2. In the middle of rewriting, imagine my surprise to receive a review! Goodness, if only you had come by an hour later :') I would have the fruit of five years of extra writing to show you.
So Dear Banks, (Guest who reviewed on the first chapter on the 27th of April 2020), thank you very much for coming by! And indeed, I hope the later chapters answer your question. The answer is as infuriatingly possible, "sometimes" and "depends".
It's 1 in the morning when she begins trying to understand. After several rounds of experimentation, she accepts that they obey the Law of Conservation.
No matter how far she makes them extend, a specific chain weighs the same. Weight, that is, in feeling. They can weigh anything and nothing on the analogue weighing scale she found under the couch.
She concentrates hard, but then the chains don't budge. Not until she directs them with her hand, but is that a problem of her waning concentration, or a true need for hand direction?
So Sakura talks. "Bring me the pen, please." If anyone was watching, they would have thought her mad.
But if anyone was watching, they would also have seen all the chains converge on the pen like a metal beast. Which in this case, is what they are – blue and glowing metal constructs.
Seemingly sentient, it deposited the pen before her, that is, so it dropped to the floor. She bends down, reaching to pick up the fallen pen, only for all the chains to arch towards the pen as well.
Frowning, Sakura goes through with the action and holds onto the pen, tighter than she should, half out of concern that the chains would reach the pen before her.
Walking over to her table, the chains drag along the floorboards. I wish they wouldn't make so much noise. And just as she thought, the chains complied, floating a couple of inches off the floor.
Her hand reaches out to pull out her chair, and once again, the chains shoot out, wrapping around the top rail, dragging it. The screech of the chair against the wooden floor is jarring in the quiet of the night.
She winces, and the chains sense this, somehow. Lift, don't drag. But thank you anyway, I can pull out my own chair. The chains obey this and don't pull out the chair, retreating to their floating position.
Under the light of her lamp, she reaches out, tracing the wood grain pattern, only to realise there are cracks in it. Her fingers don't remember such cracks on the chair, and her chains seem to be the only explanation. How strong you are.
Could you lift the chair, gently? The chains almost seem to project confusion onto her, so she places her hands in front of her.
Her chains follow suit, elongating. She joins her palms, as if in a cupping motion, and the chains attempt to wiggle underneath her chair, forming a slightly deformed well shape, just like her palm.
How did you all pick up the pen just now, then?
A mental image forms in her mind, her hands attempt to mimic it. Right hand forward, fingers pretending to grasp onto something, left hand making a gentle, circling motion.
A few chains hook onto the top rail, and the other chains wrap themselves around the seat.
She feels a bead of sweat slide down the side of her face as she tells the chains to stay where they are. Cautiously, she relaxes her arms bit by bit, before raising them both.
The chair moves, the chains shaking, vibrating vigorously, but nonetheless it lifts.
Just a centimetre, then another, then another.
She feels light-headed, and in her momentary lapse of concentration, the chair falls back to the ground, her chains retracting like a stretched rubber band.
Staggering over, she lifts the chair with her own hands, and it releases all the mental strain on her mind, that thought that she couldn't even lift a chair. How ludicrous.
Yeah. I think, for now, I'll stick to doing things myself.
There's a brief pause as she flops onto her bed face down. But thank you anyway, for helping me.
Sakura regains her breath, and then rolls over, looking up at the blank ceiling.
She can feel the cold imprints of the chains pressing into her back, but it's not as uncomfortable as she would expect. Cold then warm.
"What are you, anyway? Where did you come from?" In the quiet of the room, the words are reflected back at her. The chains feel, but do not speak to her. She supposes that is to be expected.
She can't throw Descartes at them and ask them to animate themselves.
"What am I? Where did I come from?" She calls forth all her chains, and inspects the words on them.
Chakra – which is an odd thing. A kind of energy that truly exists in the world, allowing people to stick to walls and generate electricity which powers her lamp.
Knowledge – which is power, a simple enough thing to understand.
Life – which was white in colour yesterday but turned to the normal blue.
Death – black turned blue.
Then the name chains, all of them. "Still, what do all of these things have in common?" The chains bring no answer, except in their existence. A curious thought.
They have names of people I know… People I guess I would want to save.
I have chakra, and some knowledge. I'm alive, and I know what death is.
