Chapter Text
Sakura is seventeen when her world shatters.
It happens like this: her team stumbles upon Sasuke and Danzo because of course they fucking do.
(Team 7’s horrific luck seems to carry over to whatever team she or Naruto find themselves embedded on.)
Ino’s the one that spots Sasuke before anyone else. She’s the one who acts first, the one who raises her hands to try and stop him for just a moment so that the rest of the team can get their bearings. Were it anyone else on the battlefield, Sakura knows that Ino’s plan would’ve worked flawlessly.
Ino’s plan fails, not because she’s weak (Sakura would kill anyone who thought that, if Ino didn’t do it first), but because it was created with the assumption that whoever wore a Konoha hitai-ate was an ally. Danzo isn’t an ally. He’s a traitor of the worst kind: the kind that sees his allies as disposable.
When Danzo’s eye catches a glimpse of Ino, it doesn’t see a Konoha shinobi - it sees another tool.
Before anyone can react, his arm is around Ino’s neck and her body has become his shield. Sakura knows what his plan is even before he’s finished pulling Ino in front of him, and she knows that like Ino’s plan, his is doomed to fail. She knows that he thinks that Sasuke will pause at the sight of an old friend in danger.
They’re not friend s, Inner hisses. Ino is ours.
But Danzo both overestimates the relationship between Sasuke and Ino, and underestimates the man himself. He doesn’t see what Sakura sees when she looks at Sasuke. He doesn’t understand the depth of his hate, doesn’t understand just how far Sasuke has fallen.
Sakura does.
She sees the look in Sasuke’s eyes and then she’s running, screaming, begging Sasuke to not do what he’s about to do. She prays to anyone and anything that will listen that Sasuke will hear her for once but it’s all for naught.
The moment his electric spear pierces Ino’s chest, Sakura feels like her own heart has taken the blow.
It makes her stumble for half a second.
She can hear Danzo choking in shock, can hear the rest of her team shouting, but she pays them no heed. All she can focus on is the soft gasp that leaves Ino’s lips.
She recovers her footing and moves faster than she ever has in her life - even faster than when she fought Orochimaru all those years ago - because Ino’s eyes are wide and then there’s blood dripping down Ino’s lips.
Help me, Sakura begs the forest around her and the forest obliges her plea.
Roots rise up to cut through the lightning and force Danzo and Sasuke back. Sakura hears Sasuke’s roar of outrage but she doesn’t bother to even spare him a glance because her eyes are on Ino.
(They’ve always been on Ino.)
She can feel the strain on her chakra coils as she shushin’s towards Ino. She vanishes in a flash of cherry blossom petals one moment and reappears by Ino’s side with cosmos blooming at their feet the next.
Lightning flies towards her, but Sakura isn’t bothered by the light or the scream it makes because she knows that Sai has her back.
And he does have her back in the way that Sasuke never did.
The Chidori Spear never reaches Sakura. Instead, it’s intercepted by a furious ink tiger that explodes into a spectacular shower of black ink that has the added bonus of giving Sakura extra cover to shushin away unseen.
That’s our boy! Inner crows.
She lands on one of the cliffs with Ino in her arms. It tears at her to lower the blonde to the ground, but she has to because even with the distance between them and the fight below, this position is still exposed. She brings her hand together to create a barrier and the earth moves as the roots rise up in response. It’s an ugly thing, something that Tenzo-sensei would sigh and shake his head at, but it’ll serve its purpose regardless of how it looks.
She turns her attention back to Ino just as another tiger made of ink appears.
“Cover us,” she tells it.
It nods like it understands her. It probably does; for someone who claims to be without emotions, Sai’s art always contains pieces of his heart and soul.
“Go after him,” Ino gasps out.
“No.”
“Sakura-” Ino tries, only to break out coughing.
“Stop talking!” Sakura says harshly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Those that abandon the mission are trash. Those that abandon their comrades, however, are worse than trash. Sasuke may be enemy number one now, but Sakura would rather be trash than leave Ino to die. When it comes down to it, she’ll pick Ino every single time.
Because we picked Sasuke once before , Inner murmurs, and look how that turned out .
Sakura’s hands light up with healing chakra. The green is barely visible through the blood on Ino’s chest. Still, she keeps her eyes focused on the wound and counts every breath that Ino takes.
“W-why?” Ino rasps.
“Because-”
Because if Sasuke is the second-coming of Madara, then Sakura is the second-coming of Hashirama. Because she’s come to believe in love the way that Sasuke believes in hate. Because Ino is the sun to the flowers that Sakura grows.
“I can’t lose you,” she whispers. “I can’t.”
She presses down harder on Ino’s chest, as if it will be enough to stop the gushing blood under her hands.
It’s not.
There’s too much blood.
She can feel tears building in her eyes because she can’t make it stop . She tries, gods, so tries so hard.
It just won’t stop.
“S-Sakura,” Ino rasps out.
“Shut up!” she snaps. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
How many times has she told Ino that throughout their shared lives? How many times has made that promise to her?
She pours as much chakra as she possibly can into Ino’s wound, trying desperately to get it to stitch shut. It’ll leave an ugly scar, but she’ll take an ugly scar on Ino’s skin if it means-
“Sakura.” It’s a whisper. “Please, s-stop. It’s-”
Blood spatters Sakura’s face with each cough that leaves Ino’s lips.
“It’s okay.”
No, it’s not. Ino is bleeding out beneath her and she can’t do anything .
She flinches when Ino manages to brush a hand against her cheek.
“It’s…it’s what I wanted,” Ino murmurs.
“Why?” Sakura can’t keep the sob out of her voice.
“Because-” She watches Ino’s throat bob- “because I love you, Forehead. And I can’t, I couldn’t-”
The next round of coughs is wetter. It’s a sign that Sakura is fighting a losing battle.
(She won’t stop fighting. She can’t.)
