Here it is guys. Sorry if it's late, freaking Fanfiction was NOT letting me log on yesterday like what the hell!
I DON'T OWN NARUTO
Where am I?
Everything was dark, and yet somehow Sakura got the impression that she was walking. Her feet felt like they were hitting ground, but the rest of her body felt like it was floating. Her hair tickled her face as it seemed to drift in the air lazily.
Hello, daughter.
Sakura jerked –or whatever plane of existence she was in. Could spirits jerk? Souls? Minds? She wasn't sure what form her existence was in right now.
I don't have much time to explain, but you need to listen.
Who are you?
I am an ancestor. And you, child, are one of the remaining descendant of a noble and ancient bloodline.
Was that what all that… weird glowing, floating, psychotic thinking stuff was about?
Sakura felt amusement emanate from the presence.
Listen to me, daughter, for I am running out of time. You are sealed. We –the ancestors that watch over you –do not know how, or by whom, but it is a vile and reckless thing to do to one of your power.
I'm –I'm not powerful! I am the weakest member of my team, I have a pathetic chakra supply –
All your life you were trained to be the inheritor of a powerful gift. You were born with strength, agility, cunning, and intuition, everything to make a great warrior. However you were sealed and you lost all of who you are. The power you hold in your hands at the moment is the one percent that this seal allows you to sustain your life.
But why?
I do not know, child. To seal one of your kind is a desecration of the highest order, an unholy insult to the gods themselves and endangers the sanctity of your gift.
Whoa there. That sounds a little melodramatic, don't you think? The whole 'unholy insult to the gods' and stuff…
If only you knew your true value, child.
Then tell me! I'm tired of all this mysterious voodoo shit! All I get are clues and hints but never anything substantial! Give me something –anything! –that will point me in the right direction! If she had been in her body Sakura imagined that she might have stomped her foot.
I am running out of time. The others would rather that you stay dormant, but a storm approaches and you must be ready, child. The voice began to sound urgent.
You must find someone to remove your seal. It is a deadly trap if not removed correctly, and none of the ancestors could touch it. If you were to try to unlock it yourself you will die.
Oh just great. Someone was really out to get me, weren't they…
You will need to master your powers to fight the rising darkness. You are the most powerful your clan since the early days of creation. You are the heir.
To what?
I have run out of time. The others turn their gaze to me and they cannot know we have spoken. Goodbye…
Wait! Who are you?
But the voice was fading, and a pressure Sakura had not noticed before was starting to ease from her mind.
The heavens will tremble in your wake…
You name will shake the world.
There was darkness.
(((o)))/ _\(((o))) It's in her eyes
Sakura gasped as her eyes shot open.
The door to her room slammed open as faceless people streamed in wearing medical uniforms, indistinct shouting rebounding off her ears like a foreign language, the people in uniforms were all around, hovering over her, peering at her with worried eyes, making gestures to each other while four men held her down.
Sakura's mind struggled to comprehend what was going on, feeling as if she was still trying to get settled back into her earthly body. Finally something seemed to click.
Breathe.
Sakura stopped holding her breath and sucked in a lungful of air, her limbs suddenly heavy as she stopped thrashing. The fog in her head cleared.
" –to her?"
"Go get the –"
" –never seen anything like this –"
" –chakra –burn unit –impossible –"
"How is this –"
So many voices crowded in her hearing, the varied expressions of worry, scared, and horrified all aimed at her made Sakura wonder what was going on. Was she somehow outrageously disfigured? Did she transform into a unicorn while she was out? 'Cause seriously, she didn't like being stared at, what was so –they were staring down. At her body.
Her body that was burning.
Burning.
Oh.
Suddenly everything hurts.
