Chapter 10
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Sakura's eighteen and back in Amegakure when she goes down the next time.
She'd heard about the man. She'd heard about how even the Sannin themselves had lost to the man.
She hadn't expected Hanzo to search her out.
Her team goes down in minutes, until it's just her left. Poison from his summoned salamander is what takes most of them, and water jutsus take the rest. Sakura fights as best as she can, but the poison is cloying, and it slowly interrupts her chakra flow more and more until she can't quite keep cycling it out of her body.
Akihito was gone, left to retrieve reinforcements, and she stands alone with little more than her katana to defend her. All the rest of her attention is on keeping the poison from affecting her system too much, but she's slowly getting dizzier and dizzier.
"You're strong, Dekishi-hime." He sneers her disturbing title and she sneers back at him.
"And you're pathetic." She retorts, disgusted. "Your poison kills your own people, yet you use it anyway."
"Anyone foolish enough to get close to me deserves the poison." He says dismissively.
"Come down from your salamander, Hanzo. Let's see who's stronger."
"No, I think not." Hanzo refuses instantly. "I can sense your reinforcements. But know this - If you live through this, I'll have your head eventually, Dekishi-hime. There are those willing to pay quite the sum for it."
He turns at that and Sakura watches him go, salamander slithering away rapidly.
She drops the second he's gone. She sinks to her knees, katana holding her up and shaking along with her entire body. Great gods, Sakura thinks anxiously, squeezing her eyes shut. The poison is lingering and she's struggling harder and harder to keep it out. More and more of it seeps in, making her head spin and her body weak. I underestimated him, Sakura admits in the sanctity of her own mind.
Her katana slides in the mud and she falls to her side, the world spinning so viciously it makes her feel ill.
She lingers just long enough to hear shouts before she slips into unconsciousness.
It takes two weeks for her to wake up.
No one else from her team is so lucky.
Chakra related injuries are always the hardest to heal, and it takes over a month for her pathways to regenerate back to their old state after the poison. Akihito spends most of that time hovering, but Sakura spends it plotting.
She does something she should have done years ago.
She writes down her dreams.
Not all of them, of course - but bulletpoints, carefully ordered and marked to show the importance of each matter.
Sakura understands now what she hadn't before. She understands that they weren't just dreams, disconnected and strange. No, it was her life, and she can feel it now. The memories are not distant anymore, but right there for her to touch. So she writes them down.
She writes about the year she was born in - another eleven years away - and the years she spends in the academy. She notes the people she meets, their personalities, their connections. She writes about events. About becoming Team Seven, about Naruto and Sasuke and Kakashi.
She writes about everything she can remember, from the date of her birth to the date of her death.
And then she ponders.
The Sage had told her to be a bridge between his two sons - yet Hashirama had been dead for over ten years, and Naruto and Sasuke wouldn't be born for eleven years. Nearly twelve.. She's too far away from one, and too far off from the other.
How was she expected to make changes?
How was she supposed to alter them when there's such an age gap to begin with?
Sakura nibbles on the end of her pen and considers her options until there's a knock on the door. She flips the paper over and replaces it with a copy of a mission report that she isn't supposed to have, handed to her by Tsuru of course. "Come in." Sakura calls distractedly, reading the report.
"Sakura-sama." Akihito, of course. She looks up at him and then pauses, blinking once, and then shoots to her feet and reaches for her katana.
"What happened?" She demands sharply, sliding her katana into place at her hip.
"Kushina's been kidnapped. It's already too late," Akihito adds quickly, when she moves to round her desk, and she pauses at that. "A team's been dispatched - but the wards, we don't know how they reached her."
"The wards are still up?" She clarifies and he nods, looking a little bit helpless as he does.
"Tabane is out with the search party and Kahan is examining the seals to make sure they're untouched - but he requested help. You and Tsuru are the only other two shinobi trained in Uzumaki sealing."
Sakura nods at that, tense as she does. "Let's go then." She commands and they flicker away. The sculpture is just outside her own residence, in the center of the compound, and Kahan is there when she reappears in front of the swirling water statue. "Anything?"
To her surprise, the usually jolly male outright sneers at the statue. "Too many things. Someone's been picking away at our defenses, Sakura-sama." He tells her tensely, one hand pressed hard to the statue and his eyes narrowed in concentration. There's a bead of sweat at the edge of his temple, and she reaches out to set a hand on his back. Her chakra flows easily into his network and his breathing evens out. "Sakura-sama," He begins grimly and she settles her free hand against the sculpture as well.
There's hundreds of seals etched into the stone, but all she has to do is follow Kahan's chakra flow to find what's so distressing.
Her breath escapes her in a soft hiss.
"Someone's been in the compound."
Kushina's found before the night is over.
Tabane and Kahan approach her three days later, sweaty and exhausted, and bare their teeth in a mockery of a smile.
