A/N: WARNING: To Leave a Legacy is darker than any of the others will be. If you're squeamish with torture, I'd advise agianst reading it. It's not explicitly mentioned, and doesn't acutally take place until after the story ends, but it's there, so be advised.

Note: This one, "False Faith," and "Then There Was One" (forthcoming) are all directly related. "False Faith is first, "Then There Was One" almost immediately after, and this one takes place about a week and a half later, after Sakura and the surviving medics had cast Konoha Higi: Kuunohaka.

-((In regards to that, I've changed Ikione no Jutsu to the aforementioned; it means "Konoha Secret Technique: Empty Grave." "Seals" has been changed to reflect this))-

-rhys

Sakura's Age: 16

Year of Reign: 1

Genre: Dark, Suspense

WARNING: Rated R

Vocab:

-Edo Tensei - Unholy Resurrection

-kinjutsu - forbidden technique

-(Konoha Higi) Kuunohaka - "Konoha Secret Technique: Empty Grave"

To Leave a Legacy

Sakura sat in the large chair behind the larger desk and stared blankly out at the ruin that was her village. Smoke still rose from the smoldering wreckage, though the last of the real fires had been put out just before she and the other medics (those who'd survived, in any case) had awoken from the jutsu-induced comas they'd been trapped in for a week. Work had begun on clearing away debris, and they were still finding bodies in every imaginable nook and cranny. Both tasks would likely last for months.

She absently processed the information, but her heart wasn't in it. She was just trying to distract herself from the upcoming confrontation, and she knew it.

But whether she liked it or not, (and she certainly didn't), she would have to focus her entire energies on the twenty-seven men and women in chakra-inhibiting cells in the basement of the Tower. Not just her mental and physical energies, either, she reminded herself with a grimace, and slipped an ashy-tasting soldier pill into her mouth. The chakra boost was refreshing, but also forced her to confront the reality of what was going to happen in this very office in less than fifteen minutes.

She turned her chair to scowl at the mostly empty desk, particularly the full tray of soldier pills that served as its only ornamentation. Much as she hated to admit it, she'd need them badly in the coming hours. The Ikione hadn't taken any chakra to maintain (just a few years of her life), but it had taken a ridiculous amount to initiate, and she'd drained her reserves nearly dry in her battles prior to using it. Not just when she fought Orochimaru, either, but also to save Rock Lee's life and restore Hanabi and a handful of the other medics to functionality.

Because of the nature of the Kuunohaka, she hadn't been able to recover any of her chakra during that week, and though she'd had nearly another full week to rest and recover, her reserves were still low, and she'd be performing several high level, dangerous, and complex jutsu that evening.

Her scowl darkened at that last though, and she felt and irrational rush of anger at Tsunade. She had no idea what had been going through her mentor's mind when she'd taken it into her head to teach Sakura Edo Tensei. If that wasn't bad enough, she'd also steered her pupil into research that allowed her to discover the secret behind Yakushi Kabuto's ability to regenerate cells at a ridiculous rate. At the time, she hadn't thought anything of eagerly taking his work a step further and learning how to not simply regenerate cells but instead re-grow organs, even entire limbs, in a matter of hours – or minutes, if she felt like utterly and completely draining herself dry in the process. Tsunade had immediately declared the series of techniques she'd developed in the process kinjutsu, and confided in her student that she'd surpassed the Hokage's highest expectations – and her capabilities as a medic.

Now she would teach herself why most kinjutsu were named such not because they healed, but because they killed.

She hadn't been lying when she'd told Koharu, Neji, and Shikamaru that she had no idea how they would determine which of the ANBU they'd succeeded in apprehending were, in fact, loyal, and which were traitors. The only surviving experts in interrogation numbered among those she wanted to interrogate! Her chosen plan of action hadn't occurred to her until one of the civilian doctors had informed her that Sai's wounds had been so severe that he'd from them a bare hour before she'd initiated the Kuunohaka. Sakura still didn't (and doubted she ever would) know why that information had spurred her brain into collecting the necessary facts.

Unpleasant as they were, the facts were these: according to Tsunade's own admission, she was one of the greatest medics in Gokuni's history, able to keep a savaged body alive far longer than should be humanly (or ninja-ly) possible; for all she despised it, she knew how to cast Edo Tensei, as well as all the possible ways to manipulate it, and she wouldn't hesitate to use the lives of those she considered possible traitors as sacrifices for it; her kinjutsu would allow her to replace anything that had been lost (or removed); and if all else failed, she truly would execute each and every ANBU in her prison cells for treason.

Even Morino Ibiki.

She ground her teeth and drew a steadying breath, then rose and paced around to the front of the desk. The setting sun and smoky skies filled the otherwise empty office with a bloody, hazy light, and she tried not to think of how it made a disturbingly appropriate setting as she keyed her radio.

"Bring up the first two."

A scant moment later, the smoke of a translocation jutsu clogged the air, clearing almost instantly to reveal Nara Shikamaru and two ANBU - neither of whom she knew, to her private relief. Her friend and advisor had them both locked up tight in the kagemane, and the pouch on his hip was filled with soldier pills of his own.

Sakura ignored him in favor of studying the two shinobi he held captive, both men as naked as the day they were born, and none too thrilled about it. They glared at her darkly, but neither opened his moth to protest, and she met their glares with a deceptively passive gaze.

And then with flat eyes and a flatter voice, she announced their fates.

"I don't know either of you beyond what I can find in your files. I have no personal concept as to the extent of you loyalty to Konohagakure. I'll have to find out the hard way. To that end, understand this: I don't care how many bones I break, how many organs I will personally remove, because I can re-grow them. I don't care whether you live or die in this office tonight, because I can bring you back to life. And I don't care how many years you may want to waste with silence or false bravado, because I really only need to keep one of you alive; I can easily store your corpses for however long it takes, and I can revive you however many times it may require."

She stared at them unflinchingly. "And realize this; so long as Shikamaru holds you with the kagemane, you won't even be able to flinch, much les collapse or curl around yourself in an attempt to escape the pain you're going to endure."

Their glares now held a hint of uncertainty, and she raised her hand. Chakra flared about it, sharpening her fingertips to a knife's edge as she turned to her first victim. "Sanada Kentarou, did you plot with Goro Danzou to murder the Godaime and myself and destroy Konohagakure no Sato?"

He glared at her in stony silence, and she punched her flattened fist at his naked belly.

-owari-