Chapter 6
Chapter Summary
"Empires will crumble to the sand,
All that you love,
Can slip through your hand..."
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
In the privacy of her own mind, Sakura knows that Konoha doesn't see them a glorified meatshields like she'd claimed. She remembers being young and meeting the Sandaime before she'd joined the Konoha Shinobi Academy. She remembers his kindness, how genuine he was.
She knows that man, and that man wouldn't be fighting this war without struggle and regrets.
But Sakura doesn't know that that man is the same man leading Konoha now. For all she knows, his callousness with lives during this war was what had made him so peaceful and kind.
For all she knows, he can barely sleep at night. For all she knows, he doesn't even spare a thought to Uzushio's losses.
She doesn't know, but that doesn't stop her from feeling betrayed.
"You should rest." Her mother says quietly and Sakura twitches slightly, startled. The woman is behind her, her father's robes wrapped around her much smaller frame, and her hands hug the cloth close to herself.
Sakura exhales a slow breath, uncurling hands that she hadn't realized she'd had fisted. "I can't." She admits, keeping her voice as quiet as she can. Her mother is a civilian (and not a blonde haired chūnin like she sometimes dreams) and she's too kind for the things Sakura wants to unleash from her lips.
She'd had to carry a twelve year old's mutilated body home just a week ago.
His hair was so red she couldn't tell if he was an Uzumaki or just that drenched in his own blood.
"You should try." Her mother murmurs, stepping up to the edge of the deck. She sits down delicately, robes pooling around her, and looks out at the frozen koi pond in the yard. It's late January, but it's been a colder year than usual. Uzushio rarely saw snow as often as it had so far this year.
"I did." Sakura huffs out softly, allowing her mother to take her hand. The woman cradles it in both hands, warming the chilled limb, and Sakura closes her eyes. "I hate this." She says, and she also hates how childish it sounds.
"I'd be more concerned if you didn't." Her mother offers in response, frowning out at the koi pond. "Your father won't tell me much about what's going on, so I can only assume it's terrible." She says quietly and Sakura blinks, startled. "Which is unfortunate, because both of you seem very in need of someone to talk to." She says lightly before pulling one of her hands away from Sakura's. She wraps her arm around Sakura's shoulders, drawing the small girl into her side and holding her hand gently. "So, then. Let's find something we can talk about, hm? Met any cute boys lately?"
Part of her instantly cringes inside at the thought of finding someone her age attractive, while the other part is just stunned stupid.
After a long moment, all she can do is laugh helplessly.
Her mother finally looks sideways at her and her smile is so warm there's nothing Sakura can do but return it.
This, Sakura thinks, is the time she hates Konoha most of all.
"How many?" Her father asks hoarsely, staring out the window. Her father's office is full of shinobi, pale faced and determined.
The expressions of people who know they're going to die but won't hesitate to do it anyways.
Uzushio is small, but she's always been strong, and as she looks at their faces, Sakura can feel her strength.
"Two hundred ships spotted so far." Kaito, a jounin seals master, says grimly.
The room seems to be holding it's breath - or maybe it's just so tense that she can't quite breathe.
She can't see the ships from her father's window, but there's no doubt that they're there.
"How many traps have they gotten past?"
"Three layers, sir. Twenty-five or so ships have been lost."
Sakura closes her eyes and slowly breathes through her nose. There were seven layers of traps in the oceans around Uzushio. Twenty-five ships lost to three and still more than two hundred on the way.
Silence fills the room for several seconds - though they feel like minutes - before her father speaks. "Well." He starts mildly. "The circumstances could be better, but we've always known that Kiri loves to make an entrance."
Someone snorts in a show of horribly grim humor.
"Little better, yeah." Someone else speaks up and Sakura squeezes her eyes shut tighter at the voice. Unabara, she recognizes instantly.
