Two weeks before the anniversary of Konoha's founding shadows whipped across the border of Earth from the direction of Mushrooms, moving with the sort of sure footedness that only came from years of practice. There were dozens of the shapes, all moving individually but with the same start and end point.
It was time for Danzo's attack.
ANBU were generally used for assassinations, guarding the Hokage, and internal threat protection—but because of that they were not only covert but strong.
Very strong.
So powerful, in fact, that they were often scouted from just out of the Academy, snapped up before anyone outside Konoha could get an idea of their skills, their trajectory.
From there it was years spent living a double life, minimizing relationships and obtaining a believable but still low-level job, and dedicating the rest of one's time to ANBU.
To training, and operating, and guarding, and assassinating, and training.
These were the elite of Konoha's military. These were the ones so good they had to hide their faces, mask their techniques—particularly those that were genetic—to make them seem as something else, and who were so good they were able to do it in the midst of battle.
Getting the Hokage's permission had not been easy, but then Danzo was asking him to literally put his neck on the line—remove most of his guards so that as many ANBU as possible could participate in the attack, and then deal with the risk that many of them might not come back.
Danzo believed it was worth the risk.
It took time to convince his friend of the same.
Now, though, the pieces were in motion: the ANBU were flitting across the countryside of Mushrooms, headed straight for Iwagakure and, more specifically, the Third Tsuchikage, a man who had only taken up his position around a year and a half ago.
Many, the shadows knew, would die today.
On both sides.
They were headed straight for their enemy's heartland, taking a risk that would leave their own Hokage nearly unprotected, and they were going against a man who was legendary in his skill: capable of Earth, Fire, Wind, Lightning, Yang, Lava, and Dust ninjutsu, the last of which was so powerful it alone could remove all traces of an opponent in mere second, the mere threat of the power the Tsuchikage wielded was already a cause for some sense of hopelessness. When taking into account that he was the Tsuchikage for a reason, that he was ridiculously intelligent and regularly invented new jutsus—
The ANBU were literally unable to guess what might be thrown at them.
But if they were successful—
Iwa's kage was a hereditary position, officially, and the man only had one son, who—based on his battlefield behavior—was powerful but not nearly as talented or intelligent as his father, and considered both too rash and too young to take the man's place: if they took out the Tsuchikage, if they even weakened him…
And then there was the complete disorder of the Samurai, and the desperate attempt of the latest Daimyo to both set up his own structure and demonstrate his power and right to rule; having both political heads in the same position would be very destabilizing indeed, and there was nothing like being at war without an organized military complex to back you up.
Mere meters behind the last of the line of ANBU, then, were Konoha's trump cards: their chakra just as invisible, their movements just as covert, the two remaining Sannin of Konoha prepared for a battle which they had no choice but to win.
Twelve days before the anniversary of Konoha's founding, two days after the ANBU and Sannin were set to slip undetected into Earth, and the sensor who was patrolling the perimeter of the First Brigade's First Battalion suddenly let out a piercing whistle, notifying not only the group of three (chuunin, special jounin, jounin) who patrolled with him but also the base as a whole to go on alert, that something had been spotted.
Two minutes later, another whistle: stand down.
Eight minutes later all the highest level officials of the battalion had shoved themselves into the Commander's Tent.
In the middle sat a body slumped on a chair, unmoving even as two different medics ministered to his many, many wounds.
His face was a mess, but then so was the rest of his body. His ANBU mask—the remains of it anyway, lay at his feet, carried back without thought, without reason, and only dropped when directly questioned over their purpose.
Even without the mask he was still unidentifiable, after all—the damage was just that severe.
Even without the medics saying a word everyone in the tent knew the truth: it was a miracle he was still alive.
"Are you… the only…" The Commander started.
It took the man a second to react, to realize he was being addressed. "No." He forced out. "More alive—we split up."
That made sense. The shinobi in the room nodded.
"Most dead."
That also made sense: they might not have known about the attack, might still not know why the ANBU was sitting in the tent, but the results of the mission spoke for itself.
"Sannin alive though."
That—well, they hadn't known the Sannin had been in danger, much less with the ANBU. Still, it was good news.