Danzō's announced dead two hours after that.
"There are still questions unanswered." Sakura notes as she looks out her window, leaning back in her chair and observing the people wander around the sculpture. Even still, so many years later, people leave flowers at the monument. "We know Danzō was the one who was interfering with our seals," Something that no one outside the four of them know, "but why?" She questions, frowning deeply.
The man had rarely done anything in her memories without an ulterior, and usually sinister, motive. But what could he have against the Uzu clan? A simple distrust over their secrecy? Or was it something worse? Something more? Or perhaps he had Kushina kidnapped himself, doing it to reignite the flame against Kumogakure as their focus in the war had shifted towards Iwa and Suna for the moment.
She didn't know - and might never know, since she'd ordered the man dead.
She's still not sure how she feels about the fact that they hadn't hesitated to obey, even though it was a massive act of treason to have done so.
Danzō was, after all, a member of Konoha's head council - and Sarutobi's closest advisor.
Yet she'd had his throat slit without a second thought, and her people had followed without question. It felt a little unnerving.
"I don't know, Sakura-sama." Akihito says quietly from behind her, though it hadn't been a true question. "Hokage-sama has shinobi swarming the area, though. There's no chance of us slipping by unnoticed to search Danzō's things."
"I figured." ROOT had yet to be 'shut down', this time around. Sakura taps her fingers against her armrest, frowning out at the compound.
The seals on the statue glow still, not hinting to their tampering, and her eyes narrow a little.
How had anyone gotten close enough to the compound without the seals alerting them? How had they even begun to tamper with them without an alert?
Danzō had knowledge of sealing - she knows that much from her past life - but this took more patience than she remember the man having.
She wonders if he hadn't been working alone.
Sakura exhales slowly through her nose. "You mentioned someone had a request for me?" She prompts Akihito, changing the subject to something less unpleasant, and turns to look at him.
"Yes. Sayuri-san's son is soon to turn five years old, Sakura-sama. She requests your blessing to send him to Konoha's shinobi academy this upcoming year."
Sakura blinks at him.
Sayuri was a civilian, but her husband had been a shinobi.
"I see." She notes, and the topic isn't as pleasant as she'd thought it would be.
She looks back out at the compound and nods. "Give her my blessing - and my hellos." She says dismissively and hears the man bow before he flickers away.
It's been just over five years since Uzushio fell.
The boy would be the first Uzu-named child to go to the academy.
If all goes well, he might well be the first official Uzu Clan shinobi.
Time goes on and Sakura goes on with it, dragged by the heels of her shoes sometimes. She's eighteen and close to nineteen when word reaches her ears about a disgraced shinobi.
"Sakumo Hatake," Akihito explains to her when she makes inquiries, and she frowns deeply at him. "Evidently his mission's failure led to the loss of our hold on the fort we had on the Shimo-Kumo border." Shimogakure was the village of the territory between the Land of Hot Water and the Land of Lightning.
"I heard about that." She says, something twisting at her stomach at this news. "Our forces reformed on the Land of Hot Water border with Shimo."
"Yes, Sakura-sama."
"Over fifty people died, correct?"
"Yes, Sakura-sama."
"Why did he do it?"
"His teammates were captured by Kumogakure, Sakura-sama. He rescued them and lost precious time on his mission's priority."
Sakura closes her eyes, reaching up to rub at them.
She remembers hearing about this in her dreams. About her sensei's losses.
But she loathed Kumo, and the idea of him being the cause of them losing precious ground…
"Do you condemn him as well, Akihito?" She asks quietly and he's silent for a long moment.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not. If it were you capture, Sakura-sama, I would have cut a bloody swathe into the center of Kumogakure itself if that's what it took to save you, mission or not."
Sakura blinks at the blunt tone of voice, turning her head to look at him in outright surprise.
"On the other hand, if it were some random Konoha shinobi, for example, I would not." The man says quietly. "If the circumstances were in the case they are now."
Sakura pauses to consider that, looking back out the window.
If it had been Naruto or Sasuke, Akihito or her father…
She would have burned the world to reach them.
And… "What you first said. I'd do the same for any of Uzushio's people." Sakura determines even as she speaks, and lifts a hand to run a thumb thoughtfully under her bottom lip. "Sakumo. Did he know his teammates?"
"They're the same as his team from a genin." Akihito explains and Sakura frowns deeply.
"And their reaction?"
"One of them lost a family member at the post. The other is grateful as far as I can tell. You're oddly interested in this, Sakura-sama."
"I'm an odd person." She dismisses instantly. "Thank you for the information, Akihito. Anything else?"
"No, Sakura-sama."
"I'm going out into the village. Don't let my compound fall to pieces while I'm gone." She says lightly, shoving to her feet, and she brushes past Akihito, ignoring his curious expression.
She has some work to do.
