DISCLAIMER: Naruto is property of Masashi Kishimoto

EDITED: 08/02/2021

The Leaves of the Tree

4.

Today was a special day.

A year ago was the last graduation ceremony at the academy and a new generation of genin were welcomed into Konoha's forces. A year ago, Team 7 was formed.

Naruto was on his best behaviour the whole day. Sasuke hadn't even glared at anything so far, either. Even Kakashi-sensei was only an hour late. And yet, even though today's training started over five hours ago, the last member of Team 7 was nowhere to be found.

Had this happened a year ago, it wouldn't necessarily surprise anyone, or bother anyone. But the Haruno Sakura of today wasn't the same Haruno Sakura who'd graduated from the academy. Team 7's Sakura hadn't missed a single training session since the mission to wave, a month after they became a team. Nor was she ever this late.

"I don't get it," Naruto said with a frown from his spot atop Sasuke's feet. "She didn't show up to our morning run, either. Did something happen at home?"

"Who cares?" Sasuke grunted, as he attempted to balance on his hands and not drop his teammate. "Stop moving!"

"I ain't moving, you're moving!"

This was a new 'teamwork' exercise from the corrupt mind of their sensei. One team member would do a handstand. Another would balance atop the first's feet. The third was supposed to clasp hands with the second and balance at the very top of the human tower. It was uncomfortable. It was annoying. It was only possible through chakra control. It was the dumbest thing they've ever heard of. Kakashi-sensei still made them do it for forty minutes each day, and apparently they weren't exempt from it even if one teammate wasn't present.

"Less whining, more balancing," Kakashi-sensei drawled, from his usual spot under a tree, reading his regular porn.

"Y'know what, why don't we stand on you?!" Naruto yelled, just as Sasuke's arms gave way.

"Yeah," Sasuke agreed darkly and narrowed his eyes at Kakashi-sensei, who quickly closed his book and sat up straight. "You're part of the team, too, sensei."

"I'm your teacher," Kakashi-sensei said slowly, "a jonin. I don't need teamwork training."

"Get him, teme!"

"Hn."

Just as the two lunged for Kakashi-sensei, who immediately stood up and formed the first hand-sign for his favourite substitution jutsu, someone barged onto the training field.

It was Sakura.

Her hair was in complete disarray, hanging in clumps from a disorganized bun. Her familiar qipao dress was on backwards. She didn't have her weapon's pouch, and her forehead protector wasn't anywhere in sight, either. She looked pale, like she hadn't slept all night. There was an ink stain on her left cheek and what looked like a forming bruise right in the center of her forehead.

Naruto and Sasuke openly gaped at her, while Kakashi-sensei frowned.

"Naruto!" Sakura screeched, and he flinched immediately.

"Whatever it is I didn't do it, 'ttebayo! I've been here all day!"

"Come with me!" Sakura continued, hurriedly grabbed Naruto's left arm and began dragging him away. "I have to show you something!"

"Unless it's the meaning of life, it's no reason to bail in the middle of training," Kakashi-sensei drawled.

"The meaning of life is coffee!" Sakura yelled, "come on, Naruto! Move faster!"

Naruto could only comply. Sakura had his arm in a death grip, and he was worried she might rip it clean off. Seeing as she'd gotten much better in taijutsu lately, mostly thanks to Lee training with her at least once a week, it was a very real concern.

The two quickly disappeared from seeing and hearing range, leaving behind a mildly amused jonin and glaring teammate.

"Why's it the library again?!" Naruto protested.

Sakura hissed for him to shut up and promptly dragged the protesting blonde inside. She manhandled him through the shelves, all the way to the familiar table where they still occasionally read up on chakra control together. Mostly it was Sakura's spot though, as Naruto did not appreciate the library's 'creepiness'. Sakura shoved Naruto into one of the vacant seats and handed him a wrinkled, old mission report.

"I found this by accident," She said shakily and sat down, too. She spoke quietly and hesitantly, which made Naruto frown. "I was looking for scrolls about beginner's genjutsu. Y'know, since I'm a genjutsu type, and everything."

"Yeah, like Tenten said you should," Naruto drawled, thoroughly uninterested yet.

