Summary: Sakura finds herself in the midst of yet another war. Somehow, Kiri's fear of bloodline limits has engulfed the world, threatening extinction for all ninja clans. War is the way of the ninja, and after her experiences, war is on its way too becoming an old friend. There weren't many ninja that could claim to have fought in three wars. She would gladly go to a thousand more wars to protect Naruto and Sasuke.
Genre: General with hints of Adventure and Drama
Warnings: Descriptions of wounds, kidnapping, mind fuckery (so much mind fuckery), even in an AU Danzo remains a sanctimonious dick, alternate Sakura is traumatized for good reasons but deals with it in bad ways, another Sakura's parents are civilians (because its really bullshit they wrote them as ninja well after the fact. Her character makes more sense when she can blame her ignorance on not growing up in a ninja household), headcannons abound, world building. Sakura thinks she's figured out Naruto's mistake of a jutsu, but she knows nothing. Moral dilemmas. I played fast and loose with histories and timelines in this one. Just accept that certain things happened and others did not or happened at an entirely different time for reasons.
Rating: T
Sakura had barely made it an hour in the next world before all hell broke loose.
Despite only being the fourth world she had traveled to, the iryō-nin had established a routine. Unable to count upon her counterpart's memories availability, she needed to gather as much information as she could from her surroundings and what she could glean from her own body.
Her body was mature, and Sakura couldn't shake the gut feeling that she was technically older than she should be. It was an odd point to be stuck on, considering she still wasn't certain she wasn't certifiably insane. She had already been both dead and younger than she was supposed to be after all, so finding herself older wasn't truly a stretch. She couldn't even explain to herself why her new age bothered her.
With the alacrity of someone in her profession, the pinkette had tabled the potential mid-life crisis inducing thoughts, intending to ruminate over them later when she had more time.
She wore a simple black midriff tank hidden under her signature red qipao. This one was sleeveless and cut in such a way that it closed at an angle just above her right breast. The trim, done in white, drew one's eyes towards her hips, showing off her exposed navel. It extended below the knees, coming just short of the white three-quarters length pants she wore. Green eyes trailed over every inch of fabric but found no sign of the white circle symbolizing her minor clan.
Also, nowhere to be seen was her medical apron, weapons pouch, and forehead protector.
The latter item was the most concerning, as its lack of presence indicated alternate-Sakura had been in the middle of an undercover mission. If there was a worse scenario in which to suddenly body-snatch an alternate version of herself, Sakura didn't want to experience it.
And no Kami or Kurama, whichever fucking bastard was responsible for this, that was not an invitation.
She already knew she would find no evidence of her mission amongst her meager belongings. Undercover missions were off the book until completed. The assignment was handed out in person, directly from the Hokage himself, so there wouldn't be a paper trail. All the appropriate paperwork wouldn't be filled and filed until the operative returned home, conditional upon the success.
A quick scan of the room she was standing in, sparse to the point of appearing to be a hastily cleared out storage room that had been emptied solely for the bedroll that lay upon the floor, informed Sakura that her equipment was not there. The bedroll was the only item in the room aside from a rucksack, which she had promptly rummaged through to ascertain its contents. Two changes of clothes, a roll of cloth bandage, a thin handwritten book of plants she didn't recognize, but eagerly wished to study based on the book's claim for their uses, a leather pouch of unfamiliar coins, and bizarrely, what appeared to be a wanted poster with her likeness and the name Salmon Cicatrizer.
Sakura had stared at the ink strokes that made up her image, and the accompany physical description, honestly befuddled as to how she had earned such an outrageous title and what she was wanted for. Funnily enough, that part was missing from the poster.
The salmon descriptor was obviously a reference to her hair, although it was a terrible one. Salmon was the last choice she would use to describe her hair color. Her pink locks were unique, but they were clearly a shade of pink. The color people often referred to as salmon contained more flesh tones than anything else. Sakura didn't know why it was considered part of the pink color family tree.
Such a mistake would normally benefit her. At least amongst the ninja populace, her pastel pink hair would not be considered salmon. Civilians were another story. They would report anyone with abnormal hair color that remotely resembled her.
Sakura pondered her options for disguising her distinct hair. Genjutsu was out. Too large a chance that her chakra use would be detected. She would be remembered if she tried to find product to dye it another color. Both would draw unwanted attention. Chopping it all off was a possibility, but only as a last resort. Points for dramatically changing her appearance, but she was hesitant to make such a permanent change. The hair would grow back, of course, but it would take time. Perhaps she would use the roll of bandages to wrap it up.
Cicatrizer, on the other hand, was a very particular word choice. Cicatrization was the term for the process of scar formation at the site of a healing wound.
Frankly, it sounded like she was being hunted because she was a healer, and a terrible one at that, if she was leaving behind scars.
Which was a laughable notion. For starters, why in Kami's name would healing be a crime? And second, the moniker Cicatrizer was an insult to her abilities. Sakura never left scar tissue if it could be helped, and considering her skills were on par with those of Tsunade Senju, the world's most notable medical ninja, that meant whomever she had healed had more than likely been an impossible case on death's door and should have been more grateful to have their life than concerned with their attractiveness.
Or the person responsible for her nickname was an ignoramus.
Regardless, Sakura now had a conundrum.
She needed more information, but any attempt to attain that information could put Sakura and her mission at risk. If someone walked into her hidey-hole right now—did her host even know there was a strange woman squatting in their back room?—she would be exposed immediately, because she wouldn't know how to respond to them.
It was an awful situation all around. Sakura was doomed if she remained but screwed over her counterpart if she fled mid-assignment. By the time her memories of this world settled it would be too late.
She had to decide, right now, whether to stay her course or cut and run to save her skin. The mission would go belly up, but Sakura could, once she knew the circumstances, leave a note for her alternate self that would hopefully get her out of the jam Sakura would inevitably get her in to.
In that moment, Sakura was supremely grateful for her overly large forehead. Her ability to memorize, remember and recall information was outmatched only by the Nara. Writing physical records of her adventures would prove a waste of time and effort once her time in the current world was over. They wouldn't travel with her, and then she would be leaving behind evidence that she was insane, potentially sparking more people to research her phenomena.
And while there was potential for a solution to be found, Sakura thought it far more likely that any such notes encouraged other shinobi to try and replicate her experience instead.
She dearly hoped her brains were enough to find the solution herself, even though she hadn't spent any time really on finding one.