"Mission accomplished. You have to—radio, immediately. Mission accomplished. Most dead, Sannin alive, mission accomplished."
Namikaze Minato—only there because he'd been the chuunin with the sensor at the time, had helped carry the wounded soldier in—jumped. "I can do that!"
The Commander nodded, not having previously realized the chuunin hadn't been dismissed. He wondered absently if the boy's recent placement—only three weeks ago—was connected. Everyone knew he was Jiraiya's apprentice. The teenager took off.
"Anything else?"
It took effort, but after a second the ANBU shrugged. "Expect—orders from radio. I can't tell you anything else." He seemed shell-shocked, probably was. "I need to get back to Konoha immediately. But covertly."
"We've got daily medical wagons that go back and forth. The next should be leaving in about two hours—we'll put you on it."
The ANBU grunted. "Good enough."
Namikaze Minato's head—having only left barely a minute ago—popped back into the tent. "Um, sir? They want a password?"
It took a second, but the ANBU's eyes focused on the face of the blond teen. "Right…" He tried to think. Thinking was hard. He thought he was done, had explained what he'd needed to, but the boy was right. He'd been given a password. It started with a T… "Terraform, I think. No, I'm sure—Terraform."
The boy nodded hurriedly, then left again.
The Commander sighed, then settled to wait. There would be no point in dismissing anyone until they heard back from Konoha, and the chuunin—the Sannin's apprentice—was safe enough to trust with the instructions; he was one of the rising stars, one of the ones that specific orders had been sent to train despite the business of war. For now, then, he could close his eyes, ignore the veritable tornado of activity that was no doubt about to descend upon them.
After another second the Commander—a Nara through and through—began to snore.
The ANBU, a second after, did likewise.
The medics, who had only just finished telling the ANBU that with his concussion he had to stay awake, were not exactly pleased.
.
The atmosphere of the wagon ride back from Mushrooms could best be described as jubilant.
Sakura's team had traveled to the neighboring country with, at best, the hopes to make it clear that Konoha was putting effort into helping Mushrooms.
They were leaving with Mushrooms indebted enough that not only was there next to no chance that they'd try to benefit by defecting to Iwa's side, but they were also going to actively put in place the economic set-up that Konoha, through Sakura, recommended—a set-up which, if Arden was right, might actually leave them even more reliant on Konoha than ever before.
Really, the mission couldn't have gone better.
Most of that was luck, but that wasn't stopping the shinobi from celebrating.
There was, however, one exception.
In preparation for the mission Sakura had once more opened her mind to Arden's.
Had once more taken in what Arden knew.
Had once more had to deal with the differences between their two worlds.
But Arden didn't just know of her own world: she also knew Sakura's.
She knew the world of ninja and chakra and Hidden Villages and jinchuuriki and even if Arden might have considered them fictional Sakura was living it.
Moreover, what Arden knew of the world seemed, by all accounts, to be the future—or, at the very least, a future—that Sakura's world was heading towards.
Arden's memories of Sakura's world were piecemeal, likely the effect of Arden having consumed the media that she got the information from haphazardly, over many years and in imperfect order, which meant that every time Sakura did manage to gleam a bit of her possible future it was limited, without context, and without warning.
The night before one such event happened.
She'd been meditating, in good spirits along with the rest of her team and eager to get home, and then—
The memories might have not have been realistic, might have been moving artwork, what Arden would call anime, but it was still clear: in the future Arden knew Danzo would send assassins to kill the Hokage, then immediately begin preparing to succeed him.
Danzo—the general of the war, the man who actually seemed to be eager to end it unlike the previous general who had wanted to drag it on as long as possible—Danzo wanted the Hokage dead.
Wanted to be the Hokage.
Was willing to commit treason to ensure such a thing happened.
The scene had cut off after that, and the next thread of memory Sakura had grabbed had been about prepositions.
She had nothing to go on, then. Didn't know when it was, didn't know if the Hokage had somehow done something to make such an action reasonable, didn't have a clue how to prepare for either eventuality…
She was almost as in the dark as she would have been without the memory.
