The Quiet Rebellion of Survival

by Tsumeinuzuka

Summary:

Saved by a mysterious shinobi as a child, Sakura wishes to find them and thank them. Her only lead? The uncommon eye color that had been peeking through the holes of their terrifying mask.

Thankfully, Shisui finds her before she can annoy any more of his Uchiha clanmates.

Or: tiny Sakura decides to become a shinobi much earlier, leading to a closer friendship with certain members of the Uchiha clan. Follows from Academy Era and beyond Team 7.

Chapter 1

Notes:

Soooo, let me preface this with saying that I'm writing this as inspiration hits me, because I wanted to write something that's a little more sakura-centric and less romantic as a way to try to explore the world and characters of naruto in this specific au. Because I'm only gonna write this as inspiration hits rather than try to force the words down, I'm going to include some spoilers in the end notes that will give a little more insight as to where this fic will go/what it'll explore in case 1, I forget where I'm going with this, and 2, readers might want to know more to see any trigger warnings before they get invested in this fic.

1

 

”Sakura-chan, no!"

Fear pierces through her, sharper even than the blade held to her throat. The man grasping her from behind warns her to quit squirming, though she's not. Not on purpose, at least. She looks down at her parents, on their knees before her. Crying. Begging. Mud seeps into her mother's new dress, staining the delicate flowers that Sakura had been busy admiring not even ten minutes ago.

The rain hadn't been the only thing that surprised them on their return trip. 

And then: pain. It blossoms from her neck before she is dropped to her hands and knees. Grunts sound from close behind her, but she scrambles away on unsteady limbs. One of the horses whinny in fear, and she feels a displacement of air near her head as a pair of hooves come down, just barely missing her. Her mother rushes forward and gathers her smaller body into her arms, shielding her. Sakura shakes so hard, she thinks the only thing tethering her in place is her mother's embrace. Her teeth chatter uncontrollably. It's a completely new sensation; one that she doesn't enjoy at all. 

Within moments, there is a sudden and terrifying silence. So sudden, in fact, that she initially believes that sleep has overtaken her. That the darkness of her vision isn't due to her face being smushed into her mother's grasp, but instead due to being caught in the space between wakefulness and slumber. It feels like an unsettling trance, but one that is thankfully broken when she realizes that her mother is still trembling against her, and that the pain at her neck still throbs.

"Let me see her."

The voice comes from behind Sakura, breaking the silence. It's muffled. Unfamiliar. Her mother's arms tighten around her, but she hears her father say that she'll be alright, and soon she's being turned. 

A man stands before her. Or, at least, she can only assume so from the timbre of his voice. A mask hides his face, with a swirling pattern of a dog painted on the white porcelain. A hooded cloak covers the rest of him. 

She looks up to where his eyes should be and sees red. The man slowly reaches out to tilt her head, his fingers brushing against her neck, the touch stinging. She flinches. Her mother is unsuccessfully holding her sobs back, her chest shuddering with big, relieved breaths. When the man finally pulls away, his fingers come back crimson. 

Other people mill around them, but Sakura finds that she's too exhausted to even attempt to look. Her eyes are glued to the man in front of her as he reaches for something in one of his many pouches. He lowers himself to her height, settling into a crouch, and gives her a better view of the roll of bandages in his hand. 

"You're gonna be just fine."

She awakes, lifting from both her dream and her bed. 

"Now who was it that said they would be able to wake up early if I let them stay up late, huh?"

Screeching, Sakura pounds her fists against her father's familiar shoulders. "Otou-san! The sun's barely out! Put me down!"

She doesn't know if her words are true; her eyes have barely opened and her mind has only just left the fog of memories she was displaced from. All she knows is that she wants to burrow straight back under her blankets. 

Her father huffs a laugh, and the movement lifts her.

Haruno Kizashi is a big man. And while her father is a gentle giant, he is also a source of great annoyance in the mornings. A morning menace, as her mother often calls him. 

With a grin that has Sakura rephrasing her request with a panicked gently!, he tosses her onto her bed before turning towards the wall opposite and pulling the curtains wide open. Sakura hisses, covering her face in an attempt to protect her sleep-sensitive eyes from the bright light that now pierces through her window. 

The sun is, unfortunately, much higher in the sky than she had hoped. 

Her father moves in front of the window, thankfully blocking some of the light from reaching her. "C'mon, kiddo," he addresses the pane of glass as he overlooks the street below. "The store has been missing you. The Academy's taking up all your time lately, and ol' Sato-san has been up to her usual tricks in your absence." He turns and steps back towards her bed, muttering And I nearly just gave her that dang sword last week. She covers her giggle with a hand, but her father's smile tells her he had heard it. "You know that you're the only one who can keep her in line, Sakura-chan."

