[Childhood Arc: 2]
For this occasion, Sakura dressed up more beautifully than usual—in an orange kimono with white powder all over her face, bright red lipstick swirling on her cheeks, and wooden sandals with socks.
Teruko, thank god, was in town gathering necessary groceries for Sakura's dinners. An hour ago, she had dolled Sakura up to perfection, but then Sakura fucked with it, looking like Naruto's first ninja I.D. picture after graduation. It was perfection.
Walking into the traditional meeting room, the sheer shock and displeasure on her father's face was worth it. Most of the shock came from her being alive, when he intended to tell the Gojo Clan she died due to unfortunate circumstances and that he would produce another girl in five years. The displeasure was aimed at Sakura's appearance, and he could do nothing to complain about it.
"My, quite the eccentric appearance," the Gojo leader commented, frowning at the girl.
"I apologize, but it seems my daughter is a bit screwed up mentally."
"It's something to be fixed; her brain is only that of a child—"
Sakura tilted her head, smiling as if flowers surrounded her, acknowledging the compliment.
"—all I want to know is what she has learned to do with cursed energy. If she would kindly demonstrate?"
Sakura's smile looked innocent, but inside, she felt grim. The difference between the first personality and this one seemed to draw shivers down Naobito's spine. The familiar sensation of two weeks ago came to mind. There had been a night when he felt the murderous aura of someone outside his room. The intent felt similar to Toji's the day Naobito killed his mother for betraying the clan. That day had been grim, as Toji's father's concubine had slit the throat of his brother at night. She worked for a cursed user organization to infiltrate the clan to learn secrets until she fell in love with the husband she eventually killed after the organization's brainwash took effect.
Naobito watched his daughter take her fist, lift it, and slam it down on the square Kotatsu table between them. Nothing happened until Sakura sparked her cursed energy into the ignition as cracks outlined with blue broke through the wood. The table fell apart in the shape of a childish cat drawing. Basically, his daughter carved the table with pure cursed energy. That level of control over one's cursed energy takes decades to master, if not more. Not even the top sorcerers can sharpen their cursed energy. Rather than the raw power it produced, Sakura textured the energy using masterful control.
"Only one month of training…" Left the Gojo Clan leader's mouth.
Naobito frowned.
"… Excellent display of skill… She has my approval, and I hope to return in a week to take her to the Gojo Clan compound for further training— she shall spend every other week there," the clan leader decided.
Sakura didn't miss the sigh of relief from her father's mouth.
Sakura loathed her brothers. A week later, Nobuo was back inside her compound with some cousins of theirs, ages ranging from ten to twelve. The heir candidate and his three buddies surrounded her with crossed arms and puffed-out chests as she lounged on her engawa. Thankfully, there were no servants because she was about to put them all in their places—one brat at a time.
"Get up," the eldest cousin ordered. The one with curly black hair and steel grey eyes—I think his name was something stupid like Fugu, like the pufferfish.
Sakura flipped and blew a stray strand of hair out of her face before sitting up lazily. Yawning, she looked at all of them, noting their body stance and how they held themselves naturally. Fugu looked sloppy but sturdy. The other two are wearing the uniforms of the Kukuru Units trainees. Either they got off training or used the uniform to intimidate her. Their efforts were suitable but mediocre at best.
The eldest scowled at her bored facial expression, kicking a leg up at her chin. Sakura let it hit her, but she was too lazy to block it. It was not like it would hurt her; she had complete control over her bodily functions, just as much as she did in her last life. Besides, her little pain from it reminded her why she was still here—still breathing—still alive after the pit. She giggled while looking up at the sky. Then she lowered her face, so the eldest could see her 'try your worst' smile. Tilting her head to the side, she cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders.
"She's finally lost it," the eldest cackled, putting cursed energy into the next hit, a punch.
Sakura caught the punch while sitting; the vibrations echoed, scaring the flock of birds by her pond. The boy tried to pull his hand back, but he found himself stuck in his cousin's vice grip. Squeezing his fist like a snake to their prey, Sakura kept crushing it until she heard bones breaking and a boy crying—him kneeling to her level like a king disciplining a rowdy peasant and begging for forgiveness. His hand was swelling like his name—how ironic.
