Chapter 12
Chapter Summary
"If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
Or the mountain should crumble to the sea,
I won't cry, I won't cry,
No, I won't shed a tear,
Just as long as you stand, stand by me." - Stand By Me, Florence The Machine Cover
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The Third War, in the end, kicks off with a bang shortly after Sakura's twenty-second birthday.
An actual, literal bang.
Iwagakure's Explosive Corps invade the Land of Fire, cutting through Kusagakure and blasting through the small line of defense they'd laid there.
Iwagakure kills five hundred people and make it a third of the way to Konoha before the three Sannin reach them - and subsequently slaughters them.
The one survivor that they take doesn't last long under Inori's hands.
The attack sets off the beginning of the War. Iwagakure had taken advantage of the attention on the Minor countries, but the Minor countries weren't about to be forgotten. At the heels of Iwa's attacks came Takigakure's, and from there, the battles began spiderwebbing out.
Takigakure was, by far, the most annoying of their opponents - but their jinchūriki, at least, barely seemed able to control himself.
Tsuru is sent to the front lines immediately, her chakra chains doing wonders for suppressing the jinchūriki, as well as for snatching him out of air when necessary. They hadn't yet been able to kill him, but the last time he was on the field, Tsuru held him down and Akihito nearly gutted him before Taki shinobi nailed Tsuru with a particularly brutal jutsu to her face.
Luckily, Sakura had been there as well and healed her quickly so she could return to the fight. Otherwise she might not have made it, which would have been an unflattering end to her jinchūriki-harassing career.
And so the Third Shinobi War officially begins - with Iwagakure's over aggression and Takigakure's jinchūriki being swatted out of the sky like a gnat.
It's not all that different from the Second one.
"It says a lot about me as a person, I think, that I'm more comfortable on the battlefields than at home."
Tsuru barks out a laugh at that, but Akihito glances over at her with a more serious expression. "You've spent nearly half your life on the battlefield, Sakura-sama. Of course you would be."
"Some of us are just made for the battlefield." Tsuru interrupts, reaching up to rub at her shoulder. "And there's no shame in that, Sakura-sama. It doesn't mean you love bloodshed - it means you love the struggle." Tsuru lectures and she grimaces at that idea. "It means you love being able to fight. Or being able to save. Healing comes as naturally to you as breathing, Sakura-sama." Tsuru explains and Akihito's harsh frown eases slightly. "Just like fighting comes as naturally to me. Doesn't mean I like killing. But the movement, the power of fighting - that, I enjoy in the moment."
Sakura grimaces, looking down at the sword draped across her thighs, blood stained and half-cleaned. She hesitates for a long minute, then returns to cleaning it in long, careful strokes.
Eventually, Akihito speaks up. "It doesn't make you a bad person, Sakura-sama. If anything, it makes you a good one." He says quietly. "As Tsuru said. You're at your best when you're healing and defending. Who could possibly complain?"
She nods absently at that, remembering a time when she'd been strictly a healer and barely a fighter.
How frustrated she'd been when she couldn't protect her precious people.
...Well.
Sakura rises to her feet, brushing off the last of the blood and sheathing her sword. "I'm going to the medical tents. Hold down the fort." She commands, striding away even as they offer quick 'yes, Sakura-sama's.
She might've failed in that life, but she hasn't in this one.
Not yet.
The war continues and somehow she finds herself back in Amegakure, this time facing the full brunt of their shinobi. And this time with a very unique group of people.
"We're the only four people to stand against Hanzō and come out on top." Jiraiya explains and Orochimaru snorts shortly.
"To come out alive and barely in tact. I seem to recall having to carry you out?" He corrects snobbishly and Tsunade's head snaps around to glare at them.
There's a band of gold on her finger, and it's all Sakura can look at for a long, long minute.
