C Chapter 3: Helplessness

Her steps walked her to her house as she lost herself in a myriad of thoughts connected to all the things she had been through over the course of the day.

Everything that was happening around her seemed to be at peace, though.

A new phase in everyone's life, yet for some reason her new beginning felt like a shackle of the past.

She tried to not let it bother her as much as it did, because now this new phase in everyone's lives was supposed to bring an end to all the wrongful things of that time.

Yet for her, something was still lingering.

It wasn't long until she got back to her house, wrapped in all her thoughts. Sakura got up the stairs, opened the door, entered and saluted her parents.

"I'm home!" She announced, as she took off her boots and put them on the left side of the entrance like she always used to.

"Come now, Sakura! Dinner is almost ready!" Mebuki shouted from the kitchen.

Upon hearing her mother's call, Sakura headed towards where her parents were, realizing that a lot of time had passed since it was already dinner time.

After leaving Tsunade's office she told herself she would take a short walk to try and clear her mind for a bit, especially after the talk with her master. But as it seemed, the short walk wasn't actually that short as she had envisioned.

Heading towards the kitchen, she saw her mother preparing the table for them to eat, while her dad was reading once again a paper. She couldn't exactly tell what was it what he was reading, but she couldn't be bothered to find out at the moment.

It would be probably something frivolous, anyway, since those things seemed to always be his source of inspiration for jokes.

Sometimes to her it looked like he never takes anything seriously, which bothered her to no end, but she had a lot of things on her plate right now, thinking about that particular thing right now wouldn't help her case.

So she just ignored it.

While she sat there at the table, with a somewhat absent figure, her mom couldn't help but notice that, so she tried to break the ice.

"Soo, what's up with you again? Did you get scolded by Tsunade for not properly arranging the books you keep studying from again nicely on their shelves?" Mebuki asked in her usual joking but stinging you way.

"Mom!" Sakura immediately snapped back, frowning at her.

It didn't take long for Kizashi to interfere, being very much aware of the dynamic between his daughter and his wife.

These two were two ticking bombs that for some reason were always on each other's backs.

"Now, now Sakura…" Kizashi addressed his daughter in a slow tone.

"You know how your mother likes to tease you about these little things", he continued before being interrupted by Mebuki again while she was headed with the plates filled with food towards the table where they were all sitting.

"It's not a tease if it's the truth!" Mebuki continued her husband's sentence, as she put the plates on the table and pushed them in front of Sakura and Kizashi, then turned around to get the last plate of food. Hers.

Sakura rolled her eyes at her mother and took a napkin next to her so she could start eating, not before giving thanks for the meal, as she held it inside of her not to reply to her mother.

She wasn't going to have any of it today, so she decided to just ignore it.

They ate in a somewhat awkward silence with her dad trying to crack a joke or two, but Sakura kept being lost in her thoughts.

Both Kizashi and Mebuki observed that aspect of their daughter's behavior, so they once again tried to break the silence and ask her what was it that bothered her mind.

It wasn't like the daughter they knew.

The Sakura they knew would have immediately backfired at them for pestering her so much like she had done earlier at her mother's remark, but instead this Sakura wasn't. Something was clearly bothering her.

Sure, she had just come back from a war and they were thanking the Heavens for her safe return. But ever since then, she had been a bit different.

They weren't exactly sure how to deal with all of this, so they decided to act like their normal selves, in the hope that maybe this will help Sakura reintegrate in her old, normal life. It was their way of supporting her.

But for some reason, it didn't feel that way for Sakura. What the horrors of war had made her see, took a toll on her. As much as she, herself wasn't realizing, it was starting to be clear for the ones around her.

Kizashi finally broke the ice and asked his daughter if she was okay.

"Yeah, I am," Sakura responded passively to her father. But both him and her mother could see that wasn't exactly the truth, as much as she wanted to hide it behind her all-known fake smile.

"And that's a lie and you know it!" Mebuki confronted her as she watched her daughter directly in the eyes.

Mebuki knew her daughter like the palm of her hands.

Sure, being Sakura's mother was never easy because the girl seemed to have a stubborn spirit that never listened, and a mind that too easily ran away from her problems and tried to hide it behind a smile or behind a facade of acting as if she's not being too interested.

