I'm not sick with depression

I just have all the symptoms and all the questions

My thoughts can't stabilize

Feelings I can't verbalize

-Bleachless, Elizabeth Grace


There's a wagon with a cloth covering that will be led by horses and a hired driver awaiting them beyond the village gates, and Sakura finds herself disappointed that they aren't traveling on foot and camping out in the woods with just a sleeping bag and the stars above them.

She opts to walk alongside the wagon with Akira and his team. The pace is leisurely, but the exercise will be better for her body than riding inside for the three days it should take to reach their destination. Besides, she knows that she would feel too caged just sitting in the wagon all day until the next stop is made.

She could make the trip in one day at full speed.

I should test that when I get the chance. Choose destinations and time myself. Better speed training and good measures for my endurance than my options back in Konoha.

"Sakura, dear, you can hop in the wagon if you get tired," Mebuki says.

Sakura shakes her head. "I'm not tired, Mom. This is nothing."

It's the truth. Keeping up with the pace of the horses pulling the wagon is rather leisurely. Her simple training pants with a matching shirt and sandals makes for a comfortable and breathable outfit. Her goggles protect her from the wind and the sun.

She's not running for her life or sprinting through the forest with a teammate in dire need of medical attention on her back. She's not running from the enemy due to an ambush or faulty intel. She's not running to the enemy in the middle of a war.

This may as well be a vacation.

Akira, not so subtly, keeps stride with Sakura. Since she's not riding in the wagon, he apparently feels the need to be her bodyguard.

And then Saburo seems to think that he needs to follow in his teacher's footsteps and mimics him. It's like he idolizes Akira. Like little Sasuke trotting after Itachi.

How cute.

"I can take your pack, Sakura," Saburo says. He puffs out his chest, but it hardly makes him look stronger or more intimidating.

"I'm sure you could, Sabu-kun," Sakura says, enjoying the appalled look she receives for the nickname. "But I need the weight to help build my strength and endurance."

"Sakura, this is a business trip, not training," Mebuki says. "Kizashi, tell her to tone it down."

"Listen to your mother, Sakura."

This earns him a half-hearted slap on the shoulder.

"What?" Kizashi asks. "Let her have her training. It's not hurting anybody."

Sakura gives her dad a grin, which he returns. He's on her side. He's supportive, even when he may not approve or like her career choice. It's amazing to have a dad at this age who not only recognizes her, but wants her to follow her dreams.

Mebuki sighs, but gives them a smile of her own. "You two, I swear."


It takes a decent amount of time to get to the first village with an inn—the place they'll stop for the first night. Everyone says that they did well to travel so far and make it before the sun fully sets.

Sakura disagrees. The journey was easy, and they could have traveled through the night to the second stop, taken a short rest, and then made it to their destination by the end of the second day. The weather is nice enough that it wouldn't hinder them, plus the moon is almost full so it gives off a decent amount of light that they could supplement with lanterns.

Not that anybody asks for her opinion on the matter.

The problem is that she's nine years old and has no reputation anymore, both a blessing and a curse granted by her reincarnation into a civilian family. And there's no reason to rush, but she's fast. It's kind of her thing, even if nobody knows it yet.

Shunshin no Sakura has a nice ring to it, after all.

But the stop at this inn was decided before they so much as set foot outside Konoha, and she drops her pack to the floor of the bed that will be hers for one night.

She hopes the nightmares stay away while she has to share inn rooms with her parents throughout the trip. Are they light sleepers? She's always so wrapped up in her own terror that she doesn't find an answer from her memories. They came running when she screamed at night as a small child, but maybe she was just that loud to be able to wake even the heaviest of sleepers?

She has time before she faces the possibility of them witnessing the fact that nightmares continue to disrupt her sleep—the thought of which leaves her feeling like she's five again and waking up screaming each night. First, they'll have dinner with Akira's team on the ground floor of the inn, where a small dining area near the kitchen has been set up for guests.

The village is small—hardly more than a handful of buildings—so they don't have a variety of options, but the meal set out before them is warm and filling.

It's more than Sakura can ask for, having had to subsist on soldier pills throughout countless missions in the past. This simple meal is a luxury in comparison. Akira's team should be grateful that they get to eat real food on their missions, but the faces of barely hidden disgust and rush to eat before the taste hits their tongues gives away that grateful isn't what they feel towards this meal.

"You'll want to head to bed early tonight so that we can get an early start tomorrow," Akira says. "All of you."

Her parents give their assent, and Sakura isn't bothered by the idea of waking up early like Akira's genin seem to be with their mixture of groans and hung heads.

How different this time period is for them to be spoiled in such a way. During war, wake up time was not high on your list of worries.

Waking up at all was much higher on that list. These genin simply need to drag themselves out of bed in the morning rather than make sure they survive the night, knowing that there was a very real possibility that not all of them would last until daybreak.

