Don't Wanna Sing Sad Songs Anymore (Only Wanna Sing Your Songs)

by TinySakura

Summary:

Haruno Sakura had picked left. Born again as Hyuga Neji’s little sister, Hyuga Sakura must find her way through this world and face the multiple setbacks and advantages she’s been given here. But she’d lived a life of freedom before, now she will give Neji his.

Alternate sequel to Final Duties.

Chapter 1

Left.

Sakura had chosen left.

Hyuga Sakura was born again on April 1st, the same year as the rest of the heirs and heiresses of their class had been born. When pink hair had clearly shown through at the time of her birth, her parents had been perplexed. Who had ever heard of a Hyuga with pink hair? And minutes later, when her eyes opened slowly, they were once again at a loss. Black and Hyuga white. Two different eye colors were extremely uncommon in the Hyuga household, and the last person to be born with such had been Hyuga Kimiko, her great-great-grandmother on her mother's side. But even then, they had been dark lavender and the typical Hyuga white.

So, maybe she wasn't so different after all, but everyone questioned her parentage. Had her mother been in a scandalous relationship with another man? Had the main branch of the Hyuga overlapped so strongly that an anomaly like Sakura could've been born? No, many thought, her mother is simply a harlot.

And yet, Hyuga Hizashi couldn't have been happier that his second child had been born. Yes she looked different, but she was theirs, she would be given all the love he and his family could afford to give her. Neji had been there mere minutes after she had been cleaned and returned to their mother's arms. He looked at her in wonder, he was but a baby himself, but he knew that it was his job to protect her. He was nii-sama now- and he had another duty to uphold.

He and Sakura were special. Their father had been saved from the Caged Bird Seal when their grandmother had put her foot down to a tradition that would separate the two twins permanently. They were the only ones saved from the curse the rest of the side branch family had to face every day. Yet, they were still not the main branch, all the same.

Should a time come where their disobedience is strong enough to earn them the seal, then their fate was set. Should there ever come a time that the main branch member needed the life of theirs, they would receive it all the same. Fate could not be changed. There was much talk if the young children's mother should be removed from the picture for having such an unsightly second child. Hizashi would have no say in the matter, he was a part of the "middle" and so would his children be. But their children, should they chose to have them, would be forced into the cursed seal regardless of their parent's status.

The mother must be put on trial, some argued. The girl must be put down, some agreed. Send them both away, others wanted.

They were always to be cursed. Neji was acceptable, even if he was a child of his mother's. But the mother and daughter duo must be kicked out. They were cursed, vile, unsightly.

Hizashi could do nothing about these words. He had a place in this clan. Defending his family would bring them nothing but strife. He couldn't risk anything happening to his children. They were so innocent. They didn't deserve this.

Neji wanted to cry at what they had called his family. He was barely one when she had been born and he didn't understand how Sakura could smile so carefree like she did. He began to grow bitter towards the world. Face, plain in front of the clan but twisted in disgust in the privacy of his own home. He adored his mother, and Sakura was just a baby. But, he knew. And dammit, it was ingrained into his being. He couldn't defend them. He couldn't protect them. But one day, he swore to the gods above, one day he will be able to be proud of himself for being able to defend his family.

But Neji and Sakura's fate would constantly be on thin ice. There would be no one to turn to in their case, they were hated by every member of their clan besides their parents. They were free but also chained down by colossal weights, should they ever go against the main branch's wishes. The constant shadow of doom clearly hugged the small family.

The mother, Kaito, a wicked harlot.

The father, Hizashi, the only exception.

The son, Neji, a nobody, the outsider.

The daughter, Sakura, a cursed monster.

---

Sakura never once cried as a typical baby should. She didn't cry if she was hungry, didn't cry if her diaper needed to be changed, didn't cry if she got hurt, didn't cry if she was awake and alone. Sakura was not a typical baby but it showed proof that she was a Hyuga, nonetheless.

The Hyuga did not make a fuss, they did not complain, they did not show emotions. The Hyuga were good soldiers who followed orders and served the clan until their deaths. This was the life of a side branch Hyuga and it would be their law so long as that's the wish of the main branch.

