Volume 5 – The Ninja Path

Chapter 32 – Potentials

I was scribbling on a piece of paper when Tsunade next entered the room. I was slow to look up at the sound of the door opening, finishing a final scrawl before meeting her tired expression.

This did not go unnoticed. "Still working on that essay?" she asked.

I rocked back in my seat a little, gesturing to the bedside table. "No, I finished that a while ago. Right now I'm just jotting down notes. There are some things I want to ask you about and I knew I'd forget if I didn't write them down."

She closed her eyes and raised her eyebrows; I could almost see her headache forming. "I see. I thought that might be the case." She shook it off and sat down in the chair by my bedside, picking up my essay. "If it's alright with you, I'd like to go over this first."

I nodded.

She was a fast reader. Occasionally her eyebrows would jump, or she'd give a quiet snort, but otherwise had nothing to say as her eyes danced down the page. At last, she folded up the paper and pushed it into her pocket. "I must admit, as serious as this all is, I'd be happy to frame this and put it on my wall. If it weren't for the massive security breach it would cause." She smiled thinly. "Overall it's a good essay, and I accept your apology."

My shoulders relaxed. "Thank you. So, since we're on the same page about how I was acting thoughtlessly: want to tell me how you think I almost died? I already nearly killed Lee, I'm sure I wouldn't leave myself out of the fun."

"Oh, you nearly killed yourself in several ways," she said lightly. "Honestly, it's impressive. For one, you chakra-exhausted yourself."

I winced. "Yes. I'm sorry."

"Which we thought would result in the foreign chakra in your seal taking over your body completely. Thankfully, this appears to not have been the case."

"It's always a good day when I'm not getting body-snatched," I said, a sick feeling beginning to roil in my stomach.

"For another, I'd like to know just how long you've been using natural energy. And also how you've survived it."

I blinked. "Natural energy?"

"You know," she said, waving her arm around her. "All that chakra buzzing around in the air, naturally generated by the environment. Instead of using your chakra. If your sensei had been anyone else on the planet, I wouldn't have believed him when he told me. He'd never felt you use a technique chakra-intensive enough to notice you doing so before."

I squirmed uncomfortably under her stare. "I think I remember reading about Natural chakra, briefly, but my books didn't go into detail. I've always noticed it, but I wasn't consciously trying to use it." I swallowed. "It just felt like… like letting my chakra do whatever it wanted, just with the intent of helping Lee behind it. It was looking at his body and where it was hurt, and trying to help spread the message to his other cells what had gone wrong, to kind of coax his chakra into helping with healing, and… apparently to try to make his systems look more like my own. I thought the method had been the main problem, but if it was the energy itself that I was using-"

"That," said Tsunade sharply, "is not how healing is typically done. For one thing, you used Yang-release. You were giving his body your own life's energy to heal with. Had his wounds been desperate, you would have died. Most medics use Yin-release, which heals in a similar way but returns most of the chakra to the user's body afterwards. This is why healing requires months and years of training. Not only did you fail to regulate the chakra that was healing your patient, resulting in unintended consequences, but you failed to regulate your own chakra. You used everything you had, in places it wasn't even needed until you used all of your chakra and began draining your life energy. When your body's screaming to you went unheeded, you automatically started pulling on the chakra in your seal, which thankfully also didn't kill you. And when that didn't help sufficiently, you started pulling chakra out of the air, which in any other untrained person, would have turned them to stone."

I gaped. "Turned them into stone?"

"And then," she ground on. "As if this wasn't enough of a disaster, you decided to shove this lovely cocktail of energy into the seal Jiraiya and I gave to you to protect you. And into a brain that has an invisible seal we can't reach. And, somehow, you also managed not to die then," she growled. "For someone who wants to live forever, you sure seem to lack any sort of self-preservation instinct."

I clamped my jaw shut, stunned. I knew I had been reckless, and I spoke lightly about almost dying but when she put it like that… It had been more than a close shave, hadn't it? I'd been so out of touch with what I'd been doing that I nearly destroyed myself on every level possible.

I imagined what Kizashi and Mebuki's faces would look like if Tsunade had to tell them their daughter was dead. What kind of faces Naruto and Sasuke would make. And sensei. My poor, flighty, protective sensei. All the people who had been trying to support and protect me as I continually managed to get myself into life-or-death scenarios, hardly bothering to look after this precious gift they had given me. Including Tsunade.

And here I thought I was trying to become someone who could be relied on.

I took a deep breath; it failed to keep the tremble out of my voice as I spoke. "I'm sorry." I clasped my hands together and fell into a bow so low my forehead touched my knees. "I'll try harder, I really will. I'll learn everything I can, I'll go to classes, I'll never do things I haven't trained in again. I'll ask people for help when I can't do something myself. I promise."

