chapter 11: no such thing as a slug sage
Sasuke was having a strange dream. Of that, he was sure.
It was dusk. He was standing in the middle of a street in Konoha, in front of a modest family home - one he'd seen before, maybe, because he thought he might recognize it from somewhere. It was vague and imperfect in its familiarity - like it had been in the background of a photograph that he used to keep in his pocket.
He looked up at the sky, and although the stars were out, he couldn't recognize any of the constellations. This was how he knew he was dreaming. A gentle mist rolled around his ankles, shimmering and opaque; it swirled nebulously with his movements as he took an uncertain step toward the house.
The air was warm and sweet, fragrant from the blossoming jacaranda trees that lined the sidewalks. A light breeze rustled through the leaves, and he turned around, frowning.
He had a distinct feeling that he was being watched. The homes behind him were dark, empty, and the street dropped off into blackness after a few feet, like his mind couldn't place what was beyond the particular spot where he stood. Sasuke felt that there was something in that darkness, something sinister and angry and hungry. He wasn't worried – he doesn't know the last time he felt that he was truly in danger. Not since Kaguya, anyway. If someone was watching him, they could come for him at their leisure. He would be ready.
"Sasuke?" a voice in front of him asked. He turned his eyes back toward the tiny home.
Sakura was standing in front of him, in the doorway of the house. Light spilled out from the open door, illuminating the small garden and picket fence that guarded the house.
His frown deepened. It wasn't the Sakura he knew. Not the one from his memories. This Sakura had lost the softness that she had carried with her, replaced by hard lines and dark circles under her eyes. She was thinner than she had ever been in life, and her hair was shorter, cut carelessly around her jaw, and her nails were longer.
But somehow, she felt more real than ever as she took an uncertain step toward him. She glanced behind her, as if she was looking for something that was there only moments before. Maybe she could also feel the eyes of an unwanted observer on her back. But the distraction was momentary; her eyes were back on Sasuke within seconds.
"You're really here," she said softly.
Her voice cut into him like a knife for how tangible it was. Voices were the one thing his memory lost first, unable to recall the murmur of his mother or the stern tones of his father mere days after their murder. He was better with images, his sight being the tool he relied on the most. But Sakura sounded as real as if she were resurrected from the dead, as if she were more than just dissolute brain waves rattling around his sleeping skull. Even though she looked different, she sounded the exact way that he could never remember.
She closed the distance between them in a matter of steps, and then she was throwing her arms around his neck, embracing him.
"It's so good to see you," she whispered. Her skin was warm, soft, and she smelled clean, like warm earth and fire. Where they touched, it felt like he was struck by lightning - he would know; he knows the exact feeling of lightning coursing through his veins and over his skin. "It's so good to see you, Sasuke."
He wanted to tell her it was good to see her too - even if she looked like she hadn't slept or ate in months, even if he was just dreaming. It was so good to see her.
When she pulled away from him, he studied her, trying to determine what it was that made her seem so… corporeal. She was wearing the standard black mission garb, but it was tattered and threadbare, and her eyes - her eyes were different.
Her eyes looked like his own. Caged, guarded. He hadn't known that her eyes could look like that.
"What are you looking at?" she asked, glancing down at her clothes. She was wearing the standard black mission garb, but they were tattered, threadbare, as if she'd worn nothing else for months on end. "I didn't get to pick the outfit, if that's it. It's what I was wearing when I got… here."
She finished her sentence with a nebulous wave of her hand, as if to say that here is a loosely defined term.
"Where is here?" Sasuke asked. She looked just as startled by his voice as he was by hers.
"This is where I grew up," she said, turning back to look fondly at the house behind her. "My parents' home. But beyond that… I don't really know where here is at all."
Sasuke frowned - a strange answer, even for a dream. but he had given up on trying to understand his dreams. His only undertaking was to recover from them once they were done.
"You and I have a lot to talk about," she said gently. "Don't we?"
She extended her hand to him; an offer. He hesitated before taking it. Her hand was impossibly warm, impossibly soft, and sent the same electricity through his skin.
As soon as they touched, the street melted away.
They were standing in the middle of training ground three, where Team Seven had failed the bell test together.
"The training grounds," she breathed, letting go of his hand to turn and take in their surroundings. She ran her fingers over one of the three tree stumps where Naruto had spent an afternoon tied up, where the three of them had eaten lunch together.