She doesn't miss the way that Jiraiya's gaze keeps catching on it, too, and he doesn't miss the way hers does. "You're here to tag us and protect the front lines." Tsunade informs her sharply, shaking her from her uneasy emotion, and she looks up to see Jiraiya staring at her.
And the other two, too.
"Of course." She says, forcing her attention to return to the important matter. "I'll need your non-dominant hands." Sakura gestures and Tsunade and Jiraiya immediately present their lefts - while Orochimaru squints at her before slowly extending his right. She taps her fingers to their wrists and with a small spark of chakra, her seal settles against their skin. "I'll be able to heal you through this, as you know - and in times of emergency, as in you're fatally wounded or close to it, flare your chakra into it. I'll be able to fix it, but it'll hurt you in the long run, so don't do it carelessly." Sakura explains grimly and gets attentive nods for that.
Tsunade pulls her wrist back, gold glinting as she rolls her sleeve back down, and Sakura swallows hard before looking elsewhere.
She can't help but notice how Jiraiya does the same thing, and the sensation worsens in her gut.
She should be happy for her would-be-sensei. She should be thrilled that the woman had gotten the love of her life, had been spared something horrible that had haunted her her entire other life.
But all she feels is an overwhelming sense of wrongness.
Sakura's skilled and even stronger in this life than in her life, but even she has a weakness - one that she carried with her through time.
Poison.
There's only so much she can do to protect herself from poison, so when the Legendary Trio return victorious, she's relieved by the sight of Hanzō's blood on their hands.
She's wrong to think he's the only one she had to worry about.
The attack comes out of nowhere, when she's ventured onto the front lines with only Akihito to defend her back. She's healing and fighting, keeping a constant channel of the Mystical Palm Jutsu through her seals, when Akihito cries out an alarm.
She turns just in time for a senbon to go into her shoulder, three more hitting Akihito in the chest. Her breath catches and she rips the senbon away, moving to grab Akihito by the shoulders, when she catches sight of the glistening fluid on the senbon.
Shit. Sakura thinks before a wave of dizziness hits her. Akihito drops to the mud and she goes with him, reaching out with shaky fingers to pull the senbon out of him, but she can't heal him. She can't heal anyone.
The poison shakes her chakra system, making it shudder in time with her, and she winces at the nausea that rushes through her. The Mystical Palm Jutsu falters, her Yin Seal shriveling back up into a solid diamond on her forehead.
Shit, shit, shit. Not good.
There are shinobi around her, shouting and yelling, but it's a Tanigakure woman who pounces on them.
Sakura doesn't remember much after the blade slits Akihito's throat.
All she remembers is red.
Her hands shake as she holds them together, fingers twined so tightly they feel cold and numb.
The funeral is small and quiet. Kushina and Kahan stand behind her, the only other two Uzu shinobi not out at war. The Hokage is there as well, though she doesn't notice him until after the time for words is over. He walks past her, setting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing it gently.
He's even dressed in black for the event.
"I'm sorry for your loss, Sakura-hime." He says softly. She doesn't respond, gaze locked on the coffin in front of her.
She absently pats Kushina on the head when the teenager hugs her, murmurs something to Kahan she doesn't even hear, and after long enough, they leave her in peace.
She stands in the cemetery and watches blankly as his coffin is lowered into the ground and meticulously buried.
Eventually she makes her way home, barely remembering to stop at the store on her way home.
Her hands shake when she steps into her backyard, and her fingers tremble when she unties the bag.
A small, solid black koi, the same color of Akihito's hair, swims out into the water, wriggling its way into the growing pack of fish.
Sakura lowers herself to the ground and folds her shaking hands loosely in her lap.
When she finally begins to cry, there's no one there to hear it.
Barely a week goes by before she's forced to admit that without Akihito, she's terrible at being Clan Head.
The man had kept everything meticulously organized for her, handled all of the smaller problems without her ever even knowing about it, and had made sure only the important issues crossed her desk.