But she had raised the girl, she bore her inside her womb for nine months, and it was yet a few years too early for Sakura Haruno to be able to lie to her face like that.

Sakura once again rolled her eyes and replied in a dull manner, trying to avoid the subject as she wasn't really in the mood for it now.

The discussion she had with Tsunade and the thoughts about the gods that she had met in the war was still lingering inside of her. That, and a thought more, one that she was suppressing without realizing. Or without actually wanting to.

"No, it's not. It's just… boring stuff work," she added while finishing the last piece of her meal, preparing to gather the plate and the tableware to get them to the kitchen in order to keep avoiding her mother's gaze and commentary.

"Well, tell us about your boring work stuff! We'd love to hear it, you know we do!" Kizashi replied shortly after.

"Did Naruto do something stupid again and over exerted himself once more and you had to smack some sense into him?" he asked in a joking manner, knowing all too well her daughter's stories about her knucklehead of a colleague who always goes too far and she has to deal with the consequences again.

The numbers of times Sakura got back home and complained about her blonde colleague had been quite numerous.

If you would ask him, that complaining of hers looked like something else, but it wasn't his business to deal with anyway.

When Sakura heard the name as she was standing up in front of the table where they were dining, preparing to go and leave her plate in the kitchen sink, she froze for a bit at her father's question.

"Eh?" She asked confused as she turned her gaze in her father's direction. Right before she did that, a quick flash passed through her mind's eye with Naruto's cold body on Gaara's sand back in the war. But she was quick to brush it away and replied to her father's question in the end.

"Aaah, noo, he's fine, he's fine", she said waving her hand in dismissal to try to diffuse the situation, as she continued her road towards the kitchen sink.

"Sure, he's the same idiot like he's ever been. But he's a fine idiot!" she concluded.

"I mean, the idiot is fine!" She quickly corrected herself at the realization of what she had just said, in the context of knowing her father and how he's always there, ready to crack a joke if he gets even the slightest of chances. Especially when it's something language related. He always had a thing for language related puns.

So she just wanted to make sure she doesn't give her dad any of the chances he needed to crack one.

"No need to worry about him", Sakura said as she put the plate in the sink. With her back turned at her parents, her face expression changed and a serious expression encompassed her face.

"Then are you really going to tell us what's wrong or are you going to keep pretending all's sun and daisies?" Mebuki asked once again as Sakura was preparing to get back to the table.

Sakura could feel the tension slowly building up. She was trying so much to avoid this. Oh, she was. But on all gods and goddesses, her mother was making it hard. Really, really hard.

Mebuki wanted to continue to say that they might have not been the experts in the room, but they could definitely tell something was wrong, when they heard the sound of other kitchen utensils aggressively being dropped in the sink, above the plate she had just left there a few moments ago.

Sakura turned around and faced her parents.

Both mother and daughter locked looks on each other and it wasn't long until Sakura just exploded.

"You know what? You really aren't. Experts, I mean! You have no idea how consuming it is out there. How hard it is to be a shinobi. And not even that, to be a medical one!

To have to make sure at each step that you're the support everyone that battles in front of you needs. To make sure you're on time so that a comrade doesn't die on you.

Or when someone is brought to you on their deathbed, and you have to make sure you keep your cool so that he doesn't die while in your care because he always pushes himself like an idiot who doesn't think about himself!" Sakura started rambling and gesturing around, while her left hand clenched into a fist and her face slowly became wrapped in horror as she got reminded of the things she had been through in the war, and tears slowly built up on the corners of her eyes.

Kizashi immediately raised an eyebrow hearing her last words as if a certain detail from Sakura's rambling caught his interest. His intuition didn't falter, he thought to himself while continuing to listen to his daughter.

"And not only that, but above it all, to have to fight literal ninja gods. Gods!" Sakura repeated the word that made clear her underlying feeling of helplessness when she thought about it. "When you barely make it so you can finally be able to fight other ninjas, after a lifetime of being just a kunoichi with no special abilities, in a class of colleagues all from elite clans.

No, you're not experts! You have no idea how that is, because you've always been satisfied with this normal and boring life that brings absolutely no satisfaction.
You never had any ambition to exceed your status and to take responsibilities beyond your capabilities so you can improve yourselves!" she ended her rambling in a raised voice, borderline screaming.

