Kakashi-sensei sighed. "You couldn't make it easy for me, huh, Sakura-chan." He poked a finger into the small mound of dirt she held cupped in one hand. "I'm lightning natured," he said. And to emphasize the point, he took another one of those slips of paper and sent a visible jolt of chakra through it.
But Sakura was only half paying attention to him, staring instead in amazement at the miracle in her hand. It was only dirt, the rational part of her mind said. Yes, but it was her dirt, the emotional part replied. She interrupted Kakashi-sensei to take another slip of paper and was delighted again when it answered the call of her chakra by crumbling into dirt. It was confirmed. It was better confirmation than the Leaf headband on her head that they handed out to any half-assed student who could make a clone. This was scientific and empirical confirmation that Sakura had a personal affinity.
She stole another slip of paper from Kakashi-sensei's hand, ignoring his affronted "Oi!"
That was the first thing he'd taught her. Now at an age when she was supposed to have outgrown such things, Sakura was playing with mud. That was what her mother called it, making a shower with their garden hose a daily occurrence. But Sakura liked to think of it as training.
Earth was an uncommon, but not rare, type of nature affinity in the Land of Fire. It was more unheard of for Konoha ninja to develop it because it wasn't immediately obvious how earth could be weaponized. Even Kakashi-sensei had scratched his head and simply given her the signs for creating earth clones and his favorite technique for "decapitating" unsuspecting genin by pulling them underground.
But still, earth was hers. This wasn't the standardized stuff they taught at the academy.
Earth was, she found, more unpredictable than water or fire or lightning or wind because it was fundamentally compositional. Konoha itself had more than twelve types of soil. The forested outskirts of Konoha stood on dense, fertile ground that ranged from easy to impossible to mold depending on the amount of moisture. The ground near the village was the dry variety compacted by foot travel that was resistant to shape transformation but agreeable to shaking and splitting underfoot. Near the rivers and lakes, she found a silty clay that required a combination of water and earth manipulation. And in the mountains, she found caves that could be flattened with vibrating chakra, hard ground that could be formed into stalagmites that impaled her enemies. There was so much potential—but she only had so much chakra.
The most Sakura could find in the library were some gardening books and geological surveys and a footnote in a dusty campaign manual to avoid engaging in combat with Iwa-nin near caves. By contrast, there were entire shelves dedicated to fire chakra manipulation theory. It irked her that earth was so overlooked.
She expressed her irritation to Tsunade-sama who sat back with an amused look on her face that faded to something thoughtful. Sakura wasn't fond of that look—it usually preceded some prodigiously difficult task like trying to heal a cut while Shizune threw senbon at her.
"I have a mission for you, Sakura," she said, playing absently with her necklace.
The Land of Fire had been named thusly for the many volcanoes that littered the landscape. The first settlers had passed down stories of how the volcanoes were the hardened bodies of wrathful fire demons, giving annual human offerings to appease them. Over the years, this tradition had turned into the annual Fire festival during which the townspeople offered cows and pigs instead of their virgin daughters. Sakura read this on a weathered wooden plaque she found at the base of Mount Aka.
Her guide continued chattering on and she responded every now and then with a thoughtful nod to make him feel like she was listening when really she was considering the base components of the moist soil crumbling under their feet. "You're the first kunoichi we've seen," Hiro-san said. And for some odd reason, he flushed and averted his eyes when she looked back at him.
Sakura stared at him inquiringly. "Your village doesn't receive many ninja?"
"A-ah," Hiro-san stammered. "Kurokimi is a small town," he said wringing his hands helplessly. It seemed he was only capable of coherent speech when there weren't any eyes on him. When Sakura turned back to the uneven trail in front of them, she caught the quiet relieved sigh that escaped him. "We haven't seen any shinobi since the end of the war. And, well, kunoichi…" He trailed off and she threw another inquisitive look over her shoulder. "They're not polite company," he finished in a small voice.
Sakura flushed at the implication and stepped delicately over a fallen log. A small, rural village like Kurokimi would still think lowly of kunoichi as glorified sex workers. That explained the unfriendly welcome she'd received upon entering the village. She resisted the urge to tug the hem of her skirt down and wished she'd allowed him to take the lead instead of following behind her. "I'm not that kind of ninja," she said, choosing her words carefully, "I'm part of a combat team and I specialize in healing."
"But you're a woman," he told her as if she wasn't aware. "They allow women to fight? During peacetime?"
"The Hokage is a woman," Sakura pointed out. "Women fight, yes. During peacetime, yes." And if she failed to keep her tone from flattening, he didn't seem to notice.
"I see," Hiro-san said, not sounding like he saw anything at all. "Why do you fight?"
"Because I want to," she replied simply.
They couldn't climb the mountain fast enough. She quickened their pace and felt a stab of vindication when she heard his scurrying footsteps and panting breaths. On second thought, perhaps it hadn't been such a bad idea to take the lead. She'd already had to answer similar questions for her own relatives and wasn't keen on repeating the conversation with an overly curious stranger.
