Chapter 5
Chapter Summary
"They can carry you all the way to me,
They can pull you out to the deep blue sea,
Oh waves...
There are waves..."
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Sakura's eleven and she's sometimes seventeen, fighting in the Second War and sometimes in the Fourth.
But regardless of which life she's experiencing, one thing remains the same.
No matter what she does, no matter how many people she defends and mends, she goes to bed feeling useless.
She's eleven, and she already knows enough about war to despise it.
"This isn't working." Sakura tells Akira one week into the war as she picks blood out from under her nails. They're in the Land of Hot Water, up against the country's border with the Land of Frost, and they're basically ignoring that the minor countries even exist. They're fighting in their land, against their borders, but they aren't fighting their people. No, it's Konoha and Uzushio against Kumo, all of them acting like this territory is theirs to fight for, and it grates on her nerves.
One week, and already she's seen entire villages razed just for being in their way.
"What isn't?" Akira asks tiredly, wiping sweat from his brow as they hunker down for the night. It's them, two other Uzushio shinobi named Hitomi and Kobeki, and perhaps forty Konoha shinobi.
Uzushio's small, but she's strong, and they don't need many shinobi at each post to bring a game changing difference - particularly since Hitomi's a seal master and Akira's well on his way to becoming one himself.
"The seal," Sakura explains, waving a hand vaguely. "It takes too much time and chakra to apply it. I have to pause at each person and channel the chakra to them just to place the seal itself - it takes too much time. Particularly when you realize how many people I'm putting it on."
Twenty-two in the last battle alone, which had been an exhausting experience. The Yin seal sits on her forehead now, formed and ready to go, but she hasn't needed to use it yet, so she hasn't.
"So put it on tags." Akira suggests with a shrug.
"No." She refuses instantly. "Too cumbersome. I'd have to rifle around for the tags, place them properly, and then activate them. That'd take the same amount of time - and every second is precious when you're trying to save lives and not die in the process." She points out.
"So what are you suggesting?" He asks, frowning over at her.
Sakura glances over him and then past, gaze settling on Hitomi. The jōnin sits several yards away, quietly observing the camp with narrowed eyes, but she's not so far she can't hear them. Sakura narrows her eyes, examining the woman's bared arms and the seals etched on them. "Hitomi-senpai?" She calls and the woman looks over, arching a bright red eyebrow. "Can you teach me how to do that with my seal?" Sakura asks, gesturing to one of the many seals, and Hitomi blinks in surprise. She adjusts in her seat so she can face Sakura better, frowning thoughtfully.
"What exactly are you trying to accomplish?" She asks. "I was only paying half attention to your conversation. You want to apply your seal to people with less effort?"
"Essentially. Less time, really." Sakura explains. "I want to people to apply it instantaneously with just a touch."
She raises her brow higher. "That'll be a real pain in the ass when you aren't in combat."
She's not sure what exactly that means, but Sakura just shrugs anyways. "Then I'll figure it out when I'm not in combat. It's the while in combat bit that I need it for."
"Yeah, alright. I'll show you how, then. But you're probably going to regret it." Hitomi warns.
"We'll find out."
She does sort of regret it. The seal is tattooed - burned, really - into the palm of her left hand. The black lines glow a soft blue, chakra constantly circulating through the seal. That was a factor she'd added in - with the constant chakra flow, all it takes is her touching something for the seal to be applied. She doesn't have to think about putting the chakra into applying it - it does it automatically for her.
It also means she puts a seal on everything she touches.
Everything.
She's always had gloves - in this life and her dream one - for when she's fighting with taijutsu, but now she wears them constantly - even when she sleeps, so she stops applying her seal to her own face in the middle of the night.
It's exhausting business, but she's never felt more useful in her life. Every fight, she attacks with taijutsu and kenjutsu - using a katana her mother had gifted her - and the occasional Suiton jutsu. Every time someone falls, she backs off to tag them, then returns to the fight while healing them through the seal.
The healing isn't quite as efficient through the seal as it would be if she were physically there doing it - but with her holding the reigns, the difference is minimal enough.
She's eleven, and they're already dubbing her the world's greatest medical-nin.
It makes her think about Tsunade from her dream-life, and her heart aches strangely.