I heard Tsunade let out a loud sigh. "I accept your apology but stop grovelling. You're cramping my style."

It was easy to hear the smile in her voice, but it did little to quench my shame as I rose to face her again. "What do I need to do now?" I asked.

She crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair. "Not much else has changed. Your friend should hopefully recover in the coming weeks. At some point, you will join me on a trip to the Hokage tower to try and convince some idiots to put medical laws in place. And of course, you'll be joining me regularly at the training grounds so I can pound some sense into you. We were already planning on that, but I simply didn't account for how quickly it would take you to do, well, something like this." She shook her head. "You are a brilliant little menace, you know that?"

"Yes, Tsunade-sama."

"Good girl. And on that note, the rest can wait until we train together. I'll work out a schedule with your sensei. Now, why don't you tell me what's on your mind? You had some questions for me?"

"Oh!" Sure enough, I had nearly forgotten; my sheet of paper was already crumpled and creased in my lap. I smoothed it absently. "Um, first of all… I have some strange ninja's chakra in my system and apparently have had it since the first time I, uh, woke up here. Do you know whose it is?"

Tsunade closed her eyes and sighed. "You can't ever ask the easy questions, can you?" She scrubbed a palm across her face. "Well, considering everything that's happened, there's no harm in telling you. His name is Orochimaru. I honestly expected you to look it up for yourself once I told you he was my old teammate."

I fought against a blush of embarrassment. "I guess you guys are famous and I could have asked someone, but… Honestly, I totally forgot you told me he was a teammate, to begin with."

She gave a small, lopsided smile. "You can be forgiven. You had just awoken from a coma, after all."

I nodded blankly. "And he's famous, I guess? You and Jiraiya are part of the legendary three, so I guess that makes him the third." I frowned. "I haven't read much history yet, so I don't know what that entails."

"He's a powerful, genius missing-nin from Konoha. He's killed hundreds, perhaps even thousands."

"Right. And for some reason, he decided to cast a genjutsu on me?" I asked sceptically. "And somehow, it's in an invisible seal he put on me and the jutsu just… recast itself when I was chakra exhausted?"

Tsunade furrowed her brow. "Recast?"

I shrugged. "When I woke up with more memories, Migaki-san said they thought the genjutsu was recast?"

Tsunade made a noise of comprehension. "Migaki-san, while a very intelligent man, was incorrect. A seal alone could not re-cast a genjutsu. It could continually cast, but we know that's not the case. It is far more likely that the memories were included in the original genjutsu overwrite, and the connections in your mind weren't strong enough to uncover them until you attempted to heal yourself."

I twisted my blanket between my fingertips, my eyes drifting back to the sheet of paper I had scribbled on. "Why is everyone so sure it's a genjutsu? My therapist says that reincarnation is generally accepted here… is it so hard to believe my memories might be real? Maybe I just died in my other life and my reincarnation got messed up."

Tsunade blinked once before slowly shaking her head. "Impossible. For one, you wouldn't remember your previous life's memories out of the blue. For another- I read your files, Sakura. You remembered your friends and Sensei as fictional characters."

I shook my head. "But what if I got partial memories back? Then it would make sense that they'd get jumbled up with my current memories, wouldn't it? If you somehow overloaded a brain like that, it seems like something it would do."

This gave her pause. "It's not that you're not making logical sense," she said slowly. "But we can tell that you were assaulted, twice, from the same source of a foreign chakra. And I don't believe Orochimaru capable of forcing a still-living person into a reincarnation, let alone a partial reincarnation from a world that doesn't mesh with reality."

"This Orochimaru guy," I worked hard to keep the annoyance out of my voice. "What on earth would he have to gain by attacking me? I was just a normal, average, ninja girl! There wouldn't be any point!"

My irritation seemed to zap into her. Tsunade slapped her hand on the edge of her seat. "Have you ever paused to consider you might not have been the target?"

"I- what?"

She took a deep breath. "Naruto is… special. I can't go into detail right now, but Orochimaru would have plenty of motivation to try to disarm him. As for Sasuke Uchiha… Orochimaru himself may not normally deal in genjutsu, but there is a ninja out there whom I could believe capable of such a feat, should they deign to work together. Between the two, they would have much good reason indeed to attack the Uchiha."

I swallowed past the dryness in my throat. "And on the road, when those ninja tried to- to kidnap me?"

Tsunade grimaced. "He's been known to enjoy working with test subjects. If he targeted the wrong individual, I imagine he would make the most of it."

I scrunched up my blanket so tightly my knuckles turned white. "I believe you," I said softly. "On another note, in your opinion as a medical shinobi, is reincarnation real?" I glanced up at her.

Her brows pulled inward in confusion. "I haven't studied spirit to the extent of some, but yes, to some degree. And most likely, after some number of cycles, we eventually go on to the Pure Land." She shrugged awkwardly. "But again, I do not think your case has anything to do with reincarnation."