The first time Hyuga Sakura cried, she cried silently as she watched her mother die from the opium she consumed in hoards. The sticky, sweet buns had been specially made by their mother's request and happily filled out by the side branch. No one would breathe a word of this to her husband before her death. It wasn't as if they objected, this is what the clan had wished for. An overdose of opium was a woman with class' way to die. While the clan disagreed on her every move, they agreed that she deserved a simple way out of this world. And if this is what she wanted, then this is what they would grant her.

Their mother, who loved Sakura and Neji and Hizashi dearly, was clinically depressed and deeply suicidal. The freedom Hyuga Kaito wanted was a permeant one. She wanted to free her children of their problems that they would continue to face should she stay alive in this world with them.

Hyuga Kaito was a simple woman. She loved her family dearly, completely every duty and task with elegance and grace, and would take any secret to the grave with her. The birth of Hyuga Sakura would be the sole secret she would take. She couldn't let anyone know how Sakura had been created. She would take the darkness and pain of that night to her deathbed and let it rot in hell where it belonged.

'Sakura deserved better,' she always thought.

"Please forgive me, my love," were the last words she would ever speak.

In the middle of the day on August 21st, one year and some months after her last child's birth, Hyuga Kaito died without a last note or explanation for her deeds. The moment her body started convulsing, Sakura's black eye had turned a fiery, glowing red. The flower pattern in black spun slowly as it drained the chakra reserves of its host.

By mid-afternoon on that warm August day, a startling commotion awoke the youngest child in the Hyuga household from her chakra exhaustion. For the second time in her life, and on that day, Sakura cried once more.

Sakura knew the truth, and she would take that truth to the grave with her. She had seen what she had gone through during the war. PTSS, Sakura had diagnosed it in her head. In such a cruel twist of fate, Sakura knew that the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

When she had still been alive, Sakura knew that she could never face the child that had ever been conceived from such a nightmare. Yet, she knew that she wasn't given the choice. She would never have known if she could face what that monster had put inside of her. Her mother, the beautiful and kind Kaito, had been stronger than Sakura could have ever imagined being.

Hyuga Kaito was as perfect of a parent as she could be. She made it through what Sakura had killed herself over, she had birthed a child from a monster, and she had gazed at Sakura with a look of love. She never once showed the pain of raising her. She never once thought of smothering the reminder of that night in her sleep.

Something clicked inside of Sakura that night. She was the child of a monster. She had been loved by a woman who was reminded constantly of that pain. She had originally set her mind on living to give Neji the freedom he had always deserved. But now, she would live for her mother and fight for that monster of a father to rot in hell.

Yes, she had been given a second chance. Yes, she would fight to get her way back to the top. She would fight for those who've lost their battle in her world and in this one. Here, she would not stop until the wrongs of this world were set right.

She chose left while Neji had chosen right.

She had gone left, where nothing is right.

But damn it all, it'll be righted if she has anything to say about it.

Here, she is Hyuga Sakura.

And here, she will not fail.

Chapter 2: 2

Summary:

Pain is the one name you can call a friend and an enemy.

When Sakura was three she had yet to awaken the Byakugan in front of anyone besides her brother. When white and black eyes caught sight of his frown, she cringed and knew why he was so upset. She now had awakened the Hyuga doujutsu and would be under close watch just as her nii-sama and her otou-sama. 

She saw the pleading look in his own pearly white eyes that she could take back the fact that she had been capable of that damned cursed jutsu. Baby teeth bit the pink bottom lip of their owner as she deactivated the Hyuga doujutsu and activated the Uchiha one in her other eye. She heard her brother’s breath hitch. He knew she was screwed.

But maybe he didn’t understand that she was an anomaly now, that she had realized a while ago. She had both the Sharingan and the Byakugan. She could be used as a pawn now, a purely political pawn. But, it gave her an advantage. Now, she could never be heir, but now, at least, she couldn’t be sealed by the curse that hung over her brother and their father’s head.

She would now be saved from that damned curse, but now she would be forever stuck in a game of politics between two powerful and noble clans. Perhaps Hyuga Neji didn’t understand that she was more screwed than he was in this fucked up world, and perhaps Hyuga-Uchiha Sakura didn’t understand how much pain her life would be dragged through but they knew that all they had was each other.

