Welcome back to this second instalment of Sakura being so much more than her OC. I wanted to get this up a lot sooner, but life and work and horrible inexcusable reasons such as writer's block set it back and I got so far and then decided I didn't like any of it. So we're back at the beginning and I'm just getting it up and out. Updates will happen never fear, just not on the daily.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognise. There will be portions in this story that have been pulled directly from the original content- mainly dialogue though I have tried to put it in my own words as much as I felt I could. I have not and will not mark it in each chapter because I feel it would detract from the story if I keep adding authors notes and/or comments inside the work. Suffice it to say if you recognise it from the original content then it's clearly not mine.
Recognition of other fan-fiction authors works: I have read a lot of stories and have been inspired by countless authors. Not just in this fandom but in others as well. With the amount that I read and the screeds that I write- 99% of which shall remain unpublished, sometimes the words of others come out of my mouth or are typed on a page. I do not want to take away the recognition of the author who wrote them first. It's just that I honestly cannot recall title, author, or the website that I read it on, what I do remember are snappy lines, sappy lines, lines that made me laugh or cry. I remember the way the author made me feel.
If you recognise anything in this story from somewhere else- maybe it's from one of your own stories, please reach out and tell me. I'd love to credit the original author for the inspiration or direct reference that may have slipped in.
~G
Sakura carefully mixed the two liquids together trying not to breathe in the cloying metallic scent of warm blood. Three parts blood, two parts ink mixed together until the whole was a black that had a red tint to it in the light.
"Sorry Anko, you're going to have to be topless for this," she apologised but the older kunoichi waved her away.
"It's okay Sakura. Really. I'm familiar enough with fūinjutsu that I'm aware of why." She shrugged out of her trench coat and tossed it behind her. They were in an underground sealing room just in case anything went wrong. Both Tsunade and Jiraiya were there as well. In the months since Sasuke had been bitten by Orochimaru, and since Sakura had become aware of the similar seal he'd placed on Anko, they had been working to untangle the hooks that the seal had dug into and wound around Anko's chakra network.
Just before the preliminary matches were held, Sakura stuck a paper seal over the one Orochimaru had given her years previous. It was designed to draw the other seal away from Anko's chakra network, and make it dependent on the chakra that was infused into the paper seal.
New chakra had to be infused into the paper seal everyday, but it worked. It took weeks to get it unravelled enough that Sakura was confident of lifting the seal from her skin altogether.
She glanced at Jiraiya who merely waved her on. It was her seal that was being placed. She took a deep breath and got to work. There were three layers to the seal and each layer had over a hundred elements to it. It was complicated. Sakura had to be careful that each element was correct before moving onto the next which meant that it was also time consuming.
Twelve hours from start to finish. To ink each element and to let the layers dry. She stuck a square of seal paper on top of the central seal. She looked at Anko.
"It's going to hurt," she warned.
"Just get it over with. I'm ready to be free of that snake."
Sakura swallowed and nodded before counting down then activating the seal.
Anko screamed. Her body tensed up, locking into a rigid state. The curse seal tried to activate but it no longer could draw on any of Anko's chakra.
It burned her instead.
While the blood seal worked to leech it from her body, it left behind a shiny scar as a reminder that it had been there.
Sakura wiped the tears from her cheeks even as she kept pumping chakra into the blood seal. It could not be interrupted, if it was, then it would be twice as difficult to try and remove the next time.
It took half an hour for the blood seal to completely disappear from Anko's skin and onto the seal paper lifting Orochimaru's Cursed Heaven seal with it, but it felt like days. It took a lot more chakra that she'd thought it would and when she stumbled away, it was only Tsunade's hand under her arm easing her to the floor that stopped her unconscious body from face planting.
"I've got it from here Sakura-chan," Jiraiya murmured gently peeling the seal paper from Anko's shoulder.
"Maybe you should have been the one to activate the seal," Tsunade said gently checking to make sure that Sakura was still okay.
"How drained is she?"
"On the verge of chakra exhaustion. She's going to be in the bed next to Anko at least overnight."
"Well the little bookworm sure knows her stuff. This has been troubling me for over ten years and she's solved it in what feels like five minutes," he said waving the successfully removed seal in the air.
"Her intelligence tests are off the charts," Tsunade said moving to check on Anko who would need at least a weeks rest, and a good long soak in the hot springs to put her sore muscles to rights.
"Proud of your little clans-woman aren't you."
