chapter 9
"Sakura chan, oh my gosh, did you, did you kill them?" Naruto stood in the doorway of the small hut. The only door in and out of the small space, his posture ridgid, his nails digging into the wood of the frame.
There was blood on the floor soaking into the dirt, blood splattered haphazardly across the walls of the small one room hut and in the middle of the room, was Sakura, likewise covered in blood. Sakura couldn't see his face. The light from outside overtook the shadows within, but she didn't have to see his face to imagine the horror and shock that must be there, among his whiskers.
"Yes Naruto, I killed them." Sakura looked down at her blood-stained hands, at the pieces of flesh that had been lodged under her nails from her chakra infused punch. She had punched each of them, one at the time, through their hearts, their black soulless hearts. "They deserved it, didn't they, for what they did?"
Naruto fell to his knees, tears in his eyes as he looked at his teammate, his friend, the girl he'd had a crush on since they were children and wept. He had lost them both hadn't he. First Sasuke and now Sakura. He wasn't the cleverest shinobi but he had seen enough heartache to know, she had been pushed past her limit, something inside of her had broken and she was no longer the cute, sweet little girl she had been when they were kids.
Sakura, was a fully realized kunoichi. He knew it would happen, he had expected it and yet somehow it still surprised him, somehow it still saddened him. Naruto heard the footfalls, could hear their former sensei running toward them but still, he couldn't tear his eyes from the bloody blossom before him.
"Sakura, Naruto are you two okay?" Kakashi Hatake pulled Naruto up by the arm and leaned him against the door frame. His eyes passed swiftly over the carnage to fall on the girl standing in the middle of the room. "Sakura, kami...what have you done?"
She didn't move. Kakashi could still feel the intensity of her killing intent. It was rolling off of her in unsteady waves.
"What is a ninja, Kakashi sensei, if not a tool for their village? You told us once a ninja endures. What about justice though? Justice for those who gave their lives for their village?" She didn't bother to wipe the blood splatters from her face as she lifted her head to look her former sensei in the eye. Her hands were bloodier than her face. "What is justice?"
"You consider this justice Sakura?" Kakashi's voice was hard. This was his fault. He had neglected her for too long, spending all of his time with Naruto and Sasuke, and now it was too late. She was too far gone, she had slipped too far between his fingers. Kami, out of all of his students Sakura had been the one to follow in his footsteps?
When had it happened, when did she change? His father's death had been his turning point, his Genin team had turned him back and now...Ino, of course. He watched the cold in her eyes, it had already spread to her heart hadn't it. The cold, the reality.
"This isn't justice, Sakura." Kakashi had to try to bring her back, he had to do something. He wouldn't give up on her, this wasn't going to be the end for her.
"It isn't?" She growled, taking one step then two toward her former sensei. "Liar. You're lying Kakashi sensei. I know you, better than most, and you're lying." Her voice broke, the dirt floor under her feet broke and cracked under the heavy force of her chakra as she walked slowly toward her old sensei, her fists clenched at her sides, the dried blood flaking off of her knuckles.
"Sakura chan, holy shit Sakura, what the hell do you think you're doing!" Naruto shouted as she lunged forward, chakra scalpel out, blood in her eyes.
Sakura woke with a start and an ache in her chest. Above her she could see the rocky ceiling of a cave. Barely, she began breathing again. Slowly at first, then more normally as her blood pressure evened out and the throbbing pain in her chest dissipated.
It was a dream, it was okay. It was in the past. She wasn't there anymore in the hut. The smell of their voided bowels was gone, replaced by the smell of fresh water and clean earth.
"Oh yeah." She groaned, rolled over and pulled her bedding back up over herself, she was in her cave... She must have kicked her blankets off in her sleep. It had been cold that day, like it was now in her cave. Was that what had triggered it? The stress of her situation. Sakura blinked in the dim light of the cave. Maybe, but she knew she was lying to herself.
How disturbing. Sakura closed her eyes. It wasn't a dream. It was her reality. A month, had it only been one month since that day? It seemed like a lifetime ago, or another life. Someone else's hell except that it wasn't. It was hers.
...but no matter how long ago it had happened, she would never forget the events that had led her to be there that day, or the insult that had come after she had killed those missing nin in that tiny hut.
