The First Flower of Spring

-Chapter Nineteen-

Aftermath and Itachi

There had been blood streaked across Gaara's pale face. She'd smeared her fingers through the warm, sticky liquid, stroking his hair into blood-darkened spikes. The sheer tactility of the exercise sent pleasurable shivers through her and she brushed the pad of her thumb over the swell of his cheek before returning her attentions to his hair. It was such a lovely color and his pale, pale skin was so soft and fragile, so exquisite in its smooth expanse. Except for the lines of the kanji scored on his temple, she was the first to have done real, serious harm.

That sort of made him hers, didn't it? Not hers like the boy she'd taken in Wave, whom she'd stilled forever, but he would wear a scar for all his days, hidden in his blood-red hair. Scars bound people. He would remember this. And so would she. Scars were tangible things, heavy things, chains of different sort than Shiho-nii was. They could make one wise, make one fear, make one rage, reshape far more than flesh.

Scars made people.

And she, in some small way, had made Gaara.

She'd indulged her fascination until she'd looked up to find Sasuke staring at her with an expression of disgust.

At the time, she'd been immune to the power of his disapproval, but when her kekkei genkai receded, what passed for her humanity flooded back in. So she'd spent an evening curled solemnly around Shiho-nii, trying to forget the sheer sensation of being so alive and terribly aware of her own power. Pleasure could be a poison, she reminded herself. So many of the Haruno were capable of aping those who lacked their kekkei genkai, but they did not have the same expectations placed on them.

If they fell, what was one more shinobi gone mad in this world of theirs? But if Sakura lived long enough to become head of the clan, she could drag them all down with her. Through blood and bone and chakra, Shiki-dono ruled them now and Sakura would rule them after. Shiki-dono was as he was both because he'd been born to it and because the head must be pristine. Untouched. In her odder moments, the adjective was sanctified.

To keep the rest of the clan from becoming monsters, Shiki-dono was the least human of them all.

But she was afraid.

Still, Shiho-nii watched over her.

And, as the village around her grieved for its losses, it did not seem such a bad thing to stand apart from the sobbing, enraged masses. Shiho-nii advised her to keep any and all speculation about the repercussions of the invasion to herself. Having never witnessed so many crying people in a single place as she'd witnessed at the Third's funeral, Sakura did as he suggested.

Though it was odd, she'd insisted in the privacy of the house. The Third had been an old man by any standard. That he'd died in battle protecting his village was the most useful end he could've had, likely preferable to dying in a bed as his organs slowly failed him. Humans died. If they didn't, they weren't human. To her it wasn't a complex concept, but she had a dim memory of crying when she'd thought Shiho-nii was gone from her forever. But a shadowy memory was all it was, all the emotion excised from it from what had come after.

She did not tell the Naruto who sobbed in the rain that the last time she'd done something like that had been back when she'd shed tears at scratched knees and the teasing of little girls. Before she'd become Haruno. She did not mention to the Sasuke who'd held himself stiff and silent as the rain did its best to conceal the tears he could not control that she had not cried when she had killed main house children who'd had so many years before then, so she could not understand why anyone would cry for a man who'd obviously accomplished more than most humans in the span of his exceedingly and almost improbably long career as a ninja.

Kakashi-sensei did not cry. But as she observed the sober, almost hollow expression on his face, she thought that perhaps jounin cried differently than their students. Not with tears, but with something else. Shiho-nii had told her that for the jounin who were still very human, they never stopped crying. Not really.

-[-]-[-]-[-]-[-]-

Sakura's brow was creased in concentration as she tried to make out kanji that had been executed with such carelessness that it they were almost ciphers in themselves.

"All that idiot's notes are going to be written in hiragana from now on," Sasuke grumbled from where he sat next to her on the broad steps of the courtyard, holding the note so that they both could study it. "Because I'm getting something about a long journey with perverts and toads. Or is that supposed to be a compound word?"

