Another long chapter. I think I will content myself with writing angst interspersed by fluff.
Year 3
14th March – Year End
Closing and Open Endedness
The reply comes faster than she expects.
Those are urgent knocks on her door, and she can feel the person.
Trembling, anticipating, desperate.
She walks over, unhurried, opening the door.
And the male falls at her feet.
Considering he was an adult, and she was a puny little child, the sight must have been and awkward one.
From his hidden point, she can feel Izumo radiating incomprehension.
Nowadays, the feelings are more specific.
She feels what she who she wants to feel.
But she's not sure if said feelings are accurate.
She crouches down, tiny hand gently holding onto his shoulder.
"Mister, are you okay?"
The face looks up, and she's struck by the sheer gratefulness in his eyes.
He furiously rubs away his tears, trying not to show weakness.
"I-I-I was told you could heal my Tenkawa-hime. She's the lady whom you healed earlier today, I'm willing to pay anything and everything for you to continue the treatment, so please…"
Sakura has never been good with dealing with emotional people, but she doesn't fancy herself a bleeding heart.
"Has the Hospital Director agreed to my demands? I have set out terms for the lady suffering from nerve damage."
He nods repeatedly, "Yes! A thousand times over, even our Raikage has cleared it!"
She nods calmly, "Then I will proceed."
Tenkawa…
He carries her on his back, moving so fast across the building tops that the wind howls.
"Who are you though, Mister? How are you related to Tenkawa-san?"
The moving appears to be a subconscious thing, because he apologises for being thoughtless.
"I'm Kurotaki Suzuraiden, Tenkawa is, well, was, and soon she'll go back to being my teammate. We're both Chunin, and we're a duet. I found Tenkawa-chan a couple years back. She was really weak, and nearly collapsed at the gates. She…"
He trails off, sounding fond.
"Do you love Tenkawa-san?"
He suddenly feels so warm, so happy, and it's infectious.
"I do. With all my heart."
Kurotaki-san comes to a stop just outside the hospital, where the Chief Medic meets them.
They're ushered in quickly, and she finds the entire room cleared and prepped for her to work in.
"Will you allow people to be in the room as the patient, Lady Haruno?"
She looks at her patient, then back at Kurotaki-san. There's something fond in the lady's eyes, when she looks at Kurotaki-san, and Sakura has no doubt that there's some form of love that is reciprocated.
But she shakes her head.
"I don't wish to risk the patient reacting to other stimulus that could overload the nerves."
When she works on the first arm, she takes great care, trying to get a feel of which were nerves, which were gaps, and which should be left untouched.
Her chains thin, sinking into skin, almost fluid like chakra, but solid like thin thread.
And gently, they glow green, coaxing nerves together.
Nerves are fragile, tiny, sensitive things.
As many as she create, almost as many her chakra destroys.
She tries to make it mirror the branching in her nerves, but the process is slow going.
Because there aren't any nerves, the lady can't tell her if the connecting process hurts, or if it simply feels wrong.
She's uncertain of it herself, so she creates as few as possible, preferring to mend the original structure.
But as her chakra travels deeper, she can almost see the damage done to Tenkawa-san's neural pathways.
On occasion, her chakra bumps into a chakra point, and she connects those too.
The flow is erratic, but present.
It aids her, flowing, healing, bringing the system back to life.
And with time, she immerses herself in her work, weaving, sealing, joining, linking.
She doesn't watch her chakra levels, rather, once the lady's chakra system has a far enough reach, she uses hers.
As the host, there's minimal resistance to chakra of her own making, Sakura only provides directions.
It's a study of a ninja's body's resilience.
In fact, of human cell building capabilities.
Could brain cells be renewed too?
"Tenkawa-san, right?"
She continues to guide the chakra around the entire circuit.
"Yes, that's me. I really can't thank you enough for doing this for me."
She smiles, "Your village is compensating me."
There's a few blips, and she delves in to find their source.