Word had come in two months after Pein's attack on Konoha while Sakura was in the Hokage's office, some of the missing nin had been tracked to a small hut between the border of The Land of Fire and Tea. Missing nin that had helped during Pein's attack. Tsunade had conferred with the council, sent word to Suna and had waited for them to reply.
Gaara, the Kazekage of Suna had sent a three-man team of his own to confirm Konoha's intel. There were indeed three missing Nin hiding out in a hut between Fire and Tea, the same rag tag group that had killed Ino, Sakura's best friend. Temari, Gaara's sister, one of the three shinobi sent to gather the information, confirmed it.
Sakura had fully expected the Hokage to send a collection team out to bring the missing nin back for interrogation and torture. She had expected justice, but none came. Sakura had waited for them to make their collective decision, had waited for the summons that would allow her to avenge her best friend since childhood, to lay Ino's soul to rest.
...but it never came. The Hokage decided in the end, that three missing nin of no great skill weren't worth sending a team of Anbu out for retrieval much less assassination.
It had infuriated Sakura. She didn't understand. Those shinobi needed to pay for what they had done to Ino, to Konoha. Was Ino not a kunoichi of the Leaf, did she not deserve to be avenged? Sakura advocated for a change of heart, pleaded with her mentor to allow her to go alone if no Anbu could be spared but Tsunade the Fifth Hokage refused, confining Sakura to her apartment on house arrest to keep her from going on her own.
Sakura hadn't listened though, she had gone of course, and because she had gone, Ino could rest in her grave.
"What is a shinobi?" Sakura asked the ceiling of the cave. "A shinobi endures." She answered herself. That's what they had been told since before they were Genin and many times after. It sounded so simple, so neat and noble, but it wasn't.
Shinobi endured...
For what though? Their village, their Hokage? Certainly not for themselves. Growing up in the Leaf, that's just how things were. Later, when Sakura got older and became a Genin she found out it was the same in the other hidden villages, where their laws were even more harsh than they were in Konoha.
You were a tool, an expendable tool for the good of the village. Rarely, there was a shinobi so skilled, or one with a rare specialty that they became more than a shinobi, they became necessary.
Sakura had become necessary and yet, she had still been denied her due. They had forced her hand.
Sakura rolled over again and pulled her covers back over her head. It was in her past, none of that mattered now, here.
It was like Shouto said, wasn't it? A new beginning? She wasn't in her village anymore, there wasn't a Hokage here. There was nothing here that held her loyalty, nothing here to bind her to anything. Here, she could make her own choices, she could think for herself and yet...old habits were hard to break. Loyalty, bonds of friendship. They were all waiting for her weren't they, somewhere on the other side?
"Master and I can give you everything, the world. All we ask for in return is your loyalty."
Her loyalty.
Isn't that what Shigaraki had said to her? A bold requirement for something that had no guarantee of success. Give her the world? What did that man child know of her world, her desires? He presumed too much.
Sakura threw her covers from her body, fell out of her bed onto the cave floor and stretched flat on her back, moving seamlessly into her morning exercises.
Twenty minutes later, one cup of coffee to the good, she stood at the entrance of her cave. It was still a little chilly but spring was coming. She could smell it now that she wasn't in the city main.
The air was cleaner here in the forest, lighter making it easier to breathe.
Looking back over her shoulder, she surveyed her cave. She should collect firewood. Spring was coming but it wasn't here yet and the nights were still colder than the days. It would be at least a week, maybe two, that she would still need a fire at night. Besides, she wanted to familiarize herself with the forest she would be staying in.
With one last yawn, she stepped out of her cave, bit her thumb and sealed her home. Making the hand signs she infused the air around her with her chakra. "Multi shadow clone jutsu."
Sakura nodded to the three replicas she had made of herself and they nodded back.
"I'm going to collect firewood. I thought it would be a good idea to do a survey of the surrounding forest to familiarize myself with the layout. So far, I have only entered and exited the forest from one direction. I want to find at least one other way to get in and out of here." She waved to the forest around her.
"Spring is coming but there should still be winter carrots in the forest, garlic and other smaller root vegetables to forage. One of you forage please while the other two survey the land. Meet back here in two hours." Her clones either nodded or waved to her as they separated.