Sakura turns twelve on the battlefield. "Happy birthday," Hitomi says dryly, and a couple of the shinobi nearby cheer at that.
She offers them a quick grin, but before she can say anything, someone shouts a warning.
Break is over, and it's back to fighting.
She's on the front for four months before they rotate her and the other three back into Uzushio. Her father greets her with a tight, smothering hug. "Four months," He says quietly when the others have finished reporting in and filed out of his office.
"Four months, and you've already made such a name for yourself." Her father says in a strange tone, reaching up to cup her face and frown at her. "It scares your mother." He informs her. "But I know you can take care of yourself." Her father pauses, arching a brow at her now. "And everyone else while you're at it, apparently." He notes mildly.
She can't help but grin a bit at that, her smile genuine but fleeting. "I did my best." Sakura confirms, trying not to think of where she'd failed.
Their post had started with fifty shinobi, and when Sakura left there had only been thirty of them left - excluding the four Uzushio shinobi, who had all made it out in tact.
"You had the highest survival rate in this wave of detachments. I'd say you're off to an incredible start." Her father says in a weird voice before he steps back, heading for his desk. Sakura follows, settling down in the chair opposite of his. He scoops up a book and offers it to her, thumb slipping in to flip it open. She takes it from him, eyeing the exposed pages.
Her face is printed on one.
"Sakura Uzumaki," She reads off, arching an eyebrow - and ignoring the weird sensation that goes through her as she speaks her surname. "Rank: jōnin. A-Rank." She frowns at that. "I'm offended. I should be an S-Rank, at least." She complains and her father rolls his eyes. "Daughter of Uzushio Village Head, Kokei Uzumaki - aka Akataki, the Red Waterfall. Bounty: Ki...ll…. Ah." She trails off, blinking at the entry. "Hm. They don't seem to like me. Who's bingo book is this, Kumogakure's?" She asks, still stuck on the 'kill on sight' written where a number usually would be.
They don't even want her head. They just want her dead.
"Yes. You should be proud - only the most dangerous get a kill or flee on sight order." Her father says in an uncomfortable sort of way. "Not that I'm glad for it, but it's impressive?" He offers oddly.
Shinobi pride warring with parental protectiveness. "I'm proud of it, I guess." She says slowly, still reading. "Though it seems more like they think of me as a barricade to get past. Kill me to kill the people I put my seals on… This is pretty detailed," Sakura admits. It describes her ability to heal people at a distance, even noting that she touches them first. It urges the readers to isolate her so she can't mend her allies. It also goes on and on about her taijutsu and kenjutsu, as well as a few notes on her water jutsus. "Annoyingly detailed, actually." Sakura decides, flipping the book shut. "What now?"
He shrugs. "Undecided. The book changes nothing, of course - you were always going to draw attention, though you immediately being labeled A-Rank is a bit worrying parentally speaking. By the way, we're telling your mother nothing of this." He adds quickly and she nods. "The Hokage wants me to assign you to the Iwa-Suna crossroads. More accurately, he wants me to send you into Amegakure's territory." Her father says darkly.
"And what does Uzushio's Head want?" Sakura counters with an arched brow and his lips twitch faintly.
"To tell him to fuck off." He admits, any amusement draining away. His expression darkens like a storm's come over him and she immediately frowns in concern. "The man's done enough, don't you think? Already this war has painted a target on my daughter's back. And on my village, for that matter. How many lives are we going to lose for a war we have no business in? A war we could easily have stayed out of?" He scowls, turning to glare out the window. It's a clear day, too lovely and bright for a conversation like this. "He wants me to send you into the heart of the conflict now, hoping your success in keeping his people alive at the Kumo frontline will carry on."
"And maybe it will." He shrugs, shaking his head sharply. "But I don't care to find out. Amegakure is a clusterfuck already, and Suna's only just entered the damn war." He bites off at that, taking a breath, and Sakura cuts in quietly.
"Any word on Kiri?" She asks and he grimaces, shaking his head.
"Dead silence. Almost worse than if they'd just enter the fray already." He says, voice quieting. His brow furrows, concern making its way into his expression, and both of them looking out at the ocean. "We're in the crossfire here. If they join this war, they'll go for Kumo or Konoha - and we're between them and both. Maybe, maybe they'll ignore us if they're going for Kumo… but if they're going for Konoha…"
"They'll hit us first." Sakura realizes aloud, her eyebrows pulling together at that.