"Help him!" Nobuo urged the other two cousins, not wanting to get in the crossfire. "She's fucking crazy!"
Sakura felt a hand on her shoulder, and she threw that body over her shoulder, letting her cousin crash into the boy with the broken hand. Her brother put his hands together to activate his technique, but Sakura held his two hands, leaning down into his frightened face. "Father told me not to hit you physically because the last time I got thrown into the pit—"
The pit? How did she survive without prior training? Nobuo trained for years and was nine when he was shoved down there as a testament to his skills and to prove why he was the heir. Naoya only knew how to fold laundry properly, the last time he checked.
"—He never said anything about mental trauma, though," Sakura pointed out, letting go of the boy's hands and walking towards the pile of cousins. She looked back at her brother, her eyes mysteriously like a cat, his anxiety fuelling her motivation. "I don't like harming children, but occasionally, everyone needs a wake-up call."
Otherwise, these boys will turn out like their fathers.
Nobuo could see the blood of his cousins in his imagination and Naoya licking it off her hands— "Wait! Please d-don't—"
Inhumanly, his sister was up in his face, eyes darting around his face, looking for something. His teeth chattered as she retreated from his personal space. With a chuckle, her eyes eased. "I suppose that is enough mental trauma for one day… Now get the fuck out of my territory if you don't want me to piss in yours."
While they were halfway out of her garden, Sakura appeared right before them, hands in her yukata's pockets. They all stiffened like a deer in the headlight as Sakura turned her green eyes towards her brother. "Oh, one last thing: if Father hears about this, I'll make sure to cut out your tongues."
Nodding franticly, the boys ran. Sakura sighed, not noticing the amused presence behind her. High on alert, she abruptly turned around when the person let her notice him— it's him!
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Toji watched, leaning against the fence postmarked at the entrance of the princess's compound, as he watched the girl chase away boys twice her size. She's definitely Naobito's daughter in that aspect.
"Oh, one last thing: if Father hears about this, I'll make sure to cut out your tongues."
Toji couldn't help but snort at her threat, that made the clan heir shit himself. That's when he allowed himself to be seen by the child. She seemed to be on high alert from the looks of her sudden panic at his appearance. He couldn't blame her; he purposely instilled fear within the clan, so people left him the fuck alone. However, her body language relaxed, telling him that she was only weary, not fearful. That was different from the usual way people looked at him. Something tells him she's seen enough menacing shit in her few years of living.
"That was quite the show," he remarked with a smirk.
"I didn't expect an audience."
His little cousin started walking away but ushered him in with a wave of her hand—was she inviting him into her little palace?
Toji shrugged, yawned, and then strolled behind her. Why not?
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Sakura leads Toji into her neat home, Teruko in the kitchen fixing up something for lunch.
"Teruko, I have a guest," Sakura announced.
"Liar! You have the social skills of a wall," she yelled back from the kitchen. "I watched you chase your cousins out of the compound five minutes ago!"
"Oba-channnn, it's me," Toji yelled back, hearing a utensil drop at his voice.
Abrupt footsteps entered the living room, and the older woman stared in disbelief. "It is you. Naoya-sama, how did you manage to bring this beast here?"
"He kind of showed up."
Teruko looked at the taller beast, seeing his shoes still on. "Toji, where are your god-damn manners? I raised you better than that!"
He grumbled, putting his shoes on the doormat before slipping on house slippers.
Teruko managed to discipline the deadliest presence I've ever met. I'll be damned. Sakura stared wide-eyed. "Naoya, close that mouth if you don't want flies in there. You're a lady, act like it!"
Toji snorted. "Lady? More like a princess with that attitude of hers."
Sakura gave him a 'Really?' look. "I can help you get a new ass—"
Teruko whacked Naoya upside the head. "Language, Lady Naoya."
"Bah, whatever."
"Why are you taking all the weird children?" Toji questioned. "First me, then her…"
"Who will if I don't?"
"True."
"Now, sit down like the gentleman I raised you to be because I've got some damn good food cooking."