They'd met Lee's teammate Tenten at his birthday party months ago. It wasn't an immediate friendship between either of them: Tenten's parents were civilians. She heard enough about Naruto to be weary, and she wasn't sure what to make of the Haruno girl with pink hair. It's only after Tenten realised they were the two Lee joined for part of his morning run, that she'd significantly warmed up to them.

It was several weeks after this, that Tenten and Sakura started to hang out separately. Tenten was smart, older, and a girl, which immediately made her interesting in Sakura's eyes. She was also raised in a civilian household, and that was a rare thing to have in common in their chosen profession. Sakura introduced Tenten to Ino, and the three formed a little clique for occasionally hanging out on the weekends or their days off. Read: gossip, shop and gossip some more.

Tenten was the one who'd pointed out Sakura should actually bother with genjutsu, after Sakura mentioned offhandedly that she was labeled a genjutsu type by the academy's instructors. Ino backed Tenten up, and Sakura found herself curious enough to check out the idea. After all, Kakashi-sensei had used genjutsu to eliminate her during his stupid bell test. With her aptitude for the art, it shouldn't have been so easy to do. But the Sakura back then was completely useless. Now, she swore to never be.

"Yeah," Sakura nodded. "Anyway, just – just read the name at the bottom."

Naruto did.

Then he read it thrice more, put the report down to gape at Sakura, read it again and promptly pinched himself.

"Yeah," Sakura agreed. "I couldn't believe it, either."

'I still don't!' Inner Sakura squeaked, 'what does this even mean?!'

The report was a long, boring tale of an errand preformed at the capitol over a month some seventeen years previously. It detailed techniques Sakura didn't recognize and had no idea what they related to, as the writer didn't bother to do more than put down the names. And there were a lot of names, as well as some vague rambling, rude comments and mean judgements of the clients or general civilian populace. Those bits were pretty amusing. At the bottom of the scroll was signed a chunin kunoichi. Her name was what Sakura wanted Naruto to see.

Her name was Uzumaki Kushina.

Uzumaki, spelled the exact same way as Naruto's last name.

"I couldn't find anything else about her," Sakura told Naruto quietly. "I searched all night. Had to bribe the chunin on duty to let me stay. I couldn't find her in any other mission scroll from that entire year. It's why I was late, I wanted to know who she was – I wanted to be able to tell you, Naruto, but I don't know, I couldn't find anything –"

'You're rambling,' Inner Sakura pointed out sourly.

"Sakura-chan," Naruto cut her off and Sakura slowly looked up into his eyes.

They held the familiar determined sparkle, and a less familiar glow of… of hope.

"Let's find her!" Naruto exclaimed, "together we'll definitely find her! Believe it!"

"Believe it!" Sakura agreed.

'I don't believe shit,' Inner Sakura groused, but Sakura wasn't listening.

Naruto and she were already storming those old mission reports, dedicated to their new mission.

When two weeks of afternoon aggressive snooping yielded absolutely nothing, Sakura suggested extending their search into the weekend. In a completely uncharacteristic move that would probably never repeat itself, Naruto agreed. Not only did he cooperate, but he also spent more time and effort on it than Sakura. He reported to the library an hour before her, stayed there later than her during the week, and spent his whole weekend barricaded inside, too.

"No one's waiting for me at home, anyway," Naruto pointed out in a muffled voice, nearly buried beneath a stack of dusty paperwork. "Don't worry Sakura-chan, go home!"

Sakura went home, but she worried anyway. The next week, she apologized, canceled her plans with Ino and joined Naruto in the library for his entire stay. She didn't reschedule her plans. Sakura was so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of reports they had to get through, so incredibly pissed off they still hadn't found anything, that she'd become obsessed with succeeding. Nothing else interested her anymore. Her chakra control and genjutsu research was tossed aside unceremoniously and she'd stopped meeting up with Lee-san for the time being. The only reason Naruto and she didn't stop their morning training was because they knew if they entered the library, they won't come out until it closes.

Which, inevitably, would mean them missing out team training and work.

Which would annoy Sasuke who would bitch about it, aggressively and moodily as he was won't to do, and that in turn would eventually register with Kakashi-sensei.

