A/N: If I was operating solely on number of reviews earned, I don't think I'd ever update any story but this one. I don't work on such a system, but that doesn't mean that you guys are anything less than wonderful. The sheer volume of support has been amazing. There's some roughness with spelling and the like in the past two chapters-due to speed of publication and the fact that when you've got some mild flu, you're very impressed to find that grammar seems to be a mostly automatic function-and I'll get around to smoothing that out when the well of creativity runs low. Anyhow, you made convalescence grand.

First Flower of Spring

-Chapter Twenty-One-

What Monster is This?

That's not funny.

You're lying.

What are you trying to do, Sakura?

"No," was what escaped his lips, numb with the feeling he'd been plunged into a nightmare unreality.

It was like that night, his body frigidly cold even though it had been warm then too.

"You can't mean it like that. You're still-you would've been a child," he said plaintively.

"If they wait, it becomes a test of our skill as shinobi, rather than the bloodline," Sakura explained patiently.

"But why?" he demanded roughly.

"To inherit the will of the clan. To prove oneself the apex of the generation. Would those be reasons you would be capable of believing, as you once believed your brother? Because these things would be lies. To be human means that we do things for smaller, more selfish reasons." A small, unutterably complex smile touched her lips. "I did it because there is someone I love beyond all temperance and reason. Shiho-nii is the world to me. For him, I couldn't do anything less. I killed fewer people than your brother, but only because that was all that asked of me."

Sasuke could only stare at her, bound up in feelings of betrayal and a creeping rage. "What do you mean, 'believed my brother'?"

She tilted her head. "You can't see it? Not even now that you've met people like Jun or Hoshigaki-san? Both would kill because the opportunity was there, because that's what gives them pleasure. Whatever the reason your brother slaughtered your clan and however he achieved it, I don't think he enjoyed it. Otherwise, it would not have been his only massacre. If you define it as ten or more people killed in a single event, Jun has committed at least three and Hoshigaki-san has no less than five confirmed instances to his name. But Itachi-san has only the one."

"Did you?" he snarled the accusation rather than contemplate that man's state of mind when he'd done what he'd done. And he had no desire to hear Sakura apply her odd brand of logic to that night, because he'd learned that things he took for granted tended to come apart in her hands. "Did you enjoy it?!"

Sakura regarded him steadily, lips pursed thoughtfully and brows furrowed, as if they weren't in the middle of an argument that threatened to destroy their bonds entirely, but as if she was trying to think of the best way to explain a new technique.

"Your kekkei genkai is awoken and fueled by negative emotions, by hatred and loss and desolation. You call yours 'Sharingan', but we don't have separate name for ours. We only name the stages. In First Flower and during the Dance of the Falling Petals, we do enjoy it. It's...like a drug, maybe. They take you out of yourself, above yourself, turns the whole world into a bejeweled hummingbird you can hold in your hand and crush at will. It makes you feel as if you were a god. They are powerful in their own right, but they're also the jaws of the trap, slowly closing in about you as first you learn to enjoy them, then you learn to depend on them. After that, it takes only a moment of carelessness. For most of the clan, the Thousand Generation Flower, the final stage, snatches back those feelings entirely, taking with it as much as it gives. The perfect shinobi-the perfect weapon-cannot act out of self-interest, cannot be very human at all."

"For most, it's an inescapable state on their own. The head of the clan is an exception and Jun is another, but Jun is an aberration. It's a drug of a different kind. Under the Thousand Generation Flower, the limits are all shattered. Faster reflexes, incredible strength, the ability to ignore wounds that would in any other situation kill from shock alone-but they are as numb to the wonder of it as a thrown kunai. I was the heir and my final test, perhaps more important than the one that was intended to drive me to the Thousand Generation Flower state, was to bring myself back, which is something impossible for a weapon."

"In the Thousand Generation Flower especially, but in all of the states beyond blooming, people are...I don't know how to properly explain it, but they're...quantified somehow. Their intrinsic value as a human being is stripped. There is nothing inherently precious about human life. When you're in the Flower, or at least, when I'min Flower, there's no more emotion attached to the destruction of a person than there is to a paper doll. It just is."

"And you think that makes it less wrong?" he roared, making a violent motion with his hand.

Sakura shrugged, another faint smile crossing her lips, this one clearly unhappy. "It's not like-," her lips twisted and she tried again. "It's not as if I don't notice that there is a difference between how I see the world and how you and Naruto see it. It's just difficult for me to understand it, like a game where no one has bothered to explain the rules."

"No one should have to explain it," Sasuke growled.

Her brows furrowed more deeply. "Shouldn't they? When I'd killed all the other children, my clan congratulated me. Mothers whose sons died at my hands offered me loyalty, fathers whose daughters never saw the light of day again worked to put down the rebellion of a woman who thought the practice 'monstrous'. That is the 'normal' of my clan, Sasuke-san. But I didn't seek permission from Shiki-dono to tell you about the clan so that we could debate its morality."

"Then why did you?" he accused. "Why would you think I'd ever want to know something like this? When you knew-" his voice broke, dropped low and harsh, "when you knew what he did, why-?!"