They weren’t twins, weren’t able to communicate telepathically, weren’t able to see into the future, but they were there for each other. Sakura’s unshed tears glistened threateningly, challenging her brother to speak in some unknown code. But he knew better. They both knew better.

Hyuga didn’t show emotions. Hyuga didn’t disobey orders. Hyuga fought and followed orders like perfect soldiers. But, Hyuga were damn good secret keepers. As long as Sakura never activated their shared doujutsu, and as long as Sakura activated her Sharingan on the weakest level, then she should be able to grace by life without the pressures that her brother had to. But, as soon as she exposed herself as part Uchiha then she would open her family to scrutiny. That was something that none of them could take any more of.

It would break their father in unimaginable ways. It would make her more of a monster than she was already. Sakura already barely spoke, only speaking a few words here and there to her brother and barely at all to her father. She loved her small family with everything she had, but how could she defend her mother and say that she never took another man into bed. Hyuga Kaito was raped.

And, in another life, Haruno Sakura was raped.

Neji nodded his head softly and understood her request. Neither of them would speak a word of this. Neji would continue his training with their doujutsu and Sakura would continue to be frail and useless. Yet, Sakura was anything but.

Her workouts were discrete and away from others. She used her Byakugan to keep an eye out for others who could be watching, she would begin storing minuscule amounts of her plentiful chakra into her forehead. Her Sharingan would allow her to learn by watching others train. Her reserves were much larger in this life than in her life as a Haruno. But, she needed it more so in this life. She needed more to keep up her secrets, to keep Neji-nii-sama safe, to keep her father within the safety of her area of vision.

When Sakura was three and a half, she began her training under the Hyuga main household. She never received the coddling or attention that Hinata or Hanabi received but she was grateful for it all the same.

Sakura caught the slight glances of anger directed towards her cousins (maybe sisters of a sort) coming from her nii-sama. He was angry, and he had every right to be. Neji was angry at the fate that had been given to them. If their father had been born just minutes earlier then they would be able to live peacefully. They would be able to be free of the heavy burdens that chained them down.

“Again!” Hiashi barked.

“Hai!” She pushed herself up from her kneeling position for the third time.

“Again!” More wind knocked out of her.

“Hai!” She pushed herself off the ground for the seventeenth time.

“Is this supposed to be trying?” He mocked bitterly. “Do not disappoint your grandmother!”

“Hai!” Her lip was split and bleeding.

“Block this, you insolent child!” Blood spurt out of her mouth.

Her father was off on a mission and couldn’t witness this. Neji sat facing her with a stone-cold face. No emotions, they had always been reminded. But if you were looking carefully enough, you could see that he was looking at a spot of the wall above where she constantly fell and stood. He couldn’t bear to see her face but bit his tongue harshly. It may bleed later, but better his tongue bleeding than being sealed.

“Again!” Hiashi ordered. His frustration was beginning to show. She was beaten, bloodied, tired, but why didn’t she just give up? Why did she and her brother have to fight back harder than his own child? Why was it that his child was pathetic, but this demon child had unknown resilience?

“Hai!” Her hair was entirely caked in grime by now. There was a healthy trickle of blood pouring from her mouth. But she would not give up. She would not falter and have her brother pay the price for her weakness.

“Again!” Hiashi’s brows were furrowed tightly. Why did this monster deserve to be free of the curse seal even if she couldn’t awaken the Byakugan? His brother’s harlot of a wife birthed a demon. Her chakra pool was enormous and not even he had the reserves she did when he was a child.

“H-Hai!” Her breathing was erratic. Her left eye was almost swollen shut, she knew that he did this on purpose.  Her left eye proved that she was a Hyuga. He detested her and didn’t want to see the fact that she belonged. Her legs wobbled and hands shook. She caught the sadistic smirk on his face. The rosette didn’t dare narrow her eyes, though. She knew the consequences.

“Do you wish to stop, child?” He snarled the last word out like it was a curse. He was taunting her. He would get away with it too. He always did, even if her father was around.

“N-No!” Her small voice wavered but she stood up again and again. She would never back down. Not when she could still fight. Not when she had too much to lose. Not when she knew that Neji could be called to train right after her. She had to wear her uncle down. Her brother loved her fiercely, and he might let his anger slip if he fought right after her. Sakura couldn’t risk that.