Tsunade snorted. "She's refused the clan," she confided, running her healing chakra through Anko's shoulder trying to lessen the scar that remained, while also repairing the torn muscles and the bitten tongue.
"I can't imagine the elders were too happy about that."
"Understatement of the century. Especially since she's civilian born. Gentaro the old bore is trying to find a way to force her to take the Senju name. He's shifty enough that he might actually be able to swing it."
"You sound as if you don't know if you approve or not."
"I don't. Her Senju blood came to her via her mother's mother's mother. She should not have to bear a name that hasn't been hers since the day her great-grandmother married out of the clan, and she will bear another name once she marries. On the other hand, that kekkei genkai is the Senju's. It was my grandfather's and his grandfather's before him. I don't know how I feel about it."
The pair of medic nin's who were waiting outside were called in and Anko was transferred upstairs to the hospital proper on a stretcher while Jiraiya scooped Sakura up and carried her there himself.
"Well you're going to have to come to a decision on that soon if you agree to take the hat from the old man."
"I don't want it. It was never my dream," she sighed.
"One of us needs to take it, and I can't thanks to my oath to Mount Myōboku."
"Surely there's another fit to wear the hat. What about that Nara brat?"
"You mean the Jōnin commander? You might as well nominate Kakashi. Face it hime, you're the best one for the job. You also have the weight of the Senju name behind you. Shikaku wouldn't have that to save him from the council."
Tsunade sneered at him and shooed him out of the room to give the two girls privacy when they were changed into hospital gowns.
"Go report to the old man. You can then find Yamato and let him know that his apprentice will be spending the night in the hospital thanks to chakra exhaustion. I suppose Kakashi should also be informed that the Uchiha's seal can be removed as soon as Sakura's recovered and back on her feet." Jiraiya jovially saluted over his shoulder already off to do just that.
He came across Kakashi first, the jōnin casually lounging against a telephone pole, his nose in the second volume of Jiraiya's Icha Icha series. He fell into step with the Sannin without a word and Jiraiya was inclined to follow Tsunade's instructions to the letter and make him wait.
He couldn't deny that he was slightly disappointed with the kid. The girl was exceptionally talented when it came to fūinjutsu. From the exams alone, he could see she was smart and strategic with her intelligence. She could command three elemental styles and she used them effectively in her battles.
It was just a shame that her assigned jōnin sensei hadn't had a hand in teaching her any of it.
Jiraiya knew however that some of the blame could be laid at his own sensei's feet. The Hokage should have known that Kakashi was shit at teaching anything less than ANBU entrants, and even then it was hit and miss.
He might have done well had the genin not been who they were. Sakura could have flourished under the copy-nin had she not had to compete with the last Uchiha who was so like Kakashi himself as a child, sullen and arrogant; and the only child of his beloved sensei, so boisterous and loud. A carbon copy personality of the teammate who had given Kakashi the eye that had grown his fame.
With the two of them such stark reminders of his own childhood team, Jiraiya wondered if he'd also imprinted the ghost of the Nohara girl onto his lone female student. He wondered what it would do to the man if he were to ask. The answer his mind gave him kept his mouth shut, and kept his idle thought just that.
Yamato, it seemed, had decided to ambush him outside the Hokage's office instead of on the street like Kakashi had. The Hokage waved them all into his office and casually lit his pipe.
"So. How did it go?"
"I'd be interested to know who taught that girl seal work so they could teach me," Jiraiya stated leaning against one of the pillars in the room. "Anko is free of Orochimaru's seal, though it took nearly all of Sakura's chakra to do it. She's spending the night in the hospital for chakra exhaustion and Anko will be there for at least a few days. She's also going to need some time to get used to her new power levels."
"Is she going to be a danger to anyone?"
"I think Tsunade will be working with her until she learns how to regulate her chakra again. She'll be stronger now that the seal isn't leeching her chakra."
"When can Sasuke get his seal removed?" Kakashi asked.
"As soon as Sakura's recovered she can assess your student's seal but it will be at least another week. You know what chakra exhaustion's like."
Kakashi's lone eye widened slightly and darted to look at the Sannin when he heard the admonishment in Jiraiya's tone. He pressed his lips together under his mask and dropped his gaze away, relenting to the soft rebuke.
"I'll-" he cleared his throat. "I'll let the boys know," he said before disappearing in a puff of smoke.
Reviews muchly appreciated.
~G
