"Ah! This must be the place", said Hanami excitedly to herself as she started stripping in order to dive into the river. She had been determined to get a handful of those elusive red algae that grew exclusively underwater, and her wide clothes would only slow down her swimming.

It was already spring, although if one asked her she wouldn't be able to objectively say how fast time had slipped since the previous spring. War really did seem to make time pass fast. Being extremely busy in healing her wounded clansmen didn't help the situation either. One after the other would come and she would have to treat them mechanically day after day, season after season. It was all part of the job. The able bodied would collect their wounded comrades after the battle was over, she would heal them. No further questions asked, no time to even look at their faces. Any sentimentality could cost lives and that was part of being a shinobi, even though she had never been in the front lines. Being a healer had its' toll as well.

Such was her composure yesterday, on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, when Tobirama entered the healing room, as swift as ever, carrying her beloved older sister on his shoulders. He left her in front of Hanami, and vanished into thin air without saying a word.

Touka's torso was covered in blood and her breathing was heavy. She had received a nasty katana slice which began at her belly button and ended just below her neck. Had not Tobirama intervened with his new teleportation jutsu, she would be done for. As Hanami was carefully healing and suturing the wound of her now passed out sister, she felt glad that she was present and hands on in the salvation of one more of her loved ones. After all, what good were power and ninjutsu, if you could not use it to protect the ones you love?

After she finished with the process, more patients started coming in. She tucked Touka into the futon and quickly got to work. Apparently the battle had been over and for her and the rest of the medical nin, now was rush hour. She made a mental note to ask Tobirama later, how her sister, who was admittedly a talented kunoichi, ended up almost sliced in half, but now it was not the time.

"That damn bastard Izuna" Tobirama had answered her while she was bandaging him up too. He was one of her last patients for the day.

"He took her by surprise. His sharingan has gotten stronger damn." He added with a deeply displeased voice. Heh typical Tobirama. Always competitive she mused. She had heard stories and she knew that that Izuna Uchiha had been his nemesis for at least the past 6 years, when they were still small children. If her pragmatic cousin had said that the boy was strong, then he most probably was and judging from the looks of her sister, she had no reason to doubt him. It had been a long time since she last saw her in such a bad shape after all.

To Hanami, Touka had always been something like a battle goddess. She was one of the few women in the frontlines, with a genjutsu prowess almost unmatched. At times, she had felt a hinge of jealousy. Two sisters, who were polar opposites. The older sister with the strong chakra, who could fight just as well if not better than many adult males in the clan and was respected even by their stern and unforgiving uncle. On the other side of the coin was her, the demure little sister, who had it not been for her determination and guts, she would be undertaking *different* types of missions, because let's face it, that old geezer Butsuma wouldn't let such a pretty flower as herself go to waste. She had taken after her mother in looks after all.

As she finished with the last soldier, she took a look around the room as she placed herself next to her unconscious sister. The war had been especially hard on them this time round. This Uchiha generation of the kids her age seemed especially strong. It was not only Izuna but also another name had been around circulating and spreading like wildfire. Uchiha Madara. Of all the people that had talked to her about that person, only Hashirama Nii-sama seemed to stray away from descriptions like "demon" and "devil reincarnate". Not only, that but she would notice a strange glimmer in his eyes when his name was brought up. She had asked her sister once about all that, and she explained how those two when in battle were almost exclusively fixated on fighting each other. The other side had a dark demon, theirs had the jovial Hashirama, as if they were ying and yang. They also seemed to be ending their battles always on a stalemate. If that was the case, then that Madara must be very powerful, because as far as she knew Hashirama…well he was a monster, and what it took for a monster to stop, was only another monster.

Perhaps that is why this time the injured were disproportionally larger than the usual. The beast had been let loose and Hashirama was nowhere to be found. He had been gone since the beginning of spring on a pilgrimage deep in the forest, something about finding himself and going into nature to discover his roots. It is not like she was surprised…it was Hashirama after all and he had a rather quirky idiosyncrasy, although he had proven himself to be extremely reliable when needed. As she thought all of that, she admitted to herself that she really missed that idiot of a cousin she had been blessed with. It's okay that he was not there to stall Madara…she would be taking care and healing everyone until her Nii-sama was back.

Her train of thought was caught short by coughing sounds. It was Touka and she was not looking very well. As she reached for her sister she immediately noticed that her face was red and she was sweating profusely.

"Fuck! She is having a fever"

Apparently her healing ninjutsu was not enough this time. The wound seemed to be festering. It was indeed a really bad injury and she would have to act quickly, or else her sister would be dead in less than a week.

Swimming underwater in the cold river, searching for that algae was not exactly how she had pictured her sixteenth birthday to be. Nonetheless it was no time for whining. That thing she was searching for could be the difference between life and death.

A year ago she had devised an ointment that seemed to make deep wounds heal faster without infections. She had noticed that a boy she had treated had residue of it on his little body after he had collapsed at the side of the river against a rock, was healing in two different speeds. The wound covered in algae was gone in less than a week while another similar one was not. To her it was clear evidence that that gunky stuff was actually working and made it her mission to collect as much as she could, and alas she was right. That stuff actually worked and in fact, it was the final puzzle piece to convincing uncle Butsuma that it would be better for everyone if she were to stay with the clan as a medical nin, rather than go and pose undercover as an Oiran somewhere else.

Either way, she was right to have gone there. With her blurred underwater vision, she saw the same bright red splotches of the sweet water algae she had been so feverently searching for.

**Author's Comments**

Thanks for reading beautiful people! We have effectively gone back to the story's main timeline. It is going to be a mostly linear narrative style with some timeskips here and there.

~Some character info

I intended Hanami to be kind of like a foil to Sakura Haruno. I have been a SasuSaku shipper since I started reading the manga (I was 12 at the time) but I never enjoyed how Kishimoto had handled her love for Sasuke. I get what he was trying to convey, but he did Sakura-chan dirty. Don't expect Hanami to be as wishy washy. She can't help it either, she was born into war much like her family.

Please leave a review, I would greatly appreciate it.

xoxo,

CS

I intended Hanami to be a foil to Sakura. I figured that if she