Except she had it, now, and had every reason to believe that the man who was currently one of Konoha's most popular figures was actually a narcissistic traitor who would stop at nothing to increase his own power.
They caught sight of the walls of the village just as the sun was beginning its descent.
None on her team had noticed her brooding—she was trained by a Mitokado, and had been keeping secrets since birth—so the group was still jubilant as they neared the gates.
Actually seeing the gates and, more importantly, what was inside them only amplified their joy.
None of them might now why Konoha was in such a clearly celebratory mood, but it was clear the whole city was ecstatic; Sakura could see actual dancing, music, and laughter all the way down Main Street.
The gate chuunin were quick to fill them in: "The Tsuchikage has been killed by Jiraiya and Orochimaru, on Danzo's orders! Iwa has officially called for a ceasefire!"
The Mitokados nodded, Aiko laughed, Hisa looked close to fainting, and Rento began literally shouting and jumping in joy.
It was, after all, very good news.
Sakura forced the smile on her face to grow wider: "We've got more good news, but unfortunately not anything nearly as good; diplomatic relations with Mushrooms are stronger than ever before."
"Hey, we'll take anything!" One said.
"Everything!" The other corrected.
They both laughed.
Sakura laughed with them. A ceasefire—no matter what Danzo might or might not be capable of, a ceasefire was worthy of celebration. Of release.
"Alright, we check out?"
"You're good, come on in."
The genin who had been carrying the wagon the rest of the way—the horses were left in the outpost a mile back—happily pushed onwards. The Mitokado and Aiko followed after them, the latter waving wildly at the gathered crowd.
It was, truly, a good day.
Then there was giving reports.
Between the utility of their mission, its success, the information they gathered, and the fun invasion which happened partway through it was no surprise that it took most of the team the rest of the afternoon to complete their reports. Sakura—who had to not only make up the same reports and report to the Hokage when he had time available too—wasn't released until well past dinnertime.
But she was home.
Home, however, was empty.
Her sisters were off celebrating, probably. She hadn't gotten any news in Mushrooms to say otherwise, but then she hadn't gotten any news: the city wasn't on any of Konoha's regular messenger supply lines, even with the radio and telegraph, so only the national-level stuff was prioritized. (The peace must have been recent indeed, Sakura realized. Likely within the past few hours. At last she decided that it was here at all was more than enough.)
She took off down the street instead, away from the hubbub of the Main Road.
The Nara compound was as sedate as always; she suspected that any who wanted to celebrate more noisily left the clan's walls to do so. There were more people outside than she remembered, though, playing board games and cloud watching and napping.
Enjoying the joy that was saturated across the entire village.
Sakura took her usual route.
She even skipped the front door, as usual.
Shin was—as she'd suspected he might be—writing furiously at his desk.
"One second, Shinsuke. I'll help you and your brothers in a minute."
"I'm not your nephew."
"Sakura!"
Sakura—fifteen, it was true, but also not exactly the most imposing of presences—was nearly knocked out of the window by the force of Shin's hug.
"Do you know when I got back? Do you?"
"I found out you were back about ten minutes ago."
"So that's a no, then. The day after you left! Do you know how aggravating that was?"
"Well, I can't imagine it measures up to being falsely told you were dead."
Shin snorted. "No. But still. By the kami, it is good to see you in the flesh again."
Sakura grinned. "You too." Compared to how she'd last seen Shin—well, the joy of seeing her pseudo-brother alive, in person, was almost nothing compared to seeing him in a good mood, seeing him happy. "Writing?"
"Oh, yeah—a poem, you know, to commemorate today. I'll have to rewrite it now, though. But that's not important—tell me everything!"
Sakura shrugged. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything! And hey—I can even tell you stuff in return! Well, nothing about my job, but—there was a riot, I can tell you about that."
So for the next several hours the two genin teammates sat and talked, and talked, and talked.