"I know. Is there any way you would like me to compensate you? Any way I can? I'm not rich, but I have some-"
Sakura gently cuts the lady off, "Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your life, about the people around you."
The lady seems to mull it over, before beginning.
"I grew up in Fire Country. Near Konoha, where I've been told you're from."
She makes a sound of surprise.
"I came to Lightning Country around 5 or 6 years back. I sought refuge in Cloud."
She evens out a chakra blob.
"But why Cloud? Isn't it pretty far?"
The lady shakes her head, "I'd been on the run for a while. My family was being exterminated for some family grudge."
She directs the lady to try clenching her fist, "Do you have any family left?"
She shakes her head, "To me, they're all dead."
There's sudden wave of sadness in her heart.
She doesn't know why.
"Then there are some alive?"
The lady's eyes are dead, almost.
"It's been years. I was married. I think we had a son. All these memories, from the before, they're all foggy now."
She helps the lady swing her legs over the edge of the bed.
"But if they were, would you go back to them?"
She taps the lady, just beneath her knee cap, and it jerks.
"I don't think I would. They're probably forgotten me too. They've probably moved on. His family always struck me as that. Apathetic."
Sakura goes about testing all the other motor functions.
"What about you and Kurotaki-san?"
A smile finds its way onto her face.
"Kuro? He's my precious person."
She smiles.
"One last question."
Tenkawa-san looks at her.
"Were you being completely truthful about everything you said?"
"Do you love Kurotaki-san?"
The lovely, dark haired lady smiled.
She nodded.
She emerges from the room, triumph, and her heart warm with happy emotions.
Kurotaki-san rushes past her, nearly bowling her over, nearly yelling his thanks.
The Chief Medic bows deeply, formally thanking her on the behalf of their village.
"As agreed."
He hands her the plastic container.
It's heavy.
She gives him her thanks, that it was a pleasure doing business with him.
And as she walks back to their temporary housing, she can tell Izumo is burning with curiosity.
Such questions she has no wish to answer.
So she asks her own.
"Where are Kotetsu-san and Aoba-san? Are they around us?"
His strides are larger than hers, he tires less quickly than her.
"Aoba is in our blindspot. Ko's clearing the path ahead for us."
"Are we in such danger?"
He shrugs.
"It's in your protection detail, Lady Sakura."
True enough, Kotetsu-san reclines by the door, under the shade of the overhanging roof.
She unlocks the door, and they simply stand there.
It's as if there's something she wants to say.
Wants to ask.
She stands there, back facing them, mind racing many miles a minute.
"Will you all be accompanying me for the meeting tomorrow?"
It seems like a no-brainer, as if she was asking a redundant question.
To her, it seems that way too.
Why is she asking it?
"It is our main job coming here. Every other delegate will have some form of guard."
Sakura doesn't turn to face them, and one hand is already on the door.
"Then what we discuss during the meeting, will you hear?"
Why does she ask?
"Only if you let us, Lady Sakura."
Oh, how compliant they sound.
"Will you insist on being present?"
"We will act only on behalf of your well-being."
She laughs.
Not out loud, just softly, as she has always done.
"Rest well tonight, Izumo-san."
And she closes that door.
The box of Hinata's uncle's remains sit on her table.
Sakura's glad that the box is made of opaque plastic.
But it's heavier than she expected.
Weren't ashes supposed to be easily scattered into the wind?
The box isn't that big.
Even if ashes were packed and compressed within it, she would never have expected it to weigh so much.
Oh my, her perception of ashes were so bland.
Yuurei has seen much death.
She's seen what comes after.
Sakura is different.
Somehow…
She takes the lid off the container, and the sight is…well, not what she expected.
When you think of ashes, you think of it as tiny flakes, light, easily carried by the wind.
At least, that was how she thought of it.
There were bones.
Fragments, broken bits, distinctive parts that she identified by theory.
Hip bone.
Finger bone.
It was like he was looking out of that box, at her.
A partially intact piece of the skull, a hole to where the eye would have been.
Possibly, it was the socket of the eye that had been dug out.