But she did recall some of the seals Naruto had use. If she could recreate his matrix, the pinkette might be able to bring an end to her universe hopping. As fascinating as it had been so far, Sakura surprised herself with how true that statement was, she had had enough dimension traveling during her first war and absolutely no desire to continue any longer than she needed to.
Sakura felt bolstered by a renewed purpose. Since this world's Sakura was screwed regardless of what choice she made, the medic might as well move forward in the way that benefited her the most. She would gather her limited supplies and vanish, try to make headway on recreating Naruto's seal until she had her counterpart's memories.
Naturally, that was the moment all hell broke loose.
The ground shook with powerful tremors, threatening to bring the poorly constructed rood down upon her head. As it was, Sakura wheezed and coughed, trying to expel the dust and dirt that collected in her lungs.
Clearing the unwanted particles from her trachea and esophagus—because when an apparently unstable roof threatens to collapse on your head, releasing what feels like a metric ton of dirt and dust to pollute the air, some of it inevitably goes down the wrong pipe—takes her a matter of seconds.
Sakura had never been more grateful to have learned iryō Ninjutsu.
Well, that's a lie. She's had, unfortunately, infinite and ample opportunities to be thankful for dedicating herself to the most difficult career for a ninja. And no, that isn't her bias showing. The only other fields that comes remotely close were fūinjutsu and anywhere in the T&I tract. Fūinjutsu matched medical ninjutsu on the level of complexity and the sheer amount of information that needed to be memorized, but Sakura felt iryō-justu won out due to the demand for intricate chakra control and potentially being the only thing between a patient living or dying. Torture and Interrogation knew how the body functioned and how to manipulate just as well as an iryō-nin, but for the opposite reason.
And in Sakura's professional opinion, tearing someone apart, physically or mentally, was magnitudes easier than putting them back together.
Aside from the miracles she's capable of as a medical ninja, Sakura's more grateful for what being an iryō-nin represents to her.
Equality. Standing side by side with the monsters on her team instead of behind them as a civilian in need of protection.
Team Seven had gotten to a rocky start upon their induction in the ranks of Konoha ninja. Disastrous missions followed one after another, like a tumbling line of dominoes, only the tiles were strategically arranged to knock over more than just one other tile when they fell.\
The chūnin exams, and its aftermath, had left Sakura feeling weak.
Sasuke had been lauded as a genius before even graduating the academy, and that was before factoring in his bloodline. The pinkette hadn't had his drive, a goal worth working tirelessly towards, and definitely not at the tender age of seven. What Naruto lacked in raw talent, he made up with burning determination and an unquantifiable ability talk all of his enemies into laying down their arms and becoming his newest friend. The less said about Kakashi-sensei the better. The silver haired man, in spite of his addiction to porn and his infuriating habit of always arriving late, was the image of a Konoha jōnin. Comparing herself to him as an untested genin was unfathomable.
It had taken the young girl years to come to terms with the fact being weaker than her teammates didn't mean she was weak, and ultimately, being teamed with a trio of genius-level chakra and stamina monsters—with built in cheats in the form of Sharingans, the Kyūbi, and reincarnated souls of the Sage's own sons—provided her a goal to strive toward.
She didn't have anywhere near the chakra stores of her teammates or fancy red eyes of insight, perception, and hypnotism, and she refused to be ashamed of it. Not having a leg up meant Sakura had earned each and every one of her accomplishments through hard work and not giving up.
She didn't intend to diminish what Naruto, Sasuke or Kakashi-sensei had achieved by any means. Her boys had certainly warranted their own various accolades.
But Sakura's accomplishments were personal. Wielding a kunai, she had carved out a name for herself and a place on her team. No one doubted her right to be the fourth member of the infamous Team 'Impossible Only Means We Haven't Tried Yet' Seven.
In hindsight, her team's legendary reputation should have given her pause when Naruto started pleading for her to help her test his newest seal creation.
Needless to say, the sunny blond was on his own going forward.
Anyway, the point Sakura was trying to make was that she was grateful she had chosen to pursue the path of an iryō-nin.
She loved being able to make a difference, and an iryō-nin of her skill in the backwater town she found herself in—she had thrown herself through the room's only window before the dust, literal and figurative, had settled—could make one hell of a difference.
A second explosion rent the air, sending the already panicking natives into chaos as they tried to flee to safety, unknowing where was safe to run to. Sakura eyed the towering plumage of black smoke that curled into the sky to the east and made haste to what she assumed to be the site of the first explosion.
Once there, she dove into full medic mode, locating those with the most grievous injuries. Fearful faces blurred together as she stabilized one person after another. The medic did her best to reassure each man, woman, and child she attended to that everything would be okay. She had them and they didn't need to worry about the pain. Her soothing words had little effect, but Sakura didn't have time to waste individually comforting each person she healed. She figured she was the only ninja in the town capable of healing, as no one had shown up to aid her yet. She healed wounds that were life threatening or potentially debilitating and moved on to the next victim. Conserving chakra was going to be paramount since she didn't have any soldier pills on hand.
Sometime after the twelfth victim all but ran from her as soon as he was able—and Kami had he wanted nothing to do with her. The lanky black haired teen had tried to drag himself in the opposite direction when Sakura set her green eyes and equally green-coated hands on his fractured leg—the medic began to question why they were so scared. She understood shinobi had a fearsome and often bloody reputation, especially in villages that encountered them infrequently, but she was helping them.
After the eighteenth had fled from her mercies, pale-faced and silent, she wondered why not a single one had offered her thanks for her efforts. Not that she needed gratuitous or bountiful thank yous, but it was unusual and noteworthy that no one had offered up words of gratitude.
She was forcefully torn from the twenty-sixth, a young blonde girl that painfully reminded Sakura of Ino that had thus far survived a shard of metal impaled in the left side of her head, before she had finished treating the swelling.
Fingertips dug into the meaty part of her upper arm and wrenched her upwards. "What do you think you're doing?" her assailant hissed. "It's dangerous—"
Sakura grappled for her assailant's hand and sent a pulse of lightning aligned chakra through it. Not enough to fry his entire nervous system like her shishou had once done to Kabuto. Just enough to make the muscles in his arm spasm, then freeze momentarily. The paralysis lasted barely four seconds, but that was more than enough time for the medic to slap the offending appendage away.
If it so happened that she broke every one of his four fingers at the joint between the proximal phalanges and the metacarpals, surely, she couldn't be blamed? Any ninja worth their rank ought to know better than to interrupt an iryō-nin mid-session.