On the other side of the room, once she heard the words Mebuki got up from the chair, filled with anger at her daughter's words. She had always been somewhat cheeky, but this time it was taking it too far.

All they were trying to do was to be supportive of her and this is what they get? How dare she?

"Ooh, so you think that just because you're a ninja you can lecture us about how we should've lived our lives?" Mebuki backfired on her daughter as her tone too, started to sound aggressive and soon started to sound more like yelling than anything else. If these two would have something in common, it would be their capacity to explode instantly. And that's something Kizashi knew best, living with both of them for such a long time.

"Are you under the impression that being a ninja gives you status? That this is all that a human being should strive for in life? How dare you speak to us, your parents, like that? How dare you question our life choices?" Mebuki questioned Sakura as her anger levels kept rising and she could feel a vein on her head slowly getting almost to explode.

"If it wouldn't have been for us you wouldn't have existed in the first place! You think that just being a normal family is something to look down upon? You think that raising a child is just a play? Are you under the impression that being a ninja and having status is something above a normal human life in this world? That's how you view life? What kind of medical ninja are you if you think so low about human life? Is this why you became a medical ninja? For status? Eh, Sakura? Is it?" Mebuki continued asking, but by this time she was already downright yelling at Sakura. She couldn't believe what she was hearing from her daughter's mouth.

It was one thing that she'd complain about simple house chores because she would prefer to study more than to do those, which she had no problem in doing as long as Sakura did study. But this? This was exceeding some limits of common sense. Even if she had been through a war.

She had tried to be as understanding as possible with her daughter, because indeed, they hadn't had the experience Sakura did. One of war. They had been just simple civilians that minded their lives. But that didn't give Sakura any right to speak like that, as much as she was in pain.

Plus, Mebuki hasn't been a woman to just take in her daughter's banter.

That was not a dynamic she would accept from her.

She was the mother, Sakura was the daughter. Not the way around.

Some limits had to be respected. As much as she loved her dear daughter.

Sure, maybe she hadn't been so expressive about it or not how Sakura would have wanted her to be, especially when Sakura had the tendency to daydream and Mebuki had to bring her feet back on the grounded reality.

But she figured she'd rather be like that and raise a strong spirited child in a world that was hard as it was, rather than leave her daydream and when the dreams would get broken like glass because the world wasn't all sunshine and daisies, she'd succumb her mind into darkness.

So yeah, maybe not the most preferred parenting method, but one that would surely raise a strong child.

But right now? Right now, things had gone too far. Way too far.

"Go to your room right now young lady, before this gets even uglier! I'm warning you!" Mebuki told Sakura pointing her index finger in her daughter's direction.

"And while you're there, think about what kind of person you want to be and stop putting the responsibilities of your choices on my and your father's back!

You made your choice to become a shinobi. It's you who gets to live with the consequences of your actions and life. Not us! This has nothing to do with me or your father. Got it?

How dare you? Shame on you!" Mebuki ended the yelling session as she changed the direction of her pointing towards her daughter's room.

Sakura stormed out from the living room to her dorm immediately, not before screaming one more time that she would go in her room because her parents wouldn't understand her anyway, so why bother?

She stepped on the stairs heavily so that one could hear her steps from a mile away, and as soon as she ended-up in her room, she slammed the door so hard that had her she added a little bit more pressure to that, the room could've very well required a new door in place. If not a new house altogether.

She threw herself over the bed and started crying loudly into her pillow to somehow cover the sound.

On the other side of the house, Mebuki and Kizashi were preparing to wrap-up the whole dinner table, while Mebuki was trembling due to what had happened earlier.

Mebuki had the intention to do it herself with all the anger she had inside her, but Kizashi took his wife's hand and gestured towards her to sit down, that this time it's him the one who's going to do it.

"You rest for now, let me do it," he addressed her in a soft tone, gazing at his wife with warm eyes.

While Kizashi took the rest of the plates and everything there was on the table from the living room to the kitchen, Mebuki sighed hard and looked at her husband.

"Good grief, that child of ours…" she said followed by some heavy breathing as she looked in the direction of the stairs Sakura had just gone up earlier.

Kizashi returned to his wife and sat next to her.