“Can’t lose you either.” There’s a soft smile touching the corner of Ino’s lips that Sakura wants so badly to hate. “I can’t.”
So you’ll make us lose you? Inner screams.
Sakura bites back a scream of her own. What spills out instead is, “I love you too.”
She sees the joy that sparkles in Ino’s eyes. For a brief moment, she thinks that it will be enough. That it’ll be the thing that keeps Ino here with her.
Then it fades like the colour in Ino’s skin.
“I’m so glad,” she whispers.
She sees Ino’s eyes flutter.
No! Inner shouts.
Her hands shoot to Ino’s face, healing forgotten.
“No, no, Ino!” Her voice breaks. “Ino, please, stay awake! Stay with me!”
Don’t leave me , she wants to beg.
It’s all for naught. It doesn’t matter how loud she shouts, how much chakra she pours into Ino’s body, or how much lighting chakra she removes. There’s nothing more that she can do.
She holds Ino’s body against hers, chest heaving with sobs.
“Ino, please don’t leave me,” she whispers around tears, as if the words will be enough to bring the woman she loves back.
They aren’t.
Yamanaka Ino is dead and nothing Sakura does can change that now.
-
(The forests shudder and grow dark.
Petunias, orange lilies, red dahlias, and black roses sprout in the shadows.
Sasuke doesn’t notice.
He has no idea just what kind of enemy he has made.)
-
Sakura carries Ino home.
Choji starts to protest, an offer on his lips to carry Ino in her stead. He falls silent when Shikamaru places a hand on his shoulder and shakes his head.
“She’s a medic, Choji,” is all he says. “It’s not like Sakura can just hand her off.”
It’s a half truth and everyone knows it. Sakura’s medical obligation to Ino ended when the blonde died. Still, no one calls Shikamaru out on it and for that, Sakura is thankful.
She has no idea how long it takes them to get back to the village. By the time they arrive, she feels dead. Her arms are burning from the weight of Ino’s body in her arms, but she keeps her grip firm and keeps moving forward until she spots the medics at the gate.
The medics rush forward almost as soon as they cross the threshold of the gates.
Sakura tenses - and so does her team.
There are yelps as the medics are pinned by Shikamaru’s shadow. Choji, bless him, places himself between them, his body doubled in size to be their shield.
Sakura tightens her grip around Ino.
Some part of her, the part that’s barely alive, vaguely registers the deja vu of the situation.
“Stand down!” Tsunade shouts.
They don’t.
“Tsunade-sama, let me.” Sakura blinks when she hears Shizune’s voice. “Sakura-chan, it’s Shizune. I’m stepping around Akimichi-kun to look at you, okay?”
Sakura says nothing.
Moments later, Shizune is in front of her.
“Sakura-chan, I’m going to take Ino-chan, okay?”
Sakura takes half a step back. “She’s my patient,” she says. “I can’t just hand her off. Protocol for patient care in the field is-”
“I’m assuming care for your patient, Sakura-chan,” Shizune cuts in, voice gentle but firm. “I have her.”
Sakura stares at her for a moment, then glances down at Ino. Paleness aside, she looks like she’s just sleeping.
“Sakura-”
“She was hit by lightning chakra,” Sakura says absently. “Her nature is earth and she was hit by lightning chakra. I tried-”
Her voice catches in her throat.
“I tried,” she says. “I tried.”
She can’t get the rest of the words out.
“I know.” Shizune’s voice is soft now.
Sakura feels like her arms lose all their strength as Shizune carefully, almost reverently, takes Ino from her. She watches Shizune’s back as she walks towards the medics who somehow managed to avoid getting pinned in place.
It’s only when she hears the quiet buzz of Shikamaru releasing his hold on the first medic squad, does Sakura take a tentative step forward like she’s about to follow.
She’s stopped by Naruto’s arm on hers.
“Ne, Sakura-chan-” he starts.
Shikamaru shoves him out of the way.
“I have to report in, Shikamaru,” she says, voice dull.
Inoichi isn’t at the gate. He has no idea that his daughter is dead. She has to be the one to tell him.
Shikamaru takes her arm and wraps it around his shoulders without a word. By now, Choji has returned to normal size, and does the same with her other arm.
“You’re part of Team 10,” Shikamaru mutters.
“We report in together,” Choji finishes.
She doesn’t miss the way that Ino’s boys’ voices break as they recite the motto that she’d come to learn when assigned to their team for their second crack at Chunin Exams.
“And after that?” she asks quietly.
An expression darker than any shadow he’s ever wielded crosses Shikamaru’s face.
“He pays.”
-
She finds Inoichi at home.
That fact is enough to add to the dread that fills her stomach. Then she spots Ino’s grandmother with him.
“Sakura!” he greets, a wide smile on his face.
(He always has a smile on his face when he sees her, like he’s happy to see her around. Like he’s happy she and Ino are together.)
It disappears in an instant when he sees Shikamaru and Choji by her side.
She can see the wheels turning in his head as he takes the three of them. She doesn't miss the way his eyes flick over them nor does she miss the way they settle on her. She can feel him honing in on the darker spots of red on her shirt.
(She'd kept wearing red because it was great for hiding blood. There's no hiding Ino's blood though. Not now.)
His nostrils flare, almost imperceptibly, like he's taking in the coppery smell of blood that's soaked itself into her clothing.
She swallows hard.
“Inoichi-san,” she starts.
“Not here,” he says. “The clan hall. It is clear that there is…much to discuss.”
She would much rather do this here in the kitchen. There’s more for her to look at, more for her to occupy herself and distract from the fact that she’s about to tell Ino’s father that his daughter is dead because of her.
She defers to him though. Her wants matter little in the face of a man who is both a Clan Head and soon to be a grieving father.
(Inoichi has always been a grieving father.)
The walk to the Yamanaka clan hall is an unfamiliar one for her. It is also terrifyingly silent. The Yamanaka compound is usually a noisy place. It’s a place filled with voices and laughter and life .