When she turned back to him, her eyes had softened slightly. She leaned against one of the three stumps.
"Like I said, you and I have a lot to talk about before I can get out of here," she said, patting the stump next to her, an invitation. Sasuke leaned against it, mirroring her. She was so close now that he could see the tiny blonde hairs on her face, the mottled green of her irises, the dark fan of her eyelashes. "Don't we?"
It's just the kind of dumb question she would have asked him when she was still alive. The kind of question that always left him at a loss for words, because he was never sure if he was supposed to answer or not.
"You tell me," he said. Just the kind of dumb answer he would give her when she was still alive.
"I want to understand," she murmured, and her eyes turned to the stars. "I want to understand all of it. I've never been able to figure it out on my own. So would you explain it to me, Sasuke? Please?"
"Explain what, exactly?"
"I have so many questions," she said plainly. "And I don't think I can leave until you answer them honestly. So for once… can we be honest with each other? "
Sasuke thought back to how many times he wished he had just been honest with her while she was still alive. "Okay."
"Why did you leave?" she asked candidly. "Why did you leave the village when we just wanted to help you? Don't you think it would have been easier if you'd stayed?"
Sasuke turned his own eyes up towards the constellations. Her questions confused him - he had never thought that it was something that needed explaining. It made perfect sense to him, so why shouldn't it have made sense to everyone else? And if it didn't make sense, well… he'd never felt that he owed his answers to anyone, anyway.
When he finally responded, his words were carefully chosen.
"My brother…" he began, uncertain. "My brother was my father's son, and I could never live up to him. He was supposed to lead the clan into great things. All I can remember of my father is that he was disappointed in me for not being my brother. And then my brother killed everyone I had ever known."
He paused to gather his thoughts. His father, his mother - he realized that he'd known Sakura longer than he'd known either of them. Sasuke had always felt frozen in time, in a way - always the eight-year-old son of Fugaku and Mikoto, never able to be any more than that, no matter what he had done. Always the second son in everything, and they never would be able to see any differently. They never had the chance.
"My father valued duty, responsibility, and family above all else… he always told me that accepting help would be admitting weakness, not just for myself, but for all Uchiha. I had to do what they weren't able to do for themselves, and I had to do it alone. It was my clan, my brother, my responsibility. So I did my duty to my family, to my father, and I did it without dishonoring my clan. Without dishonoring my father."
Sakura was silent, but he knew that she was listening. It was something that he had noticed when he had come home after the war - she had learned how to listen, and she no longer felt the need to respond to everything he said. She could let the air go unfilled, let some things go uncontested. He wondered when she had learned to do that. At some point between when he had left her on that godforsaken bench and when he had come home for good, she had grown up. So many things must have happened, so many things that turned her into what she had become while he wasn't looking. And he knew none of them.
"Looking back… those ideas didn't do the Uchiha much good in the end, did they?" he sighed, staring at the stars twinkling against the dusky sky. "The time for the Uchiha to be great had passed. But they were all grasping at what had been, what could have been… and so was I."
"We've all been there," she said quietly. There was a thoughtfulness in her voice that told him that she understood exactly what he meant. "Wishing for the could-have-beens, I mean."
He could feel that she was looking at him, but he kept his eyes on the stars. He didn't want to look at her face, not the way it was now. It unsettled him, gaunt and unfamiliar, but somehow more real than any photograph he had of her. It troubled him to see her that way, hungry and hard.
"Your father would have been proud of you, if he knew you now," she said softly. "My papa… he was a different kind of man. He wasn't the head of any clan. He wasn't even a ninja. But he always said that if I was happy, then he was happy."
"Were you happy?" Sasuke asked, unable to stop himself. It was something he had wondered to himself many times before, when he couldn't sleep. Was she happy? Did she regret any of it, any of the choices she made to bring him home? Did she regret him?
"I think I was," she replied honestly. "With you and Naruto and Kakashi, I was happy. The three of you were my family, as much as my own parents. It was hard when you all left me behind, but then I found my own way, and I don't think I would have found it if the three of you had all stayed. And then when you were finally home after the war… I was so happy."
"You probably would have been happier as a civilian," Sasuke said frankly. It's the kind of thing that might have hurt her feelings to hear him say, but if she wanted honesty...
