Chapter Text
The third Hokage was, to say the least, worried. With the upcoming chunin exams and the slowly crumbling alliance with the Sand, he knew there was one bargaining piece he had left.
A quick note - a message only three words long. It was the Leaf's last chance at keeping their piece.
'She is alive.'
-
Sakura always felt a bit off from the rest of her family. Well, by family, she meant her parents. There was no other family. No cousins to play with in long summer afternoons, no grandparents to pinch her cheeks and spoil her rotten. Any time she asked about their clan or where they were from, a quick smack to the mouth was all it took to shut her up.
With her new team, she asked them a huge favor. "Help me find out who I am." She had said.
And they agreed.
Naruto, with his dumb sense of optimism and never being able to see underneath the underneath, thought she meant her future. He had loudly proclaimed that she would be his wife.
That had earned him a punch off the bridge.
Sasuke, having observed the girl for many years, knew what she meant. She was the only female not to fawn over him, and that interested him. Not in the way that he wanted her, but in suspicion. How her hair never quite matched her parents, or how she was always looking outward of the village like she wasn't quite there.
Their stares met, and they understood one another.
The matter was dropped, until one day, Sasuke was dead on a bridge and Naruto was taken over by a monster-
Sakura made the impossible happen.
In her grief and rage, she disappeared in a puff of cherry blossoms and was stabbing Haku through the gut, not enough to kill but oh god Sasuke was dead and Naruto was gone and she was alone-
She doesn't remember how the battle ended.
What she does know is that the villagers came to their aid, that they won and Sasuke was alive and breathing and Naruto wasn't crying and Kakashi was proud.
What she doesn't know is that Kakashi set fire to the plant that had grown where she stood when she teleported.
Back at Tazuna's house, she was plagued with nightmares. Nightmares of sand choking her and seeing bodies littered in the street. Of her tanned hands reaching and screaming towards a little boy with beautiful red hair and so much sorrow on his face.
Nightmares of the boy being eaten by a monster, and of her fear and agony.
She woke screaming, Naruto and Sasuke by her side and a name falling from her mouth like the sand that suffocated her.
"Ume!"
It was a whisper, but enough for her throat to close and a glowing light appear on her forehead before she passed out once again.
-
In the end, it was Kakashi who told them the truth. And by truth, he told them what they were permitted to know.
"Sakura, you were not born in leaf."
It wasn't a shock to Sakura herself, or even Sasuke. Naruto took a minute to process before his jaw dropped open. Kakashi took it upon himself to speak again before Naruto could start squabbling.
"Most of everything is confidential, but your clan was married into another a long time ago as part of an alliance between us and another village. However, when you were still a child, your clan was killed off in an incident that led you to us. The council deemed it necessary that your memories of the attack and of your life be sealed away for not only your safety but for village security. Your past identity is that - the past. You are Sakura Haruno now, and that cannot change until the time is right."
It was quiet. Naruto was still trying to understand what was happening, while Sasuke began to have flashbacks of his own clan's massacre. Sakura's head began to pound, just a little.
"What do you mean 'when the time is right', sensei?" She finally said.
A deep inhale. One of tiredness and in need of a nap.
"You are now a bargaining chip for the leaf. Your future is being sold to your original village in exchange for peace. You have finally become a true shinobi, Sakura. You are a pawn ready to defend it's King."