"No, what's dangerous is you yanking me away from my patient," she scowled ferociously, taking in the teen's—she believed he was a teen despite his ridiculously tall height and all the muscles he was packing. His skin fairly screamed youth— unusual appearance. Long green hair and yellow eyes with a thin scar under his left eye, not someone she had ever met previously. "You could have caused any number of blood vessels to burst. As it is, I have less than two minutes to stem the bleeding and reduce the swelling before she has a brain aneurysm."
"We don't have time for that. We need to leave, now."
"Not until I've stabilized her."
Sakura knelt, medical chakra flaring to life once more, focused solely on healing the little who could have been Ino's sibling if she had any. No sooner had she finished when she experienced a sharp burst of pain at the top of her spine.
Darkness swallowed her.
"Blood of the dragon. Oyashiro is going to kill me."
A ninja's body was a tool.
Every ninja village adhered to this principle to a certain degree. Some took it to extremes, going as far as to genetically modify or enhance shinobi. Orochimaru, Danzō, and Kumo came to mind. Others were more literal, in the sense that a shinobi needed to maintain certain physical standard in order to be a shinobi. They trained their body relentlessly, of course it was a tool, but it wasn't on the same level as a tantō. For kunoichi, using one's body as a weapon was expected.
As an iryō-nin, Sakura understood the limits of her body and, more importantly, how to push past them without causing irreparable harm.
The human body was an amalgamation of cells, tissues, organs, systems, and processes, each one of which could be individually hijacked if the need arose. Medics did it all the time when closed lacerations, removed poisons, reset broken bones or stitched muscles back together. In every act of healing, iryō-nin jumpstarted the body's natural response to injury and directly manipulated the various cells and systems to do their bidding.
Sleep was just another item on a long list of things about the body that ninja had learned to manipulate.
Every ninja worth their steel knew exactly how precious sleep was. The restful state was never guaranteed, even when sleeping and guarding in shifts. It was also when they were most vulnerable. One precisely chosen strike, and that sleep became permanent.
Sleep was a tool that Sakura had trained to manipulate, solely for situations like the one she awoke to. Or more specifically, breathing.
Breathing was unique amongst the body's numerous functions as being controllable both consciously and unconsciously. Most of the time, breathing was controlled involuntarily, such as when she was sleeping. Respiration rate was slower when sleeping. Shallower, steady, and more rhythmic than when awake.
That change in respiration that came when the body switched from sleep to awake was easily discernable because it changed instantly.
Unless you were Sakura Haruno and you utilized your knowledge of iryō-ninjutsu and the respiratory system to condition your body to maintain that unconscious breathing rate for a dozen or so heartbeats upon awaking.
It was a window just large enough to allow Sakura to deliberately mimic sleeping respiration, given off the illusion that she had yet to awaken.
The results were absolutely worth the endless hours she had spent under Kakashi's and Hinata's scrutiny. If she could fool two of Konoha's most perceptive dōjutsu into believing her sleeping status hadn't changed, she could fool anybody.
Doubly so when her first conscious breath infused her lungs with air so foul she wanted to retch, and had to suppress the instinct to do so.
She dared not open her eyes, lest she wanted to abandon her ruse. She didn't sense any chakra signatures nearby, but the medic wasn't going to take that for granted. Chakra sensing wasn't her greatest talent, so it was likely someone could be hidden in the area, watching her. It's what she would expect of her captors, anyway.
It would be the height of stupidity to fake unconsciousness to her degree only to give it up to see what her cell looked like.
Sakura already figured it was yet another cave. She had been placed, or dumped more accurately based on the soreness running the length of her right side, on a rough stone surface. Its only saving grace was that it was not cold. Instead, the air was rather warm, almost stifling.
Indistinct voices reached her ears, their actual words covered by the sound of bubbling water.
All of her observations led Sakura to assume she was being held in some kind of underground hot springs. Points for originality, she supposed, but definitely the oddest place to hold someone captive.
Unless her kidnappers believed she needed to soak and destress, which was truer than they could possibly know.
Her biggest point of contention with the whole kidnapping scheme—aside from Sakura absolutely not being a damsel-in-distress nor an incapable kunoichi so why was she getting nabbed so often?—was the lack of restraints.
Don't get her wrong, it made her inevitable break for freedom that much easier, but it was a little insulting.
Not even sparing a cloth to tie her hands behind her back spoke volumes about her captors. Either they didn't know who she was and believed the pinkette incapable of freeing herself, or they thought they had a way to overpower her.
Sakura wasn't really one for stroking her own ego. Quite the opposite actually. Her self-recriminations usually found herself lacking.
But the clear lack of care her abductors took in subduing her rankled on a personal level.
Sakura had been a student of the famed Tsunade Senju who lived by the motto 'I can hit harder than you,' and would then casually proceed to demonstrate just how hard she could hit by leveling a mountain.
So, ropes wouldn't have hindered her escape in any way, but Sakura was insulted that they didn't bother.
It hadn't occurred to her that her captors were betting on option number two until she attempted to punch through the cave floor. The first degree burns from scalding hot water when the hot springs exploded would only be temporary. She was banking on her captors being startled by her resistance and the sudden surge of boiling water to buy her precious seconds to reach the surface and high-tail it in any direction. If she was lucky, the cave would be structurally unsound. There would be lesser chances of pursuers if the ceiling came down as well.
Figuring out where she was and how to get somewhere she recognized was less important than simply getting away.
Her escape plan derailed on the very first step.
Hidden by her torso, Sakura curled her middle finger to the pad of her thumb, preparing to shatter the ground with a single flick.
Only, when she went to flick, her fingers didn't move.
She tried again and got the same response, which is to say that nothing happened. Her body wasn't obeying any commands to move. It wasn't just her fingers. Her legs, her neck. She couldn't even roll her eyes.
What had she missed? It couldn't have been a paralytic. That would have prevented her from moving her fingers in the first place. Whatever held her immobile had only kicked in after she had first shifted her arm.
"It seems our little cicatrizer is awake."
A man's voice cut across her panic. Unable to move, and not recognizing the voice, Sakura focused on the name he called her by. He had used cicatrizer, from the wanted poster, so they knew exactly who Sakura was and what the rosette was capable of.
"Turn around and give us a looksies, why don't 'cha."
Her body moved of its own accord, smoothly rolling over and positioning herself into a formal seiza, legs folded underneath her, sitting directly on her ankles with her back ramrod straight.
If she had control of her body, Sakura would have been hyperventilating, but, as it was, she did not and was not but she desperately wished she was because she'd rather be struggling to catch her breath than controlled like a puppet. Yes, she had done exactly that with Chiyo previously, but it was leagues different when it was someone she trusted.