Her hand raises itself, but she stops, stopping short of the collection of bones.
A neatly broken bone, femur, shows that the marrow was burnt off clean.
And despite that, it's heavy.
She closes the container.
According to her estimations, an urn roughly the dimensions of 20 by 20 by 30 centimetres would be needed to contain everything in that box respectfully.
She had no wish to break anymore bones.
What was she doing?
She didn't want to touch someone else's remains.
What was she doing?
Arrangement should be done by the deceased relatives.
She turns away from the small store with pottery on display.
Kotetsu-san dutifully follows her.
She walks forward, no particular destination in mind.
"Is Izumo-san resting like I bid him do?"
He gives me a non-committal hum, and she pulses for him using his chain.
He's in front of us.
"The night has yet to fall, my lady."
Sakura sighs.
As if knowing her thoughts, the streetscape of Kumo produces for her a pastry stand.
She walks towards it.
"Have you all had dinner yet?"
His hand subconsciously goes to his back pouch.
"Aoba is having his now, Izumo and I will eat later."
She waves the store attendant over, buying Hinata's cinnamon roll and a sausage bun for her dinner.
The attendant hands her change and her buns, in separate paper bags.
As she keeps her change, she takes out the preservation seal, wrinkled but functional, applying it to the paper bag with the roll.
Sakura would like to believe something trivial as that would not be reported.
She hasn't much faith in that.
Suzuraiden Shirai thinks of himself as a fairly educated person.
He expects much of tiny Haruno Sakura.
Now, when Yumina comes home from the hospital, chattering about how happy her cousin, (His cousin a couple branches away, he thinks.), is, he doesn't expect the reason to be that the long term occupant of Ward 15-03 was released and deemed fit for active duty.
"That woman who was completely paralyzed was deemed fit for active duty?"
He much less expects the miraculous doctor to be the Haruno child.
But it is.
Now, Shirai is an educated businessman.
That would save his clan a great deal of money for the years to come.
As a blood relative, he should owe the doctor in terms of emotion.
As a businessman, he owes the doctor a debt of profit.
But it makes him interested, to see how Sakura benefitted from it.
What did that girl think she was doing?
When he's told that she claimed the ashes of the Hyuga in exchange for it, he's naturally suspicious.
She healed the woman, Tenkawa using delicate medical techniques.
She was training to be a ninja.
She claimed neutrality as a business person.
Shirai would openly scoff at that.
Their Merchant Guild, as much as it was unbiased, was biased, and was built upon that knowledge.
That to safe guard the interests of themselves, they would betray no other.
A merry-go-round of doubt and mistrust, that is what leads them to work with each other.
They have no choice.
Fumiyo Kira is a simple trader.
He prizes his country's abstinence to war.
It's only natural, that he frowns at the thought of the leader of their guild being a ninja.
A child at that.
His distaste of ninja, and of their processing of child soldiers, it shows.
"I stepped down as our leader, remember? I re-established our guild immediately after power."
"But why did you do so, Lady Haruno?"
He is of a samurai family.
Loyalty runs deep in his veins.
She makes eye contact with everyone in the room.
"Surely, if any one of you all were to become head, your affiliated village would insist that they run the guild?"
It's a tinge of humour in her voice.
The room erupts in shock.
Amachi Dayui is outraged at the thought of such a thing happening.
But before he runs off his mouth, Chiyako places her hand over his.
He contents himself with scowling, eyes tight.
Chiyako speaks on behalf of everyone.
"I wish to assure you, Lady Haruno, that under the terms of our treaty, none of our villages would do so. They would at least have such a measure of honour. Certainly, you, hailing from Konoha may have heard horror stories of other villages, however, you have mightily insulted us in our personal capacities."
Dayui smirks at the even tone by which his wife delivers a reprimand.
Ah, the Haruno is just a prejudiced child.
He relishes the sound of silence, after such a verbal smack down.
But he doesn't expect it to be broken by laughter.