Two leapt to the trees, the other pulled a basket from their storage scroll, walking off into the forest to forage leaving Sakura to collect firewood.
An hour later, Sakura sealed the last piece of her collected firewood into one of her many storage scrolls, then sat down on one of the large rocks by the river to rest.
With her ankles in the water, and her head tilted back and up toward the sky, she sighed. If she were home, in Konoha she would most likely be in the hospital right now, or helping Tsunade shishou with her never-ending pile of paperwork.
Before she had been torn from her routine to come to this world, Tsunade had suggested Sakura take on an apprentice of her own. Sakura closed her eyes to the blue above, turned her head to the side, to the river and sighed again, opening her eyes.
A suggestion, no doubt made by her other former sensei Kakashi Hatake. Something to ground her, to keep her sane. Sakura snorted. She was sane, that's what they didn't understand. Ino's death had affected her, of course it had affected her but it hadn't unhinged her.
No, what had pushed her over the edge was the blatant denial of justice, of her due. Blind revenge, that's what Tsunade shisou and Kakashi had called her actions, but they were wrong, both of them. It wasn't revenge. She hadn't killed those missing nin out of revenge at all.
She thought of all people, Kakashi would have understood, but he didn't, no one did.
It was justice. It was a debt of friendship, of honor.
She had been so disappointed in them, she had pulled away after that, secluded herself from them more and more with each passing day. So much that even Naruto had noticed.
She continued to take her shifts at the hospital, had continued to show up for 'Team training' and for missions, but she stopped going to team dinners, stopped going out to eat with the other kunoichi after her shifts at the hospital and kept more to herself.
Sakura sat up on her rock, pushed her short hair back from her eyes, and stared at the glistening, moving surface of the river water.
No one cared about her change in personality except for Kakashi and Naruto. Both for different reasons. Naruto complained he never saw her anymore unless he stopped by the hospital. Kakashi would mumble constantly that she was becoming more and more like him every day and how it was somehow a bad thing.
Tsunade left her alone for the most part, keeping an eye on her apprentice from a distance. Hoping Sakura just needed time to accept what had happened, to mourn for her loss.
Yet another example of how they didn't understand her, weren't even trying to understand her.
"Pointless." Sakura rubbed her fists against her eyes, hopped up to her feet and stretched. "There isn't anything wrong with me. Just because I no longer fit into your norm, doesn't mean I'm wrong."
"Exactly." One of her shadow clones said cheerfully, jumping down from one of the nearby trees to stand beside her original. "Clearly we're great!"
Sakura laughed at herself.
"So, I found another way in and out of the forest to the north. There is a park that butts up against the forest edge connected to a residential area. The only thing that might be an issue are the apartment buildings and a cluster of two-story houses on the border of the park." Her clone told her.
"Show me." Sakura followed her clone up into the trees, running swiftly north.
Katsuki Bakugou lay on his roof, tapping his fingers in time with the music in his ears, looking left into the forest behind his house when something white and fluttery caught his eye. Sitting up abruptly he pulled his ear buds from his ears and strained his eyes, looking into the forest behind his house.
There, standing on one of the tallest trees, just inside the tree line, was the girl he had seen at the bus stop yesterday afternoon. "What the hell?"
Bakugo looked down at his phone, closing his music app, then looked back up at the tree line. She was gone. He knew he hadn't imagined it. She was there, but how the hell did she get that high up in the tree, those trees were ancient and tall, it must be at least sixty or maybe even a hundred feet tall.
"Whatever." Bakugo shoved his ear buds back in his ears, turned his music back on and closed his eyes. Every once in a while, opening his eyes to peer at the tree line, just in case. Just in case she came back.
"I see what you mean." Sakura nodded to her clone. "Those apartments block the forest from the street but that third story, all those windows, it could be a problem."
"Yes. With so many windows you wouldn't be able to tell if someone was looking. It doesn't make for the best escape route." Her clone agreed. "Is this because of Shigaraki?" Her clone asked.
"Yeah. I know it was him. Given how he's acted toward me so far, I wonder why he didn't confront me last night, or stalk me back to the cave." She tapped her fingertips on the edge of her white skirt thoughtfully.
"Maybe he was being polite?" Her clone asked hesitantly, then grinned when they both gave one another a 'Yeah right' kind of look.