She thinks about Konoha and the flak jackets that don't-but-will carry the symbol of Uzushio on their backs. She thinks about Naruto and his surname being all but forgotten to history, and wonders.
"What do we do when that happens, father?" She asks quietly.
When, not if, and his lips twist down grimly.
"I honestly don't know."
Uzushio is a city of seals. She's built on them, built with them, and seals are built around her. They reinforce the barrier seals and the trap seals scattered around the bay, and by the time Sakura goes back out to the war front two months later, Uzushio's more secure than she's been since the First War.
She's still uneasy when she leaves. "Be safe," Her mother murmurs, cupping her cheek with a pained expression.
"I will be, mom." Sakura promises, as earnest and serious as a twelve year old can sound. It makes her mother smile, eyes wet and expression maybe just a little bit bitter.
"Good. I'll see you in four months."
"I'll see you then." Sakura returns, smiling as warmly as she can at the woman before she turns and heads for the village gates.
She's dreamt every night as she usually does, and she's thought harder and harder on the fate of Uzushio - but there's nothing for her to remember. Never, as far as she can tell, was her dream-self taught about the village.
She hasn't gotten so much as a hint as to what happened, much less how to stop it, and when Sakura leaves the village to head to the Kumo front, she wonders if it won't be the last time she sees it.
If one day she'll get a message telling her her father was dead and her village gone. If one day she'd come home and it simply wouldn't be there anymore.
She doesn't know.
She doesn't know, and that worries her like nothing has before. "Keep her safe." Sakura says quietly to her father as they gather at the gates, gaze roaming over the village behind.
Her party - made of five Uzushio shinobi this time - isn't the only one there. It's one of ten. Fifty shinobi, chūnin and jōnin alike, gathered up to be sent out to their respective posts.
"I will." Her father swears, not having to ask. His gaze darts past her and he nods to the waiting shinobi. "I'll protect the people inside her walls - it's your job to protect the ones outside of them."
"I will." Sakura vows with the utmost determination.
Another four months on the front and this time their detachment is even larger. The fights are bloodier, the death count is higher, and Sakura struggles to keep them together.
Akira is with the detachment again, but the other three are shinobi she barely knows.
One of them will never come back to Uzushio with them.
The war goes on.
Sakura remembers a life that both is and isn't her own. She remembers being a bullied child, and she remembers being a cherished one. She remembers a girl named Ino helping her find her confidence, and she remembers being confident from the day she was born.
She remembers a carefree childhood and one full of excitement and learning. She remembers turning twelve and still being a student, and she remembers turning twelve covered in blood and still fighting.
She remembers a life where she'd grown up loving Konohagakure and all of it's people - but she'd living a life where she hates them.
"This war isn't ours." Sakura says quietly as she catches her breath, leaning heavily on her sword. It doesn't help much - she's still channeling chakra into her seals, scattered across the bodies lying on the ground and those still fighting. Some of the seals have faded away, disappearing like they had never been there.
She's trying not to think about those.
It's not going well.
"It never is." The man beside her points out, sounding more composed even if he's as bloody and filthy as she is. Akihito - the man who usually serves as her father's right-hand man - had been teamed with her on this deployment. Entirely unsuspiciously, he's clung to her side like a leech.
A very, very protective leech.
She isn't complaining for it - the man's swordwork is better than hers, almost as good as her father's, and she can see why he's here. Akihito moved like he'd been fighting at her father's side for years - and she can only assume he had been.
Doubtlessly that was why her father had sic'd the man on her, and the loyal jōnin has been plastered to her side ever since they stepped foot out of Uzushiogakure together.
Another seal fades away, the chakra flow cutting off abruptly, and the sensation makes her snarl. "Why are we here, senpai?" She demands, waving out with her free hand - black seals that are glowing a soft blue, but it's impossible to see either under all the blood. "Why are we-" Another seal gone and she curses viciously. Sakura stops talking, instead ripping her katana from the ground and striding furiously back into the fray with Akihito at her heels.