Now, she has to handle it all on her own. Everything from a broken faucet to a report from the front lines from one of her shinobi. It all comes to her attention, in an unrelenting force.
Sakura does her best, but she can barely focus at the best of times, much less at the worst.
It's hard, nearly impossible, until Kushina corners her.
"That's it." The eighteen, almost nineteen year old girl snaps, slamming her hands down on her desk. Sakura blinks at her, taking in the furious blaze to the woman's blue eyes, and is yet again struck by the similarities. With her jaw set like this, she looks so much like Naruto it feels like an insult to injury. "I've had enough," The teen rallies on, ignoring Sakura's blatant confusion. "You're struggling. I get it, I do. But I'm sick of it. Give me this." Kushina reaches forward and rips the paper straight out of Sakura's hand.
She watches it go with a weird sensation.
Kushina flips it around, takes one quick scan, and scowls. It's a request for a plumber. "I'm taking this. And this." Kushina adds, yanking up another sheet from her desk. "And- You know what?" Kushina glares at Sakura's desk, exhaling a harsh breath through her nose. "Get out."
"I'm sorry?" Sakura questions faintly, beyond lost.
"Get. Out. Go get lunch, go feed the fish, I don't care - just get out of this office. I'm sorting your desk, and you're in my way." Kushina commands.
She rounds the desk and Sakura has to evacuate her chair before Kushina's hip smacks it and sends it rolling away. The girl doesn't even seem to notice. She just leans over the desk and begins to furiously organize it, muttering under her breath here and there.
Sakura watches for several long, strange minutes, before she awkwardly turns and leaves, feeling like someone had just hit her in the head.
She wonders if this is how people felt when Naruto got that short with them.
When Sakura returns, Kushina has moved half the papers from her desk to the small tea table on the other side of the room. She faces Sakura down with a set jaw and a stormy stare, but there's a hint of uncertainty she can just barely make out. "Hokage-sama doesn't like having me on the front lines." Kushina tells her abruptly.
Sakura frowns softly at that, brow furrowing.
"He doesn't want to lose the Kyūbi. Nevermind that I can somewhat control the damn thing. No, it's more important to keep me protected. " Kushina huffs, folding her arms across her chest and looking at Sakura challengingly. "Well I won't stand around all day doing nothing. If I can't help my people in the war, I can at least help them here. You need an assistant. I'm it."
And without waiting for a response, the girl sits down at the tea table and stubbornly begins to scribble away at the papers.
Sakura watches her blankly, thinking about an academy student who had treated tests much the same way. With stubborn ferocity, like he could force it to give him good grades if he just wrote the answers hard enough.
She's not sure if it's a good idea.
But it can't get much worse.
Losing Akihito is like losing her own shadow.
The man had loyally been by her side at every step, every turn. Even the Hokage hadn't separated them, putting them on the same missions and deployments - and when they did rarely separate on the battlefield, it was never for long.
He was always by her side. Always watching her back.
Now, Kushina does that.
It doesn't feel the same.
But it keeps her going.
She's been back in Konoha for nearly two months when she goes to the next war council. In the midst of war, the Clan Heads were rarely part of the war council - usually they only participated in major missions, or preparations before war. Or the clean up after one.
So for a war council to be called when it is means a major mission.
"The fight on the Iwagakure border is taking a vicious toll." Sarutobi says grimly. "We need to change the tide, and soon."
Something tickles in her mind.
"This war is rapidly turning into a war of attrition, and Iwagakure has more supply lines and strike points than we have. They have the advantage, we cannot pretend otherwise. So how can we work around it?"
It takes her a long time to put it together, and by the time she lifts her hand for attention, the discussion has been going on for nearly fifteen minutes.
"Uzumaki-hime?" He questions severely and she looks at him, a strange sensation twisting her stomach.
"I have an idea, Hokage-sama." She says quietly, the room falling silent at his gesture. Sakura meets his gaze, mind whirring even as she speaks.
"We destroy Kannabi Bridge."