She didn't know this guy. Nor how he was manipulating her. And honestly, two abductions was two too many.
Calloused fingers dragged the underside of her chin, pulling her face upwards until Sakura was staring straight into his eyes. Black pupils with a horizontal purple segment in the middle, not quite spanning all the way across, surrounded by a red ombre iris, starting lighter near bordering the pupil and darkening to the color of blood where the iris meet the sclera, which was a much brighter glowing red.
It was like staring at an inverted version of Sasuke's advanced Sharingan colorwise.
"What pretty eyes," the mystery man murmured, "but there's nothing special about them."
Sakura quashed the anger she felt at the insult. Why was it every smug bastard with a dōjutsu thought they were Kami's gift to man and got into pissing contests about who wore it better? Just because she didn't have fancy eyes capable of completely breaking the universe didn't mean she was lesser.
She went to punch him in his perfect teeth, only to be forcefully reminded that she had no control over her body.
She really disliked the lack of control she was experiencing. For Sakura, control was her thing. The one area she excelled compared to her three powerhouse teammates. Ever since Kakashi-sensei had them climbing trees with nothing but their chakra in Nami, control was something the pinkette strove for. Perfect chakra control meant she didn't need as much chakra as someone who house a bijū. Controlling precisely the amount of chakra she utilized to fuel a jutsu meant Sakura wasted nothing, a skill that was absolutely critical as an iryō-nin.
Control over her chakra, control over her body as a ninja, had bled into control over her mind, her emotions, how she delegated her downtime. Stars, even when and how she relaxed was carefully planned ahead.
Sakura was a control freak, and this was her second worst nightmare.
She used to fear losing one of her boys on the operating table—not one of them knew the meaning of take it easy or friendly spar—but had eventually acknowledged it was a fear she would have to live with. Although it did help knowing that Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi were too stubborn to die.
The fear of one of them dying though had been replaced with a newer, more paramount one.
Would she ever get back to her world? Or was she stuck temporarily body-snatching herself? How long could this last? Even fūinjutsu had to end at some point, right?
"Let's see what they know."
Joke was on him, Sakura thought, glad to have been torn away from her darkly spiraling thoughts. The only thing she knew in this world was her name.
Information bombarded her, more than she could assimilate. She didn't know what he was digging for or if he found it, but he had inadvertently drudged up everything she needed to know about this world.
Later, Sakura would be grateful for the intervention, for it was nice going into a new world with her eyes open, and not left floundering like a fish out of water panicking about the million ways she could screw up. Typically, the memories of her alternate self came gradually. She knew everything alternate-Sakura knew, but not until she needed to. Associated memories and knowledge would suddenly be there, as if they had always existed, when a trigger was present, and her brain had no issues recalling those tidbits once they were introduced to her.
The rapid fire deluge as she was forcibly caught up on over twenty years of divergence was incredibly painful. Sakura wished for nothing more than to curl in on herself, clutching at her head until it stopped threatening to simultaneously explode and implode.
It was not a pleasant feeling in the least.
Chakra, and those who wielded it, were feared.
It started in Kiri; the village that had been infamously renamed the 'Village Hidden in the Bloody Mist' for their cutthroat ninja academies where the graduating class had to fight for the right to join the ninja ranks.
That aspect hadn't changed, nor had their paranoia for those with kekkei genkai. Instead of general unrest and suspicion that led to kekkei genkai wielders being murdered when discovered, Kirigakure had taken a more subtle, more organized, approach to eliminating those they had come to view as abominations.
Fatalities on missions, carefully plotted to not be deliberate. A kekkei genkai user was assigned to a mission where their bloodline limit was an advantage. Sometimes they failed, resulting in just their death. Other times, the whole squad was sacrificed to cover up their death. Sometimes, they came out unharmed where a ninja not possessing a kekkei genkai died instead.
Even carefully concealed, the clans bearing kekkei genkai noticed the steady dwindling of their numbers and organized a coup d'état in retaliation. Civil war broke out between the two factions, quickly engulfing the entirety of the Land of Water. The Sandaime Raikage decided a war was the perfect opportunity to poach some of Kiri's kekkei genkai, seeing as they no longer appreciated them. Only, they did so by throwing their lot in with Kiri, thinking a few dozen corpses of the enemy would hardly be missed instead of enticing the kekkei genkai clans to relocate to Kumo.
Once Kumo had thrown their hat in, the other shinobi nations were forced to take sides.
Kekkei genkai were uncommon in Suna. Rare and equally devastating. The Hidden Sand Village preferred to focus on the strength of the individual rather than numbers like the other great villages. They held themselves separate, neutral, uncaring of which faction prevailed. Regardless of who emerged the victor, they would win because they were stronger, and quite frankly, Kiri's bloody war wasn't their business.
Until the Wind Daimyō started outsourcing missions to Iwa in spite of the deep-seated enmity between the two villages. Contrary as it seemed, wars could make as much money as they cost. Sunagakure essentially turned itself mercenary, fighting for the side that was more profitable for them.
Iwagakure maintained a rocky relationship—no pun intended—with the majority of the shinobi nations, despite holding similar ideals and beliefs with Kumo and Kiri. Sakura blamed it on their inferiority complex. They had lost every war they had participated in no matter who they sided with, because Konoha always met them on the battlefield. Konoha and Iwa would wage wars across other lands, leaving them battle scarred and their people embittered.
True to form, Iwagakure had thrown its lot in with Kiri and Kumo, against the coalition of kekkei genkai clans that were calling themselves the Bloody Kebangagaan Rebellion. As far as the pinkette understood, the clans were taking Kirigakure's 'Bloody' name for themselves, twisting it into a badge of pride that stood for the unique abilities their bloodlines gave them.
Konoha, having been founded by at least one kekkei genkai wielding clan—it was a matter of great debate whether Hashirama's famous Wood Release counted as a Senju kekkei genkai when he was the first and only of the clan to manifest it. He may have been the sole wielder, but its capabilities ranked up there on scale of magnitude with Sharingan and Byakugan and, ironically, the Shikotsumyaku which rarely manifested in Kiri's own Kaguya clan. Aside from the founding clans, Konoha was home to several other kekkei genkais or clans that so closely guarded their techniques they might as well be considered kekkei genkai because the only way to get information on them was to marry into the clan.
Naturally, Konoha had come down on the side of the Bloody Kebangagaan Rebellion.
