chapter 4
Shouto sat in the back of the classroom, his hands on his desk, as his teacher droned on and on about microbes and amoebas. He wasn't even listening. He had already passed his finals, the school year was practically over for him. Attending now was just a formality.
He looked out the window to his left and watched the wind move through the trees outside. New growth had appeared overnight on their branches, and in two months the sakura blossoms would be in full bloom.
Sakura.
Shouto looked down at his campus book, he had hardly taken any notes and it was already mid day. The teacher had marked him tardy that morning, much to her surprise as well as his classmates. Shouto was never tardy. It was worth it, he told himself as the bell rang for lunch.
He wondered, would she be there after school? She said she would be. Had he been foolish to give her his graduation money? Did she have any idea how much it was? He wasn't sure. He only hoped she wasn't insulted by his impulsiveness. She hadn't seemed insulted, only bewildered.
Shouto replayed that morning in his head on the way to the school cafeteria, like he had been replaying it since he had left her in the park. She had been laying down in the grass, her eyes closed. In that part of the park, the path was straight, unencumbered by trees or brush. He had walked around the bend on his way to school and had seen her, just laying there on the grass, alone.
At first he thought she was sleeping, until her fingers twitched and her lips moved. He was a good distance away from her on the other end of the path, but as he walked toward her he noticed she seemed to be willing herself silently to get up, or to move.
Looking around he didn't see anyone else nearby. It didn't appear as though she had been attacked. Was she hurt? No, he knew she hadn't been hurt when she sat up, then vomited off to the side. She just seemed a little disoriented.
He had run to her then, concerned. Surprised at his own actions, he had blurted out the first thing that had come to his mind. "Are you okay?" What a stupid thing to say to her. He groaned to himself as he took his place in line at the food counter.
Of course she hadn't been okay, she had just thrown up. She must have thought he was an idiot. Shouto placed his tray on the rack, grabbed a plate of soba from the display and a dipping sauce, then made his way to the cashier.
Choosing to sit by himself, per usual, in the far corner of the cafeteria he wondered if she had gotten anything to eat. He wondered what kinds of foods she liked. Maybe she would be hungry again when he got out of school, maybe he could...this was stupid. He didn't even know her. She was probably long gone by now. She wouldn't be there at the park waiting for him after school. He was a fool. She had probably taken his money and...
One after another Sakura watched people get on and off the bus. Entering from the back, each person either scanned a card like she had, or hit a button that printed a ticket out for them. When they wanted to get off, she realized the people with cards simply scanned the card again at the front of the bus, just like Shigaraki told her to do, or they inserted the piece of paper that had printed out for them and slid money into the long slot like a vending machine.
It was fascinating to her, but what was even more fascinating and distracting was the talk of the other riders on the bus. How better to learn about her new world than to listen to its inhabitants? Sakura listened intently to the many conversations to those around her as she rode.
"Did you hear?" One woman asked her friend sitting next to her two seats down from Sakura. "The sludge villain All Might captured was sent to Tartarus! He was bad I'll give him that but he wasn't some S-Ranked super villain!"
"Oh my gosh really? They'll put anyone in there nowadays won't they? You know, it's a good thing All Might was there though. The villain had a boy in his grasp and was about to kill one of his classmates!" The woman's friend replied. "All Might is the world's greatest Hero though, that sludge guy had two potential hostages but that didn't stop our All Might, no way no how, he just charged right in there and saved them both!"
"No one can beat All Might!" The first woman smiled a dopey smile and clutched her hands to her bosom. "Our great symbol of peace."
'Symbol of peace', Sakura frowned as she watched the buildings glide by, watching the screen above the driver change names as each stop was made. The Shodime had been called the symbol of peace before but peace was fleeting. Sakura understood that. Peace more often than not was an illusion.
Try as he might, even Hashirama Senju hadn't been able to keep the peace for very long after establishing Konoha. Sakura thought about the first and second shinobi war, the third and all the deaths that had happened because of them.
She thought of the most recent conflict she had been in. Pein's attack on Konoha.
"Then you can't be a hero, you know. You're a villain, like me. That's all they'll see you as, that's all you'll ever be to them.
Yes, she had helped kill Sasori of the Red Sand. Yes she was a kunoichi and kunoichi killed. How many had she killed during Pein's attack? Six? Seven? She didn't even know. She had left some knowing they were close to death to move onto the next attacker. They had probably died, one or two may have lived, but it was unlikely.
