Chapter 27
Chapter Summary
"Don't lose your way with each passing day,
You've come so far, don't throw it away.
Live believing, dreams are for weaving,
Wonders are waiting to start.
Live your story - faith, hope, and glory,
Hold to the trust in your heart." - If We Hold On Together, Diana Ross
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Sakura's hands shake as she lowers a new fish into a pond. It's white with spots the deepest shade of crimson Sakura could find.
The same color of Tsuru's hair - and her blood, as well.
Sakura will never forget that.
"I'm sorry, Tsuru." She whispers to the fish, watching it swim with the pack like it'd been there all along.
She knows the woman wouldn't blame her for what happens and she tries to keep that in mind when the guilt threatens to consume her.
"I'm sorry."
Sakura's twenty-nine and she's changed the world forever, more than one time now. She saved Uzushio from being forgotten, birthed the Uzu Clan from sheer stubborn determination, saved countless lives in two different wars, and had stopped the Kyūbi attack from ending the lives of Konoha's two most important people - the Hokage and his wife.
In a time when the Uchiha Clan would have been shunned and blamed for the Kyūbi's Sharingan control, they're celebrated instead. Heizo-dono is awarded for his efforts - for being brave enough to go right up to the Kyūbi's face and stare it down. Fugaku and Sakura spend that time in the Critical Care Unit, under Tsunade's personal attentions.
"It wasn't your fault." Tsunade says firmly as she unwraps the bandages around Sakura's left eye. "We've made sure the world knows that. They're too busy being afraid of a shadow to hate you for what you did."
The words are strangely reassuring. Or maybe it's the steady confidence in her tone that does it.
She peels away the last of the bandage and Sakura winces at the sudden sunlight. "You're lucky we managed to get your eye in time. Your shinobi career would have taken a bad turn without it." Tsunade notes, gently prodding the edges of her eye socket. Chakra eases the discomfort and Tsunade hums to herself. "You're good to go, I'd say. Once you've recovered your chakra, that is. Give it another day or two - you're already recovering it much faster than anticipated."
The Sage of Six Paths, Sakura thinks but doesn't dare say. Her lips twitch downwards a bit.
"You have a visitor. Do I let him in?" Tsunade asks and Sakura hesitates before nodding. "Alright. Excuse me, then, I need to check on Uchiha-sama." Tsunade sighs heavily before leaving. The door reopens not long after, and to her surprise, it's Jiraiya who walks in.
He's grinning a bit sheepishly, holding a small bouquet in his hands. "Here." He offers it to her and she takes it, bringing the flowers closer. Roses. Red and yellow - love and friendship. She smiles softly to herself.
"Thank you, Jiraiya." She says and his smile becomes less sheepish and more pleased.
"You're welcome." He sits down at her bedside, large body looking a silly in such a small chair. "You've been out for a couple days and have missed out on a few things."
"Tell me." Sakura implores softly and he smiles, proud and a little sad.
"Congratulations, Sakura-hime. You're a hero."
She's celebrated for destroying the monster that sicced the Kyūbi on Konoha.
It's much more bitter than it is sweet, in her mind. She buys a fish, releasing it into the pond in Tsuru's honor, and wonders if she even has the right to.
"Tsuru was a vicious woman." Jiraiya muses when they go out to dinner, shortly after her release from the hospital. Sakura gently pokes at her food, contemplating it and Jiraiya's words. "I remember when I first met her. She came out of nowhere. Orochimaru, Tsunade and I had been fighting back the jinchūriki for hours, and all of a sudden this woman sweeps in and tackles the thing like it was nothing. Her chains," Jiraiya whistles lowly. "Unlike anything. And she knew how to use them." Jiraiya adds the last part with an eyebrow wiggle.
Sakura kicks him hard under the table, amused but also pained by that. It should be too soon to laugh at the memory of the dead, but it cheers her better than anything else had. "You're awful."
"Only in a rare, few ways. I've been told I'm extraordinary in others." He says with a wink.
She can't help but laugh lightly at that.
It's weak and fleeting, but the grin it brings to Jiraiya's face isn't.
They're a strange pair, Sakura acknowledges. She still remembers him as a fifty year old, lecherous goof who never knew when to be serious. But she also remembers him as he is now - from his thirties up until the day he turns forty, a mere two months before she turns thirty.
She remembers him at fifty, and sometimes she feels like she's fifty. She's seventeen and thirty, mixed into one body and mind.
But none of that matters when Jiraiya looks at her with the utmost seriousness. "I think we should get married."
Sakura blinks at him, taking in the slight tension in his shoulders and the utmost genuity in his expression. She thinks, reflecting on the way he's always been gentle with her, and always respected her decisions in their relationship.
"You realize we'll have to be monogamous if we do?" Sakura questions, because that's one thing she hasn't asked of him yet.
