Chapter 8
Chapter Summary
"The strange silence,
Surrounding me,
Grows closer,
Feels colder.
But I'm ready,
To suffer the sea.
Black water,
Take over." - Black Water, OMAM
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Sakura's thirteen and it's been six months since her and her people lost everything.
Four months since the Clan compound had been sealed away, becoming untouchable but not unseen by outside forces.
Tucked in their sanctuary, things are finally, finally beginning to stabilize.
She wears her Uzushio hitai-ate around her forehead like she always has, and a Konoha one around her left thigh - the symbol usually blocked by the katana on her hip.
It's a reluctant compromise on her end of things. "We're in Konoha now," Sakura tells her shinobi when she passes them their new hitai-ates. "We might not fight in their name, but we do fight alongside them."
Like her, none of them had opted to remove their Uzushio hitai-ates, instead wearing both at once. Sarutobi hadn't made a comment on it, but she could see the resignation on his expression when he first spotted the new tradition.
It's been six months since Uzushio was lost, four months since the Clan was established, and three months since she was officially chosen to be the Clan Head.
I'm only thirteen, Sakura thinks as she stares out the northern gate of Konoha, waiting. But that's not quite true, is it?
She's thirteen - but she's also seventeen, and sometimes that fact is the only thing that helps her survive her new life.
"Uzumaki-sama." Someone says, and she turns to look over her shoulder. Then she blinks, surprised at the sight before her.
For a moment, it's like a glimpse into her dream life. A Nara, a Yamanaka, and an Akimichi stand behind her.
Ino, Shika, Cho, her mind supplies instantly - even though she doesn't recognize them from her dreams. They're all young - though not quite as young as her. Fifteen, she thinks, perhaps.
"Hello." She greets mildly, turning to them fully. She doesn't bow - only offering them the smallest incline of her head, and they bow in return. "You're my team, then?" She questions.
"We are." The Nara answers promptly. "I'll be leading this mission, unless you have any complaints." He says politely and she quirks a brow before smiling.
"No complaint." Memories of Shikamaru flicker across her mind, but she pushes them away. She flashes the man a smile that shows far too many teeth and gestures to the gate behind her. "Shall we go, then?"
Shikaku glances at his two teammates before nodding sharply. "I'll explain the mission on the way."
Sakura's fourteen and it's been over a year since Uzushio's destruction when she finds herself on the frontlines again.
Sarutobi had been hesitant in assigning her to the front again, but eventually relented under the pressure for more medics.
It's not a surprise that she ends up on the Kiri border, given her skill in water jutsu.
In the end, she doesn't do much as a medic. The Seven Swordsmen are standing strong unlike in her dream world, and they're relentlessly powerful in their assaults on Konoha. Sakura spends more time fighting and killing than any other time on the field.
She's fourteen when her skills and reputation earn her her name.
Dekishi-hime.
The Drowned Princess.
She laughs when they tell her, but it doesn't feel funny at all.
Uzushio had been strong, but she had fallen. The Uzu Clan was strong, and it will not fall.
Not as long as Sakura lives.
"Uzushio was strong." Sakura says loudly to carry over the crowd. Her people are silent, watching with tired, grieving eyes as she pulls the sheet away.
A large statue in the shape of a swirl is unveiled to the people. "She may be lost to the seas," Sakura continues as she reaches up, fingers brushing against the rough edges of the swirl. It's shaped to look like the swirl itself is made of water, and all along the edges are names, etched carefully into the stone. Sakura stares at the names for a moment, lingering on Heisui Uzumaki - her mother. She thinks about her parents, and then she thinks about a blonde haired boy who had carried a dead name.
When she speaks, her voice is hard and full of angry grief that burns at her heart and eyes.
"But she will never be forgotten."
They layer seals on the marble. Seals to protect the statue, seals to protect the compound, seals to attack invaders. Seals upon seals upon seals.
Some of them are brutal. Some of them are designed to blow the legs right off of someone on command. Some of them are innocent, only designed to give a small burst of comforting warmth to a reaching hand.
Each and every seal glows faintly with the chakra inlaid. One day, when the applier of the seal dies, the glow will fade away. Until then, they remain, offering a gentle blue glow that keeps the stone faintly illuminated at all times.