"Don't worry, she'll come around. She still has that young blood in her that makes her talk before she actually thinks things through," he reassured Mebuki.

"Sounds very much like someone we both know, doesn't it?" He teased her a bit, in order to diffuse the situation.

"Oh, don't you get me started, too!" Mebuki warned him. She knew that all her husband was trying to do was to lighten-up the situation, but she didn't have the mood for it at that very moment.

"Plus, that big mouth of hers comes from you, not me! I'm not the one chit-chatting all day long, unable to shut my mouth," she continued.

"Well, she might have my big mouth, but she has your stubbornness and fire, so if you want to blame it on someone for that, well, my lovely lady you might want to take a look in the mirror", Kizashi responded to his wife.

They had always been like this. Passionate about each other and bickering with one another at any chance they got.

After their short bickering Kizashi paused and looked his wife in the eyes once more, coming back to the subject of their daughter, addressing her outrage from earlier.

He asked her once more to be patient with their daughter as she had just returned from a war. It surely must've put a toll on her.

And Mebuki wasn't disagreeing with him, it was just that she considered that it still didn't give their daughter the right to act like that.

Kizashi agreed with his wife in that respect, but he still asked her to give their daughter a second chance.

"Who knows how many horrors she witnessed in this war?" He said to her.

Mebuki saw herself agreeing once more to her husband, but still there was a thought that couldn't give her any peace of mind.

"I know that, but what more can I do for her? I can't magically make things happen. I did all that I could for her. All that we were and we had we poured into her. What more could we do for her? What more can I do for her?" She asked continuously while talking to her husband.

"Well, there's always going to be the love we poured into her. And I am sure that one day she'll understand it, too. And that one day, that'll be enough for her, as a person," Kizashi reassured his wife.

"But what about as a shinobi, eh?" She asked, looking him straight in the eyes. She knew very well that it was that specific thing that always bothered her daughter the most.

Kizashi's eyes fell to the ground for a moment after which they moved back up, looking at Mebuki once again.

"We come from another place, and you know that. In that respect, I'm afraid there's nothing more we can do about it. Plus, I think it's for the better this way. I'd rather live this normal, boring life like our young daughter says, than having to watch over my back at all times.

That isn't life, and we both agreed that we want to live a rather simple and happy one, didn't we?" Kizashi asked while his look continued to fixate on Mebuki.

Mebuki puffed and gestured at her husband, moving her eyes from her husband towards the window, as if she just wanted to lose herself in the moment.

She knew very well what her husband meant, but being there and listening to her daughter's words made her wonder sometimes if their choice was the right one, as now it seemed to backfire.

Kizashi knew very well that look of hers and knew what it meant, it was something that their daughter had taken from her mother, only that a tad bit too much. This slight desire to just block everything and lose oneself in their own mind, so that the word outside stops interrupting the one inside.

So he gently grabbed her chin and looked her once more in the eyes addressing what he told himself would be the last words to address this matter.

"My dear, we both know that ours isn't a way fit for a ninja. Even if our daughter chose this path," he concluded as both of them looked each other in the eyes, knowing very well the meaning behind those words.

At the end of it all, they hugged each other after which Mebuki said she'd go finish washing the dishes, while Kizashi told her he'd go upstairs to prepare the bed, as night time had slowly started to cover them all.

On the other side of the house, a worn-out Sakura changed in her pajamas as night time approached and just laid around in bed, encompassed by several thoughts that roamed her mind given the day filled by all the events that had happened: Sasuke leaving Konoha, her discussion with Naruto, her talk with her master and her fight with her parents.

For a moment, it seemed like all the intensity possible just packed itself in a whole day and how could that even be bearable?

It sometimes felt easier doing her job than having to deal with these emotional situations.

Because that was her. She had always been moved to tears, like Naruto always said.

But it was something she couldn't help. She had this sensitivity of hers which no matter how much she had trained with Tsunade to polish it and stop being too touched by certain situations every time, she couldn't help.

Even her fight with her mom and dad had now started a stream of tears that were uncontrollable.

Sure, somewhere in the back of her mind her master's words ringed hope, but the other side of her mind couldn't stop asking itself if she was really going to make it.

