Chapter 4

Everyone was dead.

Everything was in ruins, their tents shredded and sprayed with the blood of her clansmen. Meals that were in the process of being prepared were strewn about across their campsite, the toys of children left abandoned. At a time such as that, one of her concerns should not have been the necklace her father gifted her when she turned thirteen being amongst the lost belongings of her clan, but it was because it was gone and she felt bare without it, having never taken it off since her birthday.

Body jerking in a mixture of both pain and despair, she dragged herself through the fiery rubble of what was once her home, bare feet cut and blistering as she walked.

The smoke from the fires filled her lungs and burned them ruthlessly, squandering any hope that may have remained of her somehow surviving the massacre that had taken what was once the proud Haruno Clan down such a devastating path.

"Someone," she called out thickly, hand returning to her mouth and nose. "Is anybody… a-alive?"

She was… the last to carry the noble name.

Her green eyes stung, but whether that was from the smoke or the never ending tears was unknown.

Whether it be by her unlikely survival and the path that would take her down or the annihilation of her entire clan, that day would go down in history. It would be a change in the world. While they were not up to the standards of the Uchiha or Senju clans, they were powerful in their own right, their medical-ninjutsu some of the finest around due to exemplary control. Many travelled for miles for their skills or asked that they join them in battle, believing them to be miracle workers. There was no clan like her own, who had many allies seeing as nobody wished to work against them. It was equal to condemning oneself.

Someone had just taken out a whole clan of healers.

Knees finally buckling under the weight of her sorrow and grief, she dropped her hands to the crisp ground, the sounds of her sobs drowned out by the roaring flames around her.

"Oh, Gods. This is…"

"A massacre," sighed Shisui as he remained seated beside her.

Sakura's eyes were glued to the freshly written scroll in her hands, Shisui's calligraphy neat and enviable. He'd only been given the task of deciphering the original scroll an hour ago, yet he'd already returned with the first part for her, easily admitting that he was also intrigued by the possibility of her being a descendent of Uchiha Madara's.

It read more like a diary, he'd told her upon returning. When asked why it was so unlike other scrolls in the archives, Shisui had been unsure, though proposed that it was potentially written by someone young enough not to know how to properly report events, which explained the childish handwriting.

"But why?" Sakura questioned. She was certain she was still pale, for that horrendous sickening feeling had yet to pass. It was powerful enough to refuse her the chance to really absorb all that she'd read, instead fixated on the unfair slaughter. "Why would someone massacre a clan of healers?"

He exhaled through his nose, half-heartedly gesturing to the scroll. "She said they had many allies – it could have been enemies of said allies."

Yeah, she supposed. Tsunade often warned her of the dangers surrounding being a medic-nin, as the first move in battle was usually to dispose of them, essentially lowering the survival rate of the entire team. That was why she was training her to not be just a medic-nin.

Leaning her head back against the wall with a heavy sigh, Sakura allowed it to loll to the side after a moment so that she could look at Shisui directly. He was quite clearly perplexed, his eyes skimming over the next part of the scroll before darting to the self-made decoder by his side. He was the diligent worker, though Sakura supposed she should have expected that considering his devotion to their training days. Nothing was ever half-assed or a guess – he gave it his all each and every time (she just wished sometimes, when it came to genjutsu, he didn't go all out against her).

Outside of that and the rumours that followed his name, it was safe to say she didn't know much about Uchiha Shisui.

"What is it?" he asked without looking her way.

Blushing at the embarrassment of being caught staring, Sakura averted her gaze, busying herself with picking the lint off her qipao. "Nothing, I just…" She smiled and huffed out a nervous breath. "What if I am a distant relative of Uchiha Madara's?"

Shisui snorted at that, sarcasm dripping from his words. "Then I'm sure the clan will love to hear all about it."

How didn't they know, though? Surely, somewhere down the line, someone from his lineage possessed the sharingan? And surely they would have had their ancestry questioned in response to that?

Unless…

Unless that was why her family were no longer shinobi? Was the reasoning behind their abandonment of the profession due to fear of awakening the sharingan? No, that sounded so ridiculous even to her! Why would anyone fear possessing the sharingan when it gave the user so many massive advantages? Sakura knew she sure as hell wouldn't have minded having the sharingan but was saddened to admit that the likelihood of that happening was basically impossible.

How many generations were between her and the mystery Haruno woman? A minimum of four, Sakura was willing to bet. And going strictly off what she'd heard around the village and caught glimpses of in the hospital: even half Uchiha struggled to awaken or utilise their sharingan for prolonged periods of time. What chance did she stand, really? Even if she was a descendent of Madara's, Uchiha blood barely ran in her veins.

"Well, it's safe to say this is a tragic start to your journey of self-discovery," Shisui said with a sigh, quill stilling long enough for him to read over what he'd deciphered so far. "I almost feel as though I should step up as a caring sensei and shield you from it."

Green eyes rolled because surely it wasn't that bad? "Can I read it anyway?"

"It's your clan," was all he replied with before handing it over.

Yes, she thought with a small flutter of excitement. As tragic as it all was, it was her clan.

When she next stirred, it took several long moments to realise her head was thudding lightly against an armoured chest, one she vaguely recognised but couldn't immediately put a name to.

Not that it truly mattered.

What more could be done to her now that she was without her clansmen? Her siblings? Her parents? After she'd witnessed their deaths and was forced to flee at the request of her loved ones?