And just like that, the Third Shinobi World War started in 55 A.K., six years before it was supposed to.
Ninja were treated differently during times of war. Kakashi-sensei was living proof. Chūnin and on the battlefield at the tender age of five. Standards and requirements were restructured to meet the growing demand for soldiers.
Danzō, hidden in the shadows like the snake he was, used his Root agents to plundered battlefields, seizing kekkei genkai from each of the villages. With the power he had accumulated, he had forced Hiruzen Sarutobi to step aside, named himself the Yondaime Hokage, and began decimating those he perceived as Konoha's enemy, irregardless of whether said enemy was technically an ally.
The old war hawk played it smart, however. Konoha shinobi were loyal to a fault. Despite disagreeing with his methods, they picked up their steel and marched to war, defending the right of ninja with bloodline abilities across the nations to live without fear of persecution.
It was an attitude that earned them the derogative slur of tree hugger. Sakura found it ironic, to be honest. The other nations thought Konoha soft with emotion, and yet Konoha had picked the winning side of every war and were the driving force behind those victories. Konoha produced prodigies and monsters alike. Two of their Hokage had earned the moniker 'God of Shinobi.' The legendary Sannin whose skill and prowess saw them all considered for Hokage at some point. Then there was Minato Namikaze, the frightening Yellow Flash. He was one of the few people in the bounty book listed with a flee on sight order instead of a reward because the man was believed unbeatable. Kakashi-sensei. Itachi.
Konoha may have been soft, possessing a moral compass and preferring diplomacy over fighting, but they weren't weak. Far from it. Konoha was the powerhouse of the five great ninja villages.
And then the unthinkable happened. Danzō's perverse and depraved actions came to light. Where Konoha's ninja ranks had begrudgingly accepted stealing other villages kekkei genkais to keep them alive, when his underhanded tactics were aimed at their own bloodlines, the ninja rebelled.
Defected actually. The Uchiha were the first to abandon the village, but they were soon followed by the rest of the major clans. The Hyūga, Aburame, and Yamanaka were next once they learned Danzō's Root had been kidnapping their children and indoctrinating them. They took their close allies, Inuzuka, Nara, and Akimichi with them.
And before the world knew it, Konoha had fallen, crippled from within by one man's overpowering greed.
Long story short, the world had gone to shit more than a decade before Sakura was born, and after ten years of fighting, the lines had gotten blurred, sprouting a third faction that held chakra as the root of all evil. A surprising number of shinobi had flocked to that banner, drained and tired of fighting. The Third Great Ninja War had followed right on the footsteps of the second, and this group of extremists thought the solution was to eradicate all ninja.
Sakura's parents were not shinobi in this world, and upon discovering their daughter was capable of molding chakra, had handed her over to the Training Academy as the Yondaime's law demanded, not at all upset to see the back of her.
Proving herself capable of being a ninja, her parents had labeled her monstrous, something to be feared, and wanted nothing to do with her.
Sakura herself, five-years-old and just as indoctrinated by the regime of fear, had agreed. She absolutely loathed the idea of being forced to become a ninja and had grasped the only escape offered to her with both hands.
Her control was impeccable, and for all the Konoha needed soldiers, there was no higher demand than field medics.
It wasn't quite like the combat medic she was, but alternate-Sakura held zero interest in the fighting aspects of ninja life. She healed because she was ordered to, deliberately leaving behind scars as revenge.
The mere idea of such callous disregard pained Sakura, who frequently overextended herself to prevent such outcomes.
Thankfully, she had had practice at distancing the actions of one world's Sasuke from another which applied fairly well with her alternate self.
Though it was made easier by the knowledge that alternate-Sakura wasn't actually named Sakura. Different kanji were chosen to represent her name, turning Sakura into Ōka.
The revelation of her not-name was hysterical, because it meant she knew nothing about her current self, not even her own name.
Ōka had fled Konoha, seeking to escape the blood and death the endless commandants to obey, obey, obey, finding refuge in one of the numerous villages built within the massive bamboo forests that decorated the Land of Hot Water's topography, only for Sakura to out her as a ninja by blatantly healing the villagers in broad daylight and getting her kidnapped by whom she could only assume was a member of the Bloody Kebangagaan Rebellion based on the fancy-schmancy, and frighteningly strong, dōjutsu capable of manipulating people and tearing their thoughts out of their head that stared her directly in the face.
The rosette wondered if she should think of herself as Ōka or Sakura. So far, her alternate selves had been fairly similar to herself, or young enough in the case of the previous world that any preexisting personality hadn't mattered.
That was not the case with Ōka, the deeply troubled, and maybe even traumatized, medic attempting to escape the life of violence and blood and death forced upon her.
Sakura had enough psychiatric training, from official training and being Ino Yamanaka's best friend, to understand the whats and whys of Ōka's situation. However, she vehemently objected to the gross malpractice. Where she had previously been able to slot right into her alternate self's life, Sakura felt she could not this time.
It didn't matter that the scars Ōka left were superficial and cosmetic. It went against Sakura's very nature to not heal to her full capability.
Sakura considered herself to be . . . well, considerate. She couldn't help being flung from universe to universe, temporarily supplanting the native Sakura, so she tried not to irrevocably fuck up their life and leave a giant mess behind for herself when she moved to the next one. It's what she would want if she was being the soul being hijacked instead of the one doing the hijacking.
Admittedly, she had a small sample of incidences to reference, including one in which she faked amnesia and another where she was dead on arrival.
To be true to Ōka's character, the Salmon Cicatrizer, Sakura would be expected to perform second-rate, imperfect healings, leaving countless people marked forever by her hand.
Her interrogator withdrew his hand, but remained crouched on his haunches before her, Sharingan knockoff eyes still holding her immobile.
"So you're the one responsible for Jūzō Biwa. Heard rumor that he had been nearly bisected by his own sword. Impressive work."
Jūzō Biwa was a former jōnin from Kirigakure, one of the infamous Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. Inhumane brutality paired with deep loyalty. When he abandoned his village, he signed on with Akatsuki, who to no surprise were the hidden power behind the third faction aiming to eradicate all ninja. They were the only ones strong enough and crazy enough to come up with that plan.
He had been paired with Itachi, who had defected without slaughtering his clan. For all that total annihilation was Akatsuki's goal, he was a pacifist at heart. And with his clan planning a coup for good reasons this time, he didn't have the heart to strike them down. They would be dealt with alongside the rest of the ninja world.