If her master, who she had the utmost respect for, hadn't found the answer to this pressing matter, how is she, a simple girl from a no-name clan going to do it?

There wasn't anything about her background there to be able to offer her answers, like it had been in her master's case. She wasn't from a well-renown clan like Sasuke, Ino, Hinata and the others were, who could've helped with at least pointing her towards a certain direction, given the eons of heritage of clan knowledge.

No, she was Sakura Haruno. A kunoichi with no special ability.

Or at least those were the thoughts in her mind at the moment, disregarding very much the accomplishments that she had managed to acquire until now.

All that there was at that point were just tears and troubled waters in her mind. She soon cried herself to sleep, earlier than she even intended to.

Usually, she would read a book or play some trivia games before bed, as for some reason those would be what her mind needed to put itself to sleep, but this time? This time her worn soul put her to sleep faster.

Lost on the land of dreams, she looked so peaceful, but it didn't take long until her breathing started to accelerate as she kept moving from one side of the bed to the other.

Something inside her dreamscape was clearly bothering her. Inside there, flashes of a dead body on a sand.

Her heart rate increased and you could clearly notice it in her breathing if you were to observe her in her sleep.

"Quick, there's not much time to lose!" the voice in her dream commanded. "You have to save him otherwise he's going to die!"

But everything around was dark.

She looked to her right and to her left and asked who she must save, but no one answered her. Then, suddenly a dead Naruto on a piece of sand stood before her.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Naruto, no!" she screamed as she started the medical treatment. But suddenly, her chakra disappeared. Her medical ninjutsu vanished. She couldn't help in any way.

Then darkness covered all her dreamscape once again.

Naruto was no more, just distant voices mumbling some sounds back in the distance where she couldn't decipher what they were saying.

She looked desperately to the right and left for Naruto, but he was nowhere to be found.

"Where is he? Where is Naruto?" She asked yelling. But no one replied to her.

"WHERE IS HE?" She screamed in the darkness as echoes of her despairing outcry repeated itself over and over again.

Then, suddenly Naruto's dead body appeared in front of her. Colder than the depths of the sea itself. She checked his vital signs, and there was no response. Quickly after, she started the compressions on his chest, while tears flowed on her cheeks.

"No, no, no, no, no! You're not allowed to die on me, you hear me?

No, you're strong! You hear me, Naruto? You're strong, come back!" she called him in her dream, but he wouldn't wake-up.

"Come on, wake-up. You've got a hat to wear. A coat to dress. You can finally fulfill your stupid dream. You have to, come on, Naruto!" she pleaded to him in despair, between tears and hard breathing and the continued pressing on his heart.

"Come on, Naruto. Remember? Remember how you promised yourself and the world you're going to become Hokage? You're not a guy who goes back on his own word, right? You never give-up!

So please... Please, don't do it now!" she begged with a shaking voice due to the tears that were flooding her. But no matter what, Naruto wouldn't come back to life.

"Naruto… No! Please no… Nooo!"

Sakura found herself screaming out of sleep, when she realized that it had just been all a bad dream. Sweat was pouring down her face, and her heart was pumping so fast. She didn't even want to know her pulse rate at that very moment.

But realizing now that it had all been a dream, she found it in herself to just try and relax, as the reality in front of her eyes was another.

The war had ended. Naruto was alive and well. His dream realization was getting closer and she had absolutely no reason to worry about that. Right?

But for some reason she couldn't help it with one thought she couldn't get rid of. Especially after that dream. That of her medical ninjutsu not working.

This thought quickly spiraled her into another series of thoughts. Helplessness once again engulfed her like it had done in the fight with her parents from earlier.

"Why does it always have to be like this?" She asked herself thinking about the fact that as soon as she had touched a threshold of power, as soon as something else bigger than her capacities made its appearance. It felt like she couldn't catch a break.

And on top of that, there's no way her parents could help in any way. If the others had their parents to help them with a new technique or something like that, for her, things were different.

There was no one she could turn to because simply put, those weren't who her parents were. And the knowledge her master had, she had shared it with her already. There was no one else she could turn to.

Sure, her mother's words had resounded a bit on the back of her head and she realized that she had messed-up in what she had wanted to express.

Her frustration had gotten the best of her and when that happened Sakura Haruno wasn't the best at expressing emotions properly.