Sakura tilted her head slightly and still had no better luck. "I am still not entirely convinced they are actually words, Sasuke-san."

Disgusted by her actions toward Gaara or not, Sasuke had approached her afterwards demanding to know why she'd known how the Sharingan was activated.

She might have looked at him like he was slightly dense. You come from a large and infamous clan, she'd pointed out. Enemy-nin and competing clans alike have been observing and recording your kekkei genkai since its development. It is very...flashy and the circumstances that produce it fairly unique. And you are my teammate. It would be unreasonable to assume that knowledge of your clan would not prove useful. And it has been useful, hasn't it?

Though Sakura was not entirely convinced by Sasuke's interpretation of the note, it remained a fact that Narutowas as absent as Kakashi-sensei. She and Sasuke might have sparred on their own, but he'd seen oddly uneager to do so. She would have further training with Tsubasa-sensei when she returned to Ran-oba-san's house, so she was spending time with Sasuke without being engaged in training, a mission, or waiting for Kakashi-sensei.

It was very strange.

Sasuke eventually folded the note and placed it in his pouch, rising with a sigh. Sakura remained seated, intending to go through some kata with Shiho-nii because Tsubasa-sensei had been developing-or likely simply presenting-her new forms to use with Shiho-nii now that she was finally growing tall enough to use him properly. She had received prior training, of course, but it had been intended as no more than a stop-gap rather than as a permanent and cohesive martial art.

She loved Shiho-nii very dearly, but his form had certainly been a trial for them both.

Saskura only noted belatedly that Sasuke was looking at her expectantly. "Yes?" she queried.

He rolled his eyes. "Just walk with me, alright?" he grumbled.

"...why?"

"Because I want to know everything you know about my clan, but I don't want to have that discussion here," he replied bluntly.

Sakura nodded and trailed silently after the other shinobi. In most things, Sasuke-san was obviously the product of a formal clan education, but aside from his direct to the point of rudeness manner of speaking, he also had a habit of slouching his shoulders and walking with his hands in his pockets.

Did he keep hideaway weapons stowed there? Was it a pose of reassurance and self-protection then? Or was it a carefully calculated pose of carelessness, meant to project his confidence at confronting any enemy even though his hands would be temporarily obstructed?

She was torn from her deconstruction of her teammate's habits as he suddenly stiffened and came to a full-stop. Tracing his gaze, she listened in on the conversation that had caught his attention, but before she'd done more than catch the trigger word that had set him off, Sasuke was already sprinting away.

Given that the trigger was Itachi, Sakura thought the action highly inadvisable.

She might have let his actions run their course, but recalling all the lectures Kakashi-sensei had given her concerning 'responsibility to one's teammates,' she followed.

-[-]-[-]-[-]-[-]-[-]-[-]-[-]-

They appeared to have interrupted an abduction.

The larger missing-nin had said something about lopping off his legs to make Naruto easier to transport and Sasuke looked like he was about to have some kind of fit. His breathing ran so uneven that she was concerned that he might pass out, but he still hissed, "Itachi!" like the word was a physical weapon he could stab the other nin with. His chakra had gone erratic and he was emanating wild killing intent.

She eyed him cautiously and slid a little further to one side in order to give herself more room to maneuver.

"And what's this?" the massive former Kiri-nin asked. Sakura had always been more aware of the major figures in the other villages than seemed normal for a Konohagakure shinobi, but after the Wave mission she'd refreshed her memory on the very colorful and storied group to which Zabuza had belonged. It was not difficult to remember a man with a name as telling as Hoshigake Kisame, whose photo had done his coloration and facial gills full justice. She'd been unable to determine if they were actually functional and facilitated his Suiton jutsu or if they simply were a cosmetic indicator of clan affiliation. "He looks just like you, Itachi."

When the other ninja confirmed in what was almost a languorous voice that Sasuke was his younger brother, Sakura thought it might be wise to interfere before Sasuke hurt someone. Given the subject of his ire, most likely himself.

"Pardon us," she said politely, "but Naruto-san is ours."