"Because I didn't understand, not until I saw you together. And I understood then that you didn't understand, either. You think to yourself that you will sever any bonds, go to any lengths, but you never acknowledge outright what that means. The path you're setting yourself on, Sasuke-san-you're trying to destroy your brother by becoming him. But you're not Itachi. And you're not Haruno, either. You can do it, if Itachi-san continues to play this strange game, but it will hurt you, Sasuke-san. You pretend desperately not to care, because it does touch you. The world has left you raw and bleeding and yet you can't let it go. So you'll walk this path and carve out your own heart, learn cruelty in self-defense and at the end, when your brother is dead? You will be a far worse monster than he ever was, because you care too much."

"I am not telling you what you should do, Sasuke-san, because I don't think you would listen, but you're blind. You cannot see past your brother and the goal that you've shaped your life around, so I thought to show you beyond it. Itachi-san and I, we're similar, in a way. There is a distance in us that you lack, that makes you very human, but it means that we can walk away from our atrocities no less than we walked into them. It does not take from us, because there is a lack in us to begin with. But you-you're human." She said it like an accusation. "And that means that you're capable of far more monstrosity than either of us, because you'll bring hate and rage, where we bring only an objective."

"Stop trying to justify him to me!" Sasuke hissed, trying to stomp out of the room and escape the conversation, but Sakura stood between him and the door and he'd noted the seals on the window the instant he'd stepped into the room.

"You're not listening," Sakura said, now clearly frustrated. "This is not a conversation about Uchiha Itachi, not really, though I can't help what I notice and no one else seems to mention. This is a conversation about you. Orochimaru was the first, but he won't be the last to attempt to take advantage of your obsession. If you don't care that you will shame your family name beyond all salvation by taking the quickest path to power, that is your decision to make."

Sasuke froze, her words sinking in despite his intention to ignore them. That was something he hadn't considered at all, for all that the memory of his clan was something so precious to him. Uchiha Itachi had occasionally been whispered of as the monster the clan had made him and he'd hated those people for the implication that it was the clan's fault that his brother had killed them all. But if he did take Orochimaru's offer-if he did what he'd steeled himself to do and took any road necessary to reach Itachi and drive a kunai through his heart-how would people remember the Uchiha then?

See, he could almost hear them whisper, that clan was cursed. It raised up only monsters.

And they would be wrong, but he couldn't kill people for talking about what they couldn't understand, though in the bleak future Sakura had painted with her words, perhaps that Sasuke could.

But did he want to be that Sasuke?

No matter what else she'd twisted, Sakura had been right in one thing. He hadn't looked beyond his brother. He hadn't bothered to consider what might come after, because his brother was Itachi. Killing him was the dream that haunted him, but surviving him? Sasuke tried to imagine it-life after Itachi-and found nothing. He'd announced that he would restore his clan when Team Seven had made their introductions, but what had he meant?

His clan's honor? Their reputation? More literally, would he find a woman to bear him children, carry his clan's blood and legacy forward?

Sasuke couldn't say.

But if he couldn't, who could?

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

"You didn't tell him everything," Shiho-nii said quietly when a very subdued Sasuke had left.

"I told him what would make him think. Push him too far and Sasuke stops thinking," Sakura mumbled into her pillow as she collapsed on the bed. Sasuke was deeply broken in ways she couldn't comprehend and dealing with him was exhausting, but she felt a niggling sense of responsibility for him. For Naruto as well, but Naruto was self-sufficient in ways that Sasuke simply wasn't. "Did I do wrong, Shiho-nii?"

"No," he soothed. In her imagination, he sat on the bed, mattress dipping with his weight, and he touched a reassuring hand to her shoulder or perhaps tugged gently at her braid to draw her attention. In reality, he could do none of these things, but she'd unsealed his weapon-body and the hard length of it lay trapped between her body and the softness of the bed. "I think you made me very proud, Sakura. Shiki-dono wouldn't have bothered. All he might have done was kill him himself, when he'd already left the path. You're being a good friend. And that boy certainly needs one."

"I doubt that Sasuke-san sees me as a 'good friend' at the moment."

Shiho-nii chuckled softly. "No. But I think he will see it for what it is. He's not a fool, just very angry. And he's been left alone with that anger, living with nothing more than ghosts when it would have been better to foster him with another clan. Unlike the Haruno, who come together only to let their children kill each other in the tunnels, the Uchiha were a very tight-knit clan. He lost more than just a mother, father, and brother that day. There wouldn't have been a time in his childhood when an aunt, uncle, or cousin was more than shouting distance away."

Sakura turned her head so that she could stare at Shiho-nii's translucent form. "...it must be hard for him," she said as she mulled it over. "And I was very cruel."

"He makes it harder, because he's turned himself into a priest keeping the shrine to the Uchiha. He only knew them as a child who loved them and was beloved of them, so it would be like-," he paused. "I suppose it would be like someone destroyed something you saw no evil in-"

"You," Sakura murmured and was rewarded by a brief smile.