If things would be as easy as only punching one's way out of a situation, things would be so much easier… Or smiling your way out. Depending.

But they weren't like that. Things weren't so easy. It was just that it was so frustrating to not be able to do more than that.

Speaking of more, her train of thought spiraled her even more downward… Since she was on the chapter of not being from a ninja clan so you can get help, she remembered Hinata's actions back when Pein had attacked the village, or when Neji had died.

Unlike her, the Hyugas were renowned as one of the most powerful clans in Konoha. Thanks to their top-notch vision, Hinata was able to see when Naruto had been taken out by Pein. Or in the war, her clan was pivotal in defending Naruto.

There was so much Hinata could do for Naruto, compared to her. What did she ever do, anyway? Heal him? Even that at times felt redundant because Naruto always had the ability to heal himself. So what was her healing good for, anyway? For nothing.

It wasn't then, and it surely wasn't afterwards when Madara and Kaguya appeared, she thought. Especially reminiscing the time when Kurama had been extracted from Naruto and was brought to her.

Her medical ninjutsu did absolutely nothing. It didn't stop Naruto from dying.

"Why isn't it ever enough?" she questioned as tears once again made themselves at home in the corners of her eyes, while she caressed her forehead where the seal was placed.

"Even now…" she said. "Why? Why does it always have to be like this?" she kept wondering with no response that followed.

"What am I ever to do if Heavens forbid Naruto ever finds himself in a situation like this?" she kept pondering over the thought.

Sure, the war had ended and the ninja world seemed to be at peace, but that wasn't reason enough for Sakura's over thinking mind.

That mind had to have a back-up solution for every possible situation, and for some reason, now she couldn't find one and it absolutely frustrated her to no end.

So instead of sleeping, there she was, puzzling about worries that her mind made-up.

With all this mess and the inability to sleep, Sakura knew that all she needed would be a cup of tea to warm her up and relax her muscles, so she could go back to sleep.

Both her body and her mind's one.

So she took herself out of the bed, took a robe over her pajamas, and went downstairs to pour herself some water for a cup of tea.

When she arrived downstairs, being so lost in her train of thoughts, she didn't quite observe from the get go some candles being lit.

She just went towards the kitchen like a little robot, given that she could very well be walking around there with her eyes closed. That's how used she was with every corner of her house.

Those memorization muscles weren't just for the sake of being there. They were actually working at all times.

When she got to the kitchen, she found her dad sitting at the table with a cup of hot tea next to him.

Her initial response translated as widened eyes and a desire to kind of back down, feeling guilty over their encounter earlier.

"I prepared this for you," Kizashi said, pushing the cup of tea in her daughter's direction.

How would he know? Did he just happen to be there or he had heard her screaming earlier? Either way, it wasn't exactly a situation she would have wanted to go through right now.

Sakura's heart felt heavy for a moment and tears once again slowly started building up on the corners of her eyes. Too much emotional sensitivity was building up inside of her, being reminded on top of everything once again of what she had said earlier in the confrontation.

She clenched her fist and her face turned to the ground. She felt shame.

So, she started to apologize when Kizashi quickly interrupted her and said there's nothing to apologize about.

"I know you didn't mean those words, now, did you, Sakura?" Kizashi told his daughter in a reassuring way.

"Come now, take a seat here next to your funny old dad and rest your feet," he extended the invitation to her daughter, while gesturing and pulling one of the chairs next to him, waiting for Sakura to join in.

She raised her face from the ground and slowly walked to the table.

"We don't want us to start on the wrong foot again now, do we?" he winked at his daughter smiling, mildly proud of his little word play joke.

Sakura couldn't help but snort a bit when she heard her dad's joke. She sat next to him and they were now facing each other.

"Now, tell me, child, what is it that truly torments you?" Kizashi asked in a mellow tone and a warm look on his face.

It wasn't easy for her to talk about this, especially with her parents since she felt like they couldn't understand her, but she thought she owed them at least this after their fight from earlier tonight.

"It's just... Work. And the war. And the new threats out there. I had to fight literal Gods, dad!"

Kizashi's look switched to a more focused instance when hearing that her daughter had to fight gods. But, he didn't want to interrupt her, so he didn't interfere.

