachi. "We thought, however, that she may have a chance if she tried to open the cabinet."
The speculative gleam in Satoshi's eyes intensified; this time, he looked at the clueless child more intently.
"Well," he sighed at last, "though I doubt she will succeed, why not?" He got up and, with an encompassing gesture, said calmly, "Shall we?"
The trek to the cave was made in relative silence, except from the questions from the young Sakura who still now had no idea what they were expecting her to do.
They wandered in, lit some torches along the way to see more clearly despite the glowing moss, and ended up crowding around the mysterious cabinet.
"Please do try," said Satoshi to the curious girl.
"Eh? But…"
As soon as she objected timidly and trailed off uncertainly, unknowing of exactly what they expected of her, twin streaks of pink appeared in front of the group, and they found themselves facing two clones of the older Sakura.
"Don't."
"There is a distinct possibility that you might be able to open this cabinet," said the second clone just as firmly as the first, crossing her arms across her chest.
"However, doing this would put everyone at great danger and quite possibly put Boss in an even more considerable danger."
"Or sign her death warrant."
"Or that."
After a long moment of silence from all parties, Shisui frowned and growled, "You know what's in there?"
"Of course," agreed the first clone, face serious.
"But it's too dangerous to let anyone know."
"Yet."
"Yet," agreed the other with a nod.
"Why do you say this could kill sensei?" asked Itachi, intrigued.
"All information is not good to know at one point in time," replied the second clone, looking quite certain of the veracity of her words.
"And some of the things in there can most definitely get Boss killed."
"If she means anything to you, don't open the cabinet."
"Please believe us, that would be a bad idea."
"And you know that as clones, we wouldn't do anything that goes against her wishes or that could put her in danger. After all, if she dies, we disappear too."
And so it was that no one opened the cabinet. It was reluctantly that everyone left it sealed, but eventually, all trailed out of the cave, and the cabinet kept its secrets.
-:-
"Why is her condition deteriorating? We stopped the torture after months, and even back then, she wasn't in so bad a shape as now!" exclaimed the old man in frustration.
"We don't know, Danzo-sama. We're doing everything we can to keep her alive," replied the other man calmly.
"Do better. That girl is one I cannot afford to let die."
"Hai, Danzo-sama."
The words came to the pink-haired child muffled, as though she had cotton stuck in her ears. They didn't make much sense to her, but she knew they were talking about her. Who else could they have been talking about? And apparently, she was dying. Was that why she felt so much pain everywhere in her body, why she felt sluggish even now?
Well, if she was dying…She couldn't do much about that, now could she?
After all, she didn't even know how to heal herself, if that was at all possible.
She just felt…empty.
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Things are not running as smoothly as Danzo expected, and since Sakura can't remember anything…Trouble is on the horizon, people!
I await your reviews!
A quick note: Inner rules over the sanctity of Sakura's mind, but she won't be controlling her body unless something drastic happens so that she isn't found out. It's more like she's passively sleeping until an alarm goes off.