"Sakura." Her father begins firmly, hands settling on her shoulders, and she opens her eyes as he turns her towards him. She looks up at his face - expression warm and loving and so, so apologetic. "My beautiful daughter." He says quietly, one hand shifting to cup her face. "You're not a woman grown yet, but you've been one in mind practically since you were a babe. I have no doubt you'll resent me for this, but I know you'll forgive me."
Sakura grimaces, trying to ignore the other presences in the room. There are just under twenty shinobi in his office, lingering in the corner of her eyes, and all of them are waiting on her father's words.
"You are my successor." He says with the utmost finality and her eyes slip shut once more, a pained breath leaving her. "You will leave, now, the second I'm done talking. Akihito will go with you. His job is to protect you - but your job is to protect them. The people." Her father instructs firmly, one hand gripping her shoulder almost painfully tight and the other gently cupping her cheek. "Get as many people as you can, Sakura." He urges and she forces herself to open her eyes and meet his gaze. "Get them out of here. Get them to safety. I know you've thought about it - I know you've worried about this. You have a plan, don't you?"
"Yes." She says very, very quietly and he nods, lips twisting up in a painful smile.
"You always do, my darling girl. Take them. Take as many people - citizens and shinobi. Anyone you find, order them to follow you. You're the Village Head now, daughter. They're your responsibility. Get them safe." He tells her firmly, and before she can do more than stare up at him, he drops his hands and turns to the waiting shinobi. "The rest of you are coming with me. Our jobs are to buy these two enough time to do theirs." He says, stepping away from her to pull his katana from the side of his desk. Akihito slinks away from the others, falling silently into place at her side.
"Wait." Sakura cuts in quickly, and before anyone can ask, she pulls her glove off her left hand. It only takes a few seconds to tap everyone in the room with it, planting a faintly glowing seal on their shoulders.
When she nods and steps back, the others don't even hesitate to move towards her father - who offers her a small nod of proud approval before looking at his people severely. "We're going to meet them head on. They'll be through the barrier any minute, so let's get moving." He commands sharply, heading for the balcony. The others follow in an instant, flickering to the nearby rooftops fast as she can blink, and Sakura watches them go with a twisting sensation in her stomach.
She feels sick.
She feels beyond sick.
She feels a nauseating kind of hopeless desperation that she's never felt before - except once, in her dream life, when she had to wrap her fist around her best friend's heart just to keep him alive for a little bit longer.
But there's no keeping these people alive.
There's no saving her father, or Unabara - or her mother, who's at home on the wrong side of the island for Sakura to rescue her.
No, Sakura has a plan for escape - a very tentative plan that hinges on a lot of luck - and it has her going in the complete opposite direction.
The realization makes her feel like someone's choking her. "Father," She calls in a strangled voice and he looks back at her, perched on the balcony railing and ready to spring away. "Mother. I won't- I can't…"
Her father offers her a tired smile, breaking off her failed attempts at speech. Her eyes burn with tears that she can't hope to stop. "It's alright, Sakura. She'll understand." He promises her, and the smile vanishes, replaced by grim determination. "I love you. Now get the hell out of here." He barks before he disappears in a quick flicker - the other shinobi vanishing after him.
Sakura watches for a moment.
Just a moment.
Then she wipes her tears on her glove and turns to Akihito. "Let's go. We need to get to the western bridge - grab everyone we find on the way." She says sharply, heading for the balcony with Akihito at her side. When they turn to flicker away, though, it's in the opposite direction her father had gone. Her eyes narrow dangerously, rage simmering and warring with grief in her stomach, and she takes a breath. "Let's just hope Konoha really does care about us." Sakura mutters grimly before flickering away, Akihito just behind her.
She prays her father's faith in the village - and her dream self's - was not in vain.
Because if Konoha isn't waiting at the other end of the bridge, they'll all be dead by nightfall.
It takes twenty minutes to reach the bridge. By the time they do, they've grabbed two dozen shinobi on the way. All it takes is a quick command and they fall in line with her and Akihito, some with grace and some with terror. "Akataki-sama's leading a force to hold Kiri off. It's our job to get people to safety with the time he buys us."