He knocked her down again. Her head smacked the ground harshly. She knew that it would be bleeding heavily if she happened to hit it once more. She had been healing herself over these past few nights. They already called her a demon, why not heal herself when everyone else slept anyways?

In another world, she had made fun of Naruto along with the other kids. In this world, she was the demon of this clan. She was a monster. She knew that they were wary around her. Her chakra pool was too large, she healed too fast (she never showed her healing ninjutsu though), she was colored oddly… She was different. And if anyone knew human nature, then they would know that “different” scared people.

Sakura would make damn sure the world was scared of her.

There was a cut above her good eye, bleeding enough to blur her vision even more so, the opening on the back of her head was leaking a small stream of blood, her left eye was completely swollen shut, there were nicks and bruises adorning her whole body, her breathing was labored. She could continue. She had to.

“That is enough, Hiashi!” an older Hyuga slammed his cane down three times. “That child needs to go to the hospital.”

“T-Touya-sama!” his maid stuttered.

Hiashi backed down from his challenge with Sakura. He bowed to his father. He would not be seen showing disrespect to him. Not when his father still held the title of clan head. “Hai, otou-sama!” 

“Sakura-chan…” Touya’s wife, Nadeshiko, called out softly. Her son was so harsh to her grandchild.

Sakura struggled to walk towards her before crashing to the floor. Before she could hit the floor, Neji-nii-sama had caught her. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered into her ear as she drifted towards unconsciousness. The young Hyuga grit his teeth. He couldn’t stand up for her, he would only hurt himself instead and cause her more pain.

Maybe it was selfish, to wish others to harm his little sister so he could save the day. He didn’t truly want her to get hurt. He just wanted to be given a chance to save her and show her how much she meant to him. Catching her right now wasn’t good enough. But soon, he would be given the chance to prove his worth as her older brother.

“You are too harsh on that child, Hiashi,” scolded Touya.

Nadeshiko held out her arms for her only grandson to place her other grandchild into her arms. After a moment, he handed over his younger sister. He bit his tongue again. Should he thank them for aiding his sister? Would it be disrespectful to show gratitude for something that should have never happened in the first place? 

“Thank you, Obaa-sama.”

Nadeshiko’s face softened. She had been of the side branch before her marriage and never once forgot what it had meant. She loved all her grandchildren, she truly did. But her heart always broke for Neji and Sakura. Their fates had been sealed the moment their father was born. If she were to be completely honest, her favorite grandchild was Sakura, herself.

Sakura would’ve been an amazing clan head if she had just been born to a different father. Her backbone was strong as chakra enforced steel and her fight had always been born from the ferocity of her heart.

Nadeshiko had originally been the one to protest her second son’s fate for the cursed seal. Her husband, bless his soul, had backed her up then. But should she bring up her wish for what to do with Neji and Sakura… would she be denied this time? She prayed to their god, Kaguya that she would not. Kaguya had never disappointed her yet, but would she pull through her grandchildren this time?

 

XOXOXO

 

In the darkness of Sakura’s hospital room, Nadeshiko whispered her plan to her husband. The older woman’s breath was held by the weight of the words she had just spoken.

Touya’s thick, brown eyebrows furrowed. After ten minutes, he agreed to his wife’s plan with a simple nod.

Nadeshiko wanted to cry. Her big, strong husband was a saint. It was wrong, what they were doing. But they knew the young rosette’s secret. This was the one way she and Neji could be free. The guilt of who she would be hurting could weigh down on her another time. Her grandchildren needed to be free.

Notes:

This literally hurt writing. Like, I was actually in pain writing. I hurt my wrist and OH MY GOD IT HURTS. But I hope you like where this story is going so far! Also, yeah, Hiashi ain't the clan head! I can't have my story flow that way if he is.

Notes:

Ahh! I've been constantly debating on which option I wanted to choose for the sequel of Final Duties. I've been banging my head against my desk trying to figure out what to do with both of my options, so here's the one I went with.

In Final Duties, I originally created a world where Sakura would be reborn as Hadou Sakura and in the world of MHA/BNHA. But here, she'll be born as Hyuga Sakura. This way, I get to live out multiple versions of how I believe that Sakura could've been reborn in.

Please review! It makes my tiny heart soar.

-Tiny.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of Sakura's Chance at Redemption