Blowing her messy hair from her face, Sakura rolls her eyes. "You're just too soft on her cause she reminds you of obaa-san." Sakura had never met her real grandmother, her father's mother, as she had died years before Sakura had even been born. But her father speaks of her often enough. Based on his stories, and Sakura's own observations, the elderly collector of unique weapons who basically haunts their shop could have been her real grandmother made over. 

She certainly feels like family to Sakura, considering how often she had watched her when she was younger. Before Sakura joined the Academy, of course. To Sakura, Sato Hanako is family. And she certainly never complains when Sakura refers to her as such. 

"Please, Sakura-chan?" Her father utilizes his greatest weapon—aiming his pleading puppy-dog eyes straight for her. 

Doing her best to steel herself against his persuasive ways, Sakura sits up and crosses her arms. She can feel a smile attempting to break free, but she forces it into a frown. She doesn't think it was very successful—she has a very expressive face. "Okaa-san says you're too philanth-thropic," she trips over the word, and heat instantly rushes to her cheeks. Her father ignores the slip up, and a wave of affection rolls over her. 

Until he begins to pout. 

"No!" Sakura argues, albeit weakly, even to her own ears. "Standing your ground against obaa-san is good practice for keeping a steady head with the other customers!"

His lip wobbles. 

So does her backbone. 

Throwing her hands in the air, Sakura relents with a groan. "Ugh! Fine." But to be honest, she doesn't mind taking the day to work at her parents' shop. It's where she meets the most interesting people, after all. 

Her father throws himself atop her bed and wraps her in a tight hug before knuckling her head affectionately. "Thatta girl, Sakura-chan! I knew I could count on you! Don't worry, you won't have to man the till all day. If one of those Uchiha boys comes over to ask for your hand—"

"Tou-san!"

"—sorry, slip of the tongue. What I meant was if one of your friends comes over, you can leave early to go play."

Her face flames as she bristles. "We're not playing, we're training!" 

Her father nods his head in a way that says he's placating her. "Right, right. Now hurry up and get ready, your mother has breakfast waiting for you." 

She wiggles free from his grasp and hits him with a pillow. It doesn't stop him from laughing. 

---

The sign for The Bladed Blossom swings gently from its position over the green door of her parent’s store. Sakura watches it from her seat behind the counter, head resting on her propped arm. Her father is busy doing inventory in the front while her mother is in the back office, hunched over various stacks of papers and muttering about a multitude of different numbers that Sakura doesn’t care to memorize. 

It’s been a relatively quiet day, and it looks as if it’s going to become a relatively quiet evening, too. A few shinobi currently browse the aisles, and she can hear soft humming coming from an area near the front of the store. 

“Ain’t gonna get more customers with that sourpuss face, girl,” Sato Hanako, her granny in everything but blood, says from the right wall of the shop, beady eyes not leaving the curved dagger in her hand. The edge catches the light from the window and reflects into Sakura’s eyes. She knows the old lady is doing it on purpose. 

“I’m seven, obaa-san.” Sakura does not whine. She doesn’t. And she also doesn’t scoot over just enough to where the reflecting light can’t reach her. “People think my face is cute whether I’m smiling or not.”

That’s not entirely true, Sakura knows. A few kids had taken offence to her face, particularly her forehead, not so long ago. She had cried in her room for an entire day before picking herself up and dusting herself off. Adults, though—who, for the most part, made up the major demographic of their customer base—were not immune to her charm. It’s how she became so good at haggling for better prices, much to the delight of her parents. 

The older woman just grumbles and sets the dagger back into its stand, brushing her now-free hand across the tight, gray bun on the back of her head. It’s held in place with shining kanzashi—a set that Sakura remembers seeing in stock last month. Imported from Kumogakure, it was supposedly made in a way that allowed one to channel chakra through it, like the samurai from Tetsu no Kuni. Sakura hadn’t listened well enough to know the specifics about it, but both her father and her granny had been ecstatic about having it in the shop. 

Obaa-san really has been up to her tricks, huh? Sakura thinks as she watches her granny shuffle around an aisle and disappear from her sight, cane thumping on the wood floor with each step.  

Moments later, two men approach her counter, and she sits up, softening her grin into a smile. See that, obaa-san? I can look sweet when I need to!

“Hiya, Sakura-chan,” the man on the left greets her. He’s stocky, with a gait marred by a slight limp. His black hair is cropped close to his head, and it looks as if he’s recently started an attempt at growing a beard. It’s in an awkward patchy stage, which is what makes her not recognize this particular Uchiha as quickly as she normally would.