Sakura shrugged. "I don't think so. Maybe I wasn't born to be a shinobi, like you and Naruto, but I wanted it anyway. I think I could have been pretty good at it, too, if I hadn't been stuck with the two of you. Hard to shine when you're standing between the sun and the moon."
She paused, and a smile broke out on her lips, small and feeble. Like the first leaves of spring pushing through the snow, and just as fleeting.
"I knew I was never going to change the world," she said. "But I knew that I could always help whoever was right in front of me."
Sasuke glanced at her. He was surprised to find that her eyes were clear, no sign of the tears he would have expected from her. Just another sign that he was dreaming, he supposed.
Then she laughed. "Look at us, all grown up. A far cry from Kakashi's little genin brats, huh?"
Sasuke smiled. "Some genin you were. You told him your goals were… what was it? Oh, right. You didn't have any."
"At least my goals were age appropriate. Didn't you say that you wanted to have a bunch of kids to rebuild your entire clan?"
"Huh?" he replied, unsure of what she was referring to. He recalled saying no such thing.
"When we were twelve. You said that you had two goals: kill your brother and restore your clan. You killed Itachi, didn't you? So now, all that's left is restoring your clan."
"I don't think you understood what I meant," Sasuke said slowly as her meaning dawned on him.
"No?" she asked. "It seems pretty straightforward."
"Restoring my clan was never about replacing it. I didn't mean I was going to breed a new clan," he explained. "As I said, the time for the Uchiha has passed, and nobody wants it to come back. Not even me."
"Then what did you mean by restore?" she asked, confused.
"I wanted to restore the … honor, dignity, whatever it was that we had. Itachi killed my family, and took those things with him. He turned me into a nobody from a disgraced clan. The Uchiha name used to mean something. And I wanted that back."
"You weren't a nobody."
"If I was somebody, then it was just the little brother that wasn't even worth killing," he snorted mirthlessly.
"Not to me."
"No," he agreed. "Never to you."
She was silent for a long time. He turned to face her and found that she was staring at him. Her eyes were wet with tears that hadn't fallen yet, but she didn't look sad.
He sighed and reached for her, pulling her into him. She let him draw her in, burying her face in his neck. The skin there tingled and burned uncomfortably, but he didn't let go.
Suddenly, the scenery began to melt around them, and he found himself sitting on a stone bench. It was no longer nighttime – the sky was blue and clear, the afternoon sun blinding. Sakura was sitting next to him, and she looked as startled as he felt.
He knew exactly where they were, and he knew that she must recognize it too.
They were sitting the bench where he left her on the night he left the village, all those years ago. He remembered her soft hair splayed on the stone, her cheeks sticky with tears. The way she knew exactly what he was going to do, but wasn't fast enough to stop him.
She looked around, and realization dawned on her face. He wanted to ask her what she was seeing, if it was any different from the scene before him.
Sakura stood, turning to face him. The look in her eyes was unreadable, and her smile was sad and distant. "I guess this is fitting, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"That this is where I have to leave you." She held her hand out to him, and he took it. She pulled him up. "Where you left me. And now that I have my own path, it's my turn to go."
"I don't understand," Sasuke said.
"But I do," she whispered. "I finally understand, now. And now it's time for me to move on. I can't stay in limbo like this."
"I don't want you to go," he said quietly, truthfully. It was a beautiful day; the birds were chirping, the grass was greener than he'd ever seen it, and the rustle of the trees in the breeze was nearly sedating in its serenity. He could have stayed there forever. Or at least for a while.
Sakura took his hand and raised it to her face; she pressed her cheek into his palm, squeezing her eyes shut - to stop her tears, he knew. "I don't want to go either. But you'll forget about this when you wake up."
When I wake up?
"Where are we?" he murmured, an uneasy possibility dawning on him. Something that he hadn't thought of since Kabuto's Edo Tensei. Souls have to be kept somewhere. "Why does this… why do you feel so real?"
"I keep trying to figure that out too," Sakura said softly. "Sometimes I think it's all in my head, but then you're here… so I guess the only answer is that it feels real because it is real."
"But you're dead," he whispered.
She pulled his hand away from her face and kissed his palm before letting it drop back to his side. The place where her lips touched his skin stung and prickled angrily; he closed his hand into a fist.