The duo worked well together, until a fateful mission in the Land of Water. Jūzō was struck down, impaled by his own blade. Ōka, recently defected herself, was unfortunate enough to be nearby. Apparently, skilled medics were hard to come by. Akatsuki had been watching her, hoping to recruit. Itachi and Jūzō's secondary mission was to locate her and extend an offer, since they were in the Land of Water where she was rumored to be.
Itachi, young and idealistic, genuinely liked his partner. For all his bloody tendencies, the man was known for dyeing battlefields red with blood, Jūzō was cautious and meticulous and patient with Itachi, the newcomer. So, he went out on a limb and tracked Ōka down, praying that his comrade would cling to life long enough for him to return with the medic.
He commandeered the medic, swiftly knocking her out with his Sharingan and forced her to heal his partner.
Ōka had done so, resentful. The man obviously cared not for the scarring. He bore a massive cross shaped one on his face. Knowing that she couldn't punish him with another scar, Ōka hadn't fully healed him. She restored his perforated intestines. Made his split kidney whole again. She knitted together torn muscle. Removed shards of his spine embedded within his organs and then rebuilt it.
It was a reconstruction miracle that few could have pulled off. She had essentially restored his entire midsection from the bottom of his ribcage to his pelvis.
But she hadn't burned away the bacteria. She let it linger. Eventually, the blood poisoning would set in.
It was a simple fix for any medic, they wouldn't need someone like her to heal it. Jūzō and Itachi would be on their way, none the wiser to her dirty trick, and Ōka would flee to another location in attempts to hide from the ninja world. Hopefully, by the time the pair of missing nins cottoned onto her scheme, she would have vanished.
It just so happened that she sought shelter in a little village hidden in the massive bamboo forests of the Land of Hot Water, only for Sakura to drop into her place and ousts Ōka as one of those monstrous ninja, even though Ōka was strictly an medical ninja and had nothing else beyond the basic transformation, replacement, and clone techniques.
Sakura felt guilty. Partially for her actions which led to Ōka's discovery, but more so for Ōka's choices.
But she had a rare and unique opportunity to make up for that.
If anybody had need for an iryō-nin of her caliber, it was the Bloody Kebangagaan Rebellion.
Being considerate to her alternate selves was all well and good, until they proved to harbor a harmful disregard for other people's lives. This time, Sakura was going to do what was right, regardless of what it meant for Ōka. Ōka could deal with the consequences when she regained possession of her body.
It was no less than she deserved.
Sakura afforded the woman a lot of leeway for trauma and upbringing, scarring people as a coping mechanism was pretty out there, but she couldn't forgive deliberately not healing something that could have led to Jūzō's death.
"What would I have to offer you to get you to use those skills for us? Without any underhanded tricks?"
The pinkette contemplated the offer. It was rather open-ended. She could ask for anything. Desperate, this man would deny her nothing.
Should she ask for something on Ōka's behalf? That she be allowed to leave at any time of her choosing? Help in hiding her once more? Letting her walk away and vanish into obscurity at the end of all this? There was little point in asking for something for herself, as Sakura, so she may has well do Ōka a favor. Especially since she was about to dramatically up end her life.
Red eyes took on an amused glint as he watched her struggle. "Don't be afraid to speak up, girlie."
Unaware of her mental turmoil, her interrogator had assumed Sakura hadn't realized partial mobility had been given back to her, just enough to converse.
"Protection," she decided on. Sakura was going to play up Ōka's perception as just a medical ninja with no combat techniques unless directly engaged. "You keep me safe and free from the other groups hunting for me, and when the war is over, you let me walk away. No strings. No debts."
"Deal," the man grinned with satisfaction, hand extended. Sakura shook it without prompting or being manipulated. "Name's Oyashiro. Welcome to the rebellion, Ōka."
Truce secured, Oyashiro called for Nowaki to show her around. Nowaki was apparently the green haired teen that had accosted her mid-healing, though he was much slimmer now. Apparently the tall, buff appearance was used to make him more threatening and intimidating.
The Bloody Kebangagaan Rebellion bunkered down in the canyon that was the Valley of Hell, named so because the iron-rich waters and foul steam clogging up the air made it quite inhospitable to most life. But it worked well to mask the presence of several hundred shinobi.
Its location was mostly unknown. Most never wandered near, and any who did were met with the Chinoike clan's Ketsuryūgan, a fearsome dōjutsu that conferred genjustu casting abilities through touch, hypnotism and information extraction by delving into the mind, and control over liquids with high iron concentrations, like blood or the red waters of the Valley of Hell.
So, Sakura wasn't too far of the mark when she compared Oyashiro's dōjutsu to the Sharingan.
The Chinoike clan, all two that remained—En Oyashiro and his daughter Chino—were integral in defending the rebellion's safe haven. They used their genjutsu to trick people into believing the red waters were truly blood, to the point where natives to the Land of Hot Water were terrified to go anyone near the canyon they dwelled within. They also used it to make anyone who ventured too close forget about their sanctuary.
Occasionally, they would venture forth and bewitch promising ninja into joining their forces.
Hearing that explanation had been enough to make Sakura grateful that it was Nowaki and not one of the other two that stumbled upon her.
Sakura was expected to remain with the canyon, where En Oyashiro could personally guarantee her safety. She was actually impressed by their set up and just how many shinobi supported this rebellion to protect kekkei genkais. On their quick walk about, she had spied ninja clans from all five of the big villages, half a dozen minor ones, and several more that she didn't recognize. Her largest concern actually lay with the Ketsuryūgan, or more specifically everyone's reliance upon it.
Fearsome and powerful as it was, no kekkei genkai was flawless. There would eventually come a day when the Ketsuryūgan wasn't enough to keep the rebellion's location hidden. And, given that there were only two wielders, she could only imagine how thinly father and daughter were being stretched. It was fairly similar in terms of abilities to the Sharingan, and the Uchiha clan's dōjutsu came with some pretty significant drawbacks. She couldn't help but wonder what the downside to the so called "Blood Dragon Eye" was.
It was all academic, of course. Unless they tried to keep her here against her will, in which case Sakura would need to know how to shake off the Ketsuryūgan's control.
Not that Sakura thought Oyashiro would renege on his deal with her. Even with his kekkei genkai, a willing medic could do more than a puppet one. It didn't matter that he could control her body. His dōjutsu was limited to controlling the iron found in blood, nothing more. He couldn't manipulate her chakra system or force her to use any healing techniques.
