Given the result of the only Communications mission she'd ever been on, the Head decided she might be better kept within Konoha's borders.
In other words, she was transferred to Efficiency Sciences.
Sakura…
Had never been particularly clear about what, exactly, Efficiency Sciences did.
(That sounded bad, didn't it, given how long she'd been with Research?)
It was one of two Research divisions that were almost entirely paper-based, but unlike Survivability and Lethality Analysis (which was really just so, so much data trying to figure out how best to keep people alive), its mission statement was…
Nonexistent.
So Sakura decided to submit her notebook on economics.
And she did not, at all, expect the reception it received.
The Deputy Head Nara, who ran Efficiency Sciences, had an eyepatch, a limp, and a perpetual frown.
Sakura had always liked her; her paperwork was always impeccable.
She was very, very scary when she was interested in something.
And she was interested in Sakura's notebook.
Inuzuka Erigami and their ninken Shimi sat across from Sakura's latest desk, back to the wall. Their only escape route was currently (however unintentionally) blocked by Deputy Head Nara. They'd decided to deal with this by trying to dissolve into the wall.
It was going poorly.
Sakura would find it funnier, except right now she was trying desperately to keep up with Deputy Head Nara's questions and finding herself repeatedly and desperately falling short.
The thing was, Sakura's concept of economics—the concept that she had written in the notebook during her earlier genin years—had been more or less entirely Arden's.
It wasn't even her 'concept,' really; it was her trying to put on paper the various glimpses of economic theory that she'd gotten from the memories—Sakura had never actually found the memories on economics, but they'd been referenced by enough other ones that she'd decided to try to put it together herself, to more easily integrate the thread later.
It had seemed a good idea at the time.
In the present, however, she had to deal with the results of having spent the summer before last doing the best she could to forget everything she'd ever gotten from Arden.
Now, she barely understood anything written in the notebook—and the easiest way to figure out more was problematic for more reasons than one.
But Deputy Head Nara was not letting up, and Sakura…
Felt like she should understand.
Felt like she did understand, once.
"Can I take a week or two?" She asked at last. "Try to figure out how to word it more clearly."
Deputy Head Nara snorted. "Fine. But I expect a full report in seven days."
Lovely.
As she retreated to her office once more, Inuzuka Erigami shifted forward again. "Well, you just crashed and burned."
"Gee, thanks."
"Calling it like I see it."
.
Over the next several days, Sakura threw herself wholly into the study of economics.
Some parts, mostly those already understood by Konoha and Fire at large, went smoothly, and she found herself understanding more and more of her notebook every day—she'd even started a second, to 'better word it' as promised.
And yet she wasn't learning fast enough.
Couldn't, really, when some parts of her own notebook looked so foreign, felt so 'not her.'
And yet.
Sakura knew that her therapist put her time spent bedridden down to the stress of the war. It had been that, Sakura was willing to admit, that had led to her being unable to fall asleep without medicinal aid, to her being constantly on alert, stressed beyond belief.
But her 'coping mechanism' had been Arden.
Had been Arden's memories, Arden's world.
And it had not helped; it had, in fact, made everything far worse.
Most of the summer—and the months after—she'd spent shoving Arden's memories back, pushing them as far away from her consciousness whenever possible, because whenever she didn't, the difference between the two worlds would draw her further and further into the memories, a siren's call of a better place than 'here.'
And yet.
Arden's memories had, until then, seemed extraordinarily helpful.
Had seemed an almost endless fountain of knowledge with little to no downsides.
And she'd used that fountain.
Had become smarter because of it, even now relied on its remnants.
She had to understand, and her brain—
There was nothing like her notebook's more complex theories in this world.
No one had really spent that much time focused on the economy besides some basic understanding of the money supply.
The notebook, however, and its sections on market failures and dynamic models and econometrics and GDP and theories on welfare and equilibria and so, so much more…
It was novel.
It was exciting.
It, at least by Deputy Head Nara's reaction, had a not insignificant chance of being accurate.
And Sakura had taken all the thoughts she'd already had and tried to bury them deep enough that they'd never surface again.
But now Konoha needed them.
And Sakura loved Konoha, was loyal to the village despite its flaws because it really did seem to be the best option available in the world.
So, she felt caught.
Trapped.
And Erigami was no help.
"I do buildings," Erigami emphasized. "Helping create regulations to make sure they stay upright and safe. Not—economics." Beside them, their ninken nodded sharply. "And I don't think there's anyone researching at 'markets' at all. Nara Hinata is focusing on the money supply, though. But talking to any of the Nara elders, especially one as old as him…"
"I know, I know. I just—I feel like I have this mental block." Sakura shrugged. "It's fine, I'll figure it out."
"So you say." Erigami said. "I'll believe it when I see it."
The workday over, dinnertime nearly upon them, Sakura went home.
"You've got letters," Sayuri said the second Sakura stepped into the house. She was sitting at the kitchen table, tending to the latest claw marks which covered her arms—she was officially a summoner now and the only one the condors had accepted so far (several others had by now been given a chance to try), but they were also vicious and (at least based on those Sayuri had managed to summon so far) almost entirely combat focused—in order to keep them she'd had to take on such an insane training schedule that Konoha had allowed her to transfer to guard duty just to get a break.
"Oh, really? From who?"
"The clan heir, your teammates, and Yasuo. You know him?"
"Yeah, he's another friend of mine."
Sayuri snorted, then grimaced as Sakura slid into the seat next to her and poured a bit more alcohol onto her cuts. "What were you doing for them to attack you like this?"