Except for today, it would seem.
A part of her wonders if all that life left with Ino.
She’s never felt more unprepared for something than she does now.
The shoji door slides open.
They all enter silently.
Inoichi assumes his position on the platform towards the front of the room. Ino’s grandmother sits next to him.
Sakura sits back on her knees on the tatami. Shikamaru sits behind her on the right. Choji takes his position to her left.
She watches Inoichi take a breath.
“Speak your news,” he orders.
This is not the head of Konoha’s Analysis Team speaking, she realises. This is a Clan Head demanding news from another Clan Head.
Her stomach clenches.
“Ino is dead,” she tells him.
The declaration tastes like ash in her mouth.
Inoichi’s face is frighteningly blank.
“How?”
“It’s my fault.” The words spill out before she can stop them. “I-”
“She died protecting Sakura, Inoichi-oji,” Shikamaru cuts in. “She did everything she could to save Ino-”
“Shikamaru-” she tries.
“Who-” Inoichi’s voice is soft. It echoes in the empty clan hall all the same and stops the argument in its tracks- “killed my daughter?”
“Uchiha Sasuke,” she answers. “Shimura Danzo was complicit. He used her as a shield.”
The words are bitter on her tongue. If only she'd been faster.
Inoichi’s chakra tears through the clan hall like a winter wind shredding a field of flowers. It chills Sakura to the bone. She can see her breath in the air and-
Ino’s grandmother places her hand on Inoichi’s arm.
The winds die down in an instant.
Sakura glances at his eyes.
They are dark with rage and grief.
“Is Danzo dead?” he asks.
Sakura has no idea. She hadn’t been paying that much attention to him. Once she’d stolen Ino from his arms, her focus had been entirely on the blonde.
“He is, Inoichi-oji,” Choji confirms. “Sakura’s retrieval of Ino led to his death.”
Inoichi sighs heavily.
“Inoichi-san,” Sakura says. “I am sorry, both for your loss and for Ino’s death.”
“What reason do you have to apologise?” Ino’s grandmother asks.
“I couldn’t save her,” Sakura replies. “I couldn’t-”
She stumbles
Blood that pours without end
Lightning searing her hands as she tries to guide it away from Ino’s heart
Ino’s smile
She tastes salt on her lips.
There’s a soft groan of, “Troublesome,” from Shikamaru.
She doesn't bother to wipe her eyes. Instead, she keeps them focused on the spot just beyond Inoichi’s head. She can’t look him in the eyes anymore.
(There are three clans in Konoha whose eyes you do not meet: the Uchiha, the Hyuuga, and the Yamanaka. To meet the eyes of any of them is done at one’s own peril.)
She truly is the Godaime’s apprentice, she thinks, being unable to save the woman that she loved the same way that Tsunade was unable to save Dan.
“Did she die alone?” Inoichi asks.
Her gaze snaps back to him in an instant. She will look him in the eye as she immediately answers, "No, she-"
Her throat goes dry.
It’s what I wanted.
Why?
Because I love you. And I can’t lose you.
She forces the words out, “She died in my arms.”
Inoichi is silent for several moments. Sakura sees his fists tighten, then relax.
“You brought her back to us,” he eventually says. “As a father, I am thankful. As a fellow shinobi, I must ask why?”
Sakura hears the full question loud and clear even if it goes unsaid: Why bring her back when you know what the protocol is?
Her hands flex unconsciously on her lap.
She could say that she brought Ino back so that Inoichi and the clan could have a body to bury. Or she could say that she had forgotten protocol, so caught up in her grief as she is. Or she could even say that protocol and Team 7 were like oil and water, so of course she brought Ino’s body back.
She doesn’t say any of that though. Instead, she opens her mouth to say some version of the truth - that she brought Ino back because she’s selfish, that she brought Ino back because she couldn’t bear the thought of burning the woman she loves, loved, to ash even if she was already dead - then hesitates.
(She brought Ino back because she loves her.)
Understanding dawns on Inoichi’s face.
“You brought her back because you loved her,” he says.
Sakura, to her credit, doesn’t tense at his words. She clenches her fists on her lap, however.
Eyes as blue as the sky on a clear spring day.
Ino’s hand in hers, chakra intertwining.
A field full of cosmoses .
“I do.”
We always will, Inner says softly.
Understanding gives way to realisation. “Oh,” he says.
Sakura can feel her brow furrow. She watches him exchange a significant look with Ino’s grandmother.
“Ino never did tell me how you managed to break the clan’s Shintenshin jutsu,” he says.
Ice settles deep in Sakura’s gut.
“Now I know.”
She registers the tatami mats creaking behind her, like Choji and Shikamaru are weighing if they need to step in. A part of her is touched.
I still don’t like our odds even if it's the three of us against Ino’s dad, Inner mutters.
She doesn’t either.
She doesn’t need to worry about a fight breaking out between her and Ino’s father though. Not when he gives her a smile that’s sad and warm all at the same time.
“The banners of the Yamanaka Clan are yours, Sakura,” he says.
She blinks. Well, that’s an unexpected tangent.
She thinks she hears Shikamaru choke behind her.
The words are old, but not unfamiliar. She still remembers the stories that her parents told her when she was younger, the tales of banners and bannermen commanded by the Haruno when they were samurai. She doesn’t understand what sparked their declaration from Inoichi though. At no point did she mention needing, or wanting, the banners of another clan.
“Why?” she asks.
The Haruno haven’t been samurai for several generations. She is a clan of one now. What about any of that warrants another clan - a Founding Clan at that - throwing its weight behind her like this?
His eyes darken.
“I had a son once,” he says.
That’s news to Sakura. Ino never mentioned that to her. From the confused noises that Shikamaru and Choji let out, she never told them either.
“His name was Fu. Danzo killed him because he couldn’t get my daughter.”