Sakura envies them for not knowing the feeling of war, a feeling that transcends lifetimes and settles down in the depths of her soul so that it will forever remain a part of her. Shisui. Sakura. The name doesn't matter when the soul is the same.

As much as she envies them, she's also glad for them. Their smiles. Their naivete. They don't deserve to be thrown into the middle of a war and be torn apart until only broken souls remain.

It's moments like these that strengthen her resolve. She didn't choose to be reincarnated, but she won't let that reincarnation be a waste the way her original life was.

She can do better this time.


This village is quiet at night, but she isn't surprised. It's the kind of place that's too small to make meaningful amounts of noise at any time. Sleep doesn't come, even in the stillness. Because of the stillness. She's waiting for something to go wrong.

And if nothing goes wrong in the waking world, then she knows there are nightmares awaiting her once she closes her eyes.

The deep, steady breaths coming from her parents' bed tells her that they're asleep. So, she uses the training of another life and all of her current one to silently head to the window of the room, open it, and walk up the side of the inn to its roof.

The air is cold, but she barely registers the chill. Sakura remembers braving worse conditions without the option to go back into an inn for warmth in the form of clean blankets and a palatable meal of real food instead of soldier pills.

Those worse conditions are the ones that feel more familiar. The life of being a shinobi in wartime, and taking on the responsibilities of full-fledged adult ninja because she had the ability to fulfill them early on in her life, is the only life that feels right to her.

She keeps alert, ready to get back inside if Akira or his students decide to check in on the Haruno family during the night. There's no reason to, but the best shinobi often find themselves a bit paranoid—a trait that can save a life.

Sakura takes deep breaths and stares at the moon. It'll be a few more nights before it's full, and she hopes they'll be back in Konoha by then.

The silhouette of a bird passes in front of the moon wings spread wide into the night, and its familiar cawing pulls at her heart.

Crows.

One crow becomes several as they swarm around her, a symphony of death. She holds out her arm, and one lands on it. The rest of them settle down around her.

"Do you remember me?" she whispers. "Shisui."

A caw comes from the one on her arm as it bobs its head in her direction.

"Will you take me as a summoner again? In this life?"

One of them produces a summoning scroll and places it in front of her with its beak. Nudges it towards her.

Sakura bites into her thumb until she draws blood and adds her name to the scroll. Once it's done, she feels tears slip from her eyes and try to escape her goggles.

"Thank you," she says with a small smile.

In a whirl of noise and wind created by the flapping of their wings, the crows depart. Sakura sits alone on the roof of the small inn, bathed in moonlight and surrounded by black feathers. She takes one and holds it close to her heart.

She's never felt more at peace.


Though she doesn't get much sleep after returning to her bed, Sakura is glad when the sun comes up and their traveling party readies to head out for the second day of their journey. The pace of the wagon pulling her parents is once again annoyingly slow, but any movement is better than the stillness of the night that Sakura suffered through.

She's outside the wagon again. Her parents think she should take the day to rest and ride with them, but this is nothing more than a leisurely stroll for her.

Her heart is lighter than it has been in years now that she's once again signed a contract with the crows. With their bond renewed, she notices the presence of the crows around her. She's more aware of them. More connected, bound once again by blood now. Keeping an eye on her as one of their own.

Halfway into the day, when the sun is high overhead, one of the crows swoops down near Sakura and caws out a message that she understands after a lifetime and a half of communicating with these same birds. She slides to a stop, followed by Akira—who shouts at the wagon's driver to stop—and his team. Then, the wagon starts to slow and comes to a stop as well.

Akira puts his hands on her shoulders and looks her up and down, inspecting her for injuries. Maybe illness.

"Sakura?" he asks. "Are you okay?"

"Sacchan, get in the wagon if you're tired," Kizashi calls out, getting our of the wagon and walking closer.

"I didn't stop because I'm tired," she says. "I stopped because there are some bandits up ahead who are waiting for a good target."

"How do you know?" Saburo asks. He sounds indignant that she noticed danger and he didn't, but even though regular bandits are not a threat to shinobi of any level, she doesn't have it in her to tease and joke.

However, she doesn't have a good excuse to explain her knowledge either. If she tells her that the crows told her, she'll sound insane. And explaining her contract with the crows will draw suspicion and attention that she's worked so hard to avoid with her act of being nothing more than an average student.

The most reasonable thing she can think of saying is "I'm a sensory type."

Akira nods, accepting this, and gives his team a hand signal. They separate from the group to have a private talk.

"Are you sure you aren't just on edge, sweetheart? This is your first time outside the village after all," Mebuki says.

"Mom, I'm sure," Sakura says. "I wouldn't joke about the safety of you and Dad."

They all know that family is too important to make those jokes, especially for Sakura who has lost an entire family in the past. There are times for joviality and times for seriousness.