They talked about how Sakura felt being bedridden, being sent back from the battleline. About what working in Research again was like, what the differences were between each Department. They talked about Sakura's siblings and Shin's, and what news they had on everyone else too. They talked about Sakura's latest mission, and about Juro's latest letters. They talked about Tsunade, who was now reliably reported to be skipping around the Fire countryside, drinking and gambling as she jumped from town to town, and Danzo, whose military policy was so different from the Uchiha who preceded him. They talked about Inoichi, and his and Sakura's correspondence.
And then they talked about the riot, the Akimichi and Mitokado becoming so furious about how the other would dare to attempt to get the upper hand in the perpetual competition of the market during a war that both were left feeling like there was no other possible solution but to raise fists, and about the bad blood that still festered there: Sakura and Shin, being both part of an Ino-Shika-Cho and having been mentored by a Mitokado, were considered to have divided alliances and distrusted by both.
Which, given Sakura's current Research topic was about the marketplace, and she would be expected to make suggestions for Konoha too, was real fun news to come back to.
Mostly, though, they just… talked.
The next day Sakura went out and met with her sisters, and Aiko again, and took her next lesson with Taichi—he was really drunk, so the lesson was particularly brutal as he always forgot to hold back when he couldn't help but slur his words.
She participated in the celebration, too, visited Akimichi and Mitokado stands alike and dealt with the distrust in both. It wasn't a problem she wanted to deal with, however, or even knew how to tackle, so she kept a smile on her face and moved on.
The day after—after another session of taijutsu practice—Shin began coaching her in go and shogi and several other games, and then she volunteered to help with the massive effort of those within the city to prepare for the inevitable influx of the majority of the shinobi force back into Konoha's walls.
The next day she was back in the Efficiency Sciences Department, working with an even larger team to demonstrate and test her theories, and Shin was sent to the peace talks, an even more obvious sign that their last blow really had been enough to end the war.
Her younger sisters, busy with continuing to help the reconstruction effort, were rarely home, but that was okay—neither was Sakura, between her work and taijutsu practice and meditation and now, on top of it all, board game practice.
A week until the new year—until the 39th anniversary of the founding of Konoha—and Sakura met Inoichi in person once more.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"You look—taller."
Inoichi smirked. "I think that's expected of growing boys. I'm a teenager now, you know."
"Yeah… how are you?"
"I'm—" Inoichi stopped, then turned and looked at his father who was assisting in the clean-up effort across the courtyard. "I'm good." The clan head stooped to pick up several planks of wood then winced, standing in a jerky motion that gave away the physical issues that rumors had been mentioning for years. "So are Shika and Choza, actually. We're—I'm, um, grateful. For all you've done for me."
"Of course. You're my future clan head, after all."
"Still. It's—I'd like to think that I'd still have come to all the revelations you've led me to, and even all those I've stumbled across unintentionally, but you definitely helped accelerate that process. And…" Inoichi's jaw clenched, released, then clenched again. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Sakura said, knowing better than to argue further.
The two turned back to their tasks—no one knew how long the peace talks would take, but none wanted the returning soldiers to come back to nowhere to sleep at night.
The Anniversary of Konohagakure's founding was, as always, a time of celebration, merriment, and too much liquor to stomach. It was a time that people celebrated the relative safety of the walls, the end of the Warring States Era, and the far more consistent food, water, and medicine that such a set-up provided. The 39th Anniversary of Konohagakure was marked with all of that, and one more: a peace treaty in Konoha's benefit had been signed that very morning.
Sakura, despite having been a soldier for over half a decade by the time of the treaty's signing, did not drink. (She still didn't like the flavor.)
She did, however eat.
Too much.
And dance.
Too much.
And try—in vain—to learn the simplest of the artistic fire techniques that the Uchiha taught. (She knew other Fire techniques, after all. Was it really that hard?)
She burned her tongue.
She also participated in various competitions, won several of the mental ones and lost in just about every other kind, and learned how to juggle and spent at least four hours in the courtyard where the Nara had set up just about every game they had.
By dawn of the next day she had a stomach ache, headache, chakra exhaustion, physical exhaustion, a stubbed toe, too many bruises to name, and a giant drawing of a bee on her left knee for reasons Sakura could no longer recall, if she'd even asked when Inohina had been painting it on her.
It was a very, very good Anniversary.