(Although Danzo and his daughter are dead, Inoichi will never admit that Fu agreed to the trade. He will take the truth - that the boy who was his son in every way but blood lied through his teeth to the second most powerful man in the village and said that he was the strong one, just to protect the girl who had become his sister - to the grave.)
Even though Danzo is dead, even though Ino is-
She is-
Fury still crashes over her like the waves of a stormy ocean.
“You killed the man who orchestrated the deaths of my children,” he says. “For that, I am in your debt. For that, I will give you the banners of my clan.”
The debt and payment are predicated upon a lie, Inner says.
I know, Sakura responds.
There has to be more to this. It will be easy enough for anyone to counter Inoichi’s claim that she killed Danzo. She knows that she didn’t kill him. Not directly, anyhow. She’d been too busy trying (and failing) to keep Ino alive.
“Were things different, the Yamanaka Clan’s banners would be accompanied by a marriage offer to my daughter,” he admits.
Sakura’s heart clenches.
“But Ino is dead-” She can’t stop the way she flinches- “and war is on the horizon. I will not dishonor her by leaving you unprotected. You will need allies. We will stand with you.”
Inoichi stands and approaches her.
She hears Shikamaru and Choji snap to their feet, ready to come to her defence.
Inoichi crouches down in front of her.
“Inoichi-san-?” she questions.
He pulls her into a hug.
Sakura stiffens.
He’s warm, like Ino. He smells faintly of flowers, but none of the ones that Ino smells like.
“I am sorry for your loss as well, Sakura,” he says gently. “We share in your grief too.”
The dam breaks.
She buries her face into his red haori-
(Red, like the red dahlias that have sprouted across the forests of Konoha)
And she cries.
She cries for Ino. She cries for the final seconds that they had, wishing that she’d been braver, sooner. She cries at the injustice of it all.
She cries like her heart is shattered beyond repair.
Because it is.
-
Ino’s grave is right next to Asuma’s.
Her funeral is even more attended than his was.
The entire Yamanaka Clan is in attendance, as are the Nara and Akimichi. The Konoha 11 stand in between the gathered clans in a show of support. Sakura is unsurprised to see Ino’s colleagues from T&I and the hospital appear as well.
She’s good at that, making connections, Inner muses.
She is , Sakura agrees.
Sakura, for her part, stands with the Yamanaka.
(She would have stood with the rest of the Konoha 11, but the Yamanaka in attendance had guided her forward with gentle, almost protective hands, and pitying glances.)
It rains during the funeral.
Sakura thinks it’s apt. It lets her pretend that the water rolling down her cheeks is from the rain itself rather than her tears. She tunes out everything except the stone slab in front of her.
Ino’s headstone is a simple thing. It looks like everyone else’s in the cemetery: a name, the village symbol under it, a space for flowers.
Yamanaka Ino .
Half a second.
That had been the difference, Sakura is sure of it. If she’d just been half a second faster, Choji wouldn’t be crying his eyes out, Shikamaru wouldn’t be plotting revenge for the second time in his life, Ino’s father would be grieving the loss of his daughter and she-
She wouldn’t be here .
She wouldn’t be staring at Ino’s grave.
We would be at home with her , Inner says.
Home.
Sakura absently wonders when the Yamanaka compound became home for her.
(It became her home the day a girl with blond hair saw another girl hiding behind pink hair like a shy little ghost as she wept and decided that that girl needed a friend.)
She startles slightly when Inoichi places his hand on her shoulder.
“I think she would’ve wanted flowers from you,” he says, voice barely audible above the rain.
Sakura swallows, then nods.
It’s only a few short steps to Ino’s headstone. Every step that she takes makes it real. It’s agonising.
She crouches in front of Ino's headstone. Rain drips down her face.
Am I as pretty as a cosmos flower, Sakura-chan?
She trails her fingers through the grass in front of the stone. Red and pink carnations, dark crimson roses, and bush clovers spring up in her wake.
She stands.
I love you, she wants to say. This is not the place for that though.
Instead, she says, “See you around, Pig.”
Her voice is soft without heat. She can picture Ino rolling her eyes.
Four words in place of the four she desperately wants to say.
I love you, Ino.
I love you.
I love you.
-
(Shikamaru’s father and Choji’s father both approach her after the funeral.
“Heard that the Yamanaka are rallying to you,” Shikaku says quietly.
“Perhaps,” is her response.
She trusts Shikamaru and Choji, but she does not trust their clans the way that she trusts the Yamanaka.
“Count the banners of the Nara clan amongst their number, then,” he says.
“And those of the Akimichi,” Chouza adds.
She can’t stop the slight frown that appears on her lips at their words.
Sensing her unspoken question, Shikaku shoves his hands into his pockets.
“Ino-Shika-Cho stick together,” he says. “If our sons are half as hell bent on making Sasuke pay for what he did as you clearly are, then we might as well put them and our clans behind someone who will lead them well.”
Neither he nor Chouza ask her what she plans to do to Sasuke.
That question is reserved for Kakashi. He asks it when he finds her on her way back to the Yamanaka compound.
“Stop him, what else?” she replies.
She's going to kill him.
Kakashi is silent for the longest time. The only sound between them is that of their footsteps as they walk down the street.
Then, “It’ll break you.”
Because Sasuke had been her teammate, once. He’d been hers, once.
We’re already half-dead, Inner mutters.
Sakura gives him a small half-shrug. “There’s not much left of me to break,” she says.
You can’t really break something that’s already dead.)
-
Sakura is still seventeen when she goes to war.
She ignores the whispers of the veterans around her who served in the Third Shinobi World War. They warn about the coming hell they’re all about to face. She doesn’t need their advice, not when she’s been living in hell ever since Ino died in her arms.
She takes her role as chief medic for the Allied Shinobi Forces without complaint. She heals the seemingly endless number of bodies that get carried to her medical outpost until word reaches the rear about the White Zetsu showing up in droves. All she has to do is glance at Tsunade, who waves her off to the front.