She remembers from her dream world hearing tales of this place. Hearing of the death toll beyond number, the unspeakable collateral damage, and their own Village Head focusing on fighting instead of protecting his people.
She remembers hearing about all of the horrors, and of the scars they had left in the land and its people. Hearing about it, she reflects as she ducks under a fire jutsu and lunges to gut its user, was nothing compared to living it.
She wishes she'd never agreed to go to Amegakure.
The next detachment to Amegakure had the largest group of Uzushio shinobi sent out en masse. To every other station, Uzushio shinobi went in groups ranging from pairs to a maximum of six.
To Amegakure, they went out in groups of twenty.
Eight of them come home.
"I've never seen you so angry." Her father notes quietly, two days after their return. They're not in his office for once, but rather just outside it, overlooking Uzushio from his balcony. Sakura's hands grip the railing as tight as she can, her breaths perfectly even.
"I've never been so angry." She corrects - and it's true. In this life and her last, she's never been so angry. It's an anger that burns deep in her stomach, radiating out and making her hands shake in its fierceness.
Twelve bodies, that's all that she can think about. One of them had been forty-eight. Another had been twelve.
"I hate this, father." Sakura confesses, with all the bitter force a thirteen year old girl can carry.
Her birthday had been a week ago, en route from Ame to Uzushio. She'd still had blood under her nails.
"No one likes it, Sakura." Her father says almost chidingly.
"Hanzo does." She snaps instantly, glaring out at the ocean, somehow even more incensed by the thought of Amegakure's leader. She can see the whitecaps of the waves and she can imagine the noise of them hitting the rocky shore. She wants it to soothe her but it doesn't.
She feels angrier than she should, she thinks. In her dreams, she hadn't been this angry over the war.
But in her dreams, she hadn't felt betrayed by it, either.
Konohagakure had been her home in her dreams. The Sandaime Hokage, her hero.
But Uzushio is her home now, and the Hokage had thus far failed them miserably. "We're fighting a war with no purpose."
"Sakura." Her father warns, but not unkindly, and he steps up beside her. His hands wrap around the railing just beside her own, the breeze tugging at his sleeves, and he looks out at the ocean instead of at her. "We're fighting a war to save lives."
"That doesn't make sense." Sakura protests instantly and he huffs softly, making her fall silent.
"You forget yourself, Sakura." He says gently, looking over at her. His expression is calm but grim, sorrowful in a way that makes her feel young and uneasy. "We aren't in this war to take or protect territory. We aren't in it for vengeance or careless bloodlust. We're in this war for Konoha."
"Because of." Sakura bites out and he shoots her a reprimanding look for that.
"For Konoha." He restates firmly. "Alliances mean so little in these times, but I remember a time when they meant everything. When they meant living and dying for one another." He says, looking back out at the ocean. "Our alliance with Konoha was written with the spilled blood of our enemies and the shared blood of our peoples. We've always fought together, from beginning to end. Uzushio stands alone and so does Konoha, that's true enough - but we stand alone, together."
He falls silent after that and Sakura doesn't break it, watching the distant waves and clenching her jaw so tight it hurts.
She wants to accept his point. She understands it.
But… "Alliances aren't good enough to defend this, father." She says quietly, closing her eyes and breathing in the smell of the sea. "You'd understand that if you saw Amegakure for yourself."
There's a long minute of silence. "...Perhaps," Her father offers slowly, "but that does not change our position. Konoha would do the same for us."
Sakura violently shoves away from the balcony. "Uzushio wouldn't use Konoha shinobi as glorified meatshields." She snarls before storming off the balcony, ignoring the tight expression her father wears as she passes by.
Her father hadn't been to Amegakure. He hadn't seen the way the other villages had zeroed in on their people, their priority to eliminate the power houses and seal masters that made up Uzushio's forces.
He hadn't seen it - but she had.
Chapter End Notes
I just want to add super quickly that I really, really like Sarutobi - and there's no way in hell I'm going to bash him. But part of the reason why I like Sarutobi's character so much is because of the whole two-sides-of-a-coin thing he had going on. We see his love and protectiveness of his village during the first arc - but in flashbacks, we see him for the military leader he was, too.
As for Sakura, well. She's getting her first taste of a nice, traditional, secret-alien-overlord-free war. She's handling it as well as can be expected.