The last time Kakashi-sensei noticed them doing anything out of the ordinary – that is, attending Lee's birthday party – he looked like he might have a heart attack and disappeared on them for four days. When he returned he held his team at an arms length, as if he were re-evaluating them. After that he came up with extra special team bonding time exercises, and they never, ever, wanted to go through that again, so since that happened Sakura had made a conscious decision to avoid surprising her sensei in any way, unless absolutely impossible.

As it stood, Sakura and Naruto were beginning weekend four of their research frenzy and they fully expected to come up with nothing, again, but were determined to carry on.

Only, Ino 'Pig' Yamanaka had enough of being stood up.

"What the fuck?!" Ino hissed.

Her abrupt, but relatively quiet outrage, they were in the library after all, scared Sakura enough to drop the report she's been reading, and Naruto actually jumped up in surprise. Outside the two of them and the shinobi on duty, the entire building was absolutely deserted.

Before their conquered table stood a fuming Ino, hands on her hips and eyes practically bulging. Shikamaru stood to her right, looking bored out of his mind. Choji was to her left, visibly uncomfortable. It was clear neither boy came willingly, but neither was brave enough to refuse Ino when she demanded backup. A logically sound decision, as Ino would have them by the balls if they refused – she had dirty and blackmail in form of embarrassing baby pictures to enslave both boys well into their adulthood.

"You ditched me for a month to read some stinking tome?!" Ino's voice gradually rose in volume, "are you kidding me, forehead?"

"Would you shut up?" Sakura growled and waved at the shinobi behind the front desk, who briefly straightened from his nap to glare at them disapprovingly. "My head hurts. And for your information, I'm not reading a tome. I'm researching."

"It's the same thing!"

"Oh, my god, Pig!" Sakura huffed, "it's really important, okay?"

"Yeah, it really is, 'ttebayo," Naruto agreed seriously.

Shikamaru and Choji gaped at his unusual behaviour. Ino brushed it aside.

"What the hell is more important than your best friend, Sakura?"

"I found another Uzumaki."

That shut Ino up. It also earned Shikamaru's complete attention and Choji's focus, too.

"Sakura-chan found this," Naruto shoved the original report into Ino's hands and then promptly buried his nose back in the one he was currently reading. "Look at the signature."

"Uzumaki Kushina?" Ino read aloud. "I've never heard that name."

"You don't know all shinobi in the village, Ino," Sakura pointed out.

"No, Sakura, I mean I never, ever, heard that name," Ino emphasized, "not even during… training."

Ah.

'That means she's probably dead,' Inner Sakura surmised. 'If Ino never heard about her from Mr. Yamanaka when he's training her in their freaky jutsu.'

'I'm not telling Naruto that!'

'Duh!' Inner Sakura huffed, 'no way, it'll break him. Better find something, anything, first.'

"We have to find something more, Ino," Sakura said quietly and glanced at Naruto's crouched back. "I have to."

Ino frowned and stuck out her bottom lip in a stubborn pout, that meant she strongly disagreed with Sakura putting Naruto in a bubble.

"We'll help," Choji said firmly and Ino's frown deepened.

"Yeah," Shikamaru agreed.

Ino turned to yell at them, but both boys leveled her with a flat glare and then looked pointedly at Naruto. Ino waved her arms in frustration, dragged a chair over and seized a file from Sakura's little mount of materials, all without saying a single thing. Team 10 was clearly on a whole other level of communication.

"Thank you," Sakura whispered.

"Yeah, yeah," Ino grumbled and then smiled slightly. "Don't mention it."

Even with Team 10's help, it took them another full three weeks of relentless digging to find anything at all.

When they did, it was completely by accident.

Choji had gotten bored with the mission reports and, after he proclaimed his eyes needed a break for fear of melting and promptly rolled off to poke at some other aisles, he discovered there were several shelves dedicated to academy graduation documentation. Choji immediately looked their booklet up, grabbed a full shelf's contents, and brought it over.

"Eh, Sakura, I didn't know you got number one in all the written exams!" Choji exclaimed. "And Ino, you're third?!"