Sakura's eyes drifted downwards and she watched in fascinated horror as her skin blackened and peeled before her eyes, the smell of burning, rotting flesh greeting her nose as puss oozed from where the skin cracked and fell off. Long ago Sakura's chakra had taken on the unconscious ability to heal herself automatically, and there before her eyes she watched as her chakra fought helplessly to save her body, regenerating a new layer of skin as soon as the rotting flesh of the previous had fallen off, scattering around the hospital bed and onto the floor like some sick form of moulting. The new layer of skin would then blacken as well, ooze puss, and then flake off. This happened to her entire body. Arms, legs, torso, face…
Tears burned, literally, down Sakura's sensitive cheeks, her mind going into shock as she processed what her body was doing.
"What kind of poison is this?" One of the doctors whispered with terror.
Sakura looked up and caught his eye, speaking as the answer popped into her head. "Chakra poisoning."
"How do we treat it?" A nurse with short brown hair asked as she approached Sakura warily.
Sakura grit her teeth as she rode the wave of pain, scrunching her eyes shut and gasping at the way the pain left her breathless. "C-cant… Must… R-Ride it o-out…" She stuttered between grunts and whimpers of pain. "Water!"
The nurse scrambled to pour Sakura a glass of water, the jug trembling in the woman's hands, the water sloshing out of the cup slightly as she ran over to Sakura. Attempts to help the patient sit up were met with Sakura's hisses of pain, so the woman just waited anxiously for Sakura to sit up enough that the nurse could pour the water into her mouth without drowning her.
Where the water droplet fell on her burning skin Sakura nearly screamed. It was like burning alive and suddenly being scalded by ice.
Chakra burn. But why? My coils… Oh no. My coils are overflowing!
"M-Medic!" Sakura rasped.
One of the medics rushed over, waiting for Sakura's instructions, her hands hovering over the pinkette's body, already growing with chakra.
"My c-coils…" Sakura snarled as another wave of pain washed over her. She breathed in and out deeply before continuing. "Use… chakra t-to stretch the –gasp! –em!..."
"Stretch them?" The medic asked incredulously. Her eyes suddenly narrowed as something clicked in her mind and her sharp eyes suddenly swept over Sakura's body. "Of course! Shodai! Kouran! Get over here and help me!" The medic suddenly ordered.
As two more medics hovered over Sakura's body, the female medic began barking orders. "Do not let your chakra stray and try to heal her. It will make her hurt worse. Concentrate on growing her coils; you know the drill. Shrink them before stretching them so they don't snap, ignore the burning chakra as much as you can. We are dealing with raw chakra here, so expect some burns."
Sakura was impressed, even in her daze of pain. This medic was talented. She should look into having this one transferred to Konoha for a while… Another wave of pain reminded Sakura of her situation. The medics knew that they couldn't put her to sleep for this procedure; Sakura was asserting as much control as she could over he chakra right now, and if she lost consciousness then the chakra would go wild. It was like have a body-wide surgery while being forced to stay awake and direct the surgeons' actions. Yeah, not fun.
It took five grueling hours until Sakura felt her chakra begin to settle into her coils again. Now that the coils were big enough Sakura's chakra was being sucked back into them, leaving her skin red and singed, smelling of stagnant puss and rotting flesh.
She and the medics were so exhausted that they each practically fainted as soon as the last of Sakura's chakra settled down. Only the woman had managed to stumble into the empty hospital bed next to Sakura instead of face-planting like the other two men did, the nurses running up to carry their unconscious bodies to other hospital beds.
Then Sakura went out like a light.
(((o)))/ _\(((o))) It's in her eyes
There were files sprawled out of the table between them. Papers were spread out, showing pictures of cave paintings, imprints and scans, sketches and data sheets. Shikamaru, Kakashi, and Neji viewed all of these with mild curiosity, the bulk of their attention fixed on the man before them.
"These ruins were the home of an ancient civilization." Killer B began. "An old warrior clan –not shinobi, but supposedly soldiers of the gods themselves."
"Enough with the myths." Shikamaru drawled. "Just keep to the facts."
Killer B pouted. "Y'all are no fun. Anyway, this clan was practically worshipped by the common people, and as you can see in those pictures, they were revered as messengers of Kami."