Kiri reaches land before they reach the bridge. Only halfway there, the explosions start. Then the screams and the smoke, off in the distance and impossibly painful to ignore. But they ignore them. They ignore the screams, and they ignore the fact that they all have friends and family facing down Kiri's forces right that moment - while they turn and run in the other direction.
But it's something they must do.
Sakura carefully channels chakra through her seal, but they aren't even at the bridge before the first seal disappears on her. Damn, she thinks, throat tight. "Yin Seal: Release!" She hisses under her breath.
The seal on her forehead unfolds, blooming out across her skin like a flower - but the violet lines of chakra turn to harsh, solid black lines. Strength of a Hundred, she thinks, and channels her chakra.
The Strength of a Hundred, flooding into seventeen shinobi all at once, channeled by her.
Shishō would be proud, Sakura thinks as she runs.
There are over two hundred citizens swarming the bridge by the time they arrive, and Sakura swallows back her grief, focusing on the task at hand. "Everyone," She says as she moves between the shinobi, tagging them as quickly as possible. "Form up behind the civilians, and form one line in front. We must get these people to safety!" Sakura commands, putting as much force into her voice as she can. It wavers slightly with grief and pain, but they obey immediately. She goes in front of the group, Akihito at her side, and Akira at her other.
The only two shinobi in the group that she knows beyond mere acquaintance - and that's a painful thought to swallow.
Everyone else…
Well.
If they weren't in the group, their chances of escape were much, much lower.
"Stay with us!" Sakura calls out sharply over the noise of the crowd, and the civilians hurry along the bridge, falling into place between the two lines of shinobi. Most of the shinobi are covering the rear, with only eight of them up front to lead. "Follow the bridge. We'll keep you safe!"
It's not even easy to say that, and it's much harder to keep that promise. It'll take them an hour to cross the bridge, and only thirty minutes in does Kiri start showing up. She can't fight like this, not while almost all her focus is on channeling the Strength of a Hundred long distance as she is.
She cuts off the flow, chakra flooding back into the seal and closing off in the shape of a diamond on her forehead.
Within two minutes, almost all of the seals in the distance disappear.
She can't think about that, but she can't ignore it all together either, so she just keeps her eyes forward and her mind on the chakra channeling into the shinobi around them.
"Where the hell is Konoha?" Akira snarls as they struggle along the bridge. A Kiri shinobi gets in a lucky blow and two civilians crumple without a sound, the others screaming. One of the shinobi at the rear kills him before the bodies can even hit the bridge.
Sakura has no answer to offer Akira so she doesn't try, instead forging ahead with a level of intense determination she's never felt before. "Keep moving!" Sakura commands, urging them along.
Akihito's sword snaps a kunai out of the air and Sakura pauses just long enough to draw her sword and pounce on the offending Kiri shinobi.
A woman cries out and with a harsh gurgle, one of Sakura's seals vanish.
She ignores that, falling back into place and keeping her sword loose but ready at her side.
None of her seals are left in Uzushio.
Not one.
She tries to ignore that, too.
It takes an hour to cross the bridge, and half of that is spent in chaos. The back half of their group takes the worst of the damage - losing six shinobi and nearly thirty civilians in the travel.
It's when they reach the end, though, that something snaps inside Sakura.
Not because Konoha isn't there like she'd feared.
No, Konoha is there. But Kumo has formed a blockade, locking Uzushio away and in the clutches of Kiri's vicious fleet, while Konoha struggles to breach it.
Her breath leaves her in a harsh, hissing way. "Spear formation!" She barks harshly, feeling like she's on fire and like she's frozen at the same time. The sheer rage bubbling in her makes her dizzy. She's angrier than she's ever been before in either of her lives. Even when she'd watched a village be transformed to a crater in an instant, she'd been too stunned and horrified to feel so angry.
None of the shinobi - her shinobi - hesitate to follow her order. They fall into place with ease, lining up like an upside-down V with her and Akihito at the tip and the civilians clustered safely between the lined up bodies. She raises her katana, and without having to say a word, they rush the Kumo shinobi in a wave.