"I thought ladies don't sweat, Ter-u-ko?" Sakura pointed out.
"I'm an old bitch, so I'm allowed to swear as much as I please," Teruko defended.
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Satoru refused to meet his fiancé for the first couple of years she had been allowed on their compound. Why? Because she's a weak, spoiled airhead. He heard his attendants talk about her while cleaning his room or preparing him for the day. The only thing she knew how to do was act like nothing affected her. The servants who attended to her talked behind her back and lightly bullied her.
Nobody in his clan or who worked for his clan liked the Zenin Clan. Not once, but multiple times, they tried to kill him by sending assassins for hire in the underworld. They didn't send their people because doing so would have set a Cold War in the Jujutsu World for trying to kill the only six-eyes user born in the last four hundred years. Satoru's father resolved this by binding the Zenin Clan to an arranged marriage through a binding vow. The vow induced the clan head to give them the clan head's daughter to him. Once that happened, the vow was over, and Noabito could relax. The vow threatened him, and his reputation among the counsel did, too. Satoru loved to think about the trouble the Zenin clan had to go through to birth a worthy daughter for him. From what he has heard, this girl was not worthy of him as a husband.
After having enough of the rumours, he decided to spy on her himself, from peering into her lady lessons to using cursed energy in the dojo. It was safe to say she was shit at both.
Then, she switched personalities, as if she had planned to deceive the clan all along.
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After a couple of visits, Toji decided to train Sakura on how to use the projection sorcery technique as she grew in height.
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Toji's eyes followed her little body, watching the twitches within her frame as she pulled out the sword using her projection sorcery. There was a flash of pain on her face for a second before she used positive energy to heal whatever muscle she tore.
"So you figured something out when you threw that dumb sword," he concluded, ignoring his little cousin's shrouding gaze as she walked towards him. "Answer me, princess."
Silence embedded between them during their stare-down.
"I'm your senior."
"Physically, but not mentally," Sakura stated blandly.
"Hah? What's that supposed to mean?"
It means the truth. "It means you are stupid."
Toji looked down upon the child. "You're the only Zenin who would say that to my face— I would have killed them for that. Those who say that shit behind my back are too cowardly to deserve death."
The muted look on Sakura's face wasn't something he would not expect from a princess— even if she did have a brush with death. He understood that his presence had such a potent killing intent that even the seasoned Naobito kept his guard up around him, and he had experienced and fucked with death many times. His daughter was a walking menace in the making. Something tells him that she's not going to be scared of anything, and that might get her killed one day. Part of him wants her to know that even she can't scare death away.
"You sound entitled," she remarked. A snide twitch made the left corner of her mouth spark upwards, giving her a sociopathic look.
Not even a sociopath could make themselves look unscathed of death. Maybe a psychopath could, only because they were devoid of emotions and could act. That's the difference between the two; one is made, and the other is born. Then there's something deadlier than both.
Toji was a resemblance of death. Ever since his birth, he's always been restricted by the heavens. This led to the clan attempting to murder him for the sole fact he had no cursed energy. He had never been good enough for any of them— only his caretaker bothered to care. Now, it was this little brat that he had taken a slight liking to. She reminded him of a feral cat with green eyes, and he adopted her like a child pet.
This child represented neither a sociopath nor a psychopath but a dark empath. Someone who understands human emotion and exploits it. She grew into a good manipulator, strategizing how to survive this clan from day one.
Sakura toyed with Toji's unsympathetic side, initially bringing him to a heightened interest in her strength. Then she enticed him to protect her when she noticed her father's fear of him— staying inside his circle of protection until she felt strong enough to handle herself like glue driving itself into a lonely hole to fill it with a purpose— forever stuck there. Toji was bored, and she provided that entertainment for him with training and spending time on her engawa. She grew on him only with time, finding it nearly impossible to separate from her.
"You're an idiot," Toji responded, with a barely noticeable soft point in his voice.
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Initially, Toji was going to leave the clan for a full-time career in assassination missions, but this child seemed to entertain him more with all the antics she was putting the clan through. For now, he was part-time.
