Pompeii
Chapter 44
jaylene

Sakura bit her lip. "You aren't worried about getting in trouble? I know that the Senju are your family."

Tsunade snorted, looking to Shizune with a fire that simmered over. "Blood of the covenant is thicker than water of the womb."

"How...human of you," Sakura said, picking her words cautiously as she rolled the proverb over in her head.

In Pompeii, she knew, family was the deepest bond; the roots that entangled and ensnared an individual's very soul. People didn't speak out against family, which left people like Sakura, Kin, Yamato, and Zaku falling through the cracks. Unwanted. Unneeded. No value.

Tsunade's lips twisted and her flashed with emotion. "Humans, for all their failings, have much to offer us. Their lives are fleeting; the snap of a Polaroid before they are gone, fallen as dead leaves." Sakura suddenly recognized the emotion for what it was: pain. "They burn brightly, brilliantly during their lifetimes. How can one like us keep from being drawn into their light like moths unto a flame?"

"Tsunade…" Sakura began, knowing there was a story in that agony, there had to be.

Tsunade merely held up a hand, shaking her head. "Unlike the rest of this town, my coven interacts with the world beyond our borders. We embrace the places without magic, learn from them, and the greatest lesson I've learned thus far is that there is a little magic in all places. Perhaps not the supernatural kind that my brethren are so accustomed to, but a different sort. An ordinary sort."

Sakura nodded, listening closely as Tsunade's cadence took on that of a teacher as Shizune watched them both with a pleased expression. It was nice to discuss something other than the doom and gloom of Pompeii's situation.

"You've a magic of your own," Tsunade said. "It isn't loud certainly, subtle in comparison to the cacophony that is Pompeii." Her gaze went distant and remote and, for a moment, Sakura felt like Tsunade saw right through her. Her neck prickled uncomfortably as something washed over her. "It's a natural form of magic; steady and slow. Nothing like the violence of the forest." She sneered. "If those fools at town hall would just listen-" She cut herself off, shaking her head. "In any case, there is no doubt in my mind that, though you are a fool, you are not cruel."

Sakura smiled, heart lightening. "If that's the case-if you know definitively that it isn't me-can't we tell the others?" Her stomach sunk as both Tsunade and Shizune shook their heads. "What? What's wrong?"

"They won't believe it," Shizune said. "They're willfully blind."

"I'm an outsider, despite my familial ties to the Senju," Tsunade said. "Besides, there's quite a bit of circumstantial evidence stacked against you; the Uchiha brat has fallen ill."

"Sasuke?" Sakura asked, heart heavy. Even though they'd parted ways with bitter words, she still cared. "How is he?"

"He's doing poorly," Tsunade said, blunt as always. "Worse even than the Uzumaki twins. Tobirama is quite ill as well and his brother is baying for your blood. The ones who are the worst off-Sasuke, Itachi, Menma, Tobirama-have had public disagreements or altercations with you. People who have had private disagreements with you, such as myself, have been left untouched. It's heavy-handed and crude, but someone is setting you up."

"You think someone is framing me?" Sakura asked, aghast. "What would they have to gain? I had little status in the town even prior to the onset of the illness."

Shizune and Tsunade exchanged unreadable looks. "Perhaps it has to do with your position?" Shizune ventured. "The previous doctor...well, you heard of him from other residents. He was cruel and capricious, treating patients inhumanely and experimenting on them without consent."

"Kabuto Yakushi," Tsunade muttered. "He was the star pupil of Orochimaru a few centuries ago. Pompeii ran him off, but he wasn't killed."

"You think he's responsible for the trees?" Sakura asked.

"It would make sense," Shizune said, warming to the topic. "Tsunade wasn't in Pompeii at all during Kabuto's residency, but I was. He is an expert in creating toxins of all sorts. He specialized in airborne ones, but I saw him use water as a catalyst at least once…"

"He was responsible for the pollution of Lake Icarus," Sakura said, realization striking like lightning. "He hurt so many people...but what did he have to gain from the lake?"

"A practice run," Shizune said, eyes hard and cold.

Sakura shivered.

"Enough," Tsunade said, clapping her hands to dispel the silence that had overtaken them. "There is naught to do with such speculation. I am a woman of action and I believe I promised you some assistance." Sakura nodded hesitantly. "Come," Tsunade said, stepping past her further into the clinic. Sakura exchanged a commiserating look with Shizune at the way Tsunade swept through the clinic, smiling despite herself. She followed Tsunade, obeying as she patted the examination table. "Let me take a look at that seal on your stomach."

Sakura tensed, hands splaying to cover the dead seal in an almost protective gesture. "Why?"