"I've been practicing monogamy for the past year. I think I can keep it up for a good enough reason." His grin returns, winking at her, and Sakura rolls her eyes at his expression.
"You're ridiculous." She complains before sobering. She looks at him and he looks back, gaze locked for a long minute. "Alright. But you're taking my name."
"I've always wanted to be Uzumaki." Jiraiya says cheerily - and as casual as he tries to appear, she can easily see an extra bounce in his step.
"Say it's a lie." Kushina demands at dinner and Sakura fights down a grimace. All of them are there, for the first time in a while. Obito and Kakashi aren't on ANBU missions, Rin's free from the hospital, Minato's free from paperwork, and Kushina's off missions as well.
Naruto, all of two years old, watches with silent interest as his mother pleads.
"It's not. He bought me a ring and everything." Sakura points to her own hand.
It's a simple little thing of platinum metal and an adequately sized diamond, with two smaller garnets on either side of it. The deep red is almost the same shade of her hair.
She'd been especially touched by that part when he'd offered it to her.
"I think it's nice." Rin chimes, leaning in to see the ring. Sakura extends her hand and she ooh's softly at it.
Reluctantly, Kushina leans in too, pulling a small face. "Well at least he has good taste." She mutters unforgivingly.
"Frankly, I'm just impressed you managed to rope him into this." Minato admits, rubbing at his chin. "Sensei isn't the type to settle down."
"And he won't." He's far too busy for that, as Konoha's primary Spymaster. "But he'll stop sleazing around when it's not for a good reason."
"What does he count as a good reason?" Kushina mutters. Sakura ignores her.
"Besides, he's good to me, and me to him. We'll do fine."
And they do.
A year later, a year before it was once supposed to happen, Kumo finally writes up an official treaty to bring an end to the ongoing strife between them and Konoha, and the celebration is huge. Tensions had still lingered even after Minato and Kushina met with A and Killer B, in spite of all attempts to make peace.
The Third War had ended, but the rare few skirmishes between the two of them had continued.
That night, Sakura just so happens to find herself near the Hyūga Compound after the celebrations die down, and just so happens to catch the Head Shinobi of Kumo trying to sneak in.
She just so happens to offer him to Hiashi.
The ninja just so happens to quietly go back to Kumo, deeply traumatized and suddenly terrified of the Byakūgan.
She's sad it still had to happen as it was - that the efforts Minato had put forth hadn't been quite enough to stop the event.
But she doesn't regret her part in it.
Nearly a year after that, Orochimaru leaves Konoha in a blaze of murder and betrayal. He leaves behind the bodies of butchered children and one survivor, who Sakura cradles with a strange twisting in her chest. "Yamato," She mutters under her breath, recognizing the twelve year old's hair and eyes.
That night, she holds Jiraiya as he cries like she's never seen him cry before, and wonders if she couldn't have stopped the man somehow.
Yamato - so named by Sakura - is almost immediately made ANBU, alongside Obito under Kakashi's command. "He's a good kid." Obito tells Sakura, some months later. "He's learning the Mokuton as fast as I can teach him. He'll be better at it than me, one day." Obito says, frowning a little down at his fake arm. After a moment, he looks back up at her, and the smile he gives her transforms his face.
Yet again, with a twist in her gut, Sakura's reminded of just how different this Obito is to the one that had almost taken everything away from her.
"Don't tell anyone this, but we've already given him a code name. Tenzō." Obito says quietly, smile soft. "He fits in like family."
She smiles back.
This time, when he leaves, he leaves her with more than just a flower.
He leaves her with a cherry tree to stand beside her koi pond, some of the branches bending down so that the leaves just barely tickle the surface of the water.
Sakura's thirty-two, and then she thirty-three, and in the blink of an eye, she's forty years old and meeting her genin team for the first time.
"Hello everyone." She greets them, smiling even as her skin feels like it's trying to crawl off her. "My name is Sakura Uzumaki. You may call me Uzumaki-sensei, for the sake of clarity." Sakura says, nodding pointedly to the girl causing her discomfort.
Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Namikaze, and Sakura Haruno all look up at her with attentive eyes.
She looks back at them and vows that this time, things are going to be different.
Even if she regrets taking Kakashi's place from him, she vows.
This part of history, too, will not repeat itself.
She'll make sure of it.
Chapter End Notes
"I was born for this, born for this,
It's who I am, how could I forget?
I made it through the darkest part of the night,
And now I see the sunrise,
Now I feel glorious, glorious,
I feel glorious, glorious." - Glorious, Macklemore
(Thank you for the song recommendation! You were right, it definitely fits Sakura's character!)
And so we reach the end of our journey, and I'm so grateful to you all for joining me on it. I hope you all enjoyed, and wish you all have excellent days