Sakura looked around the bus. Cheerful smiling faces were all she saw. Some were reading but they looked content. Others were talking to their friends, but they too seemed happy enough. Was there no war here?
"I'm so freaking nervous man, I gotta pass this time or I won't get my license. All I've wanted to be since I was a kid was a freaking hero. If I fail, man oh man my dad will kill me and well, seriously dude, what the hell else am I going to do?" A pimpled teen across the aisle complained to his friend who nodded sagely.
"I know, it'll be okay though, come on we're UA students, we got this. We just had a hard break last time. I mean ten on two? No one could have passed that test. The other schools had it out for us from the beginning." Both boys shook their heads together in shared sympathy.
"I wish it was like the old days. You didn't have to have a license to save people, or to fight crime like you do now. My great grandfather told me all you had to do was prove the usefulness of your quirk, but now…it's all political." The first boy sliced his hand through the air in front of him and his friend. "You do anything now without a license and they strip you of all your rights man!"
"For sure." His friend agreed with him. "Come on, school's almost over, we need to get back to check in from our work study before the last bell."
Sakura looked up at the changing monitor. 'Musutafu'. That was her stop. Sakura waited for the two boys to gather their things and followed them off the bus, scanning her card like they had scanned thiers, belatedly realizing she had to find a place to stay tonight. Everything had happened so quickly since she first woke up that she hadn't had any time to plan, to strategize.
With her bottom lip between her teeth she paused on the side of the street as the bus slowly pulled away from the curb. A map, that's what she needed. She needed to know where she was in reference to, to um...well Shigaraki's bar for one. It couldn't hurt and it might give her the information she needed to find a semi permanent dwelling.
If she were in her world, for she knew now she wasn't in her world, she could have set up camp in the woods or in an abandoned hut along the way to a mission, stayed at an inn or slept in a cave but here. Sakura looked around, there were trees, but they were surrounded by pavement. There were inns but she doubted Todoroki san had given her enough money for any sort of long term dwelling and she still needed to eat.
She needed to treat this like an open mission. A mission without an end because, well, because she had no idea how to get home, or if she could get home. She needed a base camp. Somewhere away from the swarming crowds and eager eyes. She needed to be able to disappear if she wanted to.
'...you don't want to grow up to be a villain do you?' The old woman on the bench asked her that morning.
She needed a quiet place to collect her thoughts for more than a few minutes at a time.
Heroes and villains. That's what those women had been speaking about on the bus hadn't they? Even those boys on the bus had mentioned something about passing a licensing exam to become heroes. Sakura shook her head to clear her mind.
A horn blared behind her, startling her. A friend called to another friend down the street and loud obnoxious music came blasting out of a nearby metal box annoying her. What kind of a world was this? It sounded like one of those coin books you buy at the grocery store to share with your friends after school, not reality.
What had Shigaraki's master called quirks, superpowers?
It was a lot to accept, a lot to take in, a lot to believe but she had seen it herself, was seeing it now wasn't she? Sakura watched two young girls walk past her, one had a completely black face and yellow eyes. The other looked as though she had real cat ears growing out of her hair and a tail. Superpowers huh?
"Okay." Sakura took a deep breath. "It could be worse. I can at least try to learn a little more about...all of this and get a better understanding of the terrain. A map. I need a map."
"You're standing right next to one." Someone spoke from over her shoulder.
Sakura turned to find a blonde male standing by the bus stop looking at a map.
"Oh, thank you." Sakura looked at the map of what appeared to be bus routes. "Oh." Her voice dropped, this wasn't the kind of map she needed.
"What? It's a map right, that's what you said you needed when you were muttering to yourself a minute ago wasn't it?" The guy asked. He sounded annoyed.
Sakura sniffed. What was his problem?
"I need a different map, but thanks." Sakura turned back around, her eyes scanning the stores along the street.
"A map's a map, this shows the whole city, whatever, nevermind, not my problem." The man glazed at her out of the corner of his eye.
"A larger one, of the whole territory." Sakura continued to search the shops, her eyes falling on one that looked like it had multiple different kinds of things for sale.
"Like of the country?" He asked her before she could walk away.
"I suppose, yes." She replied absently as she began to walk across the street.
Horns blew and honked. Sakura jumped up and flipped over one of the bus benches after narrowly avoiding one of the smaller metal moving boxes.