The compound remains firmly sealed off from the rest of the world.
With the number of barrier seals around it, one could hardly even tell it was there.
Sakura's fifteen and she's killed hundreds - and saved thousands. The war reaches it's fourth year.
It shows no sign of slowing down.
Sakura's sixteen, Uzushio's destruction is three years past, and she meets someone she isn't supposed to.
She knows she isn't supposed to. The sight of her sends discomfort rippling down her spine, her hair standing on end as Sakura looks at the twelve year old in front of her.
The girl looks back up at her with blazing defiance.
"This is Kushina Uzumaki," Sarutobi explains, pulling his pipe away to exhale a small plume of scented smoke. "Your father sent her to us nearly seven years ago, now. She's the Kyūbi's jinchūriki."
Sakura blinks, recoiling a bit. Kushina Uzumaki glares up at her and Sakura fights to keep her expression blank. The girl's features scream wrongness, and the reason hits her like a fist to the head.
She looks just like Naruto. The shape of her face, the expression pulling at her lips and eyes, all of it is… so, so similar.
Uzumaki, Sakura thinks, mind whirring. The Kyūbi jinchūriki, just as Naruto had been.
And in her dream life, without herself to lead those that she had to safety, Kushina might well have been the last Uzumaki in Konoha.
'I just sent a six year old girl to Konoha as a war token, Sakura.' Her father had said. 'A six year old girl, condemned to a miserable life as a human weapon.'
Sakura's gaze slides past the girl, instead landing on Sarutobi. It's hard to focus on him as the puzzle flickers around in her mind. She'd known that Minato Namikaze was Naruto's father - he'd told her that, her dream self, after… Konoha's fall. But somehow, finding herself face to face with who was undeniably his mother is more of a shock. "Yes, I recall him saying something about that." She says distractedly, eyes darting back to Kushina. "Hello. I'm Sakura Uzumaki, if you didn't know."
"I know." Kushina bites out harshly. More harshly than Sakura thinks she deserves, until Kushina says, "You kill people like me."
"Oh." Sakura blinks, part of the puzzle fitting together. Tsuru Uzumaki and her mission to the Kumo frontlines.
The woman had killed the Nibi's jinchūriki, together with a certain trio of shinobi of whom Sakura tries not to think about.
The image of a blonde haired woman with a diamond on her brow, smiling down at her, flickers across her mind before she shoves it away.
"The circumstances were unique. Do you have any intention of killing thousands of your own people just to kill hundreds of the enemies?" Sakura asks politely, arching a brow.
The girl's face goes red with anger. "Of course not! But-"
"Because that's what he was doing." Sakura cuts off, meeting the girl's furious stare. "He was unleashing the Nibi and making no attempt to control it. That miserable excuse for a human killed without any control. He killed just as many of his own people, willingly, as he killed ours. If not more." Sakura says darkly. "So yes, Tsuru - the woman in question here - killed him."
A bit too gleefully, to be sure, but the woman had been furious when she explained to Sakura just what the jinchūriki had done.
Sakura pauses for a moment, only speaking up when it looks like Kushina's about to. "I'm sorry that it had to be done - just as I'm sorry that any lives are taken and lost in this war. But some times it has to, and it had nothing to do with him being a jinchūriki."
Kushina still stares at her defiantly, but there's a bit less certainty behind it, so Sakura slides her gaze back to Sarutobi. "Hokage-sama?" She inquires, politely reminding him that he'd actually brought her here for something.
The man puffs his pipe once before speaking. "I called you here because of Kushina's unique living situation. Her caretaker has passed away," he says and Sakura sees Kushina flinch a bit at that, "and I wished to know if you'd take her in to your clan-"
"Of course I will!" Sakura snaps instantly, bristling, and both of them blink at her. "She's an Uzumaki. She's one of my cousins. Is it even a question?" She demands before sharply turning her head to the girl.
Only a few years younger than her in body, but sometimes Sakura feels like she's the age of both her lifetimes combined.
"One of the Shikoku Clan moved into the home of her soon-to-be husband. It's a single bedroom. Small, but not cramped. Is that alright?" Sakura asks, holding the girl's gaze.
The longer she watches, the more uncertainty replaces hostility. "You'll let me stay?" She asks very slowly, and Sakura feels even more aggravated at that.