"I have to go," Sakura said delicately. "I'm sorry we got it so wrong this time around. Maybe we'll get it right in the next life. Goodbye, Sasuke... and thank you."
She pulled back and turned away from him, and began to walk down the long stone path that he knew lead out of the village.
He called after her, but she didn't turn around.
"She can't hear you," a voice behind him said quietly, and he turned around.
A young girl stood before him – long pink hair, green eyes, red dress. It was her, but a much younger her - and much less corporeal. The edges of her figure glimmered and shifted, as if he was looking at her through a dirty window.
Sasuke, confused, turned back around to the pathway that Sakura had been walking down mere moments before. The pathway was gone, replaced with nothing but overgrown forest and mossy fallen logs. He looked back to the child. "Who are you?"
The girl smiled, baring teeth that were sharpened to grotesque fangs, and her eyes flashed blood-red. "You love her."
"She's dead," Sasuke said bluntly as he began to disintegrate, his body turning to dust before his eyes.
"Then keep your memories," the child hissed, and as his vision receded, he saw her skin peeling away reveal patches of gray fur and yellow eyes with slitted pupils. A pair of leathery wings began to rise out of her back, larger than any he'd ever seen before.
His vision went black.
When Sasuke awoke, he was tangled in the blankets of his own bed - outside, the sky was just beginning to brighten with the first rays of dawn. He blinked several times to clear the sleep from his eyes. His palm tingled where she had kissed him - he stretched his fingers out, trying to dissipate the pain.
It was a strange dream, even by his standards. It took a moment for reality to return with the dull, heavy memory that Sakura was gone - the conversation was nothing but a dream, no matter how real it felt. He stretched out his arm, deciding to enjoy the moments of quiet. Naruto had taken to the supremely annoying habit of breaking down his door at dawn every morning to haul Sasuke to the training grounds to spar. Sasuke did not regret the rekindling of their friendship, but he did sometimes wish that Naruto would catch some sort of semi-lethal plague every now and again.
As if on cue, a knocking on his front door started. He knew that if he didn't answer the door within seconds of the first knock, Naruto would start shouting. Sasuke's neighbors hated him enough as it was; he groaned and rolled out of bed.
This dream would be stowed away and hopefully, eventually, forgotten. Just like the rest.
..
..
..
Sakura stopped at the village gates. She couldn't go any further; her knees were buckling, hands shaking, lungs gasping for breath. Tears were pricking at her eyes uncomfortably, threatening to spill down her face. She wiped at them angrily and glared up at the closed gates, placing her palms on the wood and pushing them with all of her might. They did not open.
"Damn it!" she shouted bitterly at the gates, slamming her fist against the doors. "What else? What else can there possibly be!?"
Her voice broke as tears began to spill down her cheeks, hot and angry. She collapsed to her knees and pressed her forehead against the cool, solid wood of the massive gates, her fist still feebly pounding at the doors, willing them to open.
She did not think she could take any more.
She had left Sasuke behind, even though her heart had been screaming at her to stop, to turn around, to do anything but walk away from him again. The look in his eyes lingered in her mind - like a burned out fire, half embers and half ashes.
There were things about him that she herself had forgotten until he was right in front of her - a freckle on the lobe of his right ear, the exact color of his lips, his sigh.
And he was real.
And he was going to forget her again.
He had to, she knew. It would do no good - in fact, it would do immeasurable harm - for everything she had worked for to be dashed against the rocks now, for him to find out that she was alive via some stupid secondhand forest magic.
It still hurt.
She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath to calm herself. She had to keep moving forward. Somewhere, somewhere inside of her, there was something that still needed to be faced. Otherwise, the gates would open… right?
"Ahem."
Sakura looked up. Her younger self had re-appeared and was standing above her, hands on her hips. The child had returned to her twelve year old state, long pink hair pulled back with an untested hitai-ate.
"You again," Sakura mumbled. She felt drained, depleted, and weary as the child looked down at her.
"Do you give up?" the girl asked sweetly. "Ready to call it quits?"
Sakura sighed and was still for a moment, gathering her scattered strength. Then she stood, brushing the dirt off of her knees, and took a deep breath. "Of course not."
"Are you sure? You look pretty… distressed."