"But I'm human, Sakura, and I have a human's flaws. A clan is the sum of the people within it, so all their faults can be either ameliorated or amplified. In the case of the Uchiha, they were proud, arrogant, and insular, but a child wouldn't recognize any of this. And he's determined not to see them in any other way. Sasuke doesn't want to acknowledge that his clan might bear any fault in producing Itachi."

Sakura hummed thoughtfully. "Why do you think Shiki-dono agreed to place the seals?"

"Because you asked. I would say that he isn't completely heartless, but that feels very close to lying. You are his heir and a full member of the Haruno clan. You may, within reason, share the truth of the clan with who you choose, so long as you understand that you must also take responsibility for them in their knowledge. Not all the spouses were as surprised as your mother when the clan gathered."

Sakura worried her lip. "One day," she said softly, "it will be my responsibility to set the seals. And to protect the clan from those too in love to see weakness, like Katsuo was. When things go wrong."

"Yes," Shiho-nii replied, his voice just as soft. "But for now, leave it to Shiki-dono. He's stolen your childhood. This is the least he can repay you with," he said flatly. "Do you intend to tell Naruto?"

Sakura nodded slowly. "I want to wait. Until he's ready to talk about the Kyuubi. It's only fair, when he confesses to be the vessel of a tailed-beast, that I tell him that I'm a monster of a different color. Reciprocity."

"You're not a monster," Shiho-nii reminded her firmly. "If potential was promise, we'd all be monsters."

Sakura wondered what made Shiho-nii so certain they weren't.

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

Sasuke didn't speak to her for almost two weeks, during which time Tsubasa-sensei introduced her more fully to what she'd come to think of as the 'mature' forms she'd use for the rest her partnership with Shiho-nii. He called them after the flowers whose shapes they aped, to be a pointed remember that she was to be delicate and precise, even when it would be easy to grow sloppy and arrogant with the guan-dao.

Sakura poured her energy into learning them, etching the memory into her muscles under Tsubasa-sensei's eagle-eyed gaze and Jun's sharp commentary. She was good with Shiho-nii. She was determined to become excellent.

Shihi-nii had been water-natured when he'd been alive, so she tried to reprise that in each movement, giving it grace and flow to disguise the raw power behind each strike. Years of training with a weapon much heavier than most ninja ever handled had given her strength, but she tentatively began to use her perfect chakra control to augment that natural strength. And not just her own body, but Shiho-nii as well, the nature of her weapon allowing her to channel her chakra into it like an extension of herself, just as one day she'd be able to use Shiho-nii's chakra as her own. The first time she drove Shiho-nii into the ground and opened a chasm, she'd actually shrieked with delight and flushed a red so deep that it had taken long minutes for Tsubasa-sensei and Jun to stop laughing.

So it was that she'd been quite pleased with herself as she deftly navigated the bustling streets of Konohagakure as she ran an errand for Ran-oba-san, but not so much so she was startled when someone snatched at her wrist. She decided not to break the hold when she recognized Sasuke's chakra and instead turned to look at him expectantly. "I need to talk to you," he told her.

When she only continued to wait patiently for him to speak, he grimaced. "Not here," he said pointedly.

Sakura weighed the urgency of completing Ran-oba-san's errand against Sasuke's demand, but he had no intention of allowing her the time to decide, tugging her none-too-gently along. Rather than be dragged through the marketplace, she matched his gait, curious now where the conversation would take place as it seemed they passed a number of narrow alleys and tiny parks that would have been suitable for a conversation. She wondered if that meant he intended to shout some more, though he'd seemingly exhausted the white-hot part of his anger before he'd left.

It was only when she spotted a very familiar insignia on white-washed walls that she realized where he'd brought her. Into his sanctuary, the place where Sasuke lived in silent contemplation of all that he had lost. His footsteps were sure as he led her through the Uchiha district, eventually reaching a house. He hesitated at the door, then opened it when a sense of gravitas that boded ill for whatever he'd brought her here to tell her. He stopped just inside the threshold and closed his fingers more firmly on her arm when she would have stepped further inside.

"This...is where it happened," he said heavily. "Where I found him. Found them. Where my life ended."

Whatever he meant to tell her, it had not dislodged his well-developed sense of melodrama, but Sasuke was attempting to communicate something to her, something that she sensed was very important to him. Important enough to make him be the one to reach out.

"I'm going to kill Itachi," he declared solemnly. "I don't care what you think or say about him, that's not going to change. But I thought about the rest. At first I decided that I didn't give a damn about what outsider thought about my family, so long as I avenged them, but then I remembered the pride Father and Mother took in the reputation of the clan. Itachi already killed them. I can't destroy what's left of their legacy just to get to him. Because that would mean Itachi has won."

"That's a very reasonable decision," Sakura ventured.

Sasuke snorted. "You mean that as praise, right?"

She hummed an affirmative, then shifted as she waited for Sasuke to release his now completely unnecessary hold. He didn't seem to notice her restlessness, instead glaring at the floor. Dust had settled elsewhere, but that floor had been kept meticulously scrubbed. She waited a long time as he gathered the strength to turn away from the darkened interior of the home, pulling her out the door and locking it behind them.