"Of course we will. Akihito!" Sakura turns her head towards the door as she barks the name, and without hesitation, the jōnin flickers into the room already kneeling at her side. "This is Kushina Uzumaki. Will you show her into the compound? She'll be taking Chizura's home."
"Ah." The man's expression flickers with understanding and he looks at Kushina, offering her a small smile. "You're a student?" He asks and Kushina juts her chin challengingly before nodding. "Alright. Keep up, then." Akihito says with a grin before he flickers away, much, much slower than usual. Kushina vanishes just a step behind him.
Sakura watches them go, following their trail with her gaze for a moment.
Sarutobi sighs heavily and she turns her head just enough to look at him from the corner of her eyes. He looks sad and resigned as he exhales a plume of smoke. "One day, Uzumaki-hime, you'll stop thinking the absolute worst of me."
She offers him a smile that's all teeth. "One day you'll give me a reason to." Sakura retorts, brushing a hand pointedly over her Uzushio hitai-ate and lacing her fingers through her hair. "I wait with baited breath." She says in a tone just mocking enough that only she would be able to get away with it.
Even so, Sarutobi's eyes narrow dangerously - but he doesn't say anything, too guilty by half.
Just as he should be.
Sakura's sixteen when she goes down for the first time in the war.
Kirigakure had obviously done more than just destroy Uzushio - they'd raided her, and it takes one of their own seals to take her out. She's in the middle of dodging two separate attacks when a third shinobi slams a sheaf of paper to her middle back.
She'd be impressed by the honestly impeccable teamwork had it not left her chakra spasming through her system. She drops like a rock, and there's nothing she can do to avoid the blade coming at her.
One of the Seven Swordsmen, yet again showing his ugly face. His sword, thin and coated in lightning, tears through her side like a hot knife through butter.
The only reason it doesn't kill her, she sees through the spray of her own blood, is Akihito smashing his foot into the man's throat.
The smallest of the Swordsmen flies, sword spiraling out of Sakura's side and taking her blood and flesh with it, and she drops like a rock.
Hands grab her instantly, dragging her away, but it takes them a precious few seconds too many to grab the tag off her back and tear it away.
By then, her jutsu's long since been shut off by the faltering chakra, and Sakura's eyes roll back from bloodloss before she can reactivate it.
She staggers her way to Naruto and Sasuke, finds them lying in their own blood, and does the only thing she can.
She fixes them.
They wake up briefly, tired and worn, and pass back out before she can finish - and she never does finish, anyways. The blood stops, the wounds close over in bright red, thin, and delicate skin, and then Sakura passes out too.
She lays between them, her head propped on Naruto's bloody shoulder, and she knows she's done everything she can.
She knows she's done her part. She's earned her keep.
She's confident at last that she's a true member of Team Seven now, and she feels content with that when her eyes close.
Her forehead's blank, her chakra reserves are beyond emptied, and she never opens her eyes again.
Except she does.
She wakes up, opening her eyes to a world of white and emptiness, and an old man waiting for her.
"Sakura Haruno," He begins gravely and she stares at him, eyes wide and chest feeling strangely compressed, "I have a request for you. A task that I believe only you have the ability to perform. I need you to-"
She wakes up coughing weakly and wetly. There's a hand between her shoulder blades, propping her up, and another hand holding her head up. "I need you to wake up," Akihito's voice says urgently,
She does her best to open her eyes, but her lids are like lead and she can't focus on anything. Her eyes roll and shut almost immediately, but not before she spots the two forms hovering over her. Akihito is one, her mind supplies the obvious, but she couldn't focus long enough on the other one to guess. "There she is," Akihito sighs in heavy relief. "Is that enough?"
"It should be." A different, male voice says, and Sakura recognizes it vaguely. A medic, she expects. There's a hand on her jaw, easing her mouth open. "Chew on these, quickly now." The medic instructs. Two small orbs touch her lips. She crunches on them immediately, cringing at the taste.
Chakra pill and blood replenishing pill. Both disgusting and alarming in their own rights. For her to need both of them…
She forces her eyes open, trying to focus on what's above her, but there's a hand quickly laying over her eyes. "Nuh-uh. No hurting yourself. Come back later." The man commands.