Akira and his students return, and Sakura sees in their demeanor that they're in full mission mode now. She and Akira can both guess that a bunch of random bandits waiting for civilian merchants to rob won't pose much of a threat, but it can turn into great escort mission training for his genin team.

Akira claps his hands together once. "Alright, here's the plan."


After all the time she spent insisting that she doesn't need to ride in the wagon, she ends up in the wagon as part of Akira's plan. Her only solace comes in the fact that Akira's genin are in the wagon with her as well, crammed in with her and her parents.

Akira is up front with the driver and horses' reins, pretending that he's useful or has any idea about what he's doing (which, Sakura admits, she doesn't either. She's not a horse expert).

It's a simple plan. Pretend there are no shinobi in the party. By the time they find Akira's weapons hidden in the cushions up front or the entire genin team (plus Sakura) in the back, it'll be too late and they'll be able to apprehend the bandits.

This would be so much easier (and quicker) if Sakura was still Shisui. Those bandits would be tied up to a tree and harmless before the wagon got close.

You could reclaim your title.

But no. She remains firm in her belief that she must stay in a position where—if what Ino says is true—she'll be able to watch over Sasuke and prevent him from leaving Konoha. As far as she knows, having Sasuke as an ally from the beginning of the conflicts with the Akatsuki will be better than having to hunt him as an enemy and keep him from doing more damage.

Also, the Impure World Technique definitely sounds like something that Orochimaru started before his lackey manages to use it in the future, and Sakura doesn't want Sasuke anywhere near those kinds of people.

The dead are best left alone.

Mebuki has a hand firmly on Sakura's shoulder and the other intertwined with one of Kizashi's. Sakura doesn't know if her mother is trying to comfort her or warn her to stay seated in the wagon and let the official shinobi handle this matter.

If she has to guess, she'd say it's probably a bit of both.

It's almost grounding for Sakura's mind to have that physical touch. This isn't her fight. Team Akira is being paid to handle this exact situation.

The problem is that her blood is rich with adrenaline, her brain is rich with memories, her soul is rich with pain, and she sees the bloodshed of war surrounding her.

She's in a wagon.

He's on a battlefield.

Bandits want their money.

The enemies want their lives.

She's nobody.

He's Shunshin no Shisui.

She has her parents with her.

He has nobody left.

Her mouth is dry.

His mouth is filled with blood.

The cart stops, lurching its passengers in the back. The liquor bottles they'll trade with other merchants, kept carefully in crates, with them in the back clink together.

Mebuki's hand squeezes her shoulder, and Sakura knows that it's a warning this time. The last one her mother can give before the bandits come around back.

She hears Akira talking to them, sparing the wagon's driver from handling it. But the bandits speaking with Akira as though they're willing to negotiate safe passage for the wagon are decoys, according to her crow friends. They caw and warn her of more bandits approaching from the forested areas on either side of the road.

Does Akira know? He has to, right? Being a big, bad Jounin and all. He can't think that they'll be allowed to pass by without either a fight or a payoff.

They sneak towards the wagon, and she knows this is their usual method of operation. Distract. Steal. Get out. It's likely the only method they can successfully pull off. She sees the lack of training as they get closer, but a blade is a blade. Even if it looks like it's being held in fumbling hands, it can still do damage.

Humans are awfully fragile.

Sakura takes deep breaths and works to keep herself calm. Her mind repeats that this is not her battle as a mantra.

But then, when the bandits are close enough and see passengers in the wagon—not just merchandise—they raise their blades. Whether they mean to threaten or strike down someone, Sakura moves without thought.

Men and women fall around him. Some are enemies. Some allies. The fields are fertilized with blood and birds flock to the feast laid out before them.

She feels the resistance of flesh that gives quickly under the pressure of her kunai into the first bandit's throat. His eyes widen only in the final moments of his life as he notices far too late that he's under attack.

The other two receive barely more warning of their deaths as the first man falls.

She's efficient and clean in her kills with the practiced hand of a Shinobi War veteran. With the ease of someone who has taken so many lives that killing no longer bothers her.

And she comes back to her senses straddling the corpse of the third and last bandit of the group sneaking behind the wagon, blood oozing from his mouth as it's set in his final scream. Voices she doesn't know are yelling that she's killed their friends, but Akira speaks and the bodies are pulled away as she's led back inside the wagon.

Splashes of warm blood drip down her face and off her hands, a red deepened further by the tint of her goggles.

She sits in the back of the wagon and waits. The rest of the group members take turns looking at her, but none speak. Not that she cares to explain her definitely not average skill in killing. So, she waits. There is neither fear nor regret in her heart.

Crows cry out from the surrounding trees.

He is Death.

She is Death.


A/N: I apologize for the long wait between chapters. Life happened.