I swallowed and nodded.

If reincarnation was real and hadn't been the case for me, then my family never existed. I'd never see them again. As much as I fought tooth and nail against the concept, once I learned to accept the possibility, it was hard to get rid of when it meant they'd be gone. I knew it was important not to cloud my judgement. But even so, the genjutsu explanation seemed off. My world simply didn't seem like one someone would come up with, even myself.

I'd read studies in my previous life of amnesiacs creating false memories to fill in the blanks, often after head trauma. But the reason they did so was to present a flow of events that made sense.

If Sakura Haruno had been attacked by a genjutsu, and her brain had scrambled to make a sensible narrative to combine the false memories and her own, it wouldn't combine the way it did. I was sure of it.

I looked up and summarised this to Tsunade; she listened patiently. I ended with saying: "So while a genjutsu seems like the most logical explanation, and Orochimaru throwing reincarnated memories at me seems the least likely explanation… Neither of them makes full sense of the matter. Is it possible we're both missing something?"

She let out a breath and nodded. "Yes. Absolutely."

I couldn't help but gape at her. Without noticing, I had been tensing for a complete denial. It had never occurred to me that telling an adult that I was concerned, that I thought they might be wrong, might be met with acceptance.

Tsunade seemed to read my train of thought and smiled. "Yes, adults can be wiser than you and still not have all the answers." She crossed her legs and leaned back. "So let's level with each other. Let our explanations battle it out, and see if we can find some new ideas. Hit me."

I nearly wanted to cry. I did the next best thing: taking her up on it for all it was worth. "Okay! Right! So..." My thoughts fluttered a moment before they landed. "I guess what I should be asking is how Orochimaru would have managed to attack me when he was nowhere near me?"

Tsunade leaned back and sighed. "I can hardly imagine, and all too readily imagine. He could have secreted into the town and the field where you were training, keeping himself undercover. He could have sent someone else with a special artefact or seal to transfer. He could have set a seal on you months or weeks prior with some sort of time-release. He could have simply figured out how to direct a jutsu from kilometres away." She threw her hands up in frustration. "He could have turned himself invisible and impermeable and tapped you on the forehead for all I know."

My eyes widened in alarm. "Wait, really?"

"Probably not that last one, but you get the idea. He's a mad genius, in the truest sense of the phrase. I can only predict him to a certain point."

"… Yikes."

"And the worst part is not the genjutsu. That aspect is easy enough to understand," she went on vehemently. It was clear that talking about this with me was serving more than myself; it must have been bothering her. "But I have no way of telling what else he's done. He's made curse seals before, but they've always been visible. We've at least had something to study. But he's managed to implant something into your mind so deeply that your chakra is keeping it running. We can only guess what it's doing."

"Great. Fantastic." I let myself fall back onto my pillows. "Want to tell me some guesses? I'd kind of enjoy knowing what's going on in my brain," I said sharply. "I'd kind of enjoy knowing a while ago, actually."

She snorted. "Giving you a hundred frantic guesses was not going to help you. For all we knew, he was trying to completely take over your body- which, by the way, he has done before."

I shuddered. She continued, "Considering you weren't able to keep yourself from chakra exhaustion, and thankfully didn't become an unwitting sleeper agent, then yes. It is now a better time to tell you what I know. I just hate to tell you, what I've already told you is most of it."

"Sure," I said. "It only completely changed my self-identity. No big deal." I stopped myself. "I'm sorry. I'm uh, also supposed to tell you about major personality changes, right? I'm not normally- I mean, in this life I haven't been such a sharp person, but after today, I remember being much more misanthropic. And uh, I'm acting more like it now. So do with that what you will. And uh, sorry for being a jerk."

She gave me a small smile. "I think we both have reason to be frustrated today. I won't take offence." She paused. "My main concern for personality changes was due to worrying about you becoming a sleeper agent, as I've mentioned. Another reason is due to what we've seen and heard of Orochimaru's other curse marks. Other than giving him a method to outright take over someone's body, we've also heard it can somehow activate a twisted version of sage-mode."

"Sage mode?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Using natural energy."

I gasped in a sharp breath, but she immediately held up a hand. "I don't think that's what happened to you today. Your sensei has seen other shinobi going into sage-mode before, and felt them radiating with natural energy. He tells me that what you did felt close to that. Those who have been inflicted with Orochimaru's curse mark give off a much more- I suppose you could call it tainted chakra."

"So what do you think is going on with me?"