"According to Shizune, it was drawn upon you by Minato," Tsunade said with a surprising wealth of patience. "All seals are imbued with some of the sealer's energy. Even in a dead seal, Minato can still track you."

"Really?" Sakura asked, frowning down at her stomach. "I thought only the sealer could remove it."

"I'm a Senju and a witch besides," Tsunade said, pride curving her mouth into a grin. "Namikaze is no match for my skill."

With a brief glance at Shizune who nodded her encouragement, Sakura lifted her shirt, leaning back against the table. The ruined seal stood out starkly against her skin, an unspoken symbol of her current status within Pompeii.

Tsunade brushed her knuckles over it, shaking her head as she tsked. "This has Namikaze's signature all over it: clumsy and blunt, no elegance." Her eyes shifted from honeyed brown to a brilliant gold as Sakura's stomach began to tingle. "He's certainly been keeping tabs on you, though it is faint. He can only tell if you are in or out of Pompeii. If Mito or Kushina completed the seal, they would've been able to truly track you." Sakura's skin warmed beneath Tsunade's fingertips and she resisted the urge to squirm. "A few minutes more and there will be nothing left."

Sakura watched silently as the black lines of the seal began to curl away at the edges, collapsing in on itself around her bellybutton before winking out of existence. "It's gone?"

"Minato will be most displeased," Tsunade said, a satisfied grin upon her face.

Sakura sighed, putting her weight onto her elbows. "Undoubtedly this will be considered a part of that 'circumstantial evidence' of theirs."

Tsunade laughed, slapping Sakura's knee as she hopped to her feet. "Oh, to be sure! I've no doubt they'll be calling another town meeting soon enough."

"Just another reason for them to hate me." Sakura frowned as she straightened her clothes.

"You don't have to stay here," Shizune said softly, after casting her mentor a dark look. She smiled, warmth and encouragement in her eyes as Sakura looked up, startled. "There are other places to call home. More welcoming ones, certainly."

"Moving requires money and a stable, paying job," Sakura said, bustling around to tidy up the examination room. She kept her eyes down, embarrassed to speak about her finances. "Of which I have neither in abundance."

"That can be changed," Tsunade said, clearing her throat. "You don't work as a physician for a number of centuries without making some connections. I could...put out some feelers, call some friends and see if there are any jobs on the market."

"If not, we will make some," Shizune said, chin jutted and stubborn.

Sakura bit her lip again, gaze wavering between the two women. Something hot prickled her throat as she nodded. "Yeah, that'd be great."

"Sakura."

Sakura tensed, clutching her bag and journal closer before looking up at the interloper. Sasori's cool gaze met her own, an elegant brow arching at her defensive position. She'd brought the bag up between them almost as a shield.

Sakura coughed, scooting to the side of the bench so he could join her. She wasn't used to people coming out this way, being as it was between the town proper and the logging front. This had once been a garden, but it'd long been abandoned and overrun with a bounty of dandelions. It was nice and it was peaceful, away from the prying eyes of the town. Except, apparently, it was not.

"How'd you find me?" Sakura resisted the urge to wince at her accusatory tone.

Still, Sasori sat down with an unearthly grace, head lolling back slightly as he regarded her. "Wasn't too hard to do," he replied, choosing not to let her know that he'd tracked her a few times as she made her way through the forest. He was unaffected by the presence in the forest and he needed to collect wood for his art. If he happened to trace along Sakura's path to the abandoned logging town, well, that was his business. "You've been avoiding town recently."

Sakura chuffed, a bitter, crackling sound. It hurt something deep within Sasori to hear it. She was sallow, gaunt. The stress of the town's suspicions upon her was clearly leaving its mark in the dark rings beneath her eyes. "I wonder why," she murmured, hands clenched white around her phone case.

Sasori swallowed, though it was a gesture that was merely symbolic; a last vestige of his humanity. "I am sorry for how you've been treated," he said softly.

"As am I," Sakura said, finally turning her gaze to him. Her expression was just as flat as his. "What are you doing here, Sasori?"

Sasori stayed quiet. Why was he here? Something had been gnawing at his gut for weeks, months even. Ever since that fateful decision to stay his hand with the genesis tree…

Guilt.

It festered within him, unfamiliar and heavy within his gut. He hated it, the way it gouged him out and left him empty. Well…emptier than usual.

"What do you want, Sasori?" Sakura demanded, the bite of her voice drawing Sasori out of his reverie.

"I...I want to apologize," he said.

"For what?" Sakura asked. "You haven't been involved in this...upheaval."