"So strange, not being able to sense any chakra but my own." Sakura confided in her clone.
"Yeah, I know." Her clone agreed. "I think the others are done, I can feel their signatures moving back to the cave. Want to meet up with them?" Her clone was looking over her shoulder and didn't see the green haired boy looking at them from across the park.
"Yeah, let's go." Sakura took her clone's hand and walked back into the forest slowly. She could feel the boy's eyes on the back of her head. Yes, this wasn't the best route for them to use, they were far too visible here.
"Move normally. We're being watched." Sakura told her clone as they walked deeper and deeper into the forest.
"I'm going to release you and use a cloaking jutsu. I don't want to be followed." She had no idea who that green haired boy was, if he was a threat or not, but she wasn't going to take any chances.
"Sure thing." Her clone understood.
"Thanks for your help today." Sakura released her clone, cast a cloaking jutsu over herself and jumped to the trees, up and up until she could run south over the canopy, home, to her cave.
Shouto ignored the muted chatter of his fellow classmates. White noise, that's all they were to him. Lunch was almost over. He had two more classes after lunch, then he would see Sakura. He hoped she would be there. She said she would try to be there.
He had been under the impression she had just arrived in Musutafu yesterday, or at the very most two or three days before he found her in the park but he had no real proof that was true.
Taking another bit of his food he contemplated the possibility that she had been in the city longer than he thought. ...but without any money? No, she must have just arrived. She didn't even know how to use their public transportation. What had she told him, some guy had laughed at her?
He didn't like that.
While he was in school, she had taken a bus somewhere, where had she gone. Did she take a bus to meet someone? If so, who did she meet? She told him she had no one, that she didn't have any friends or family here so…
He needed to calm down. It was nothing, he was taking this way out of context. She was alone. That's what she had said. Why would she lie?
"She wouldn't." Shouto assured himself.
He had been so deep in thought he hadn't noticed the white noise die down around him, didn't see the way the other students were looking at him and didn't notice Kimoji and Ragai rise from their seats.
"I guess it pays to be the son of the Number Two hero huh?" Kimoji sneered at Shouto who ignored him and continued to eat his lunch.
"Yea, I bet you could even get away with murder couldn't you, or your girlfriend could at least." Ragai shoved his friend playfully in the shoulder.
"Hey!" Kimoji slammed the palm of his uninjured arm down on the table in front of Shouto, who still hadn't acknowledged their presence, and leaned forward, close to Shouto's face.
"So what did your father do, pay the police off or something?" Kimoji demanded.
Shouto set his chopsticks down, picked up his tea, and continued to ignore the two idiots.
"Is your little girlfriend good in bed or does she just…" Kimoji froze as Shouto's eyes snapped to his.
"Finish your sentence, if you want me to break your other wrist." Shouto held the other boy's gaze.
"You're insane." Kimoji stepped back from Shouto, looked around the cafeteria for support from the other students, but found none. "You want to be a hero and you talk to people like that?"
"Come on, let's go." Ragai pulled on his friend's arm. "He's nuts, just like his old man."
It started at the corner of his left eye, a growing warmth that exploded into an unquenchable inferno.
"Shut up." Shouto pushed back from the lunch table he was sitting at. "You don't know anything. You like to run your mouth, but you say nothing of value. Someone needs to shut you up." Shouto lost his temper.
An alarm went off in another part of the school as Shouto's flames grew hotter and hotter. Then, the sprinklers went off and all hell broke loose.
She was a little early, she knew that, but she hadn't wanted to be late. The navigation app on the phone Shouto had given her said it would take her twenty minutes to walk from her cave in the woods to the coffee shop. It had taken her eight minutes.
Sakura sat in the back of the coffee house watching people enter and exit through the two main sets of doors. It was a fairly busy place and she wondered why Shouto had chosen this place to meet. She would have thought he would have picked a quieter place, but then again, maybe he had picked it so they wouldn't be so easily recognized.
His two-toned hair and her pastel pink hair didn't exactly scream, blend in. Sakura smiled to herself. She liked her hair, and had always liked her hair but she liked Shouto's even more. She could tell it was natural and she wondered if he liked it or found it annoying.
"What may I get for you today?" A woman with soft brown hair and bright eyes was smiling at Sakura.