"Hey hey idiot, you can't just jump out in front of cars like that! What the hell is wrong with you, are you from that you don't know this shit?" Katsuki Bakugo yelled at Sakura.
Sakura looked left then right, ignoring his question as well as his tone. "So I guess I really do have to cross at those lights down there?" She pointed to the corner of the street they were on, not at all put off by his attitude.
"Yeah, of course you do, moron." Bakugo watched the girl nod then walk away. She had moved so fast, she was so agile and she was about the same age as him. How come he had never seen her before, oh yeah, she was probably from a different country.
"Weird." Bakugo shoved his hands in his pockets and stared back at the bus routes in front of him. Not his problem. "Damn foreigners."
Sakura waited at the corner for the light to change with the others, making a mental note that even if you thought it was clear to walk across the street, it might not be and you should use the light.
After a stressful but fruitful visit to the convenience store across the street, Sakura sat down on a park bench close to where she had met Todoroki san earlier that day, and opened her map. Pulling a pen she had purchased from her sales bag she circled Musutafu on her new map and then Kamino Ward.
Sitting back, tapping the pen to her lips with one hand, she pulled out a rice ball wrapped in paper from the same bag and began to unwrap it with one hand. Taking a small bite from the rice ball she chewed, then gagged.
"This is disgusting." She choked down the rest of the rice in her mouth, making her eyes water. "Ugh."
Sakura wrapped the rest of the rice ball back up in it's wrapper and shoved it back in the sales bag. Looking back down at her map she noticed the park she was in, the streets coming off of it and several smaller trees that seemed to lessen the further north they went, her eyes traced another wider road to the north into what looked like a forest. Her eyes lit up, forest.
Looking around the park to make sure no one was watching, with a quick glance back down at her map, she smiled. Shoving map and pen back in her bag she tied her sales bag to her second pouch, jumped up into the nearest tree and leapt up onto the side of the next closest building using her chakra to run up and across the building until she reached the top.
From her new vantage point on top of the building she could see the forest in the distance that she had seen on the map. She could see the smaller streets, how they fell away and with it the crowded sidewalks, street vendors and stores. Perfect.
"Bingo." She almost hugged herself.
She would need to scout out the borders of course, make sure it was safe and as ideal for her as she thought it would be but if it was...she almost giggled. She had been so turned around since she had gotten here. She had felt so out of place and lost but the forest, she was sure no matter what world this was, would feel more like home to her.
Sakura patted her second pouch at her belt. She had her storage scrolls with everything she needed. She had money thanks to Todoroki san and a card that would allow her to buy things and move around the city's transportation thanks to Shigaraki, but she didn't want to rely on them for everything, and she didn't want to use Shigaraki's card more than she had to.
It was hope and it lightened her heart. Even though he had said them to manipulate her, Shigaraki's words had cut her deeply. She was alone, she was out of place and she didn't know this world, but she wasn't going to give up. If there was a way to come here, if something had brought her here, there was a way back. She had to believe that, if only for now to keep going.
Sakura smiled as she leapt to the next tallest building and the next toward the forest. What had those boys on the bus said? School will be over soon? She would just take a quick look around and be back in time to meet with Todoroki san.
She owed him that. If not for him, she might never have made it out of the park that morning.
Sakura ran across the rooftops, jumping agilly from building to building until the shorter buildings were too far away from one to another to leap from one to the next. Gracefully she leapt down from the last building and walked to the end of the street. There were fewer people here. It seemed to be the back end of an industrial district.
This was ideal.
When the companies closed for the night, there would be less people to notice her moving in and out of the forest, less people to avoid, less stress for her. She only hoped her seals worked here. Something she would have to experiment with as soon as she found a suitable campsite.
Deeper and deeper Sakura moved into the forest staying as far away from the downtrodden, well used paths as much as she could. Pulling her map from her bag she opened it to the part she knew herself to be, and smiled. Leaping up into the trees she made her way north, farther and farther from the heart of the city of Musutafu.
It felt good to run like she was used to running, her feet barely touching the branches as she skimmed them with the soles of her feet. If she didn't know better, she would say she was faster than she used to be. After what seemed like only a few minutes Sakura dropped down to the forest floor, near the dead center of the forest on her map. There were no more hiking trails marked here, no more 'Day sites', marked on the map.
There was no one for her to run into out here, at least far less of a chance, she hoped. After she found a suitable campsite and put her seals up, it would be nearly impossible to find her here.