"The upper echelon of Pompeii is blind," Sasori scoffed. "You aren't connected to what's happening in the forest. I, on the other hand, think that I might be involved."

Sakura stiffened, getting to her feet. "You did this?"

"Not this exactly," he said. Sasori caught her hand, not caging her precisely, but trying to keep her from running. "I do, however, think I may have catalyzed this event."

"How?" she asked as she pulled her hand away from him. "Why?"

"It wasn't purposeful," Sasori snapped, tetchy at the way she shied away from him. "I think that this all may have started with the genesis tree."

"The genesis tree?" Sakura said. "That was months ago! What the hell does it have to do with the recent events?"

"I didn't exactly cut down the genesis tree," Sasori revealed. "I may have used another in its place."

Sakura blanched. "Why on earth would you do that? The genesis tree is important. You were the one who told me that!"

"I…" What could he say? The genesis tree had reminded him of her. It was a paltry excuse in the face of her exhaustion and frustration. "The significance of the genesis tree was lore; a myth told throughout Pompeii to celebrate the Senju legacy." His lips twisted. "Who truly believes that a tree can embody the Maiden and her sacrifice?"

"Well look what's happened since then," Sakura said, gesturing around her to the trees. "Obviously there's some truth in the protection offered by the genesis tree!"

"I know that now," Sasori replied.

Sakura scowled at him, shaking her head. "Have you told anyone else about this?"

"No, not yet."

"You should," she said. "Tell the Senju or the Uzumaki or someone. There's very little I can do with this information." She moved to go, jaw clenched. "You should attend the town halls, speak up there."

"Sakura, I'm...I'm sorry," Sasori said.

Sakura turned back to him, eyes flinty. "Sorry isn't enough, Sasori, not for this."

It remained unspoken but understood between them that the decision he made those many months ago might have completely unmade Sakura's life in Pompeii.

Sasori watched her go, something burning at his eyes. It was an unknown sensation and Sasori brought a hand up to his eyes. His face was dry but he knew that, had he his old body, tears would streak his face. As it was, Sasori stared after Sakura, long after she was gone, futilely cursing the clearness of his vision.

Now, more than ever, Sasori knew the differences between him and the others.

Was this...regret?

"What business do you have with the Sound degenerates?"

"Good to see you too, Yagura," Sakura said drily, closing her journal. She hadn't been getting very far on the pros and cons list in any case. She ignored the way his eyes drifted over the movement with interest. "You seem well. How may I assist you today?"

Yagura flushed a bit beneath Sakura's steady, unwavering attention. "I've received information that you've been visiting the old logging grounds. What business do you have with the transients who reside there?"

"What business do you have asking me such questions? Or tailing me as you've apparently been doing," Sakura snapped, disliking the arrogance with which he strode into her clinic. She may be nearly run out of town, but this was still her territory. "What do you want?"

Yagura scrutinized her for a moment, before sauntering forward and taking a seat in front of her. "You've changed."

"I don't know if I'd say that," Sakura replied, leaning back and examining him in turn. "I've been under constant speculation and allegations by this town and its people for the past few weeks. What I am is tired. And angry. And perhaps even a bit fed up with people coming into my clinic and making demands and accusations of me. So yes, Yagura, perhaps I am, in fact, a bit different from the woman I was when you last saw me. It's been months since we've last interacted in a meaningful way."

Yagura bit his tongue. Sakura's anger didn't burn hot and bright like his own or those of his colleagues; instead it ran cool and steady, the rage of a waterfall rather than a flame. She was distant, timeless in an inexplicable way.

In this moment, Yagura felt utterly inadequate and foolish in the face of Sakura's composure.

"I...apologize," Yagura said, voice soft, his earlier irritation extinguished. "I have heard of the goings on in town but I did not know they'd reached this extent."

"What has Kiri been up to recently?" Sakura asked, frowning. "I haven't seen anyone from your side of town in quite some time."

"We've had some dealings out of town," Yagura replied, crossing his arms. "Been working with some Kappa to clean up the pollution of Lake Icarus which has been a hell of a mess. Between the magic necessary and the legal tape we've run into with jurisdiction issues…" He sighed, shaking his head. "It's no matter."

"And no one has fallen ill?" Sakura asked, curious despite herself. "No one's fallen victim to the forest?"

"No," Yagura said. "The only sickness we have has sprung up from interacting with the polluted water of the lake."

"Strange," Sakura murmured. Something niggled at her. "About the lake...I believe the pollution may have been caused by Kabuto."

"Kabuto," Yagura said, eyes flashing. "Thank you for the tip. I'll look into it." Sakura shivered. "As for the lack of sickness, we're a hardy folk," Yagura said, a proud tilt to his chin. "Not weak and lily-livered like the Senju and Uzumaki in town."