Fighting the White Zetsu is child’s play for her.
Maybe it’s because they use a bastardised version of the Mokuton that offends her to no end. Or maybe, she’s just become used to the earth’s tells. Whatever it is, it lets her cut down White Zetsu after White Zetsu. At some point, Inoichi makes contact with her, allowing her to feed her strategies to HQ (although, they’re less strategies and more feelings). Slowly, the war seems to turn in their favour.
Then Kabuto summons the dead. Suddenly, the battle turns the other way because how do you fight the people you loved and buried?
As hard as you can, Sakura learns when Ino’s chakra brushes against hers right before she appears in front of her, Shikamaru, and Choji. And with everything that you have.
“Ino,” she breathes.
She's radiant, Inner whispers.
Ino’s smile is warm. “Hey, Forehead.”
Sakura swallows hard.
For a brief moment, it’s just the two of them in a field full of cosmoses. Everything is as it should be.
Or at least, it is until Ino clicks her tongue.
The field vanishes.
The world returns.
“Sakura.”
She tilts her head. “Yeah?”
Ino’s hands move. “Do you have me?”
Sakura nods. “I have you.”
The earth erupts.
Sakura moves.
It’s an easy dance that the two of them fall into.
Sakura fires off her favourite suiton justu.
Ino counters with a wall of rock.
She smashes through it like it’s nothing.
Ino meets her with a flurry of senbon.
Push and pull.
The world fades away with every move they make until all that exists within Sakura’s focus is the woman trying to kill her. It’s just the two of them again, two best friends and (almost) lovers.
They know each other too well to be enemies.
(They’ve shared souls.)
Sakura drops her guard for the briefest of moments. To anyone with a set of eyes, it’s clearly a trap.
She’s not surprised when Ino goes for it anyway. She knows the next step of this dance.
She turns and Ino is there.
“I have you,” Ino says.
To anyone else in this situation, the words would be a threat. For the two of them though, they’re just a simple fact of the life that they’ve woven together.
(It’s the promise that the two of them have whispered to each other in empty training fields filled with flowers and pitch black bedrooms.)
“I have you too,” Sakura responds.
Her hand moves.
Ino’s fingers lace with hers.
Their joined hands move together.
Ram.
Horse.
Dragon.
They break apart.
Suiton: Suiryuudan no Jutsu needs 44 seals to be formed without a massive chakra drain. Sakura will make do with three.
“Doton: Doryuudan!”
“Suiton: Suiryuudan!”
The air shakes as their dragons roar. It explodes seconds later as her water dragon and Ino’s earth dragon smash into each other with a force that renders Sakura breathless.
And she is breathless. Between the amount of chakra that she just lost and seeing the woman she loves in front of her again, she’ll admit that she’s feeling a bit winded.
Ino, unsurprisingly, is unscathed.
Suddenly, she jerks like she’s been stung. No, not stung.
Captured .
Sakura spots the shadows rooting Ino to the ground.
“Sealing Team, go now!” she hears Shikamaru shout.
Seals wrap around Ino’s body within moments.
It’s a sight that brings tears to Sakura’s eyes. She knows what’s coming. She’s seen enough of it over the past several hours.
Despite Shikamaru’s shadow holding her firm and the seals wrapped around her body, Ino still manages to reach for Sakura’s face.
Sakura doesn’t even flinch as Ino cups her face. The touch is gentle, just like it always is. It’s enough to cause her tears to start rolling down her face.
“Promise me that you’ll keep living, Forehead,” she says.
How can she promise that when she’s had to live for the past several months without Ino?
She chokes out something that definitely does not resemble words. The meaning must get through all the same, because Ino’s sigh is soft.
Her forehead meets Sakura’s.
“Promise me, my love,” Ino whispers.
We can’t , Inner sobs.
She can’t make that promise when she knows what it’s like to live in hell now.
Ino’s lips find hers. They’re surprisingly warm. Her lips taste like ash and dust with a hint of jasmine.
Sakura kisses her back all the same. She feels Ino nip her lip and gasps. The next thing she knows, Ino’s chakra crashes into hers.
It’s euphoric and agonsing all at once.
“Promise me, Sakura,” she feels Ino murmur against her lips.
We-
“Promise,” Sakura mutters back. “I promise.”
She feels Ino smile. She pulls back to see the seals almost finished with their work.
“I love you,” Ino says, her voice as warm as the sun.
“I love you too.”
The smile is still on Ino’s face as Suna’s Sealing Corps finish the seal.
Sakura can taste salt on her lips now. She brings a hand up to wipe her eyes.
“Shikamaru. Choji,” she calls out. She won’t break down here. “Let’s go. We have a war to win.”
(She ignores the barely there flutter in her chest.)
-
Sakura thinks that the reappearance of the dead will be the worst that this war has to offer. Were Kabuto the only player, that would be true.
Then Madara summons the Juubi and Ino’s father-
Ino’s father dies.
Sakura doesn’t see it coming.
No one sees it coming. The people who see it coming are, in a twisted moment of irony, are the ones who are about to die. They’re hundreds of miles away unable to do anything other than issue final orders and say goodbye.
Sakura isn’t ready.
(She wasn’t ready for Ino to die either.)
I need you to listen to me, Inoichi’s voice is sharp across her mind.
Inoichi-san, she tries.
Surely, there are others he wants to talk to. Surely, there are those who mean more to him than the girl with pink hair who loved, loves, his daughter.
Sakura, he says, you are an honor to your clan and to mine. I am proud to have seen you and Ino grow and blossom side by side with each other over time.
Sakura can’t hold back the sob that his words draw forth.
She can picture him smiling like Ino. May I make one final request of you?
Anything, she says.
Win.
I will, Inoichi-san.
Good. Sakura can picture him nodding approvingly. Goodbye, Sakura.
Inner weeps when he severs their connection.
Sakura’s fists clench so tight, she swears she can hear the seams of her gloves creak in protest.