"Well, I am distressed," Sakura huffed. "What was that? And why… why am I still here?"
"I thought you'd be happy to see him," the girl sniffed. "And I told you, he wouldn't remember anything, so you could be honest with each other. It was a gift."
"So that really… it was actually… that was really him? Not just part of some dream?" Sakura asked, feeling weak at the knees.
"Of course it was. What good would it do anyone if you couldn't actually talk to him?" the girl said, placing her hands on her hips. "You had to understand him before you could let go of the heartbreak he caused you, or you would never be able to channel natural energy without it getting mixed up in all of that grief. And it's not like you spilled the beans."
"Right," Sakura said faintly. You had no right to bring him here… no right to jeopardize what I've sacrificed. No right to put me through that.
"Your thoughts aren't a secret here, you know," the child said cheerfully. "I had every right. Which brings us to the very last thing you need to understand before you can leave this place."
"Fine," Sakura said wiping the tears from her eyes angrily, preparing for yet another vestige of her past to appear before her. She wasn't sure how much more she could take, but she knew she couldn't back down now; she closed her eyes, ready. "Hit me."
"Haruno Sakura, who are you?"
She snapped her eyes open. The scenery hadn't changed – she was still at the gates of Konoha, still standing in front of her younger self. But the voice she heard was unmistakable. It was the voice that had taunted her, the familiar multi-hued timbre that had assaulted her from the darkness, when this horrible dream had first started.
The young Sakura smiled. "Shall I repeat myself?"
"You," Sakura whispered, the memories of the pain inflicted by the voice making her fearful. "You were never really me, were you? There was no Inner Sakura."
The child grinned, showing teeth that were honed into fangs with needle-like points. The voice that came out of her mouth was terrifying. "Of course not. So I ask you for the last time: who are you? Keep it brief; time grows short for you, and you are not done yet."
Sakura took a deep breath to calm herself before considering the question. She thought of what she had learned of herself - the fears and hopes she had seen, the life she had hoped to live and the one she dreaded was waiting for her. She thought of the love she had held onto and protected and had not fully understood until now, the home she had left behind in the hope of doing something greater. It was a long time before she spoke. "Someone with a long way to go."
"Yes," the child agreed, nodding.
"Someone who knows that isn't a bad thing," Sakura breathed. "You were right. There is a long journey ahead of me. But I'm not afraid of it like I once was. I've made it this far… and I know I can keep going."
"Then you have learned. You have arrived at the peace you were meant to find," the child said, seeming satisfied with her answer.
Sakura looked behind her at the village, where she had just gone through so many lifetimes and left behind so many things. She stared at it for a few long, wistful moments before turning back to the face the child. "Who are you?"
"You will find out soon enough," the child murmured. "The slugs are waiting to take you to me, and there you will find true power. You will find everything that you seek… but it will come at a price, of course."
"But I haven't got anything to offer," Sakura objected. "I have nothing to give."
The child's eyes focused on the seal between Sakura's brows for a moment. "Don't you?"
Sakura shifted uncomfortably. The child's eyes were hungry, starving, esurient. "What do you mean?"
The child waved a hand in the air, dismissing her question. "It's time for you to return to the forest. Your body has finished the purification rites, and it is waiting for you."
"Oh… right," Sakura said. She had momentarily forgotten that she was not truly in Konoha, and that she soon had to return to her reality… and her body. "I forgot about that."
"You don't have to leave. You could stay right here. You could be home again," the girl murmured. "Forever."
Sakura stood still, gazing at everything around her that she had once loved so much. That she still loved more than her heart could bear. The bright yellow paint on the buildings, the red rust on handrails, the sunshine, the trees, her friends, her life, her heart, her home. The sun warmed her skin gently; the rustle of the trees was the first and only lullaby she had ever known.
"No," Sakura murmured, placing one hand on the gates and pushing them open. "I think I'll stick with the life I've got."
When she finally emerged from that horrible little cave, she found that she was standing in the middle of the river. She was also cold, hungry, and tired. But she felt like a new person. Still the same, at heart, but somehow lighter, brighter, stronger. She felt connected to the water swirling around her, the sunlight peeking through the trees, the birds chirping. Your chakra is scaring the birds away from us, she remembered the old slug saying on her first day in the forest. Sakura smiled. They certainly weren't scared anymore. She looked behind her, trying to peer through the waterfall, looking for the Konoha she had just left behind, and the tiny, pink-haired child that had stayed with it. Neither one was there.