Sakura nodded absently, her frown thoughtful. An entire branch of Pompeii was unaffected by the encroaching sickness of the forest. There was something important in that fact, though Sakura was not sure what it was.

"Have you told the others?" Sakura asked. "Revealed this information at the town hall meetings?"

"Why would we attend those meetings? They're set up to stroke the egos of the Uzumaki and Senju. I refuse to pander to them."

"Would you consider it?" Sakura asked, hating the near begging quality to her voice. "Please? I think it might help."

Yagura frowned at her. "Is it truly so bad as that?"

"It certainly isn't ideal," Sakura replied, stung but resigned to his callousness. She should have known better than to expect anything different. "If things continue as they are...I don't believe I'll be able to call Pompeii my home. Not any longer."

Yagura scowled, looking down at his fisted hands. He wasn't used to the buzzing, nagging feeling within his gut, urging him to do something, anything, to keep her near. He didn't understand it, but Yagura was disinclined to ignore his wants. "I will see what I can do," he said finally. Sakura's smile in return was more than payment enough. "Be careful, if you do choose to carry on with the Sound transients."

"Why?"

"They've a chip on their shoulders," Yagura replied, standing and draping his coat across his arm. "Whether or not it is deserved is a question for debate another day. You know as well as I do that the people of Pompeii hold grudges longer and deeper than the very foundations of this country. Do what you can to avoid being caught up in it."

Sakura sighed, her breath crystallizing in the chilly air as she opened the door for Yagura. "I'm afraid there's no avoiding it now." She shivered and ran her hands over her arms. "They need help and I will gladly give it."

Yagura stepped close, cupping her face in a warm hand. His eyes were sad as he said, "Do not give more of yourself than you have to offer. You'll burn yourself out far too quickly like that."

With that, he bundled into his car, leaving Sakura feeling cold and bereft.

She had the sinking suspicion that it was far too late to take heed of his advice. "At least I'll burn out in a blaze," she said to herself in a paltry attempt at comfort, before moving back into the clinic.

"Where are you going?"

Sakura turned to Yamato and Sai. They were all in the living room, watching some of Sakura's favorite Christmas movies as they began to wind down for the evening. All were dressed in their coziest of pajamas, Sakura even donning her poker playing dog robe over hers. Currently, The Nutcracker Prince was on.

"To the kitchen?" Sakura said, her answer coming out as a question in response to Yamato's nearly angry tone. "I was going to check on the brownies."

"Not that," Yamato said, body positioned like he was about to pounce. "You've been looking at other jobs, other cities in other states."

"I saw the pros and cons list you've been making," Sai added, jaw tight with anxiety. "You're leaving."

Sakura glanced between the two of them, taking in their frustration and fear. She slumped across the couch across from them. "It is something I've been considering," she admitted.

"Why?" Sai asked.

"The situation here is getting more tense by the day. The clinic has been attacked and, soon I'm afraid, I believe I will be as well."

"Let them try," Yamato growled, a rage in his eyes that startled Sakura.

"No," Sakura said. "I'd rather they did not. There's little that I can do about the situation. Pompeii is a magically founded and magically run town." She ran a hand through her hair. "I've looked into it. The jurisdictions that apply to most other places don't carry over here. What human government will stand before a supernatural population and attempt to curtail them? Many have tried, and history remembers them as some of the greatest tragedies.

"If something happens to me, the punishment, if any, will be but a slap on the wrist. And, with so many people falling ill, I fear that the extreme solution, eliminating the perceived threat, becomes more and more attractive." She curled in on herself, tucking her hands into her flannel robe. "I don't want to die."

Two sets of arms were thrown around her. The movements were a bit awkward, certainly hesitant, but they were warm.

Sakura looked up into Sai and Yamato's resolute faces.

"We won't let you die," Sai said.

"We'll fight for you," Yamato said. "We're family."

Sakura nodded, throat a bit too tight to respond. Instead she relaxed into their embrace, enjoying the simple sensation of being held. They huddled together in silence, basking in each other's presence.

"If you leave, we're going with you," Sai said abruptly.

That caught Sakura's attention. "What about your jobs?" Sakura scrambled to sit upright. "Pompeii has been your home for centuries. I can't be your reason for leaving that all behind."

"There isn't much to leave," Yamato said, voice warm but firm. "Nothing ties me to Pompeii aside from the two of you."

"If you leave, we'll follow," Sai said in that matter of fact tone of his, tucking his cold nose against the back of Sakura's neck. "Pompeii is just a place. You are our home."