-
The front has turned into chaos.
She’s met by the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi clans upon her arrival. Shikamaru is at their head.
“What are your orders, Sakura-sama?” One of Ino’s clansmen, Kohan, she thinks is name, asks.
“What-?”
She looks at Shikamaru, not quite understanding what is happening.
“Our banners are yours,” he reminds her. “We follow your lead.”
In the distance, Naruto and Sasuke appear.
“Cover me,” she says.
Like Ino would, goes unsaid.
Choji and Shikamaru must hear it all the same though because they nod.
“We have you,” Choji says.
The words put her at ease. She will never trust them the way that she trusts, trusted, Ino, but she trusts them enough to know that they will protect her until the end.
(Shikamaru and Choji couldn’t protect Ino. They will protect the woman she loved.)
Sakura makes her way towards Naruto and Sasuke.
“Naruto,” she greets.
She doesn’t greet Sasuke. He may be by Naruto's side right now, but he’s not Sakura’s ally. He killed Ino. For that, she will never consider him her ally. As it stands right now, she has to fight the urge to rip his eyes out of his head even as Inner screams for his blood. She will tolerate his presence because they are in a warzone and nothing else.
“Sakura-chan!” Naruto looks pleasantly surprised to see her.
“What’s the plan?” she asks, brushing his surprise aside.
“Stop Madara from using his eyes on the moon.”
That’s not a plan , Inner sighs.
“That’s better than nothing,” she says aloud. “Alright, let’s go.”
She flexes her hand and takes a step forward, only to pause when she hears Sasuke scoff, “What, you’re going to lead us?”
She glances over her shoulder. “Why not me?” she questions. “I already have the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi behind me.”
She allows herself a moment to enjoy the disbelief in his eyes. Then, she moves and leaves Naruto and Sasuke in the dust.
(She won’t be left behind any longer.)
It takes three clans to do what Ino did by herself. Despite the number of people moving around her, Sakura finds that she’s in balance with them. She clears entire swaths of enemies with a punch alongside Akimichi hands one moment and skewers others with roots the next. Dozens of Yamanaka become Shikamaru’s eyes, allowing his clansmen to take out the enemies that Sakura can’t see, being up close as she is, with well-placed kunai and seemingly endless and nimble shadows.
(Later, when people tell stories about this battle, they won’t touch too much upon the Uzukami and his toads or the Uchiha and his snakes. Instead, they speak at length about the pink-haired woman who was the second-coming of Hashirama and the clans who followed her lead.)
The fight against the Juubi is a brutal one. Slowly but surely, they manage to turn the tide of battle.
With Naruto and Sasuke joining the efforts on the front, they whittle down the Juubi’s clones until their force and the Shinobi Allied Forces numbers outpace its ability to produce them. For a brief moment, Sakura allows herself to think that maybe, just maybe, they have this.
Out of nowhere, night suddenly turns to day.
Other shinobi stutter and falter around her but Sakura doesn’t. She’s too busy raising a wall behind Naruto to protect him from an ax that he doesn’t see coming. In the corner of her eye, she sees the God Tree moving.
Then she spots a woman with chakra beyond description.
Even from the distance that she’s at, it feels overwhelming. She forces herself to move bcause Naruto and Sasuke are moving.
The air shimmers as space distorts.
Naruto and Sasuke jump.
Sakura leaps and-
-
And Sakura punches a god in the face.
She’s not thinking about the way that Kaguya’s cheek buckles from the force of the blow. She’s not thinking about how tired she is or about how sore she’s going to be in the morning or even about how bullshit it is that it’s come to this.
None of that crosses her mind. Instead, she thinks about Shikamaru and Choji and Inoichi. She thinks about Ino and the feel of Ino’s lips against hers. She thinks about the words that she and Ino shared.
I love you, Forehead.
Promise me that you’ll live.
Promise me.
It’s those thoughts and that promise that fuels Sakura. It’s those thoughts and that promise that drives her first into Kaguya’s face. It’s those thoughts and her own grief that has Sakura pouring every ounce of chakra she has left from the byakugou into her fist.
(It’s a reckless move, one that Tsunade will kick her across Konoha for attempting if she survives this.)
“SHANNARO!” Sakura roars.
FUCKING BLEED BITCH! Inner shouts alongside her.
Kaguya may be a god, but Sakura is a woman fueled by grief, desperation, love, and more than a little bit of fury. No god, not even the Mother of All Chakra, stands a chance against such a combination.
Her punch sends Kaguya into the waiting palms of Naruto and Sasuke.
I wish we could send her directly to hell, Inner spits.
Sakura agrees. She wants Kaguya to bleed the same way thousands of shinobi have bled over the last four days. She wants Kaguya to hurt the way that she is hurting right now. But most of all, she wants Kaguya gone. Forever.
And that, she figures as she watches the Rikudou Chibaku Tensei complete itself, is close enough to hell for someone like Kaguya that Sakura will accept an eternal seal in place of a trip to hell.
The moon created by the seal is ugly.
She tells the boys as much.
Naruto sputters in indignation whilst Sasuke scoffs.
“I’d like to see you do better, Sakura,” he sneers.
The vicious grin that Sakura gives him is all teeth. “I punched a god in the face, Sasuke,” she says, voice sweet and dangerous all at the same time. “And I did that with my own power.”
His sneer turns into a scowl.
Kakashi coughs. “Maa, maybe we can discuss this further once we’re out here,” he suggests.
That is a fantastic idea, Inner growls. We have so much to discuss.
“...how exactly do we do that again?” Naruto asks.
Sakura sighs.
-
(The Rikudo Sennin ends up bringing them back with the help of all the dead Kage.
Naruto, unsurprisingly, flips his shit when he notices that they’re surrounded by ghosts. Sakura makes a small crater with his body because really? After everything that they’ve done and see over the last four days, ghosts of dead Kage are what freak him out?