Hoshigaki's brows arched upwards incredulously. "And you're going to take him, Pinky?"

"I've lived my life like you told me to!" Sasuke snarled, apparently existing temporarily in a time-space dimension that did not include a second very dangerous opponent with a chakra-devouring sword. "I've resented you and hated you and now I'm going to kill you!"

His eyes filled with the red of Sharingan, but Sakura grasped his collar and pulled him back hard before he could commit suicide. He turned on her, betrayal writ on his features. Hoshigaki chuckled and Naruto just seemed terribly confused.

"Who is he again?" he asked Sasuke.

"He's the man that murdered my family!" Sasuke roared, tearing himself from Sakura's grasp.

"But," Naruto sputtered in protest, "he just said he's your brother! Why would he do something like that?"

"To test his capacity," Sasuke-san ground out. "That's what you said to me, isn't it, Itachi?"

That was new information and Sakura considered it as she considered the slender, handsome shinobi in front of her. In comparison to Sasuke's erratically crackling chakra, he was the very measure of control. More than that, there was a complete absence of killing intent even though his partner was taking no care to conceal his eagerness to see bloodshed of any kind, even if the battle was to be against three genin.

Naruto caught sight of the expression on her face and signed desperately for her not to say anything, but Hoshikage noticed. "What's she about to say that you don't want us to hear, brat?"

The blond laughed nervously. "Um, probably something traumatizing, honestly."

"Oh?" The sound revealed the jagged triangular teeth of a shark. "Now I'm a curious. Go ahead, Pinky. We got a few seconds. That old man isn't that old."

Sakura blinked at him, then turned the part of her attention that wasn't directed at preventing Sasuke from doing anything that would end with having to apologize to the cleaning staff for spattered viscera to his older brother. "Why did you stop?"

The elder Uchiha's eyes narrowed in clear question and she tried to clarify, "With your clan."

Suddenly she felt awkward as she tried to expound on the intuition that there was a dissonance here with this ninja and the official record as Shiho-nii had told it to her. Psychotic breaks, which was the official label given to his actions, did not heal so cleanly, but...

"Once you'd gotten a taste, why...?" she trailed off in frustration. If that had truly been his intent, why focus solely on his clan? Why not the highest ranking and most difficult shinobi targets in the village? If it was something less organized than that, why kill so exclusively rather than simply destroying every unfortunate villager that crossed his path?

But, most of all, why stop at all? Was he so easily satisfied with that? If the question of his capacity had driven him to slaughter all but one of his clan-something was odd there as well, for they'd been a very active shinobi clan, though she supposed he might have hunted those outside the village later though Shiki-dono had mentioned no such thing-why had he not continued to ask that question?

After he'd left the village, there'd been no hint that Uchiha Itachi had continued the killing he'd begun that night. If he'd been Haruno, she would have known what that meant. The Thousand Generation Flower broke the snare of fascination that held them so tightly, but in its absence and in the absence of anything resembling a moral framework, orders took the place of conscience. If he had been Haruno, she would have looked to Shiki-dono to see the hand that moved the strings.

But he was not Haruno. She could not judge him by that standard.

And yet there was something that grated here, something lodged deep that if she continued to worry at might turn into a pearl.

"The question she's really looking to ask," a too-familiar voice said, making the hair at the nape of her neck prickle with anticipation and unease, "is, 'Was it as good for you as it is for me?' The answer, jou-chan, is obvious."

Jun's long braid shifted in counterpoint to his walk as he sauntered up behind Naruto. Something wicked glistened in his eyes, which gleamed brighter than the gemstones that dangled from his ears. "He isn't a Haruno, jou-chan. It's always better for us."

"And who are you?" Itachi-san asked, his voice less inflectionless than before.

"Ran-oba-san says he's what you'd get if you bred a dog and a cockroach. Impossible to kill and always disturbing to watch," Sakura offered, hand shifting towards Shiho-nii's sealed form even as he materialized at her side. He'd encouraged her to spend the morning with her teammates, working on her own social skills rather than being so dependent on his cues, but now she regretted allowing him to remain dormant so long.