She held out her hands, palms open. "Think? I don't know what to think. My old, evil teammate has had a genjutsu placed on you to replace your memories. He's sealed a part of his chakra into you, somehow, and it seems to be doing you no harm, somehow. You are incredibly bright, talented with chakra control, learned how to heal without instruction, and somehow managed to utilise natural chakra on pure instinct without turning yourself to stone or dying. I must confess, while you do seem similar to him in some aspects, I can't imagine him trying to manipulate a girl into being a less selfish version of himself."

"Wait," I said. "You think he specifically chose to give me memories that would make me more like him? And screwed up?" That gave an entirely new perspective on why the choice in memories seemed so weird if they were a genjutsu.

She shrugged haplessly. "That's the only explanation I can come up with."

I sighed. "Let's backtrack a little. Why are you so certain there's a seal at all? You already said there didn't need to be one to cast a genjutsu on me. How do you know he didn't just cast one and just scamper?"

She raised her eyebrows. "And you think his chakra is still seeping off of you months after the fact?" She shook her head. "Jiraiya is a master of sealwork and he agrees with me completely. The pattern of chakra emitted only makes sense with a seal in place that has some stored up. It's not something Orochimaru hasn't done before."

I frowned. "On his previous seals, you said they were emitting tainted natural chakra, not Orochimaru's chakra. Why do we think it's stored? What if it's an open connection?" I rubbed at my forehead absently. "It would make more sense to do his original seals that way too- it'd have less chakra cost to make the cursed seals if it was just drawing chakra from the environment."

She froze.

"Tsunade-sama?"

She let out a strained laugh. "Yes, that is exactly how he would think, isn't it?"

I straightened a little. "And you think he's trying to make me more like him. What if it's the chakra? If it's pure spiritual chakra- did you check before you sealed it?"

"It doesn't have to be," she said breathlessly. "All chakra has a spiritual component. Between the memories and the fact that it was planted in your mind, I'd naturally assumed-"

"But it didn't even have to be on purpose, but if he was targeting Naruto or Sasuke-"

"And his cursed seals are already known to affect the personality of the subjects they're cast on!"

"So instead of chakra-exhaustion pulling on the chakra to allow him to take me over directly, he'd instead try to make some sort of messed up clone!"

"So a new version of the cursed seal! Perhaps."

"But why the different memories, whether by genjutsu or freaky spirit reincarnation magic?"

She snapped her fingers. "Because by scrambling the memory he'd have a more malleable slate to work with! His previous subjects fought against his seals, their will was too strong-"

I made a loud noise. "And by giving me memories of someone with a sapped will, I wouldn't fight as hard against the influence, especially if I'm constantly questioning who I am!"

We both beamed at each other, which just as quickly morphed into dual expressions of horror.

"Well," Tsunade began. "This has certainly been… food for thought. I thought he would try to take you over all at once as soon as your chakra ran low enough to him to overrun you." She shook her head. "That's why I kept you off missions, so it would at least be within the confines of Konoha."

"For what it's worth, I don't have any desire to go on a murder spree and/or conduct obscene experimentations on the townsfolk." I shook my head a little. "No matter how he went about it, he picked the memories of someone with strong ethics. Maybe that's enough to overcome my lack of willpower? Or maybe since I didn't already have mental illness in this life, it didn't make me susceptible enough? Or since the original version of Sakura was so strong-willed, I inherited some of that?"

Tsunade groaned. "Before we get too carried away, I'll have to have a talk with Jiraiya about the possibility of an open chakra-link. We'll probably have to have a look at you again."

I let out a whine.

"Not immediately." She rolled her eyes. "As long as you don't exhaust yourself again, you shouldn't be in too much danger. And we've already ascertained you're not liable to instantly turn into a menace; it was likely intended to be more gradual than that." She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. "When I talk to your sensei about scheduling, I'll find a day where Jiraiya is available and bring you back down."

"Wait… does this mean I'll be allowed on missions again?"

She glanced up at me past her hand. "So long as you promise not to commit atrocities or do anything to raise my blood pressure any higher."

I squirmed in my seat. "I'll try my best, Tsunade-sama."

A/N: Sorry for being late; there was a death in the family along with other medical problems. I've not had the spare energy to put toward writing.

Also, I've fought with myself against putting in this note, since it constitutes as a spoiler, but the comments are getting out of hand: This is not a reincarnation story. If it was, I would have started when Sakura was born. I hope what I am planning is much more interesting than that.

So please, stop cussing me out in the reviews because you think my characters are stupid. They are not. They are trying to problem-solve from limited information. In real life, the simplest explanation is always best. I have already deleted any comments of this nature I have received and will continue to do so if, for some unfathomable reason, this remark and this chapter has not been enough to dissuade you. Swearing is fine. Critique is fine and appreciated. But these attacks are frustrating and unhelpful. Please stop.

That said, I hope everyone enjoys this discussion about What Might Be Going On, that you're all doing well, and that you and your families are in good health. (Yes, including the angry people. I'm frustrated, not inhumane.)