"It's just so overwhelming because…" Sakura paused for a bit, not being certain how to put this out there, the matter of her parents' lack of ninja skills, since the last time it didn't go off so well.

"Well, I don't have special skills like all my peers", she managed to say, passing swiftly through the moment that could've ended awkwardly again.

"And when you're in a war, that's hard. I mean, sure, I ended-up being a medic ninja, at least there was something that I could do. And yes, in the end I managed to somehow surpass this limit, and be a fighter medical ninja thanks to what Tsunade-sama taught me. I could finally be able to fight on the battlefield, and not just be on the backlines, healing people.

Don't get me wrong, I love doing that, but I've always wanted to be able to fight like my peers.

And when I finally managed to do that, to acquire that skill to be able to fight head-to-head any other human shinobi like me, guess what happened? Ninja gods happened.

Ninja gods, dad!" she repeated with pathos in her voice, as to emphasize even more the seriousness of the matter.

"They even got Naruto killed at some point…" Sakura continued to confess to her father.

A little smile appeared on the corner of Kizashi's lips as he heard the name.

He knew it that it was more to her being bothered than what she initially had told them. The stories of her idiot friend had been many, and although they weren't just about him, as they were a team, there was something in the way his daughter narrated the stories of her teammates that made Naruto stand-out.

Even if she didn't realize it, and even if most of them were filled more with little tales about her other colleague. The Sasuke kid. The survivor from the Uchiha clan.

Speaking of him, it didn't last long when he, too, was brought-up in the discussion when Sakura told him that one of the two gods she was speaking about, had thrown her teammate in another dimension.

And in the heat of the discussion and in connection to the feelings of helplessness she was feeling, Sakura couldn't help but feel a bit sad, being reminded of Sasuke's words when he had said there was nothing she could do, when Kaguya attacked them.

But she left that aside. It wouldn't help now anyway.

Out of courtesy, Kizashi asked how Sasuke was doing since the whole village had heard about his involvement in the war and also, the time he had served.

"Uhm… about that, well, he just left Konoha today," Sakura responded to her father, a little embarrassed thinking about what she had asked him, so she brushed it off quickly and jumped back into the discussion they were having earlier, telling her father she didn't want for them to get sidetracked.

"Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that… how am I even supposed to fight something like that, dad?"

Kizashi felt the heaviness of her daughter's words as if he was the one living it.

Sure, he didn't truly ever live something like that, but the pain of one's child is felt twice by the parent.

It's the pain of the child itself and the pain that you're seeing your child suffer. A curse that one had to live with after becoming a parent.

But, at the same time there was nothing more blissful in the world than that.

He had felt it on his own skin when his little cherry blossom had been born.

Given how the things that were now, he found it in himself to try to be a beacon of solace to his daughter.

"But, isn't the war ready, though? Didn't they say the threat has been sealed now? I mean, that's what I remember from the news…' Kizashi told Sakura, in an attempt to calm her spirit.

"Well, yes… In theory, that's correct. Plus, there's the ninja alliance so now war among nations should stop since we're all allies now," Sakura replied to Kizashi.

"But, what do I know? How can we be sure that all it's going to be nice and dandy from now on? Who's to say that future threats wouldn't come-out? I mean, we had a surprise one at the end of the war…" Sakura told her father.

"No one saw that coming. We were all prepared to confront Madara Uchiha when Otsutsuki Kaguya made her appearance out of nowhere and we had to fight her", she continued telling her father.

"Otsutsuki Kaguya?" Kizashi asked his daughter.

"Yeah, why do you ask?" Sakura returned the question to her father, being a bit surprised that out of all the things, her dad had asked about that particular thing.

"Oh nothing, just making sure I follow the thread of events," Kizashi quickly replied to her.

She sipped a bit of tea before continuing her storytelling to her father, while Kizashi followed her through it all.

It was clear that his daughter was feeling a heavy burden on her shoulders, so when she was done with all that she had to say, Kizashi drew breath and told her warmly that he has absolute faith in her.

"You already are a great ninja, my dear! Sure, you might not come from an elite background like your peers and I am sorry we couldn't give that to you. But you must learn how to trust yourself more, little cherry," Kizashi warmly addressed his daughter.