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Sakura had been on her way to the dojo with Toji when a loud smack came from a different direction. She looked at the three people—two little girls and their father. The black-haired child was behind a dark green, almost black-haired girl spreading her arms out. Both were year-old twins.
Oh, fuck. Twins were a bad omen, especially among the Jujutsu clans. They were considered one being according to the jujutsu law, and their power was split. Meaning, none of them would reach their full potential unless one died.
Sakura glanced at the man; he hit the braver twin, who shielded the other. Despite being so young, the girl took it like a mountain to a wave. She recognized the man as Ogi Zenin, the old fuck with an arrogant stick up his ass. She remembered passing him down in the training halls, glaring at Toji and her. Furthermore, she wondered if he would do anything if Toji hid his presence.
"Hide yourself," she told Toji.
"Excuse me?" he crossed his arms rudely.
"It will be fun, trust me."
Sighing, he watches her walk towards the abusive scene.
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"Ogi-chan," Sakura sang, skipping to him a few steps before appearing in front of the twins. "Why are you hitting a toddler?"
"Lady Naoya," he addressed, mentally cringing at the suffix added to his name. "Mind your own business if you know what's best for you."
"Nobody knows what's best for me," Sakura agreed. "Except me. Maybe you should take your advice; I'm not in the best mood."
"That's none of my concern. Remove yourself from my sight at once."
"Nah, don't want to."
"Don't test me, child. I am your father's brother, and you shall treat me with the same respect you show him."
Sakura tried not to snort at that sentence. "Fine, have it your way."
Ogi watched the child pull something out of her Yukata's inner pocket. She held up a baby blue handkerchief and unfolded it with her other hand. He couldn't believe the atrocious picture dangling from her two hands.
"I was just on my way to deliver this artwork to my father, but I guess you can have this because you want me to treat you like him," Sakura said, putting the handkerchief with a dick on it inside one of his training outfit's pockets.
The behaviour was so unbecoming of the daughter of a clan head that he was too stunned to speak. He had only seen her walking with Toji a few times throughout the years, thinking the two clan rejects spent time together because the child was enamoured with Toji. She turns out to be the opposite; she is his loyal dog, playing the similar shitty tricks Toji would to his father when he was this child's age. He influenced this lousy behaviour, ruining the lady of the Zenin Clan. He was surprised that the Gojo clan accepted her as their heir's future wife because she was untrained.
Sakura turned her back to Ogi, ignoring the fuming anger brewing within him. Her green eyes met the twins' black ones. "You guys want to go play—"
Suddenly, the twins' perception shifted, making them dizzy. Sakura moved them to the right, dividing the twenty-four frames between the girls—three for each, all forced to follow. One girl in Sakura's arms fainted, while the other recovered quickly. The one that recovered had the lesser of cursed energy among the twins—something about that one was oddly familiar. Her presence felt like the shadow of a familiar face.
The old man behind her dared to hit her with the hilt of the sword strapped to his waist.
"The rumours were true," Ogi concluded, putting his sword back by his waist. "You did inherit that technique. Marvellous."
It's only better for him. That much Sakura knew— the amount of power Naobito's children had meant securing the place of clan head. Daughters didn't count unless they were the remainder of the children left, and Sakura was considered more powerful than her brothers until they awakened their technique. Jujutsu sorcerers don't live long in most cases. Even the strongest have to crumble to keep the balance.
Keeping her technique a secret from her father didn't matter to her any more; it was only a matter of time before it would be revealed.
Sakura had no clue how many sons Ogi had, but his age said otherwise. It's a miracle with his looks that he could father two daughters.
"You're still nothing compared to your brothers."
Oh yeah, those twats. She has yet to meet all of them, but from the servant gossip mill, they are dumb. "Never met half of them, so I don't care."
The old man huffed out his chest as if being compared to a brat would break her. In response, Sakura said, while taking the hands of the two girls before leading them away: "If you ever lay a hand on another child, it will be the last time you have hands."
The gaze from Ogi dared her to try.
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Toji chuckled, seeing Ogi grimace at the penis handkerchief. He trudged over to the old man, letting himself be seen, and the colour from Ogi's face dropped like his balls. The outcast crossed his arms, smirking down at the man frozen with his back to him.