"Are you looking for something?" a deep voice called, startling her. When she turned, she found another slug, this one the size of a house, peering at her from the shore.
"No," she called back, wading through the lazy waters. "Are you my next guide?"
Once back at the shore, Sakura stood face to face with the large slug. Maybe a house was exaggerating. A bus, perhaps.
"I am your next guide," the slug confirmed. "I have been charged with the maintenance of your physical training, although I am not the only one charged with this undertaking."
"Physical training?" Sakura asked, uneasy. Her stomach rumbled and her muscles ached; she massaged the back of her neck, groaning in pain. "I feel like I've been shoved inside of a shoebox."
"You were in the cave for a very long time. Nearly two weeks," the slug said, and if Sakura was not mistaken, there was concern in its deep, trundling voice. "A long time to leave the body untended."
Sakura looked down at her body. She had undoubtedly lost weight - weight she could hardly afford to lose - and her nails had grown long and untidy. Her clothes were soaked, dripping with cold water, and her skin was pale and sallow. She sighed - she hadn't thought to bring a change of clothes with her.
"I have brought with me the necessities that your species rely on. Human clothing and food," the slug said, using one of its giant eye stalks to gesture toward a package of supplies that sat on top of her pack, leaned against a tree.
Surprised, Sakura sorted through the pile of human clothes, holding up a pair of black mission-standard pants and matching shirt. "Where did you get all of this? Are there other humans here?"
"Katsuyu brought them for you when she returned from speaking to your leaders."
"Is Katsuyu here?" Sakura asked, peering around the massive slug, looking for her old friend. A familiar face - even if it was a slug face - would have been more than welcome.
"No. At this moment, Katsuyu is outside of the forest, acting on your behalf," the slug said vaguely.
"On my behalf," Sakura repeated slowly, not understanding. She was no diplomat or dignitary; she did not have the need for an emissary.
"It would appear that your… council, yes? And you call your chief a hokage? They have grown impatient. They made demands of your time that Katsuyu felt she was compelled to oblige."
Sakura frowned. "What sort of demands?"
"That your contract is contingent on your meeting of deadlines. Katsuyu, as your summon, felt that she was beholden to uphold any contracts that you may have entered into, and took the completion of your next mission on herself."
"Oh no," Sakura muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. "No, no, no. I can't believe Kakashi would let her do that. She must be so upset."
"Katsuyu rather enjoys the odd assassination every few decades. It's why she chooses to enter into human contracts. I would not be worried about her. And she has bought us several weeks to begin your training. If we begin immediately, we may make ample progress."
"Still. What a bunch of shitheads," Sakura grumbled, cracking her knuckles.
"Miss Sakura, please do remember you were supposed to leave your anger and resentment in the cave," the slug reminded her. "Such emotions will hinder your mastery of the sage arts."
"Sorry," Sakura said quickly. "I meant to say, uh, I wish they had not done that... sort of thing."
"They are rather insistent that you resume your duties right away," the slug said carefully. "Of course, we in Shikkotsu feel no need to adhere to their demands. However, we do feel it pertinent to pass on a message from the council. They simply would like to remind you of the consequences of shirking your duties and the importance of maintaining a strict schedule."
Sakura stiffened. An icy feeling crawled up her neck - she knew the implied threat in the message. She knew exactly the consequences they were referring to, even if Sasuke's name had not been spoken aloud. Shitheads, she repeated to herself. How was she supposed to gain any sort of ground when she only had three weeks in between missions?
As if it could read her thoughts, the slug cleared its throat. "It has been suggested that you intermittently leave the forest to complete whatever missions you must, and in between, you would return to Shikkotsu to continue your training."
"I can do that?" Sakura asked, surprised.
"You can come and go as you wish. The forest has accepted you," the slug said respectfully. "But you are not the new sage yet. There is someone for you to meet first."
"The first sage?" she asked hopefully, clasping her hands together.
"No, no. He is long dead. You humans don't live very long, which is why you don't make good pets."
"I wish you would just tell me who he was." Sakura squinted. She had her suspicions, but did not want to look stupid in front of the slug by being wrong.