Jun laughed throatily. "That nasty old bag."

"Do you follow Sakura-chan everywhere?" Naruto-san exclaimed, looking torn between being comforted by the presence of a dangerous adult and being unnerved by this particular one standing behind him. Naruto-san really did have excellent instincts.

The taller shinobi glanced down at him. "Every little girl needs a pet. Better if it has teeth and claws." His gaze traveled slowly up to focus on the ex-Kiri-nin, his smile growing edges. "But it's no good if I'm muzzled, jou-chan. And we aren't in Konohagakura now."

Hoshigaku-san had been regarding him narrowly, but if he recognized Jun, he said nothing. Instead he returned hardly concealed eagerness with a bloodthirsty smile of his own. With a smooth movement, he shifted the enormous sword from his back. "You won't be so eager when I slice you to shreds."

Jun's eyes caught Sakura's. "Unleash me. And watch properly. They tell you what it takes, because they don't want you to think about what it gives. The first flower-when that crocus breaches the snow-it does not take fear. It breathes joy," he told her. "The center isn't empty. It's so full that if they did not encircle us, we would spill over unto all the world."

Her eyes slid to Sasuke and Naruto, but she knew that this was not a battle that could be won with their current numbers without some kind of sacrifice. Shiho-nii offered her a stiff nod and with that she unsealed him, letting the chakra that always lay dormant and waiting spike.

This is not a person. This is an obstacle. The chant from long ago filled her as she turned to address the issue of removing her teammates from this place without incurring irreparable damage. She'd seen Naruto's fine trembling in the face of Hoshigaki's bloodlust, but it was a visible, full-body shudder as Jun let the flower of madness bloom. And Sasuke. The nearly tangible wave of killing intent as Jun slipped on his clawed gauntlets had jarred him from his strangely intent fixation on Itachi and he was instead staring wide-eyed as black petals spread from the pupil to fill the field of green.

Jun was an aberration. Only his flower bloomed so hot and warm in its final stage, but he was a beautiful grotesque.

She trembled as well, but for an entirely different reason. Her hand was steady, however, as she took hold of Sasuke's wrist. "Escape," she breathed, knowing that her own eyes were reflecting something she hadn't wanted to show either of her teammates. "You're not strong enough to finish it cleanly." Lie. He wasn't strong enough to begin. Jun had already lunged at Hoshigaki and they were running far too short on time for her to cater to Sasuke's sudden, inexplicable loss of any tactical sense he'd ever shown. "We need to get Naruto and leave," she insisted.

Sasuke tried to shake her off, but she tightened her grip. And smiled. "If you get us killed here, Sasuke-san, it won't be your brother who drives the kunai home." Sasuke tried to turn his head away, but she caught his chin and forced him to meet her eyes. She was not Naruto. She could not sway him on the strength of ephemeral bonds she wouldn't feel if she was forced to use her kekkei genkei to its full potential. She could already feel the petals pressing against the surface, aching to spread. And Sasuke had such terribly pretty eyes.

But not so exquisite as the heavily-lashed eyes of his brother, who had stepped toward them rather than shifting to secure Naruto while Hoshigaki was busily trying to maim Jun. Sakura noted that as she released Sasuke and shifted Shiho-nii to a defensive position. Not that it would matter. Unless he'd faltered mightily in the time since he'd slaughtered the Uchiha clan, Uchiha Itachi was swifter and more decisive in battle than even Hatake Kakashi.

And unlike their sensei, he wouldn't be testing her.

A/N: Right when Sakura's thinking about Itachi, this is what Naruto might have said in a less serious situation: "Sakura-chan, please don't talk. I know that's it's become your place to traumatize Sasuke, but just, no."

I haven't decided. Itachi or Sasuke POV next chapter? And I know it's short, but I wanted to do a pre-Christmas release.