Her mother had begged of her to run after watching the fall of her two sons and husband, not able to withstand the sight of another of her children being murdered so brutally. And she'd left to the soundtrack of her screams for mercy, of her noises of anguish and sobs of terror and she could only guess that her mother's body was being used in the same unforgivable way as the other women's. She didn't even need to close her eyes to recall the gruesome sounds or sights, for they were to the forefront of her mind, determined in their task of driving her insane.

Why had she run? Why had she even attempted to save her meagre, meaningless life? Was her return to the scenes of savagery morbid curiosity? A sad attempt to save someone? A not so secret desire to cross paths with one of her enemies, hoping they would cut her down?

"Izuna, go ahead and send word to Father about the Haruno Clan's downfall."

"Can you manage the girl alone?"

"Do I look incompetent to you?"

Complete mental exhaustion granted her with little more than the ability to stare ahead of herself, the blur of the forest whizzing by them eventually causing her to grow dizzy. She didn't have the strength to request the boy carrying her to slow down. More importantly, she supposed it would be considered bad form for her to complain about how she was rescued.

"That was not what I-"

"Just go," the boy carrying her demanded. "We will be right behind you."

Shutting her aching, dry eyes, she longed for the darkness of unconsciousness, the one strong enough to keep the memories at bay and grant her sweet, merciful relief.

Moments later and the potential for unconsciousness was disturbed when their speed decreased slightly and the arms around her slackened somewhat, granting her the ability to breathe more easily.

"You can stop playing dead. I know that you are awake."

How rude, part of her thought irritably, but the majority won and so she remained silent, merely opening her eyes in acknowledgement. Although she knew it was considered massively disrespectful to ignore not just anyone, but a man especially, she couldn't bring herself to care. What more could they do to her?

"You are a Haruno."

Weakly, she tipped her head back on the bicep cradling her back, staring up at the boy who barely spared her a glance.

He appeared angry, however she caught a glimpse of his clan's emblem and knew not to view it as anything personal – he was an Uchiha. They were notorious for their stern, aristocratic features.

Uchiha.

Resisting the urge to sigh, she nodded in response to his question, a part of her relaxing at the knowledge of being in safe hands. The Uchiha Clan happened to be one of her clan's many allies, and certainly the fiercest ally at that. If only they had been there to protect them when they needed it, just as her clan had for them in their bloody battles.

No, blaming others for such an atrocity was wrong and unfair of her.

"Rest for now," he said with an air of something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Was it frustration? Disbelief over the horrors he'd witnessed? "Our greatest ally has been wiped out with seemingly little resistance, meaning injured or not, Father will demand answers from you once we return."

Odd how she hadn't even taken much notice of her own injuries.

"How old do you think she was here?"

Shisui paused in accepting the rewritten scroll once more, frowning down at the contents of the original. She'd always struggled in getting a read on Uchiha men and sadly, that hadn't increased much over the years of being around them. So, she could only stare at his expression and guess at how he was feeling, leaning more towards thoughtful than anything else.

"Possibly your age," he answered after careful consideration. "Maybe even younger. It states earlier on that she was thirteen when handed a necklace from her father. I can't imagine she was much older than that."

That was… heart-breaking.

"It was completely different back then," Shisui continued with a weighted sigh, her only indication of what emotions he was potentially experiencing in that moment. Gesturing to the seemingly endless scrolls around them, he continued, saying, "There were no shinobi villages – it was a constant battle for territory and survival. There was no such thing as a childhood back then."

"Like a never-ending war," Sakura mumbled.

"Basically."

Although she didn't know anything about the girl in the scrolls other than the fact that they were distantly related, Sakura felt her heart go out to her. The horrors she'd witnessed and lived through were undoubtedly terrible, and she wasn't sure if she herself possessed the mental strength needed to pull through such an experience. Hell, sometimes Sakura got choked up just witnessing her shishou's heartbreak and wanted to crumble up and cry for her – and that was second-hand grief. There was no way she would be able to endure losing her whole family!

"It will be best to do this section at a time," stated Shisui after several long moments of assessing her. "I understand you wish to know more about your past, but there is no telling how dark this girl's world became following this first entry."

Understandable, she thought to herself while simultaneously ramming a mental shoulder into the snarling Inner-Sakura who demanded to find everything out that instant. Gods, she was so irrational and demanding that it often times rubbed off on her, but like her she would allow it in that moment. Not only was it to protect her mental health, but Shisui's too. Submerging themselves in a child's grief and solitude while navigating such a wretched, violent world would undoubtedly take its toll on them.

Sakura took a moment to bite down on her lower lip, surveying the Uchiha Clan's vast scrolls as they loomed over the pair of them, their entries one of the greatest in the whole of the archive's room.

"Maybe life got better for her after joining your clan?" she whispered hopefully, all the while her heart ached because Shisui's eyes lowered to the ground, like he already knew snippets of the bloody future that had awaited her ancestor. It wasn't entirely impossible since he no doubt would have read his own clan's history at some point in his lifetime, most definitely Madara's considering he was once patriarch. "Maybe she found a life for herself with them?"

His head came back against the wall with a quiet thud, expression grave as he once more met her eye. "Anything involving Uchiha Madara never has a happy ending, Sakura. Remember that."

A/N - Hi everyone! Sorry for the lack in updates. I don't know how many check out the updates on my profile, but just in case you haven't seen it: to keep myself from being burned out, I'm going to update once a week. Hopefully I'll fall into a routine of some kind and be able to update multiple stories a week again, but for now, just one chapter per week and it will be a different story every week, too.

Hope you all enjoyed the holidays and I hope everyone has a happy new year!