"I thought you left," he stated, hiding the nervousness from his tone.
"Nah, I decided to stay and tutor the princess."
"You're wasting your time with that thing."
Tightening his hands on his enormous biceps, he heard the old man gulp. "Watch yourself, Ogi."
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"Naoya has your technique, sir," a witness from her stand-off with Ogi stated from the shadows of Naobito's room.
"Ah, I thought the Gojo clan took her," he quipped, briefly remembering her from a few years back in his drunken state. "Oh, that one."
"There can't be two projection techniques that exist simultaneously."
Lies. He knows that, but he's been looking for an excuse to kill that brat ever since she became friends with Toji. "It seems like we may have a mission for Toji's company that he can't refuse."
"As you wish, Zenin-sama."
Since the binding vow with the Gojo clan was done, killing her wouldn't affect him.
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Luck was not on her side today; the training session she would have with Toji was cut short when he got called for a mission from his company. Sakura wasn't an idiot, knowing what kind of work he did. It was difficult to wash the smell off someone, even from their personality. Every so often, he returned to their training sessions tired and too alert, like a Shinobi did after a week-long mission. She could say that Toji was the ANBU of this world.
Training with herself, she returned to her compound.
When she returned to her compound's entrance, she was tired and frustrated. Faint traces of dry blood stuck to the wooden dual swinging front gate, as the lock had been split in half on the ground by someone. Sakura pushed the gate open, using her technique to dash forward to the main building.
It wasn't something she expected to see in this world. This was something that brought back the bloodbath of memories the fourth Shinobi war supplied— organs everywhere, the slaughter of humanity's innocence, and new emotions brewing in those who witnessed it. Sakura had seen death, fucked with it, only to have it spit her back out. Now it's fucking with her again. And again, and again.
She hated having to put something down twice.
The Kukuru Unit were like mosquitos swarming around her compound with the amount of blood that painted the town she built red. They were a unit within the clan that trained in gruelling martial arts day and night. Not all of them had immense cursed energy, but those who did fight with raw cursed energy. Their blows could match Chunin Sakura's after the years they put into using raw cursed energy in combination with their martial art. This was going to be a bitch to take care of.
Five Kukuru Unit members stood inside her garden as she could sense two inside her house killing her servants. Sakura pushes her focus on them— aiming for a quick kill. The Shinobi from the fourth war woke up after eleven years of suppression. This was Haruno Sakura they were fucking with, not Naoya Zenin. Their cursed energy signatures were easily detectable as they used their cursed energy for play.
Her eyes adjusted to the speed as the years of training with Toji kicked in. No sword was used in their slaughter because Sakura deemed them unworthy of her blade. Instead, using the base of her fingers, her anger seeped so far into their skin that the seven layers that protected their muscular system exploded on the walls and her. It didn't take much; all Sakura had to do was think of each layer of skin she wanted her positive energy to fuck with— stratum corneum, stratum lucidum, stratum granulosum, stratum spinosum, stratum basale, papillary layer, reticular layer. The two Kukuru were now pure muscle, like they trained to be.
Blood covered the bare muscle as a protective layer, but the air protruded and stabbed the muscle like a knife, making it painful for any movement they made. Sakura had skinned them alive using the reverse curse technique. What a disgusting but satisfying sight. The old Sakura would never have done this to someone if she had to kill the enemy. Anyone deserves a respectable death— except any member of this clan. It wouldn't surprise her if these two men raped or killed any of their servants. They might not be the royalty of the clan, but being a Zenin meant access to servants.
The smiles on the men's faces fell at the same time their lives did. Sakura coated her hands in raw positive energy and used her technique to strengthen her blow. If she were physically bigger, it would have made for a more badass scene as she pulled out her hands, but she had to use her feet to jump off their forms to pull her hands out. She looked at the blood on her hands mixed with chunks of flesh, like some weird sort of soup her teammates would make over the fire during missions.