"It is not my place to tell you."
"Who's place is it, then?"
"She who will decide if you may call yourself a sage or not. We go there now."
"She? You mean, like, the head slug, or whatever you guys call your leader. Slug-kage?"
"No. No, much more than that. The guardian of the forest. She is not a slug."
"The forest guardian decides if I can become a slug sage? Not the slugs?" Sakura said, becoming slightly irritated. She wondered what kind of forest had politics.
The giant slug laughed, the sound coming from deep within its slug-belly and shaking a flurry of leaves off of the nearby trees. Sakura knew that something she said had been deeply amusing to the slug, but she didn't know what.
Finally, when it had finished laughing, the slug spoke in a wheezing voice. "There is no such thing as a slug sage, girl."
"Excuse me?" Sakura asked, startled. "I... I thought that I was here to become a-"
"A sage, yes," the slug interrupted her. "A slug sage, no. We are not so vain as the toads of Myoboku. We are the caretakers of the forest, and the healers of the realm, and as I said, we do not keep pets. You will not be a slug sage."
"What kind of a sage will I be, then? Just the Plain-Old-No-Frills Sage?" Sakura inquired.
"You will be the forest sage," the slug replied. "An age-old and well-storied standing that has not been held by a human in many decades. There is a temple at the center of the forest - the temple of the sages, we call it, but it has many other names. And there, you will meet the forest spirit, Baku."
"That sounds familiar."
"Yes, humans know well of Baku. Legend says that the gods created Baku with the spare pieces that were left over when they finished creating all other animals. The spirit spent many a millenium plaguing humans before settling here in the forest and giving it its name - Shikkotsu means Damp Bone Forest."
"Are the legends true?"
"About the gods? Who knows. About plaguing humans? Most certainly. It's fun; you should try it sometime."
"The damp bones bit concerns me," Sakura said, peering at the mossy forest floor as if a fully-formed skeleton might jump out at her from the dirt. "Are you sure it's safe for me to meet this… Baku?"
"Yes. She isn't hungry right now," the slug said dryly.
Sakura squinted up at the giant slug. "I feel like you're making fun of me."
"It was a boring two weeks, waiting for you. Now, shall we make the journey towards the center of the forest? It's but a few hours from here, if you ride on my back. It will be faster that way." The slug proffered its tail for her to climb onto its flat, squishy back.
Fast slugs. Sakura shook her head, hardly believing that her life could become any stranger. Too tired and sore to object, she clambered onto the soft fleshy body of the slug, and it began to nimbly navigate through the trees. Within minutes, she fell into a deep slumber for the first time since coming to the forest.
..
..
..
A/N: Ugh, I have so much to say this time around!
Firstly, I have never watched the anime. I have only read the manga. If something happened in the anime that did not happen in the manga, i do not know about it.
This chapter was something I'd been wanting to write for a long time. I think it's important that Sakura and Sasuke start to understand each other a little bit. I think they have such deep-rooted misunderstandings of the things that motivate each other, which isn't fair to either of them!
Secondly: If you really like this story or you dig my writing (:D), then I have a new offering for you! I have new story called The Sun Goes With You, and the first chapter is up now. It was actually the story that kind of gave birth to Seek, and you'll definitely see some similarities in the first chapter, although the plot diverges pretty quickly after that. The Sun Goes With You has a lot of the same elements - post-war SasuSaku, heavy trauma, extended separation. It promises to be darker and creepier, but with more face time between Sakura and Sasuke, if you're missing that in this story. Also, the first five chapters are already written so I can promise at least some sort of regular update schedule!
As far as Seek goes, I know that things have strayed a little far from usual ninja bsns, and I promise we're getting back to that right away! No more strange dreamscapes.
This story has now been ongoing x 1 year - at least on AO3 - and what a fun time I have had. I would like to encourage you all to leave reviews and feedback of any kind, even if you are not usually the type to do that. It's so motivating and inspiring to me.
To the guest who left the kindest review stating that they always read but do not always review, amongst other fantastically nice things: I love you and appreciate you so much. What a lovely thing for you to have said to me!
And lastly: I do take one shot requests. Any character/pairing except sasuhina - or sasuke with anyone other than sakura tbh. I just can't vibe with that enough to write it well.