According to the map she was close to a river and a mountainous region where the forest butted up against an uncharted cave system. Ideal for a lone ninja to hide in. Moving swiftly she pushed chakra to her ears listening for running water.
"There." Sakura breathed out, pleased with her luck. "The river."
Walking along the river's surface she moved quickly toward the base of the mountain in front of her until she found several smaller caves, choosing the one on the left, she followed the flow of water down until she was in a basin of granite. A shelf stretched out along the side over the slowly moving water, perfect for catching, cleaning and cooking fish.
Sakura thought of the rice ball and nearly gagged again. Even the food here tasted odd to her, she couldn't wait to catch and roast some fish over an open fire.
Judging the time of day by the light behind her, Sakura moved further and further into the cave, until she reached the end. A natural cove was carved out of the back perfect for her sleeping mat. The water continued to flow under the wide cove, down deeper into the void. Briefly, Sakura wondered how deep the water flowed and how many more caves there were beside this one.
It reminded her a bit of the cave system Konoha had at the old training grounds of Naruto's dad, the Lord Fourth.
Turning back from the direction she had come from she noticed there was a good distance between the back of the cave and the front. Even the granite shelf she had first seen was tucked farther into the cave than she had first thought. She couldn't have asked for a better campsite.
"Sorry Shigaraki. It looks like I won't be needing that card as much as you thought." Sakura smirked as she pulled her storage scroll from her pouch and began to set up camp.
The picture that was always with her was pulled from her storage scroll last, placed on one of the many flat rock surfaces along the wall by the alcove she was going to use as her bed. Her genin team looked out at her from the frame. Kakashi sensei, Naruto and of course Sasuke. She wondered how they were doing, all of them, even Sasuke. She wondered if they knew she was gone yet.
Pein's attack on Konoha had been devastating. Many had died, shinobi and civilians alike. Many had been killed by the collapsing buildings, by the Akatsuki, the Six levels of pain and the broken horde of missing nin they had brought with them to confuse the Konoha shinobi. Sakura had killed one of Pein's puppets, and had recognized a few others. One of them being a girl she had met during her chunin exams in Suna.
A sealing master. Sakura had never known anyone so talented with seals before her, but now she was dead, had been dead...then brought back, used for…
That girl was one of the reasons Sakura had studied seals after the chunin exams. She had been so impressed with how versatile the girl's seals had been, how she had used the seals in ways Sakura had never dreamed of using them, had never been told they could be used that Sakura had put considerable effort into learning all that she could about seals when she had gotten back to Konoha after her exams.
Tsunade had been surprised at her student's interest in seals but supported her in her new endeavor. She even went as far as to give Sakura her great great uncle's personal notes on sealing, notes only two of the five Hokage's had read. Sakura was the third shinobi from Konoha after the Lord Fourth to be titled a Sealing Master since the first Sealing Master, the Lord Second Tobirama Senju.
Sakura looked back at the picture of her genin team. They had been so young, so immature and so naive. She recalled their first real mission to the Land of Waves. Zabuza Momochi and Haku. That mission opened all of their eyes to the world they had been born into, to the bloody, corrupt path they had chosen to walk.
"Heroes and villains huh?" Sakura ran her finger along the top of her most prized possession. "I know what makes a villain a villain, but what is a hero, a true hero?" Sakura stood up and dusted her new skirt off. She hadn't wanted to pull her storage scroll out in the middle of Musutafu to get another set of clothes, but she liked this skirt. It reminded her of Todoroki.
Sakura raised her head to the end of the cave. The light had changed. She didn't want to be late meeting him. She wasn't sure what time he would be walking through the park but she didn't want to miss him. She had no way of contacting him, knew nothing about him except that he went to school near the park. If she didn't meet him at the park today, she might never see him again.
Quickly she made the hand signs for her protection seal and sealed the entrance to the cave. Bending down by the water's edge, she threw two kunai, each with a water seal attached to the end, to seal the undercurrent. She had learned on a mission long ago that sealing the surface wasn't enough when water was involved and even then, a clever shinobi could still find a way around even the best seals.
...but there aren't any shinobi here, are there? She reminded herself, there's only me. Sakura bit her thumb, placed her final seal on the right hand side of the cave wall outside of her second barrier and sealed it with her blood. A sealing technique she had learned from the Second Hokage's notes.
"There, now only I can enter and exit this cave." Satisfied, she leapt to the trees and ran south, toward Musutafu and Todoroki san.