Like the tip of a spear, her and Akihito carve into the line. The attack would have been effective either way - but it's made much, much more effective when two while lines of chakra fly out in front of them.
Chains, Sakura realizes in surprise, just before said chains whip out and send Kumo shinobi soaring.
She follows the lines, glancing briefly over her shoulder, and is surprised to see a bright red haired woman flinging them out left and right, swiping Kumo off their feet like they're made of air itself.
Sakura smiles at her in a grim kind of way and the woman looks back before they both refocus on the fight.
It takes another ten minutes to make it safely through the Kumo line, and by the time they're on the other side, they've lost five more shinobi and forty more civilians.
Akira's gone, and though she didn't see what happened to him, she knows that means he's dead.
The moment they're on the other side, Sakura looks at one of the jōnin she recognizes. "Uma, Tabane, get the civilians out of here." She orders before glancing at the Konoha shinobi quickly piling between them and the Kumo shinobi.
"To Konoha!" Someone calls out, and Sakura looks over to see a pale haired man from Konoha speaking. He approaches quickly, bowing politely to her. "The Village is ready to give you aid. They'll be taken care of."
The idea has her narrowing her eyes, anger churning her stomach.
Konoha was the only reason they're in this position.
But… she has a mere dozen shinobi left under her command and perhaps a hundred and fifty civilians to protect.
She swallows thickly and nods, gesturing sharply at the Konoha shinobi. "Will you help protect them on the way there?" She asks and he nods immediately.
"Kobiru! Zaka!" The man calls, two more Konoha shinobi - jōnin from the looks of them - flicker to his side. "Help them reach Konoha safely." He orders.
Sakura waits just long enough to see the civilians get moving before she gestures to the rest of her shinobi - a mere eleven out of the twenty-some shinobi they'd left Uzushio with.
A mere eleven out of what had been hundreds.
Another thought that she forces herself to ignore. She looks back to the horizon, past the Konoha and Kumo shinobi, past the bridge and on to the distant island.
It's more smoke than land at this distance, and her stomach twists viciously. "We've called for reinforcements." The Konoha jōnin says grimly. "But there's no telling how long it'll take for them to arrive."
There must be other survivors. Statistically speaking, there has to be some survivors out there, either trapped in the rubble or trying to cross the waters via chakra or ship. Kiri's obviously inhumanly vicious, so she doesn't doubt that they've surrounded the island, breaking away only to avoid the whirlpools the Land was named for.
They'll be picked off, and soon.
She desperately wants to go back. She wants to charge back through Kumo's forces to save those civilians and shinobi left behind. She wants it so badly it hurts.
But there's only eleven of her shinobi left at her side now.
Thirteen in total, out of what had been hundreds, and it makes her feel sick.
She can't risk them on what would essentially be a suicide mission.
"Help Konoha hold the line." Sakura commands hoarsely.
Then she leaps into the fray with Akihito at her side.
They end up not even needing the reinforcements.
Kiri doesn't stay. They don't hold Uzushio - there's nothing left of her. They used their full force to destroy her, and once they were finished and had picked off the strays, they leave with nothing but a bloody annihilation accomplished.
And, well, then it's just Kumo. They fight through the night, and Sakura makes good use of her weapons and her seal, helping Konoha push the forces slowly but steadily back to their side of the Hot Water border. She's beyond exhausted by the end of it all and has tapped into her Yin seal twice just to keep her remaining people alive - but alive they are, albeit shaky and bloody.
It does nothing to ease her anger, or her grief, or the deep rooted sense of overwhelming betrayal.
"The eastern watchtower says five survivors reached land." The same jōnin as before, mildly familiar now, tells her shortly after sunrise when Kumo's finally reluctantly pulled back. "Two shinobi and three civilians. A woman and her two infants." He explains, and Sakura blinks at him, tired enough that it takes her a moment to figure out how to respond.