Still, what do these have in common? They are a part of me?
No…the people are not. But my care for them, that is a portion of me.
My care…
What's the word?
Responsibility?
Yes, that's right, the responsibility I feel towards them. And more than that, the burden of this responsibility I have chosen to shoulder.
That weight of being. What a time to be alive.
At 4, Sakura is still awake. A trait, now that she muses, that she has retained from the life she lived the day before yesterday. Maybe she slept between then and 4, but it certainly never feels like it. Her eyes plastered open and tired but unable to close.
Or perhaps a bit longer ago. She can't remember and can't know for 'sure'.
Sakura remembers night shifts though, and the emergencies that came in the dead of night.
After a few months, she slept light, and wandered the hospital halls, ears keen for any sound of distress.
Yuurei, they called her. It was her name, her identity as much as it was her personality.
A ghost wanders the hall at night, they would whisper. Don't worry, because the ghost is a nice ghost, she's here to help, so she laughed. Laughed and embraced that joke, because she was.
She summons her chains again, and a new one has been formed.
Sleep. How ironic. The chains are taunting her. Running her hand along the new chain, she feels it emanating warmth, and she could…could almost fall asleep.
"-sama! Yuurei-sama! Wake up, please wake up! It's an emergency!"
Sakura jerks awake, her head off the desk, and her right-hand lurches scrabbling for her spectacles, orders on her lips, and then- she stops.
Because she wasn't sleeping on a desk, and she didn't wear spectacles. Is it a relief?
No, not anymore. Maybe none of this is, but it is certainly no dream. Not even a waking nightmare. Simply another life. Another day alive.
She rubs her eyes blearily, facing away from the window.
Through a tiny gap in the curtains, a stream of bright, too bright, too raw, sunlight streams through.
Hazily, she remembers that she was supposed to go to the Hokage's Office at 10. A glance at her clock tells her that it's already 9.
Normally, by this time, I would be in the Doctor's lounge, nursing my cup of tea, enjoying my break.
As quick at the thought strikes her, she discards it. Perhaps some other day. This world is…different.
Imagine, ninja. That is, critical wounds, knives, swords and lots of blood. Please… no guns…
By extension, death. Here…I am no Doctor. Et in arcadia ego.
"But I will be. Sooner rather than later, I must regain my skills in the medical sector." How different would it be?
She had 4 years of experience treating in the ICU under her belt and too many deaths. Notches of dishonour on her belt.
Surely it would be worth something here. How different could it be? At the very least, if they had some magic spell for healing, she still had her knowledge of human anatomy.
These thoughts, she files aside, rummaging through her closet, taking out another set of the same thing. Changing quickly, she scowls when some of her hair gets caught in the zip of her dress.
Unsuccessfully, she attempts to tug it out, and her hands open up a drawer, withdrawing a scissors.
She doesn't visualise, or think, but somehow the chains know.
They wield the scissors like a blade, with practised ease, a harsh deviation from their clumsiness with the chair in the early morning.
"Hand me the scalpel." "He's been anaesthetised, won't feel a thing." "Yes, that's right. Clean, precise incisions."
"Now, carefully…" Snip, snip, snip. "Well, that's that. Now we've got to sew him back up, and then he'll be good to go. We've got it out, so he won't be in anymore pain."
Her pink locks of hair fall to the floor.
"Now we have to clean up. Hand me the sterile wipes please." "Do you know how to scrub down?"
She sweeps, not knowing where the broom and dustpan came from, only that her body knows.
Her hand drifts upwards, feeling the prickly edge of just cut hair. At that moment she knew.
Those chains were her. They represented the body that used to be her, Yuurei. That was why...that was why the chains were so compliant, so familiar.
Because they composed the body she still somewhat had. Her mind...her mind was in the wrong body. And now, she was Sakura too.
Her chains grew heavier. It will take more time for her chains to learn again. To re-learn what it means to be alive.
For Sakura to be at one with the thing they call chakra, humming in her veins and solidified into the ghost she carries around.
I know. / I accept. / I adapt.
It's 10 in the morning when Sakura realises what the chains on her back are. She's late.
Edited 27 April 2020. Originally posted sometime in 2015.
Thanks again for reading and do leave a review!
Yours,
Kayo.