"Oh um, I've never been to a place like this before but I like sweet things, do you have a coffee that has maybe caramel and a nutty flavor to it?" Sakura asked the waitress.
"Absolutely, how does a caramel hazelnut latte sound to you?" The waitress offered.
"Sounds great, thank you. Someone will be joining me soon, do you take this here?" Sakura pulled the card Shigaraki had given her out of her pouch and showed it to the waitress.
"We do!" The waitress smiled.
"Great, can you put that caramel thing on it and then whatever my friend wants when he gets here, please?" Sakura handed the woman the card with a smile.
"I'd be happy to!" The waitress walked away with Sakura's card, that was really Tomura's, leaving Sakura to watch the doors again.
Yesterday Sakura had vowed to use Shigaraki's card as little as possible, but after regrouping at her cave, her clones had convinced her otherwise. The clone she had sent out to forage had come back with only two carrots and a half-mauled bulb of garlic. It didn't appear she would be living off the land too much. She would need to find an alternate source of income if she was going to stay here for her research.
Shouto said UA had connections all over the world but that didn't mean she would find her answers quickly. Sakura chewed her lower lip. Maybe she could get a job?
"Here ya go, would you like me to hold onto the card until your friend arrives?" The waitress asked Sakura as she set her drink down in front of her.
"Yes please, thank you." Sakura looked at her coffee. It looked like a dessert. "Wow this looks great!" Sakura smiled at the waitress who laughed.
"Well, you said you liked sweet things so I added a little whipped cream to the top." The waitress winked at Sakura before she walked away.
Sakura looked back at her coffee. Ino would have loved this. Looking back up at the doors she saw Shouto walk into the coffee shop, spot her and walk over to her table.
"Sakura." Shouto pulled out the chair in front of Sakura's and sat down. "I'm glad you're here. I wasn't sure if you would be here."
"Yeah, that navigation thing worked pretty well but I got here a little early." Sakura pulled her phone out and tapped the screen to check the time. "So did you." Sakura looked up at Shouto, noticing his uniform was several shades darker than it had been yesterday.
"Why are you wet?" She reached across the table and wiped the wet hair out of his eyes.
Shouto sat completely still. Did she realize, did she do it on purpose, she had touched him with such familiarity. Shouto cleared his throat.
"Sprinkler malfunction at school, they let us out early." He pulled his messenger bag over his head and set it on one of the empty seats at their table. "I see you ordered something."
"It's a caramel hazelnut something." Sakura told him as the waitress approached their table with a smile.
"This must be your friend you were waiting for, am I right? What can I get you sweety?" The waitress asked Shouto.
"Espresso." Shouto ordered his coffee.
"Great, I'll add it to the card and be right back." The waitress hummed as she walked away again.
"Card?" Shouto asked Sakura.
"I think it's called an IC card?" Sakura watched Shouto's face go blank, his expression narrowed. "A guy gave it to me while I was waiting for the bus back to Musutafu yesterday."
"A guy?" Shouto frowned. "Like a friend?" He asked her as the waitress came back to their table with his espresso.
"Not a friend." Sakura watched Shouto's expression change again, into something milder and...happier.
"Here ya go guys, let me know if you want anything else, okay?" The waitress handed Sakura her card back.
"Thank you." Shouto looked at his espresso, then across the table at the card in Sakura's hand.
"Do you mind if I see that for a moment Sakura?" Shouto nodded to the IC card she had gotten from Shigaraki.
"Sure." Sakura handed him the card.
Shouto looked at the front of the card, it looked like any other refillable IC card at first glance, until he turned it over and his brows raised as he took in the gold stamp.
"Who was it that gave you this card again Sakura?" Shouto asked her suspiciously. She said she didn't know anyone. She told him she was alone but strangers didn't just hand out gold IC cards to girls they just met for no reason.
Sakura looked at the card in Shouto's hand. Clearly, he knew something about the card that she didn't. She might be ignorant to the nuances of this world but she knew suspicion when she saw it and she saw it clearly, on Shouto's face.
There was something special about the card Shigaraki had given her, she didn't know what it was, but she was sure Shouto did.
"Well, by his own admission, he was stalking me." Sakura told Shouto the truth, or at least part of it.