"I say nothing, but Sakura with no fingers says I deserved it. Reading them now, then?"
"I need the break." Sakura snorted as she did every time she heard another Sakura's nickname. Hers—Sakura-chinmoku—was relatively harmless, even if it was no longer particularly accurate. And Sakura with nine fingers hadn't been so bad either, except then she lost another finger and a joke had sprung up that they may as well just call her seven fingers to be prepared, and then no fingers to be extra prepared, and then it stuck.
Both their names, at least, were better than that of the eldest living Yamanaka Sakura—Sakura-the-snorer. She'd been stuck with that one since toddlerhood, apparently.
Sakura raced through Inoichi's—she was sending him moral dilemmas, now, ones that she was sure she knew the source of but refused to think deeply about, and he was asking for permission to share them with his teammates—and Yasuo's—his was a winding tale of his latest toughest battle, which was apparently against Iwa nin of the Kyojin bloodline, and had left Yasuo solidly of the opinion that fighting eight feet tall walls of muscle was never remotely entertaining. She took a bit more time parsing through Shin' and Juro's because both contained several hints that they might be home soon, but all too quickly her distractions were gone, and Sayuri had disappeared to her room.
"What's for dinner?" She shouted up.
"Kamui's bringing it!" Right, Sakura knew that. He always brought dinner on his day off.
"Well where is he? It's already past dinner time!"
"Dunno!"
Well, that wasn't helpful.
Sakura glanced reluctantly at her latest notebook on economics, then out the window.
Still not in sight.
Kohana and Himari were still outside, doing laundry—there was a thankfully rather weak stomach bug going through Konoha which had (temporarily) taken out several of the women who normally did most of the clan's, so they'd volunteered—and Sakura had no interest in joining them.
She glanced at her notebook again, then went to get paper to reply to the letters with.
The next day had barely begun creeping towards the sky when Sakura jolted up, snapped away from her sleep with all the gentleness of a Tasmanian devil.
The noise was loud enough that all the other sleeping women in the house heard it too.
Kohana, across the room and now just as awake as Sakura now was, stared at her.
Sakura sent out her chakra.
"It's Tou-san!"
"Tou-san!"
"What?"
"He's home!"
"Hello, hello, hello! Sorry about the noise—I stumbled a bit. Who moved the table?"
"I did. Needed a chair to collapse into when I get home."
"She's trying to get a condor summoning contract."
"I got it, it's just… not going well. Welcome home!"
"Hey, Tou-san. Are you okay?"
"Hi, Sakura. Yes, yes—perfectly fine. But I had the opportunity to report in person, so I decided to take it."
"Yay!"
"I'm glad."
"It's so good to see you!"
"What time is it, anyway?"
"About four, I think. Maybe five."
"Oh. I don't think I've ever been awake at this time before."
"Again, sorry. Did not mean to wake the lot of you up."
"It's okay! It's good to see you!"
And on it went.
Eventually, it became clear that they would not stop talking before dawn broke, so Sakura moved to make breakfast instead. It was good to see a parent—she hadn't since the war started—and it was good to have so much family at home in general. Sayuri showed her most friendly summons in the backyard (he tried to claw their eyes out), and then Kohana and Himari had to show him how they'd moved around the living room to do their daycare shifts in, and then they ate breakfast and Sayuri went to work—she had an early shift—and Himari and Kohana went shopping (an extra mouth was absolutely something that needed to be addressed immediately) and it was just Sakura and her father.
"And how about you, little cherry blossom? How are you doing?"
Sakura tried to figure out how to answer that.
He clearly knew why she was here instead of the front—his expression told her that much—but all the same, it wasn't really something she wanted to talk about.
Several parts of her life had gone really well, but those parts were difficult to discuss without mentioning what hadn't, what wasn't.
"I'm good." She said instead. "Still tutoring Inoichi, if you can believe it."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. He's a good kid, underneath all of the… him."
"Not much younger than you."
"No."
"And how are you?"
"You already asked that."
"Didn't feel like I got much of an answer, though."
Sakura stared at her dad. He stared back.
"You work in infiltration, right? Pretend to be someone else? With a different history, different reactions, different reasoning?"
"Yes."
"How do you—keep them separated?"
"I don't."
He seemed confused but not suspicious. He didn't know why she was asking, then, but wasn't going to press.
"You don't?"
"I—I realized long ago, when I was still in training, that such a thing was impossible, at least for me. Instead, I try, as much as is possible, to make him a part of me and me a part of him."
"But you're supposed to have different histories. Motivations. Realities."
"Well, yes. But—the core, the core is the same. It's hard to explain—I suppose the best way is to say that before I ever went undercover, I made sure to develop a firm sense of self, and if I ever feel like I'm losing part of myself, I jump back there and remind myself of who I am.
That didn't make much sense, did it?"
Sakura was focused on something else. "What if—what if you never got to develop your sense of self?"
Again, her dad's eyes flickered with curiosity, with fear over what his dear child had been through.
There were benefits to living in a shinobi village.
He didn't ask.
"I'd go back to when I was a child—"
"And if that wasn't an option?"
"I'd… well, who you are, I suppose, is what you would do if given full control over your actions. When you aren't restricted at all, by your job or the law or really anything but your own sense of right and wrong. It's what motivates you, intrinsically."
Sakura hummed. She considered the past several months, the past year.
She considered Arden.
And she considered that Arden was where she'd gotten most of her sense of right and wrong, where she'd gotten most of her motivation.
"Thanks, Tou-san."
"I'm glad I could help."