Before they’re sent back, the Sage takes a moment to place his hand over her heart.
There’s a flash of green followed by a breeze that she swears carries the scent of jasmine.
What was that? Inner questions.
He smiles. “Repayment of a debt.”)
-
“So,” Sasuke drawls as they survey the battlefield, “are we good?”
Is he fucking serious? Inner demands.
Sakura stares at him for the longest time. Then, without warning, she spits in his face.
She hears Naruto choke in the background as Sasuke stumbles back.
“What-?” Sasuke starts to ask.
She punches him in the face.
He goes flying across the battlefield, stopping only when his body meets the cliff on the other side.
“What the fuck?!” she hears Naruto screech.
She doesn’t bother to answer him. Instead, she sprints towards the figure that’s slowly trying to pull itself out of the crater in the distance.
Sasuke gets as far as his finger tips before she’s on top of him again.
She drives him through the cliff with another punch. She doesn’t even flinch with his blood splatters against her face.
She waits for his body to come to a rest, then her hands together. “Mokuton: Jubaku Eiso,” she says coldly.
Thick roots wrap around him to hold him fast.
Sasuke snarls as he struggles, “What the hell is your problem?!”
“My problem?” she questions, returning his snarl. “You killed the woman I love.”
She doesn’t miss the way his eyes narrow, almost like he’s offended by what she’s saying.
“ Ino ,” she stresses, “is dead. Because of you . And you had the fucking nerve to ask me if you and I are good ?”
Before she realises what she’s doing, her hand flexes.
The roots move to begin crushing the bound Uchiha.
She takes sick satisfaction in the way that he chokes.
Now he gets to know what it’s like to choke on your own blood the way that Ino had to , Inner says.
There’s hate and rage in his eyes.
She’s not bothered by it. She knows that he doesn’t have enough chakra left to do anything to stop her.
She gives him a bored look that she hopes conceals her own rage.
“Lightning isn’t my nature affinity,” she says, “so I can’t do to you what you did to her. It’s fine though. I’ll settle for this.”
“Sakura-” he chokes out.
“Sakura-chan!” she hears Naruto shout behind her. “Stop!”
Like hell , Inner snarls.
She doesn’t respond. She keeps her eyes on Sasuke. She can feel his bones cracking from the pressure.
“Stop!” Naruto cries out again.
She feels his hand on her shoulder.
She waves her other hand. The ground shakes as roots rise up to restrain him. Unlike the roots that hold Sasuke, she’s careful to keep them from crushing Naruto.
“What are you doing?” he yells.
“What does it look like?” she asks. “Executing a criminal.”
“He helped us stop Madara and Kaguya,” Naruto tries. “He’s not a bad guy, Sakura-chan-”
Not a bad guy? Is he serious?
“He killed Ino, Naruto!” she snaps.
“So you’re just gonna kill him?!” he demands. “He’s our teammate-”
“No,” she cuts him off, “he’s not.”
Sasuke stopped being her teammate the night he left her on a bench to join the man who killed her parents. Any chance that there was to change that died when Ino did.
“Kakashi-sensei, c’mon, stop her!” Naruto desperately pleads.
Sakura glances at Kakashi.
His eyes are unreadable.
It’ll break you.
There’s not much of me left to break.
He shoves his hands into his pockets. “I don’t think I can, Naruto,” he says. “She’s got the Mokuton and more chakra than I do right now.”
She hears Naruto squawk in fury.
She turns her attention back to Sasuke.
There’s blood on his lips now. A few more moments, a minute at most. That’s all she needs.
Her hand flexes again, tightening the roots even further.
That’s all-
Chakra flutters against hers. It feels like a spring breeze passing through a meadow. She recognises that chakra signature anywhere.
Ino.
That’s not possible, Inner says.
“Sakura-chan-”
Sakura can feel something pulse through the earth. It’s faint, so it takes her a moment to recognise what it is.
It’s a heartbeat.
She knows that heartbeat just like she knows that chakra signature.
(How many nights had she fallen to sleep listening to Ino's heart in the darkness of their shared bedroom?)
Her hands go limp. The roots don’t stop crushing Sasuke, but they don’t continue either.
“Sakura,” Kakashi speaks up. “What is-”
She takes off before he can finish.
-
It takes Sakura ten minutes to reach the God Tree.
She runs at top speed using chakra she definitely doesn’t have. Each step that she takes feels as though it takes a lifetime.
Just one of many that we’ve lived in the last four days , Inner murmurs.
The God Tree’s vines are slowly fraying, revealing dazed and confused shinobi. Sakura pays them no attention as she speeds past them - she only has one person on her mind right now.
She spots Shikamaru and Choji first. The sight of them gives Sakura hope; she remembers an old saying that wherever a Nara and an Akimichi are found, a Yamanaka is sure to be close by. She hopes it’s true.
“Oi, Sakura, what’s-?” Shikamaru starts to greet.
“It’s Ino,” she says hurriedly. “She’s here.”
The fact that he and Choji don’t even ask her if she’s sure speaks volumes to the connection that she’s made with Ino’s teammates.
Instead, Shikamaru just asks, “Where?”
She doesn’t have an answer for him. She just follows the heartbeat that she can feel through the sea of roots until they come across a particularly large cluster.
“Here,” she says. “I think she’s here.”
Choji’s hands double in size. He and Sakura quickly get to work ripping the roots apart.
The more wood they remove, the stronger Ino’s chakra signature gets stronger. They don’t stop until they spot platinum blonde hair. Even then, Sakura keeps going until Ino is wholly in her arms.
She shifts so that Ino is pressed against her chest. The blonde is so warm against her.
Ino’s eyes flutter open. “Sa-kura?” she rasps out.
Sakura lets out a small noise of relief. “Hey,” she chokes out.
Hey? Are you kidding me? That’s all you have to say?! Inner demands.
Sakura ignores her because Inner is on the verge of tears too.