Shikamaru scoffed.
"Now legend says that the clan went into hiding a couple generations back, during the Warring Era, to keep the shinobi clans from seeking them out to use as weapons. This clan saw themselves as protectors of the earth, and would not involve themselves in the wars of mortals."
"You make them sound like higher beings." Neji murmured.
Killer B regarded him curiously. "In some ways they were. From what I've gathered from the rumors and myths about this clan, it would seem their natural state of consciousness would have been our equivalent of the sage mode."
"So they were sages?" Kakashi asked, thinking of Jaraiya.
Killer B made a sound of frustration. "No. Think of them as naturally being born with the same senses that the sages use. They were hyperaware of the world in a way that normal people would never be able to comprehend."
Kakashi blinked his lone eye. "But to be in a perpetual sage mode… It's unheard of."
Killer B shrugged. "Nothing is impossible, only highly improbably."
"And where did you hear that?" Neji asked with amusement.
"Believe it or not, Naruto said that to me." Killer B answered.
The three Konoha nins stared at Killer B in shock.
"Well what do ya know, he has a brain." Kakashi finally chuckled. Shikamaru and Neji simultaneously snorted in derision.
"Back to the task at hand." Shikamaru sighed, picking up a file and flipping through it. It was a record of so called 'witnesses'. Servants to the secret clan as they traveled from village to village. The list started with retirees and ended with…
"Killer B." Shikamaru narrowed his eyes at the paper in his hands while said shinobi looked up at him. "The latest witnesses here say that the clan seemed to undergo some form of coup and disappeared approximately a decade and a half ago."
Killer B nodded. "Yeah, and that's where the trail went cold."
Shikamaru rubbed his head in thought.
"Nara?" Kakashi asked when a few minutes had passed.
The genius placed his finger on the last name on the list, tapping it thoughtfully. "Killer B, where can we find this person?"
The Kumo ninja looked surprised. "You wanna look for them? They don't like talkin' to outsiders, y'know."
"What does any of this have to do with Sakura anyway?" Neji frowned, leaning back against the couch and crossing his arms.
"That's what we're going to find out." Shikamaru said, watching as Killer B wrote down the address of the most recent witness.
Kakashi sighed and mumbled under his breath. "Why is nothing ever simple with any of my students?"
Poof!
They all jumped up reflexively, pulling out kunai as the smoke cleared to reveal Killer B's teammate, that redheaded kunoichi Karui. She was scowling at them with narrowed golden eyes, muttering about how 'this is my home and I can't even come in here without worrying about paranoid foreigners, blah, blah, blah'. The four ninja relaxed back into their respective chairs as Karui walked over to Killer B and leaned against his shoulder with her hip, looking down at his files with disinterest.
"Yo Leaf dogs." Her voice was lazy with a hard edge. "Your little teammate woke up. I hear she caused quite a panic in the hospital. Even the doctors looked scarred for life."
The Konoha team jumped up, Kakshi and Neji already racing out the door. Shikamaru paused to swipe a few of Killer B's files, muttering "I'll take these, thanks", before disappearing in a puff of smoke as well.
"Weird kids." Karui murmured.
"Their your age, Karui-chan." Killer B chuckled.
The redhead scowled. "Whatever."
(((o)))/ _\(((o))) It's in her eyes
Shikamaru glanced down at the address in his hand before looking back up at the team. "This is it."
'This' was a small cottage at the edge of a trading post five miles out from Kumo. The house was quaint, with aged wooden beams, a slightly overgrown garden, and a sleeping dog on the porch. Smoke was rising from the chimney in the chilly morning; the dog on the porch was watching them with a territorial gleam in its eye.
"It's cute." Sakura murmured. The pinkette was leaning against Kakashi, his arm around her waist to keep her steady. While she was capable of walking and jumping, running five miles through the treetops was still too much for her healing body, and so, much to her chagrin, Kakashi had wordlessly swept her up into his arms, told her to stop complaining, and took off.