The incident had taught her that people felt a strange entitlement to having their curiosity satisfied at her expense even when her discomfort was visible. It dawned on her now that perhaps Kakashi-sensei was less of an anti-social pervert than she'd thought. Books, especially adult books, probably made very efficient barriers against unwanted conversations.
Fortunately, Hiro-san couldn't sustain his barrage of questions when he was out of breath and fell into a labored silence that she took advantage of to take in her surroundings. There was something strange about the trees here. The base of each tree was covered in a hardened white clay that cut off abruptly to reveal normal bark. She paused to reach out with a hand against one and found the clay went above the extent of her reach. It was almost like someone had gone through with a giant brush and painted a straight, white line on each tree.
"The mudslides," Hiro-san remarked. "Akadake erupted many years ago—before my parents were born. Kurokimi was flattened and rebuilt."
Sakura suppressed a shiver. She'd approached Akadake without a second thought, simply accepting the mountain as the scenic backdrop of the village. Tsunade-sama had asked her to compile reports on Akadake's activity, but Sakura hadn't actually considered the volcanic aspect of the mountain. "Why do you stay?" she asked. "Isn't it dangerous?"
Hiro-san shrugged. "This is our home. Everyone knows Akadake is asleep anyway. There isn't any danger to report to your Hokage, Kunoichi-san."
"My name is Sakura," she corrected.
That night in a room she'd gotten at the foot of Akadake, Sakura dreamt of fire demons with swirling red eyes who spat fire and buried her alive.
It had almost been an afterthought, a passing observation that caught her eye as Sakura was leaving Kurokimi—the women tilling the earth with nothing but their chakra. They worked slowly and methodically, but their sure movements and the level of precision spoke of a familiarity with chakra that she would never have expected of civilian farmers. Sakura approached and watched in fascination until her silent presence caught the attention of a grey-haired woman with a hunched back. The woman looked up with a curious but warm expression, taking Sakura in like a lost child in need of directions. Her eyes were a startling blue that stood out from her tanned skin, her features small and delicate. She was striking even in her old age.
Then those wrinkled, blue eyes fastened on the Leaf headband in Sakura's hair.
The woman sneered in a way Sakura wouldn't have thought possible. It twisted that kind, grandmotherly face into something cruel and monstrous. "Kunoichi," she said, her mocking bow eliciting tinkling laughter from the other women in the field. "My, my. They're raising you young."
Sakura flushed, painfully aware that her vest and skirt—considered modest by Ino's standards and practical but cute by the rest of Konoha—exposed much more skin than the conservative yukata worn by the women here. "No, I'm a shinobi. My name is Sakura."
"Ah," the woman laughed as if Sakura had made a joke. "Shinobi. What do you want from us? Were our fathers and brothers and husbands and sons not enough? Have you come back for more?"
"I'm sorry?" Sakura stared in bewilderment at the hardened faces of the women who'd ceased working to watch the spectacle. "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about." She remembered, with sudden clarity, that Hiro-san had been one of a handful of men she'd seen in the village. There was a growing, horrifying suspicion in the back of her head that she was scared to examine.
"Don't play dumb, girl," the woman spat. "Konoha may have forgotten, but we remember."
"I—no," Sakura stammered, shaking her head. "I didn't mean to bother you. I just didn't know chakra could be used this way." She gestured widely at the perfectly formed grooves in the ground. "This is advanced nature manipulation."
The old woman scoffed. "Don't patronize us," she said, lips still curled up in that twisted smile. "Shinobi," she said again. "Arrogant without exception." She dismissed Sakura by turning her back and bending over the ground once more.
The rest of the women followed suit. Sakura's face still burned. "I'm sorry for bothering you," she offered to the woman before her who was evidently the leader of this small group of farmers. But not a single woman looked up from their task to acknowledge her. So she fled with shame stinging her cheeks until Akadake was safely behind her. Thoughts of earth manipulation and erupting volcanoes and fatherless, childless widows competed for her attention all the way home.
"I believe it is safe to conclude that Akadake is dormant," Sakura recited from her mission report. She was tired and felt dirty even though she'd washed up before leaving Kurokimi. The village, quiet and idyllic as it appeared, had felt wrong. She knew objectively that the sun shined no brighter over Konoha, but Kurokimi had felt chilly and shaded by comparison.
Tsunade-sama skimmed through the mission report. "I don't doubt your findings, Sakura," she said. "But there is reason to believe Akadake may not be as inactive as it appears. We will send you again to monitor the conditions next quarter." She paused, scanning Sakura's blank expression. "Is something the matter?"
Sakura shook her head. "I'm sorry, Shishou. I'm just tired."
Tsunade-sama raised a delicate eyebrow. "What happened?"
She didn't want to say it. If she asked, she was afraid she wouldn't like the answer. But Tsunade-sama held her gaze expectantly. "Kurokimi… what happened there?" Sakura ventured. "One of the villagers became hostile with me and said something about Konoha taking their sons and fathers. I didn't know what to say."