“Shika? Choji?” She watches Ino take in the landscape around her. “I, I’m back?”
Ino glances at Sakura. “I’m back?” she asks again.
Sakura nods. “You’re back.” She can feel her lips tremble. “You’re back.”
She can’t stop her voice from breaking.
“How?” Ino asks.
“The Sage, I’m pretty sure,” Sakura says. “He said something about a debt repaid, probably for punching his mom in the face.”
This is what he meant. He’d brought Ino back, somehow.
“Wait, what?”
“His mom was a god and I punched her in the face. It was great.”
It’s probably the only highlight in her life since Ino died, second only to this moment.
Despite herself, she finds her lips twitch into a small grin when Ino giggles. It fades as quickly as it rises when Ino’s own smile fades.
“My dad?” Ino asks.
Sakura’s heart clenches. “I’m sorry,” is all she can say.
Ino stares at her for the longest time. Sakura thinks that she would fidget under the blonde’s examination if she wasn’t so busy taking in every detail of Ino’s face. The blonde has some cuts from the wood, but otherwise looks unscathed. Her eyes are so blue - have they always been that particular shade of blue?
“Sakura?”
Ino’s voice startles Sakura from her observations.
“Yeah?” she husks.
“Kiss me?”
Sakura does without hesitation. Unlike the brief kiss that they’d shared as enemies, this kiss is like kissing the sun. It’s warm and comforting. For the first time in months, Sakura feels alive .
She nips Ino’s lip.
Once more, Ino’s chakra crashes into her. This time though, the experience is different. Ino is in her and then she is inside Ino.
What? You knew? Inner asks.
Of course I did, Ino replies. My soul is yours and yours-
“It’s yours,” Sakura says aloud. “My soul is yours for as long as you’ll have me.”
She’ll say those words to Ino every day until they die, provided her ancestors and the spirits of the Founders will take pity on her in a way the gods clearly have not and grant her a run that is as long as the forests of Konoha are deep.
(They will. They see her and everything that she has accomplished and decide that perhaps the universe can be kind to the woman who punched a god in the face.)
“Can you just ask her to marry you already?” Shikamaru interrupts. “Ancestors and gods above.”
Ino turns bright red. “Shika!”
“He’s got a point, Ino,” Sakura muses.
“Sakura!” Ino sputters.
“Marry me?” she asks.
Ino’s sputters die out almost instantly.
“Marry me,” Sakura repeats, “because I just had to spend the last nine months without you and I never want to do that again.”
“You already declared your love for her and all that, Ino,” Choji pipes up. “And I think your dad kinda offered a proposal between you two when he gave Sakura-chan the Yamanaka Clan banners."
“My dad did what? ” Ino asks, clearly stunned by this piece of information.
The Haruno were samurai once, Inner says.
Sakura shrugs, a small smile back on her lips. “What do you say, Ino? Do you want to-”
She finds herself being interrupted by Ino surging up to kiss her again.
“Yes,” she feels Ino murmur against her lips.
Sakura blinks. “Yes?” she whispers.
“Yes, Sakura, I’ll marry you.”
Sakura’s smile turns into a full-blown grin. “Wanna go on a date while we’re at it?” she asks, only half-joking.
She doesn’t miss the way Ino rolls her eyes whilst Shikamaru groans in the background.
“You realise that most people go on a date or two before they propose, right, Forehead?”
“When have we ever been like most people, Pig?” Sakura tilts her head. “Besides, I need to make up for lost time. So what do you say?”
They’ve lost so much time. Sakura refuses to lose another moment.
Ino softens even as she rolls her eyes a second time. “Yes, I’ll go on a date with you too, you idiot.”
“Who’re you calling an idiot?” Sakura scoffs without any real heat.
“You, but you’re my idiot.” She doesn’t miss the way Ino’s eyes fall to her lips. “Sakura?”
She hums.
“Kiss me again?”
Sakura smiles. “Whenever you ask.”
Their third kiss is passionate and just shy of bruising with a hint of desperation. Sakura recognises it as the kiss that the two of them could have shared if things had gone differently nine months ago. Ino must recognise it too, because Sakura feels Ino’s arms pull her closer, feels Ino press herself harder against her. It says everything that they should have said years ago.
Be mine.
I love you.
I’m here.
I will always have you.
“For the record,” Ino says once they break apart, “for a genius, you can be real dumb sometimes.”
Sakura pointedly ignores the way Shikamaru snorts and Choji coughs.
“It’s a Team 7 thing,” she says weakly.
“No, I’m pretty sure that’s a you thing,” Ino teases.
Oh, it is absolutely a her thing, Inner grumbles.
Sakura’s eyes flutter when Ino reaches up to brush her hair behind her ear.
“I love you anyway, Forehead,” Ino says.
Sakura leans down to catch Ino’s lips with hers. “Love you too, Pig,” she hums against Ino’s lips.
(Unbeknownst to them, the petunias, orange lilies, red dahlias, and black roses that sprouted across the forests of Konoha nine months ago give way to orchids, dark red carnations, and forget-me-nots.)
Later, they will return to Konoha. They’ll walk into the Yamanaka compound hand in hand and be greeted by Ino's clansmen, all of whom will be overjoyed and shocked to see her returned. She and Ino will share a bath together. Sakura will ask to wash Ino’s hair. They’ll fall into bed together and Sakura will whisper her thanks to her ancestors and the spirits of the Founders in between kisses to Ino’s heated flesh. She’ll hold Ino close as Ino falls apart underneath her, relishing the way Ino’s nails dig into her back, and repeatedly tell the blonde that she loves her. She’ll try - and fail - not to cry when Ino flips their positions to trail gentle kisses down her body.
(Sakura will have her first good night’s sleep in nine months wrapped around Ino’s sweat-slicked body.)
But that will be later.
Right now, she smiles against Ino’s lips. Out of all of the kisses that they’ve shared thus far, she decides that this kiss is perfect.
Because it is.