After the team had practically plowed down the door to Sakura's hospital room, they had been greeted with a gruesome sight. Dead, blackened skin had been scattered across the bed and floor around her, the smell of puss, rot, and burning flesh heavy in the air. Sakura had been unconscious, breathing shallow and skin tinged an angry reddish-pink with newly grown skin. The nurse they had spoken with before had explained the day's events to them, and after scolding them for breaking into the hospital, had told them that Sakura would need at least two days rest before she would be able to move properly.
When Sakura had woken up she had not mentioned anything about the voices in her head, nor given any explanation as to why she had been in a coma and gotten chakra poisoning. She let the boys fill in the explanations for themselves, an innate wariness of strangers taking root within her. Her team had explained to her what Killer B had told them while she had been out, and Sakura immediately chose to visit this 'witness'. Although she would have preferred to do it alone, she knew that after her recent chain of bad luck there would be no way that the boys would leave her alone.
The dog on the front porch regarded them warily but did not otherwise move as Neji knocked politely on the door. Not two seconds later they heard footsteps and mumbling, the sound of a lock being lifted, and finally the door swung open. An older woman, broad and slightly hunched, stared at them in shock. She had gray hair with white streaks in it pulled into a messy bun, with severe wrinkles across her face, her dark brown eyes sharp with suspicion. Her clothing was peasant garb, a dress made from yarn, a dirtied apron, simple leather shoes, and working gloves upon her hands.
"And who are you?" Her voice was clipped with suspicion, her gaze flickering cautiously over the four foreign ninja.
"Sasaki-san, we are ninja from Fire Country investigating a lead on a mysterious temple to the north." Neji said placating so as not to scare her. Civilians tended to scare off easily when it came to shinobi, understandable. With Sakura as exhausted as she was, Neji was the most polite out of the group to handle this sort of situation. Which was sad, if one thought about it. Tsunade really should invest in a social cultivation class for the emotionally impaired. Most ninja needed it.
"Temple?" The woman asked slowly. The look in her eyes told them that she was ready to fight, the muscles under her dress told them that this woman was no stranger to physical labor. The dog growled beside them.
"The one near Kumo, Sasaki-san." Neji said with a neutral voice. "We had an unfortunate incident with the place, and sources told us that you might know something about it."
The woman crossed her arms. "Do I look like a monk to ye? Now get off my porch, dammit!"
"Wait!" The woman looked up at the sound of a female voice. Surprise filled her eyes at the sight of a pink haired girl, and the woman forgot all her hostility at the sight.
"Yer hair!" She exclaimed. "It's pink!"
Sakura inwardly scowled. Oh really? "Ma'am, this temple that we speak of is apparently the property of an ancient and secret clan. And from what we've been told, you used to know this clan."
The woman froze. "W –wha…" She glanced around and finally opened the door all the way, gesturing them to come inside. "Come in, quickly now!" They filed into her small house, following her instructions to take a seat in her living room.
The door shut behind them and the woman stood in front of her fireplace, staring at them with even more caution and worry. "How did you know about that?"
"You gave your testimony to a man named Killer B." Shikamaru answered.
The woman was silent for a moment, then rubbed her forehead with a sigh. "That was a mistake. One that I do not intend to make again."
"Then why did you let us in?" Kakashi lifted his one visible eyebrow.
The woman paused.
"Our teammate here got hurt while exploring the temple." Neji began to tell her, gesturing to Sakura. "We just want answers as to how this happened."
Sakura wanted to scowl at Neji but was too tired to do so, leaning against Kakashi on the couch, dark circles under her eyes and her hands clasped in her lap so as to hide their trembling. She was so damn tired, and she shouldn't be!
The woman, Sasaki, glanced sharply at Sakura. "It was foolish to go in there."
"We were told that the temple was harmless." Shikamaru snapped. "People had been going in and out of that place and nothing like this has ever happened before."
Sasaki drifted into silence, her eyes on the floor. They waited for her to speak, even as minutes passed.