Sakura once again felt a bit embarrassed at her earlier tantrum given how her father was treating her now. Maybe she should've been less aggressive was what she was thinking right now. It felt like she didn't deserve the warm encouragement she was receiving from him.

"Always remember, you have a strong spirit inside of you. One that's able to go toe to toe to your intense mother. If you can do that, I'm sure you can manage anyone that comes into your path," he reassured her jokingly, referencing in a subtle way the dynamic between Sakura and Mebuki.

"Otsutsuki Kaguya or what's her name hasn't yet met Sakura Haruno at her full power after a fight with her mother! If she would, that would definitely teach her a lesson or two," Kizashi encouraged his daughter one more in a joking tone.

Upon hearing those words, Sakura couldn't help but crack a smile. At the end of the day, her father was right as any conversation with her mother felt at times more intense than any other battle she had been through.

They both ended-up laughing at Kizashi's little remark.

"Thank you, dad!" Sakura said looking warmly at her father. Meantime she got up from her chair soon after that. It was time to go back to sleep now.

She took her tea with her and excused herself as she headed back to the room.

Kizashi nodded and smiled at his daughter, as he watched her leave. He too, left the dining room and went back to his, as soon as he heard Sakura's door closing-up.

Upon going back to her room Sakura thought about her dad's words and day overall. His words reminded her of Tsunade's ones and for a moment, she felt a bit more relieved.

But there was still something that was bothering her mind, now that she had talked to her dad.

Because indeed, what would be if a new threat would appear? She couldn't shake this feeling off.

And what would she do if Naruto would be so pivotal to it again, like it was in the previous war? And with a medical ninjutsu that couldn't work wonders on the brink of death, she needed to find another solution.

She quickly searched her mind's drawers for memories or something that could offer her a solution, but she couldn't find much. All she recalled were two instances.

The one with old lady Chiyo when she exchanged her life for Gaara's and then the Pein revival situation, back when he had attacked Konoha.

But, that realization or solution, however one would like to look at it, didn't help her much. Because those techniques would mean one thing: she'd have to trade her life.

And she wouldn't have any problem with that but then, how could she make sure she'd be next to her dear friend and supporting him? How would she serve all the others as a medic ninja if she had to die? Medical ninjas were to die last on their platoon.

That idea was out of the question, as well. Her dying wasn't an option because Naruto surely would need help afterwards. Who else to smack some sense into his dense self when he's overexerting himself?

Nah, that wasn't a solution. She would have to find something else.

Something more feasible.

After all, she had a discussion with Tsunade earlier that day talking about how the very reason she developed medical ninjutsu was so human lives wouldn't be lost.

She'd have to go against that very principle. But yet, tensei ninjutsu seemed to hold some answers. That and Byakugou itself. She could feel it like there was something there, but she couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was.

As she thought about all those connections, she found it in herself to just go back to her master's office in the morning and ask her some more questions. She would surely know a thing or two related to that.

Maybe she would get more leads starting from there. Yeah, it surely had to be.

It wasn't much, but it was something. A starting point.

For now, she could finally relax. And so, determination quickly returned to Sakura's spirit, which helped her to relax and fall asleep soundly.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the house, Kizashi too, returned to his room. When he tried to get back in bed without having to wake Mebuki up, he was surprised when she questioned him if their daughter was okay.

"She is now," Kizashi replied dryly. What an unusual thing coming from him. No joke to crack, no dismissal as nothing important? Nah, this wasn't the usual.

There was that particular aspect in his tone that Mebuki couldn't help but notice. He should've been okay, but there was something about him that wasn't.

"What's the problem, then?" she asked.

Kizashi took a deep breath as he prepared to answer his wife.

"Otsutsuki Kaguya!" he replied in a serious tone, as his look darkened.

Mebuki's eyes then widened in disbelief upon hearing that name.

After so many years, this name comes into their life? It hadn't come-up at all until now.

And they hoped it would remain as such, aeons after their death and even their daughters' one.

But fate had other plans...

"What?" Mebuki asked whispering, in a state of shock. She couldn't believe she was hearing that name.

Kizashi comforted his wife, telling her that this wasn't the moment to talk about that. Tomorrow would be another day for them. One where they could talk about this.

Now it was already too late, and it was time to go to sleep.