His beautiful, perfect wife recovers quickly from the shock, simply watching as the Haruno girl laughs, trying to muffle her laughs and failing.
"Is anything I have said false, my lady?"
If anything, it evokes more laughter.
Then, the voice is dead serious.
"Are you trying to affirm that Konoha is the most peace loving, most honourable village?"
With assent from the rest of the clan leaders they all nod.
She looks amused.
"Then I must be the only one who's disillusioned with my own village."
Tsubaki Hiren is from the Bloody Mist.
He's seen years of blood and purges, and he's lucky to be alive.
He would like to think that he holds no illusions of how cruel his village can be.
But he can think of few faults Konoha has.
"I've just realised, I only needed to send out my own guards. There was no need for me to have requested you all leave your guards outside. Everyone thinks of their village. Thinks with their village. Thinks for their village."
There's still his patriotic flame that glows within him.
He wants to see their village become strong, prosperous once more.
Because of this, he nods, urging the Haruno head to go on.
"Am I the only who's guards will go back, and report to their leader exactly what I did?"
She's sowing doubt.
Because it's true.
Some shake their heads.
"Am I the only who knows that if I displease my leader somehow, I could be replaced?"
There's dread pooling in his gut.
She's bringing his fears to life, and he worries about his family back home.
Wonders if they're okay.
"Are you all aware of who my legal proxy is in Konoha? Aware of who my heir is, and what would happen if I hadn't relinquished my headship, and they had me removed?"
Suna is a close ally of Konoha.
It's only natural that the clan of that village would know the clearest.
"Nara Shikaku, and his son, Nara Shikamaru. It would have resulted in our legal takeover, and our organisation would have been infiltrated by spies and bugs to the content of Konoha."
Dokuran Ensui lays out the facts, words as unforgiving as a desert's night.
"What Lady Haruno is trying to tell us is that we're all being used. We're all puppets of our own villages."
"Mostly, what I want is to keep us as unbiased as possible, to keep each other safe from each other, and from your village. That is what I want our core value to be. I don't want a leader, in case somewhere along the road someone turns into a puppet. Everyone must check each other. I'm trying to create a system of false trust-mistrust."
Her eyes are hard, unflinching, and Ensui is pleasantly surprised by her lack of naivety.
The sand has made him a hard person, clinging to life does that.
The door flies open, and everyone reacts.
Lady Haruno the quickest.
He senses streams of chakra, like the puppet brigade's chakra threads, shooting out from her, binding around the male.
He's taken aback by the control she has over the chakra constructs.
She relinquishes her grip, because it's one of her guards that she has in her grasp.
He gasps for air.
And in that moment, all the clan heads feel like that man, spared simply because.
"My lady, Suzuraiden-san was brought back to the hospital in critical condition!"
Shirai shoots out his seat, begging our pardon, excusing himself.
That pink haired child looks at her ninja on the floor.
She bends, to help him up.
As they glow green, her constructs are visible, they're chains.
She seems to heal him, and he appears to breathe easier.
But her voice, it scares him.
"I see. And they want me to work on him?"
That ninja must struggle not to gape.
Despite being a medic, such a thought fails to evoke even the slightest urgency.
"May I?"
The ninja asks politely, and she bothers to turn to them, apologising for her abrupt departure.
They try to hurry her.
Her guard merely picks her up and flash steps off.
At the end of everything, as they were returning to Konoha, Sakura reflects on her actions.
Kurotaki-san died.
He wanted to.
She obliged, taking away the pain.
"My Tenkawa is gone, oh Sakura, she had only begun to live and she died! I can't live without her, it hurts, please just stop the pain!"
Sakura hates enjoying the times spent with people she can't get close and be close to.
It hurts.
She hates it so. So they had no chain, and she didn't know they were hurt that bad.
It hurts when it leaves a big black hole in her heart where happiness should be.
She can't forget the warmth within their smiles, the thankfulness in their eyes when Tenkawa-san could move, the pure love they had for each other.
And because of that, she's as much of a coward as she is apathetic.