"I see. Are they on their way to Konoha?"
"The woman and one of the shinobi are. The other claims he's retired now and no one can prove otherwise. Seemed to be heading west." The jounin says, offering a faint shrug.
Sakura snorts in bitter amusement. "That's fair enough." She mutters, looking sideways.
Uzushio's still smoking, but faintly now. "I'm leading a party of Doton users into the ruins. Do you have any that could join us?" He asks grimly and she glances questioningly at her shinobi - still eleven of them, thank the sea - and gets a round of 'no's for that.
"Apparently not." Sakura passes on to the jounin, who nods once. "I need to return to my people. Tell anyone you find that we're regrouping in Konoha, but that doesn't mean we're going to remain there."
The jōnin blinks in mild surprise before he nods, inclining his head respectfully. "I understand. Thank you for staying as long as you did despite your state, Uzumaki-hime. Your aid was invaluable."
She blinks at the title. She can barely remember a time when someone referred to her that way - it was before she was a shinobi, at the least. She'd become a shinobi, and shinobi weren't princesses.
She especially isn't one now.
All she could be a 'princess' of is now a pile of ash and ruin.
She swallows thickly, once, and nods at the jōnin. "It's Sakura. And they're my people. I'd fight through fire itself on the off chance of saving even one of them." She says roughly.
The man's green eyes soften slightly, and he looks at her with even more respect than before.
It's eerie, and it makes her head spin worse, because she's thirteen. But then again, they're shinobi. Skill is what matters, not age.
"Then call me Dan, Sakura." He offers, and realization hits her.
No wonder she thought he looked familiar. She almost laughs.
Instead she just offers a probably twisted smile and nods before turning to her eleven remaining shinobi. "Let's go."
She's thirteen, and there are one hundred and sixty-two of her people left alive. She's bloody, she's battered, and she burned, and most of her people are no better.
She still walks into the Hokage's office the moment she arrives in Konoha, Akihito a silent, constant presence at her side. She doesn't stop to rest or to clean up. She doesn't care about the sight she must make - if anything, it empowers her.
She's angry, she's furious, and above all else, she's completely, utterly heartbroken.
But for the moment, she's mostly furious, because Sarutobi's sitting at his desk looking sad when she walks in.
She's thirteen, and she's the daughter of the last Village Head of Uzushiogakure, and she walks right up to his pretty pastel yellow chair and sinks her blood-soaked body into it. She leans back, sets her elbows on the cloth armrests, and twines her fingers together across her stomach. She looks at Sarutobi, meeting the regretful gaze of a man she'd respected so much in her dream life, and it's all she can do to keep her disdain from showing on her face.
She doesn't do anything to hide it from her body language, though. She does her best to practically scream it.
"I am sorry." Sarutobi says solemnly and her eyes narrow dangerously.
She's certain that he is. He looks grief-stricken, regret oozing out of every pore. She believes him - she just doesn't care.
"My forebearers have always supported yours, Hokage-sama." Sakura informs him levelly, meeting his gaze head on. She's thirteen, but only this time around, and she has no qualms about staring down a forty year old man. "My father supported your cause even when he disagreed with it. He defended your mistakes," She says slowly, and Sarutobi's eyes narrow slightly, "even when he agreed that that's what they were. Uzushio has always been your ally, even when we disapproved." Sakura lifts a hand up and props her chin on her closed, bloody fist. "There is no Uzushio to be your ally now, Hokage-sama. Convince me to continue supporting you with what's left of us in spite of that." She challenges icily.
Sarutobi stays dead silent, meeting her gaze with dangerously narrowed eyes. She doesn't give in. She's already died once, and it's remarkably difficult to be afraid of much anything after that.
Finally, after over a minute of tense staring, Sarutobi pushes to his feet. Akihito's breathing stops for a moment, and even her own heart jumps a bit, but she firmly ignores it. He keeps his narrowed stare on her a moment longer and then nods sharply.
"Very well. I will convince you."
And eventually, he does.