…
…
She began with a whisper. "They do not tell outsiders their true name, but are known as the Secret Clan and the Descendants of Kami."
Sakura felt a cold shiver run down her spine at the end of Sasaki's sentence.
"I was a servant in their household before…" Sasaki shook her head in sadness. "Before they… they f-fell…"
"They were defeated?" Sakura asked softly, trying to hide her anticipation.
"The Secret Clan was nomadic." Sasaki informed them. "They would travel unseen from country to country, hiring a few local villagers to be their servants. I was one of their maids, long ago. I served them faithfully, for they were an honorable clan. However, some were not content."
Sasaki sighed with sadness. "As a servant, I am not sure what the source of discontent was. But what I do know is that almost two decades ago, the Secret Clan was thrown into chaos. Something happened to the clan heir, and the clan had gone into civil war. I ran away in the aftermath of the violence, and the clan has not been heard from since."
Sakura was silent, staring down at her hands in her lap. Her eyes were wide with trepidation and shock, wondering what had happened, why it happened, if they were alive…
Is… Is this my clan? My true origins?
She wanted to scream in frustration.
I find clues about my real family only to find out that they are gone! Lost! Disappeared! What if they're dead? What if I am the last? What if –shut up. Get a hold of yourself, Sakura!
"Thank you for your time, then." Sakura suddenly said, standing up and surprising her team. "I guess we'll never know what happened in that temple then. Oh well. Come on guys, we've wasted enough time in Kumo, Tsunade is no doubt worried."
"Wait –what?" The men asked confusedly as Sakura practically shoved them out the door. She turned to Sasaki with a smile, apologizing if they had caused her any trouble.
At the door Sasaki suddenly grabbed Sakura's shoulder and, with strength surprising for an older woman, pulled Sakura back and leaned in close.
"I know you're one of them." She whispered hurriedly before Sakura's teammate noticed them. "Come back when you are alone and I will tell you what I can about your family."
Then she practically shoved Sakura forward towards the other Leaf nin, the kunoichi stumbling slightly before righting herself, her teammates none the wiser. She glanced back at Sasaki bewilderedly, but the woman had already slammed her door shut, the dog on the porch sitting like a barricade in front of the doorway.
So I was right. I am somehow connected to this clan…
"Sakura? Are you okay?" Neji inquired, glancing back at the straggling kunoichi.
"Oh. Um. Yeah!" Sakura hurried to catch up to them, ignoring the slight aches left over from her chakra poisoning.
"Well that was useless." Shikamaru sighed as they began to head back to Kumo. "What a drag."
Oh Shikamaru, if only you knew…
"What should we do know, Taichou?" Neji asked Shikamaru as the team fell into a familiar diamond formation.
"Exactly what Sakura said, I guess." The Nara drawled. "We've wasted a lot of time in Kumo. We were sent to find leads on Sasuke and we blew that. Sakura still has no idea how to heal the Amaterasu –"
"Oh, actually I do." Sakura interrupted. They glanced back at her incredulously as the pinkette laughed sheepishly. "Whoops, I forgot to mention that. After the whole chakra poisoning incident, I figured out how to heal Killer B. Guess I got distracted…"
Her teammates gave her bland looks.
"Sorry." She shrugged with a guilty smile.
Shikamaru huffed. "Well then at least this mission isn't a total failure, then. Just heal Killer B when we get back, Sakura, and then we need to return to Konoha. Tsunade is going to be pissed at how long it took us to get this done…"
Sakura's eyes flashed as her teammates moved ahead of her. Yes, she couldn't wait to return to Konoha. The first thing she would do is get permission to hunt down Jaraiya. And once this stupid seal came off…
Her now double-sized chakra coils hummed dangerously
She would find out what happened to her family. And whoever had dared put this goddamn painful seal on her was going to pay for their impudence!
I can't believe I took up 10 pages. This chapters seems shorter than that…
Anyways, MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Lots 'O Love,
~Lilithia