She doesn't stay for the funeral.
Not for Kurotaki-san whom she killed.
Not for Tenkawa-san who couldn't even be buried.
In hindsight, the entire tragedy was her fault.
If she had never healed Tenkawa-san, she wouldn't have been out for any kind of mission.
If Tenkawa-san had never gone, Kurotaki-san would have a reason to live no matter what.
Yeah.
No matter how many angles she looks at it, they died because of her.
The journey back takes that kind of note.
Her guards don't press, respecting her wish for distance.
They pass the gates with minimal fuss.
She has minor merchants on hand to deal with all of the items she brought back.
She gives her ninja their final lump sum, and they all head towards the Hokage Tower.
It's a Sunday.
She has one day to get herself in order before returning to school.
Frankly, she's not looking forward to it.
But Sunday is tea time with Hinata.
Sakura hopes Hinata's expecting her.
She's not sure if the ashes should be given to her, or her father though.
Nonetheless, she takes both the bun and the box with her, and she walks from the gate to the Hyuga compound.
Over the fence, she can see a few guards patrolling about, and as she comes into view of the gate, the door opens.
The gate guard welcomes her in.
Hyuga are often considered stoic, apathetic, but they can be warm too.
Her thought strikes her like a lightning bolt.
"His family always struck me as that. Apathetic."
She wonders if Tenkawa-san was mistaken.
Maybe she was still missed dearly.
She dips her head in thanks, and that door closes behind her.
There's a neutral expression on her face, and she subtly hides the box behind her.
Not very useful considering she was in a compound full of people who could see right through her, but she trusted that they'd respect her enough to not press.
She bows as she passes Lord Hyuga, and oh how her heart aches.
Hinata comes out of her room, clearly having seen her approach, greeting her with a smile.
So perhaps it's the expression on her face, the slump of her shoulders so prominent today, sweet Hinata tells her to make herself comfortable, and brews the tea for both of them.
The steam warms the room, and it's reminiscent of how warm she felt when Kurotaki-san described his love.
And everything brings their happy, smiling faces to the forefront of her mind.
She's glad she never went for the funeral, for there are no unhappy, teary faces to ruin her pleasant, melancholic memories.
A cup of green tea is placed between her hands, and she's gently coaxed to drink.
"Breathe deeply, Sakura-chan. Breathe and clear your mind."
And she breathes.
They drink tea, and she gives Hinata her cinnamon bun.
She relishes the smile that spreads across her friend's face when she bites into the bun.
She never wants to see that smile go away.
She can't give the box to Hinata-chan either.
She thanks Hinata for the tea, excusing herself as usual.
She nearly crashes headlong into Lord Hyuga, the box in her hands.
His fingers are deft, calloused from steadily emission of chakra.
His hands are warm, coldcoldcold how many have they killed?
His words are polite, telling her to be careful.
She hands him the box, apologising for everything and anything, not letting him say even a word in reply.
Because it's coldcoldcold and she's killed so many already and she's so young and she just runs away.
The next day, no Hyuga comes to school.
"They're holding the first official memorial for Hyuga Hizashi-san. If you see your classmates around, please offer them your condolences."
Seated between Sasuke-chan and Naruto-kun, she feels light headed.
They ask if she's running a fever, if "Mean Kumo ninja made her sick," but her illness is of the heart.
Shika-chan sounds like an old grandfather when he speaks of wise things, and he prescribes an afternoon worth of me time.
It was exactly what she had planned to do, but hearing him say it, she no longer wanted to be alone.
She, against her better judgement, decides to visit Hyuga-san's grave site.
The memorial is ongoing, at the clan compound, but she's never been one for social interactions.
She kneels at that grave stone, apologising for not bringing flowers.
Just a minor note, for those who still haven't worked it out. Tenkawa and Kurotaki are all places in the Yoshino District. (-Yes that's the answer) Personally, I was struggling between letting her get the ashes, and her not getting it. It wound up like this. I'm not too sure myself actually. Feedback and criticism welcome.