She hunts him down and finds him at a dango joint, of all places, lurking behind it and nibbling on his dango while ignoring the world at large.
And hiding from it, hence the lurking bit.
Sakura sidles up beside him, leaning back against the wall with their arms just barely not touching, and presents him with a fresh stick of dango.
He blinks at her.
She ignores him, looking out at the village instead.
It takes him a very long moment to take the stick. "Is this poisoned?" He asks in a very bland tone, which expertly hides his actual feelings.
It's impressive, actually.
"No. You should eat more, Sakumo-san. You look awfully skinny." She tells him.
"I'm on a diet." He says flatly.
She rolls her eyes. "Well, you're doing an excellent job of it." Sakura points out, gesturing vaguely to their dango-based surroundings.
His eyebrow twitches a tiny bit. "It's been one of those weeks." He says in that same, bland tone.
Boring.
"Everyone fucks up, Sakumo-san." Sakura tells him smoothly. "Everyone. I would have done the same thing as you even if it meant going into Kumogakure's heart itself if it were one of my people." She tells him coldly, looking at him now as she borrows Akihito's words. He blinks at her, expression flat but not blank - too hard to be emotionless, even if she can't tell what emotion it is. "I don't care what they say. Maybe it was the wrong decision as a shinobi, but I don't care. That isn't what matters." Sakura says fiercely, matching his intense stare.
"To hell with the shinobi rules. If it were one of my people, I'd have done the same thing, no hesitation. I don't care if it's what a poor shinobi would do - it's what a good person would do, and that's what matters." She shoves off the wall and he watches her, blinking slowly.
When he makes no move to respond at all, she inclines her head politely to him. "Have a good day, Sakumo-san." She says, and leaves without ever getting a response.
Sakura does everything she can do to change things for the better - but she's been placed in an awkward time, between two major points, and sometimes she simply can't do enough.
And sometimes, there's simply nothing to be done.
She saved Dan's life and Tsunade remains in Konoha.
Yet Sakumo's funeral is offensively empty.
Sakura's nineteenth birthday is spent on the battleground yet again - this time in the midst of a particularly furious fight. Suna's pulled out of Amegakure for the most part, but Iwagakure is still going strong, throwing all its might at Konoha. Sakura does all she can to stem the flow, using fists and sword against them, but eventually she pulls back and focuses on healing instead.
She spends her birthday sitting on the floor in the middle of an overflowing medical tent, seals spreading out around her as she uses her chakra stored in her Yin seal to heal everyone she's marked. The shinobi around her do their part by tagging every fallen ally they find, and pulling them back to safety when they can.
She spends her birthday without even realizing it until Akihito taps her on the shoulder, seventeen hours after she sat down.
She peeks open a heavy lidded eye and he offers her a small, grim smile. "Happy birthday, Sakura-sama." He says mildly.
It's not a joke, but the statement is so out of place, so wrong for such a time, that she laughs anyways.
He smiles, eyes wrinkling at the corners, and she smiles back.
She doesn't come off the battlefield for some time. Over half a year she stays there, focusing on keeping as many alive as she can, and only gets pulled back when it's so bad she's had to activate the Strength of a Hundred three times in a single week.
Not because that many people were dying - but because she'd become such a huge target, Iwa was relentlessly attacking her.
The third time, Iwa's so sick of her that their Explosion Corps attacks her from above, not unlike Deidara's tactics.
The only reason she doesn't get blown to pieces is because she'd spotted the shadow when they came up behind them from the sky.
So she's pulled back and Tsunade sent in her place, her fiance Dan loyally at her side, much as Akihito stays by her own.
Which is a slightly unnerving thought, once she actually considers it.
"Akihito?" She questions, and the man looks at her curiously. They're on the road, heading back towards Konoha, but they're deep enough in the Land of Fire's territory that they're more or less relaxed now.
"Yes, Sakura-sama?"
She pauses, considering if she really wants to ask, and then looks over at him. "Why are you so… dedicated to me?" Sakura asks slowly.
He frowns softly at her, and it takes him barely a moment to respond with confidence. "Because your father's dying request was for me to get you to safety."
She frowns herself, blinking at that. "We got to Konoha safely years ago."
"Yes, Sakura-sama." Akihito says, taking a slow but steady breath as he calmly holds her gaze. "But by the time we'd reached Konoha, I knew that your safety was more important to me than anything we had left. I remain by your side to keep you safe now, Sakura-sama. As my own choice."
For a moment she keeps his stare met, but it becomes too heavy for her to hold for too long. She looks ahead instead, brow furrowing slightly.
She's touched, to say the least.
Emotion makes her throat tight when she speaks next. "Thank you, Akihito. You're a loyal friend."
"You're welcome, Sakura-sama." Akihito returns warmly, smiling. "And so are you."
They continue on for Konoha in peaceful silence.