"I see," Tsunade-sama said and unlike Hiro-san, she sounded like she knew exactly what she was seeing. One of her hands reached up to play with her necklace—a recent habit. Or perhaps, Sakura realized belatedly, an old one. "The First War," Tsunade-sama continued, "cost Konoha many lives. There weren't enough of us. We were losing."
Sakura began to feel sick but morbid curiosity kept her eyes fixed on the Hokage's face. "Then? What happened?" she asked.
"There was an initiative that the Nidaime took to the Daimyo. 'By decree of Sanada Joichiro, Konohagakure may call upon the aid of civilians in times of crisis to defend home and country,'" Tsunade-sama recited from memory. "It wasn't a popular decision, but it helped turn the tides of war. And then during the Second War, we needed more."
"What happened to those people?" Sakura asked. But she already knew the answer in the ice forming inside her stomach.
Tsunade-sama sighed. "Many of them never made it home, Sakura." She rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly. "We couldn't save them."
It became something of a secret obsession. Kurokimi was small enough that it was only mentioned a handful of times as a farming village that specialized in growing grapes. On her maps, Kurokimi was a tiny dot eclipsed by the triangle that symbolized Akadake.
Sakura's arm made a sweeping gesture in imitation of the farmers she'd watched. The ground responded by parting in a straight line. It was thin and shallow, but it was a start. By the start of summer, she was able to create fissures and split boulders apart with nothing but her chakra.
One day, nostalgia and restlessness prompted her to return to the academy where she sat in the swing once occupied by Naruto. It had always been the spot where the unpopular, friendless children played by themselves. She'd never sat in it, but saw that it provided a cruel view of the playground where the rest of the children would juggle and spar and practice gymnastics. How many times had Naruto watched them play, unnoticed?
By chance, she wandered into the empty classrooms and ran her finger across the spines of old yearbooks left behind. Her finger paused on an old faded set from the beginning of the Second War. These books were considerably thicker and she saw why—the student body was several times larger than her own graduating class. And it was there in that dusty classroom, surrounded by open books, that Sakura found the picture of a young boy with startling blue eyes named Nakahara Ichiro. There was no mistaking the small, delicate features he'd received from his mother.
She wasn't surprised, but she was quietly horrified when she couldn't find his name nor any of the others on the Memorial Stone. She had started wondering if the stone was so small because Konoha's heroes were defiant of death or because Konoha lacked heroes. Now she knew. The village didn't consider all of its sacrifices to be heroic.
She made her second trek up Akadake without a guide this time, wearing a sensible yukata she'd borrowed from her mother. Without Hiro-san there to distract her, she took careful notes on every type of insect, bird, plant life she saw. But all of this just convinced her more that the mountain had nothing of interest to offer and perhaps all of this was some elaborate scheme to keep Sakura occupied with a C-rank while Kakashi-sensei was away.
Still, there was something off about the place that made her unable to enjoy what should have been a refreshing hike. She clenched a kunai hidden under her sleeve and tried her best not to twitch at every sound like some terrified rabbit. It had to be simple paranoia.
By the time she made it to the peak, her yukata clung uncomfortably to the small of her back and her clammy hands trembled minutely when she tied up the sweaty hair stuck to her neck. The feeling was even worse up here. For good measure, she pushed chakra through her feet into the ground and let it pool out to see if she could sense anything. But there was nothing. It hadn't been a good idea—expending that much chakra—and she gasped from the effort as she took in the panoramic sight of the lake within the volcanic crater.
Truly, there was nothing. But she climbed back down as quickly as she could as if something was chasing her from the shadows.
It was humiliating. There she was—apprentice to the Hokage and the greatest healer in history, student of the infamous Copy Ninja—unable to stand and supporting herself against a tree because she was scared of something as innocuous as a mountain. Pathetic. Sakura squeezed her eyes shut and slammed a fist against the tree.
For a brief, terrifying moment, she wanted to cry so much that it was only her teeth biting sharply into her tongue that kept the tears and the whimpering breaths at bay. It was all so, so hopeless, this game of charades that she was playing, pretending to be a ninja when she couldn't even take a hike without falling apart.
In her mind's eye, she could see Sasuke turning to her. Scaredy-cat, he said, sneering at her not Naruto. Coward. That time, she'd been so relieved and surprised that she wasn't dead. And then that entire god awful mission had ended and she still wasn't dead. And then they'd met Orochimaru and she'd wanted to kill herself to escape the misery of her heart beating so fast that it was murdering her from inside out. But still, she wasn't dead, even now.
Scaredy-cat. Coward. She couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand that terribly satisfied expression on his face. She slammed her fist again on the tree. And this time, it groaned before falling behind her.
Something like wrath, something like sorrow drove her into the heart of Kurokimi where the women were working over tiny leaves and vines crawling over the ground. No one looked up, but she'd been expecting that.
Sakura found the woman with the grey hair and the blue eyes bent over a budding flower. "I'm sorry," Sakura said, thrusting the page she'd ripped from the yearbook at her and falling into a deep bow.
She let it go when she felt someone pulling.
"Kunoichi—"
"—I am a shinobi," Sakura interrupted firmly. "My name is Sakura."