No, what Sakura needed to watch out for was the hypnotism aspect. It went beyond mere genjutsu which only effected perception. The Ketsuryūgan was almost Yamanaka like in that aspect, in which it allowed the wielder to see into and manipulate the mind of their victim. So, maybe it was possible that Oyashiro could rewrite her memories to make Ōka believe she had joined the Bloody Kebangagaan Rebellion of her own free will.
The rest of the time Nowaki spent familiarizing the medic with the base camp, she critically eyed every ninja they passed. Were some of the ranks brainwashed into following Oyashiro? Would she even be able to tell?
Considering it was Naruto's attempts at reinventing one of the Yamanaka mind jutsus that landed her in this situation, Sakura was understandably leery of a kekkei genkai could permanently affect the mind on the scale the Ketsuryūgan was purported to.
Future problems aside, the only true downsides to Sakura's new living situation were the isolation and the absolutely foul-smelling odor the hot springs gave off. If she was expected to never step foot outside the canyon, her first priority was going to be inventing a jutsu that functioned like a gas mask. Nowaki had shrugged when she questioned how they could stand to constantly breathe in air that smelled of rotten eggs, claiming that she would become desensitized after a few days.
The true issue was her inability to leave the safe haven that was the Valley of Hell. Funnily enough, Sakura hadn't considered being told to remain in place a measure of protection. When she had asked for protection, she had been thinking more along the lines of a ninja or two that shadowed her everywhere to ensure she didn't get jumped or kidnapped. She hoped she could negotiate more freedom of movement after she had proven herself, which Sakura fully intended to do.
Because she needed to leave to find Naruto and Sasuke. Neither of their clans were counted amongst those seeking shelter in this infernal valley. Somewhere in this world were a Sasuke and Naruto that were being persecuted for being part of insanely skilled ninja clans.
Keeping the rebellion alive and in fighting condition was the least of what Sakura could do to aid them, but she had no intention of stopping there.
In a world facing what was ultimately a second rendition of the Warring States period that came before Konoha was founded, the Uchiha clan had returned to seclusion, relying on the strength of their admittedly fearsome reputation and skilled ninja to back it up—from Sasuke to Itachi to Shisui to Obito in the most recent generation, the Uchiha clan produced several prodigies with absolutely broken, overpowered Mangekyō—to defend themselves. They cared not for the plight of the rebellion or other clans with kekkei genkai. If they were not strong enough to defend themselves, to survive, then their kekkei genkais were unnecessary, and the clans themselves were burdens upon those they flocked to for protection.
The Uzumaki clan was still safe within their borders, protected by the whirling tides and blood-based seals. They, too, weren't inclined to sign on with the rebellion, but they aided those fleeing Kirigakure and opened their arms for the Konoha clans that had defected under Danzō's rule. By the time they had proven themselves to be a threat on the battlefield—many people forget the Uzumaki were genius at seals. Where most ninja only used basic seals like storage and barrier seals, the Uzumaki had weaponized them—Kirigakure was in no state to rally other nations into banding together to take down the Village Hidden in the Whirlpools.
They defended themselves against attacks, but otherwise both clans avoided the war that had consumed the Elemental Nations.
Sakura idly wondered what such a deviation meant for the Yellow Flash. Minato Namikaze had not been made the Fourth Hokage, nor did he seem to exist in Konoha at all. Had the butterfly effect resulted in Minato not being born, or simply not moving to Konoha? Or, perhaps he left the village before rising in notoriety. Maybe he escaped the ninja life entirely. Did he find and fall in love with Kushina?
She had to quickly pull the plug on that train of thoughts. It wouldn't do to have an existential crisis on her teammates' behalf, there was literally nothing she could do. Except fight the good war on their behalf, or in their memory.
If something wasn't done soon, the rebellion would fail, quashed under to boots of so many nations seeking their demise. Seeing as she didn't have direct access to either Naruto or Sasuke in this world, Sakura surmised her purpose was to bring them, and their respective clans, on board and strengthen the rebellion. Otherwise, the hundreds of ninjas hiding in the Valley of Hell would fade into obscurity thanks to the Ketsuryūgan, alive but confined, while the rest of the world forgot they existed.
It wouldn't take long for groups to become resentful and tensions to rise. The rebellion would crumble from within if left to its own devices.
They needed to win this war if they had any chance at survival, and they couldn't do that by hiding behind the Chinoike clan's highly manipulative kekkei genkai. If it failed and they were discovered, the rebellion was a sitting duck, tucked away in the depths of a canyon.
No way out. Nowhere they could retreat.
Thankfully, Sakura's dimension-hopping trick had taught her patience. She had all the time in the world to accomplish whatever she needed to do to convince the jutsu she had fulfilled her purpose. For her, time was literally an illusion. She could live years in one, dear Kami she prayed she hadn't jinxed it, and it wouldn't matter because the worlds were in no way connected.
She hoped for another quick resolution, like when she had been a ghost. It held the record for the shortest length of time spent in an alternate world. She was prepared to bide her time, to earn Oyashiro's and Nowaki's trust, to learn the defenses she needed to sneak past, to fool all the eyes watching her into believing that Sakura was a harmless rabbit skilled in iryō-jutsu and nothing else.
She didn't want to. Sakura was a member of Team Seven, and as such preferred decisive action. But she was prepared to play the long game.
And that's precisely what Sakura did.
The days after being coerced into joining the Bloody Kebangagaan Rebellion flew by in a monotony of healing, including arranging to assess those with promising chakra control. It was her plan B. If she had to stick around a long time, training up a dozen talented hopefuls would make it possible for Sakura to escape without one of the Chinoikes hunting her down, as they would have less need for her specifically.
When she wasn't elbow deep in surgery, an event that was few and far between considering how rarely the rebellion's forces made an appearance on the battlefield, or teaching medic-nins-in-training, Sakura slowly worked her way through the ranks forcing everyone within the valley to submit to a routine health check.
She was searching for any diseases or viruses. They were the kind of illness that cropped up during wartime, when groups as large as the Bloody Kebangagaan Rebellion were housed in such close quarters for long periods of time, and then quickly spread like an out of control wildfire. Sakura was lucky that the Valley of Hell contained numerous hot springs, allowing its residents to keep up with personal hygiene on a daily basis, making her job infinitely easier.
There was a lot more downtime then would be expected when war broke out. Those not in the know thought war was fast paced, never ending action, one battle rolling into the next until they all blurred together. Individual battles adhered to the average man's expectations, but wars were typically drawn out process. Even for ninja who could cross entire nations in a day or two, planning, organizing, supplying, moving, setting up and breaking down camps, and a thousand other mundane things meant regiments didn't move quickly. In her experience, which was two-fold because she had fought the Fourth Great Shinobi War twice—Kami what was her life coming to that that experience didn't actually rank high on her list of crazy shit that had happened to her—they spent more time waiting for intelligence to come in and then wasted even more time deciding how to respond.