Sasuke was a shitty cook, but Naruto knew how to brew. Kakashi was often the taste tester, as Sakura would fawn over her precious Sasuke-kun. Ah, the good old days—
The memory was cut short as she received a blow from raw cursed energy that sent her flying through the wall, breaking bones in every direction. Her green eyes squinted at the person who threw her back as her body started to heal itself anew. A white haze from the positive energy being directed into twenty-four different parts of broken bones and ripped muscles per second evaporates from her, pores like steam.
The colour of cursed energy, like chakra, was interesting. A well-controlled usage of positive energy was white, and emotions under control using normal cursed energy is blue, the same colour of raw chakra— a Rasengan colour. An uncontrolled fit of anger, usage of cursed energy, emitted a pink-reddish colour. The phenomenon of the black cursed energy is known as a black flash, something Jujutsu Sorcerers can't do at will. It requires a focus beyond human imagination— something Sakura wanted to learn more about.
Her opponent placed himself knife-handed, front foot aligned right at Sakura. He thought he was fast, but Sakura was faster. Her eyes predicted the chop of his hand coming for her neck when he got close based on the stance. She ducked, palming his wrist from below, breaking the bone within, and sending more positive cursed energy into his system, disrupting his breathing patterns by targeting the alveoli in his lungs. Every cell is destroyed in less than a second, not allowing the lungs to expand and take in oxygen. He died like a suitless astronaut in space.
The last four surrounded her, assuming different stances— a punching, roundhouse, middle punch, and throat chop. All moves were perfectly predictable with the training she had undergone with Toji. He was an expert in martial arts, more so than this unit, who trained day and night. Sakura saw everything like a Sharingan. This technique linked her eyes and mind together to work along with it. Something only her mind and eyes can see because she was born with the technique, minus Toji and Naobito. Their movements were slow in the glow of her green eyes— out of habit, something she hadn't tried before was using positive cursed energy to form a chakra scalpel. She figured it should work because a chakra scalpel is made from raw chakra, sharpened like a blade and as sharp as your chakra control. In Sakura's case, she was sharp. Nothing could outclass her scalpels.
Her white scalpel sliced through every limb the unit members were going to hit— one frame for each body part and four more to cut their jugular veins. Her movements were like a dance, blood fluttering in the background and discolouring her blue yukata; there was no noise because of their cut throats, making it a silent bliss at the end of her one-second show. It would be like seeing a sharp slice of wind to an outsider, only the flash of green eyes making a presence known within the middle of the crowd. Her single audience member watched with horror as Sakura became visible to the human eye.
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A scream— Teruko. Sweet Teruko.
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Her hands clapped her cheeks like the famous Scream painting. Sakura walked towards her from the entryway, assuring that it was only her. The fear in the older woman's eyes told her to stay back. This wasn't what Sakura wanted to happen, but anyone normal would react this way. Teruko was normal, but Sakura was not. She probably looked like a murderer rather than a hero.
Shinobi were never considered heroes but mercenaries in this world, and Sakura wasn't a Shinobi. Her way of thinking was different from anyone normal. This only reminded her that she was the anomaly in this world. It was her choice to die but not to be reborn, and this was the price of death. She was wrong to think that her choice to die was the right choice. There were people she left behind— her parents, Naruto, Kakashi-sensei, Tsunade, Ino, Shikamaru, etc. How did they feel after she jumped between her two teammates? Was her death something they would mourn, or would they shout profanities at her for giving her two teammates another redemption arc? Did they hate Naruto and Sasuke for her choice?
In the end, she would never know. This was her life now, and there was no going back from killing clansmen like killing herself. She reacted with anger and got this. The fearful look of someone she cared about rethinking every life choice they made with her.
Sakura felt sick.
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"Oh, sweet Teruko," someone spoke from behind Teruko, who was covered by the shadow of the setting sun gleaming through the hole Sakura's body had made before.
Sakura felt her blood boil.
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Sakura froze and saw what happened in the eyes of a projection sorcerer user. An old, calloused hand paved through Teruko's front, holding her heart in the palm of their hand. In Teruko's last moments, she looked at Sakura for help— everything Sakura noted from Teruko's expression before had been turned. It was funny how she saw Sakura as a monster, now turned saviour, before dying. Her body had been discarded like the other dead servants around her compound— the town she built, a refuge for the servants Sakura recruited—now turned a blood-red. Every servant had a room and essentials to live in her compound, which was like a town to her. She scouted the most miserable of them all to give them sanctuary.