"What's with that tone of disbelief, eh, Choji?!" Ino growled.

"Sakura-chan's really smart, dattebayo!" Naruto said proudly. "And she's got super great chakra control! And she can pack a punch, now, too!"

"Waddaya mean now, you brat?" Sakura hissed playfully.

"Eh, Sakura-chan, I'm joking! Joking!"

"Oi, they even have Asuma-sensei's records!" Choji exclaimed. "He's ancient."

"No way!" Ino squealed. "How'd he do?"

"Best in his year, obviously," Shikamaru drawled. He'd moved over to read the little booklet in Choji's hands. "Boring. Oi, Sakura, Naruto. Your teacher's Asuma-sensei's age, right?"

"I think so, why?" Sakura wondered.

"He's not in his graduating class."

"What?" Naruto blinked, "what, did he graduate late? I bet he was an idiot!"

Choji rummaged in the pile and shelved through some booklets for a few seconds before gasping.

"What idiot?" he whistled, "man, your sensei graduated when he was six. He apprenticed with the Yondaime Hokage from that age!"

"He really is a genius?" Shikamaru snorted. "Called it."

"No way!" Naruto yelped. "Let me see!"

The distraction was welcome after their string of failures, so Sakura indulged without whining. They looked up any other high-ranking ninja they knew. Lee's teacher, Might Guy, graduated with Asuma-sensei, the second in their year which was totally unexpected. Team 8's teacher, Kurenai Yuuhi, graduated three years later, fifth in her year. She was the only one alive now from that graduating class. The only one to make jonin. Kakashi-sensei really was a prodigy and Naruto swore to high heavens he was going to figure out what the hell happened to him. Sakura believed him, but she still bet Naruto a full course Ichiraku treat that he'll never get the information, because Kakashi-sensei was impossible to crack. They were looking up their parents now, those who were shinobi at least, mostly to compare themselves to the nagging generation.

That's when Choji yelped, loudly.

"I found her! I found her!" he waved a barley touched booklet in the air excitedly and brough it over to their table, quickly opened it to the necessary page and pointed a chubby finger at the name. "Here! Uzumaki Kushina, transferred from Uzushiogakure. Graduated third in her year."

"Move!"

Immediately the remaining four began to scuffle over the booklet, each determined to see it for themselves. Sakura won, purely because Naruto was too stunned to really participate, and she played dirty.

The girl wasn't twelve, there was no way. She looked to be eight, maybe ten if Sakura stretched it. Then again, this was dated a little before the Second Shinobi World War. Genin graduated quickly back then. Uzumaki Kushina had deep red hair, a round face and dark eyes. She was possibly the cutest girl her age Sakura had seen, other than Ino. Very pretty. And her smile – bright, energetic and openly mischievous – Sakura knew this smile.

This smile greeted her every morning for over a year, now.

It's been directed at her since she began the academy aged five.

It was Naruto's smile, sans whiskers.

"Holly Shodaime," Ino whispered from behind Sakura, and she knew her friend noticed the resemblance too.

"Here, Naruto," Sakura handed Naruto the booklet and turned to look at Ino.

Ino's eyes were wide, but serious at the same time.

'We have to find her,' Inner Sakura demanded.

"We have to," Sakura mouthed soundlessly.

Ino nodded shakily.

This girl, this Uzumaki Kushina, she was without doubt related to Naruto. She was old enough to be his aunt, his mother, even an older cousin. If they went completely wild, maybe his older sister. But they were without doubt related. The two shared a face, exactly the same but in different colors. Sakura had to figure out their connection.

"What's Uzushiogakure?" Naruto asked.

"There's no such thing," Sakura deadpanned without thinking.

"No, it says right here that Uzumaki Kushina transferred from Uzushiogakure," Shikamaru said. "This was before the second war, right? So maybe back then there was an Uzushiogakure."

'And the Uzumaki were from there' went unsaid.

Sakura would've kissed Shikamaru for connecting these dots, if it weren't for the incredible gross factor – she'd known him since she was three – and of course, her love for Sasuke.

"We need to find it," Shikamaru decided.

Nobody protested.

Their research abruptly gained an extra goal.