War forced all its participants to learn patience.
And so, Sakura waited.
She let the days become weeks, which in turned rolled into months. She gained a reputation for spacing out. It wasn't intentional. In the beginning, Sakura sometimes forgot to respond when somebody called her name—Ōka's name that is. Infiltration missions weren't something she had any experience in, and given that she actively tried to disassociate herself and her alternate self in her mind, she forgot that she was Ōka and would then take a page of Kakashi's handbook and pretend she hadn't heard the person calling her not-name.
Sakura healed and instructed, taught and saved lives, and watched those that made of the inner circle of the rebellion Oyashiro and his daughter, Nowaki, and someone from the Kaguya clan which hailed from Kiri. The woman only had a spot because she had been leading Kiri's insurrectionists when Oyashiro had offered her forces refuge in his valley.
Nowaki had taken a liking to her, claimed not many would have sacrificed their safety—her anonymity—to help people that abhorred her, and often shared knowledge of their discussions.
And it was during one of these conversations that she realized that Oyashiro had played her for a fool, and suddenly she didn't have all the time in the world to earn his trust and sneak out of the valley in search of her teammates.
"Oyashiro says its time to move to the next stage," Nowaki said, dropping out of a shunshin to sit beside her at the edge of the hot spring. It was one of the smaller ones, slightly isolated, and she preferred it for washing and sterilizing her medical tools.
"The next stage?" she repeated, focus not wavering from her current task. Had he finally realized what Sakura had pegged months ago? The rebellion's current tactics weren't winning them the war. They also weren't losing, per say, but their perpetual stalemate couldn't hold forever.
There was a distinctive crunch sound, teeth piercing the skin of an apple. Nowaki chewed noisily before spitting out a seed, getting it to ricochet off of four things like a pinball before hitting the ground. "You never asked why none of the big clans aren't here."
Sakura's hands halted their scrubbing motion. Conceited as it was, she had figured them strong enough to not need to band together with other kekkei genkai clans. The major clans in Konoha were more than capable of defending their own, and likely more or less fine with that. Honestly, this war must have gone a long way towards stroking many clans' egos. "Clan politics are a mess. I can't imagine even getting all of one village's clans to come together in agreement, never mind across all the countries."
"They don't think the new-blooded clans are worthy. If we want to survive, we're expected to claw at victory with bleeding fingernails," he said furiously, face set in a scowl.
"New-blooded?" That was a term she was unfamiliar with. Was Nowaki referring to the minor clans. Sakura supposed she could understand why they would coin a new term to describe them in comparison to the major shinobi clans that made them sound less inferior.
"Clans that can't trace their chakra back to the Rikudō Sennin. All those high and mighty clans. Uchiha. Uzumaki. Hyuuga. Ōtsutsuki. Even the bloody Kaguya clan. They wouldn't have lifted a finger to help us if Oyashiro wasn't capable of hiding them from the rest of the world. He was their salvation, the light in their darkest moment, offering to hid them from Kirigakure's fearsome hunter squads that sought to annihilate them. Even after he proved what the Ketsuryūgan could do, they scoffed at him. Called it an inferior dōjutsu."
Sakura stared at him with horrified fascination, akin to when you saw a train wreck. You just had to stop and gawk at the crunched and twisted slabs of metal and wonder what caused it.
She didn't know any of this. When Oyashiro had dove into her mind and forcefully brought forth her memories of this world, Sakura never saw anything that hinted at this level of blood prejudice amongst the clans.
Ninja were practical people. They could hate a clan for elitist attitude while still respecting that they were a powerful clan that could trace their roots back to the original Warring States period and could beat them to a pulp without the fancy kekkei genkai their blood afforded them.
Sakura had been concerned, upon awakening in the sulfurous canyons of the Valley of Hell and being subjected to the dōjutsu, about the Ketsuryūgan's mind altering aspects. She had been grateful that Oyashiro had needed a competent, willing iryō-nin too much to mind-whammy her into believing that Ōka had fled Danzō's Konoha to join the Bloody Kebangagaan Rebellion.
She hadn't realized he had fucked with her memories before waking her up to interrogate. She didn't know truth from history from cock-and-bull story. It was all a set up. She was fighting for a faction whose goals were entirely unknown.
What did Oyashiro get out of this mind fuckery? A semi-loyal, highly skilled medic. That couldn't be it. His deception was on another level, rivaled only by the self-proclaimed Rabbit Goddess Kaguya.
Was the war even real?
Kami, was her alternate's name even Ōka?
It was such an insignificant piece to hyper-focus on, but Sakura really wanted to know. Ōka's decisions and thought process had never meshed with Sakura, and, every time she healed someone without leaving a scar as a memento, she wondered how someone who was supposed to be her could behave in a manner that so utterly contradicted her.
Maybe Ōka was a Ketsuryūgan invented construct to give Sakura a history that Oyashiro could manipulate.
Nowaki may have had more to say, but Sakura cut it off by stowing the freshly cleaned tools into a carrying basket. Her mind may have scattered, trying to chase down and logic out what was true and what was a lie, but her hands had fallen back into the repetitive motion of cleaning. And thus, all her tools were clean, and Sakura had a ready-made excuse to escape this conversation.
Sakura had wasted precious time playing into the lies Oyashiro fed to her. Nowaki certainly had more to say, as evidenced by the surprise he didn't bother to hide when she claimed she needed to return the now clean tools, but now the rosette knew she couldn't trust a word out of his mouth.
She had had an escape plan in place by the second day, only holding off on slipping her leash until her disappearance wouldn't hinder the rebellion that fought to defend kekkei genkais' right to continue to exist.
She was breaking out of the Valley of Hell tonight.
Undercover of darkness and genjutsu, Sakura scaled the canyon walls.
She glanced at the moon, gauging its position in the sky to determine which way she needed to go to head east towards Uzushiogakure. She knew where it would be if it still existed, and figured they'd be easier to convince than the Uchihas to fight against Oyashiro's personal army, even though the Sharigan's genjustu abilities were probably the only thing that could counter the Ketsuryūgan's mental manipulations.
It was also reassuring not so see the Rinne Sharingan superimposed over the moon.
The truth was out there. And she was going to find it.