And the culprit who killed Teruko fucked it up.
She might as well play the role of the murderer if whatever wanted to fuck her wanted her dead. They probably wanted her to break and cry like the girl she was. A few deaths of people close to her weren't going to make her submit. The universe forgot that she's the anomaly— the Shinobi of the jujutsu world. The girl who fucked it all.
The princess of the Zenin Clan. Maybe the clan never knew what happened when a princess didn't get what she wanted, or how spoiled Sakura could act.
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Out of the shadows came her father. "Hello, daughter. Crying yet?"
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Sakura shook the blood off her hand in one thick splat and ran her tongue up her forearm for theatrical effect. "Father. Don't you know what happens when a princess doesn't get what she wants?"
He rolled his eyes, answering. "A slow, painful death."
It's time to paint the town red. "She throws a fit."
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Fire in the background would have been more panoramic, but the only fire burning something was Sakura's last string of sanity, which kept her from slaughtering this entire clan. Is this how Itachi felt? He must have gone through something similar to have snapped like this. The only people Sakura wanted to leave alive were Mai, Maki, and their mother, but she also didn't want this to become the second Uchiha massacre. There are innocent people here, the wives of the clan members or the children, who have no clue about the real world. She was distraught, unsure of what to fucking do. Every attempt was futile, even with the seal.
He was faster than she by magnitudes due to decades of training and experience.
The fire burning that string froze after her second brush with death, or was this the third or fourth? She lost count in her battle with her father. He's killed her so many times already, and she kept coming back to life like an annoying wood tick, only to be slapped dead again and again until the flame was lit.
Naobito was fast for his age, faster than her. Not even training with Toji for years could outclass someone seasoned with years of fighting experience. Maybe if she had been a little taller, older, and more robust, she could outclass him due to age and a prime body.
Sakura's sword had even been discarded like a rag doll—she'd tried to touch him. All it would take was one touch to kill him, to overflood his body with positive energy. He was no cursed spirit; an overabundance of rapidly dividing cells would kill him. Positive energy heals humans but can easily be turned into something deadly. Sakura's past life's techniques, knowledge, and control could use positive energy like that.
All it would take was one touch to kill him, to overflood his body with positive energy. He was no cursed spirit; an overabundance of rapidly dividing cells would kill him. Positive energy heals humans but can easily be turned into something deadly. Sakura's past life's techniques, knowledge, and control could use positive energy like that.
"You're strong for your age but inexperienced," her father spat, pushing his foot through her ribcage as she lay on the ground breathless. "Had you been a boy, you would have been legendary in the Jujutsu world. Look at you, a princess finally tamed."
Heal.
Another foot squished her heart, but all it took was one cell to jumpstart and regrow the organ.
Heal.
"You're nothing; a pathetic excuse for trash. You will never become a Jujutsu Sorcerer and never belong in our world."
His foot kicked her chin upwards as her chest lay open like a patient getting a heart transplant. The more she used her seal, the more it took to heal her brain and exhaustion. She was a child, had she been an adult with a trained body, things would be different.
The failure sunk in, ripping her heart in two as she lay there, giving up. Maybe this is it, the price for her sins. Losing everything in another life—
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Naobito froze, peering down at the sword through his chest like he killed Teruko. His heart had been stabbed and lodged out of his body as it beat. It took skill to keep the heart intact, to push it out of the body as it rested at the tip of the sword.
"I thought I told you the next time you kill my family, I'd kill you," the voice behind him snarled.
The memory of killing Toji's father for the spot of clan heir came to mind that day; Toji's father died along with his mother, who committed suicide in response. Toji had witnessed everything. The trauma of that day was still evident inside Toji's mind. After his father died, the whole clan turned against him except Teruko, who took him in. Now she's dead.
Naobito smiled, "I remember, but this is my family."
"You lost the right to be her father the day you put her in the pit," Toji snarled, twisting his sword until Naobito was on his knees. "Tell the devil I said hi."