Cool chakra rushes over her and she feels herself go lax, too tired to move again. Hands are going over her, constantly moving except one which grips her shoulder firmly the entire time. Akihito, she thinks with some relief, not so tired that she isn't uncomfortable with the lack of control.
She's not sure how long she lays there, distantly feeling the chakra flowing into her, before she drifts away again.
"Severe chakra damage to the pathways around the fourth Gate, limiting…" Sakura pauses mid-sentence, looks up from the chart at Akihito, and rolls her eyes.
The man's shoulders immediately relax.
"I'll be fine. Permanent damage, certainly, but hardly any." Sakura scoffs, tossing the chart back to her feet where it belongs. She's in a town somewhere between the Kiri border and Konoha, overtaken by the shinobi police (and how strange it is to see the Uchiha symbol everywhere she looks), planted in their hospital.
Their overrun hospital.
"Go spread my tags out." Sakura commands and Akihito's relieved expression instantly goes hard. "Do it." Sakura cuts in warningly, before he can even start. "I need to activate the seal anyways. That's what happens when a very delicate seal gets placed in the hands of a moron. Permanent damage in all the wrong ways." Sakura complains, flapping a hand dismissively. "I can take care of most of it. So go spread my tags out and I'll heal everyone here while I'm at it."
Akihito grimaces but nods, stepping back. "Yes, Sakura-hime." He says with a quick bow before he flickers away.
She waits patiently, frowning down at her incessantly tingling legs while feeling her seals pop up all over the hospital. It takes nearly fifteen minutes before Akihito flickers back to her side. "They're placed, Sakura-hime." He says formally and she nods, lifting trembling fingers up to form the seal.
Her body feels far too weak for it - but she opens the Yin seal anyways and begins the process of healing herself and the others.
She never does get feeling in that part of her back again, though.
Sakura's sixteen, the war's gone on for nearly four years, and they have to add their first new name to the Uzu Clan's statue.
"Seka Mizukawa." Sakura murmurs the words, bowing her head.
The kunoichi's father steps forward and touches the seal, eyes shining with tears. He's no shinobi himself, but he doesn't have to be. The seal entwined in the name pulls the man's latent chakra into the engraving, and Seka Mizukawa's name lights up a faint blue.
The sight makes her feel even sicker inside.
"War is a pain in the ass." Sakura shares with Akihito as they sit on the edge of the battlements, taking a short lunch break. "Hell on earth. Or maybe earth is hell. That'd be a twist, wouldn't it?" Sakura muses and Akihito offers a soft huff, otherwise silent as he bites into his sandwich. Sakura plucks at a piece of tomato dangling off the edge of her sandwich.
She hates tomato, but she remembers a black haired boy who'd loved it, and she remembers that she's also starving and they'd gotten incredibly lucky with the terrible war rationing.
She eats the slice of tomato and pretends to not be disgusted by it.
Somehow, the tomato is worse than the fact that she's pretty sure there's some blood on her fingers under all that dirt…
"I dreamt, you know." Sakura shares absently, frowning thoughtfully at her sandwich.
"You did?" Akihito asks politely, the good right-hand man that he is, even though it sounds like an utterly inane statement.
I always dream, she muses wistfully. "After the seal." Sakura elaborates and immediately gains more of Akihito's attention. "There was a man in a world of white." An alien, she wants to correct, but holds her tongue. "He told me that I had a task to complete." More or less.
Akihito frowns softly at her and she shrugs helplessly.
"I didn't say it was anything phenomenal. I just thought it was odd."
I just needed to get it out, she doesn't say, but Akihito nods solemnly like she's just entrusted him to a great secret.
And maybe she even has.
Something about that dream picks at her.
There's more to it, she's certain. He'd been about to tell her something important - very important - when she'd woken up.
"Ah, well." Sakura stabs the butt of her sheathed sword into the dirt, rolling it thoughtfully between two flat palms. "A mystery for another day."
A seal flares in the distance, an explosion following shortly after, and Sakura huffs out a breath.
"That looks like Tabane's sealwork." Akihito says quietly and she nods, pushing to her feet at the same time as him.
"Let's go, then." Sakura commands, swallowing down the last bit of her sandwich before they flicker off towards the blast.
The war continues.