Well, that, and the fact that he’s not wearing his uniform today. Must’ve finally gotten a day off, she thinks. She wonders if that young guy he’s always complaining about has finally finished his training enough to cover the extra shifts. 

“Hi, Akaji-san,” she says, all saccharine. Her granny snorts from somewhere close-by, but Sakura ignores her. Akaji is a regular customer of theirs, and keeps them afloat on his shuriken purchases alone. 

According to him, his aim is horrendous. She can never tell if he’s joking.

Akaji turns to his companion and thumps him on the shoulder, which draws Sakura’s attention to the other man as well. “Have you met Sakura-chan before, Daiji?” he addresses the other man. Sakura squints, and before he can shake his head, she quickly leans forward, pushing herself up with her palms on the counter in order to get a better look at him. Her feet balance precariously on the rungs of the wooden stool below her, but she manages to keep from tumbling over by shifting more of her weight to her arms.

Unfortunately, this probably makes her look as if she’s about to pounce straight over the counter. 

Daiji predictably startles, as any normal person would when faced with the attention of an unknown child such as she, and draws back quickly, a grimace on his face. 

“W-what in the world is she doing?” Daiji asks above Akaji’s uproarious laughter. She ignores both of them in favor of looking the strange Uchiha over for any familiar characteristics. He’s obviously a close cousin to Daiji; there is a similarity to their features that’s more than from just their general Uchiha-ness. 

Dropping her gaze, she focusses on his height and posture before glancing between his eyes. They don’t flash red, of course, but stay a deep, rich brown. 

Akaji answers once he catches his breath, eyes sparkling in mirth. He brings one hand up to self consciously smooth the new hair around his mouth, hiding his grin for a moment. “Sakura here is looking for someone specific, but won’t say who.” 

Finding not a single thing she was looking for, she sighs and sits back, dutifully returning to her work of counting up the weapons and totaling the amount.

“Looking for an Uchiha, then?” Daiji asks, sneakily adding his purchase to the counter as well. 

Akaji doesn’t seem to notice. “Mm-hmm. She’s been searching for the guy since she was about this tall,” he gestures to somewhere way below his knees. Her eyes narrow. She adds the total of Daiji’s purchases to Akaji’s total as well. “I was startled when she ran up to me one night while I was patrolling the civ-district. I had no idea what to do with this kid who asked me to show her my red eyes.”

Daiji gasps dramatically. She can’t tell if it’s real, or if he’s humoring both of them. “She wanted to see—?” he trails off, gesturing towards his face. 

Sakura remembers that day. Her parents had finally told her about the shinobi who were born with special eyes that turn red when they activate their doujutsu. She hadn’t quite understood what that meant at the time, but when her parents pointed out the Uchiha crest and explained that the man from the forest was likely from that clan, she latched onto the first patrolling officer she saw and demanded he show her his eyes.

Thank goodness she had finally stumbled upon Shisui before she could antagonize too many Uchiha without knowing what she was doing.

With a nod, Akaji answers, “Uh-huh. Begged me to show her, then just stopped and turned around in an instant.”

“Why?”

Sakura interrupts. “He was too short.” Surprised laughter roars out of Daiji, who ends up having to hold onto the counter to keep himself upright. Turning with a sharp smile, Sakura asks, “Did you bring your wallet this time, Akaji-sa—”

The bell jingling above the door is their only warning of the oncoming whirlwind. 

“SA-KU-RA-CH—OW!” 

Sakura and both Uchiha customers look up just in time to see a cane come down again, barely visible from over the top of a shelf. 

“Ow! By the Flames, you old bat, stop hitting me!”

“Stop being a menace, you potty-mouthed brat!”

Her father, who knows her all too well, is already making his way up to take her place at the register before Sakura can truly launch herself over the counter.

“Shisui!” she shouts as the adults behind her watch on affectionately. “You’re back!” 

Skidding around the shelves, she finds the young Uchiha, cowering from her granny’s wrath. He lowers his arms from their protective position over his head just in time to catch her as she barrels into him. 

He smushes her face against his chest, arms as tight around her as hers are around him. Her voice comes out muffled as she complains, “You were gone for so long this time! Itachi said he couldn’t tell me anything about where you were or when you’d be back.” 

Shisui finally releases her enough for her to pull back and take a look at his face. There are dark smudges under his eyes again. 

“Wow, really? What a meanie, huh?” 

Sakura nods pitifully. 

From behind Shisui, Itachi intones, “Stop that.”

She hadn’t seen her other friend enter the shop, and the sudden sight of both of them in front of her is enough to make her giddy. “Itachi is here too?” That means I might be able to talk them into helping me train! she thinks.

Itachi nods, then turns towards her granny and gives a quick bow of his head. “Sato-san. I apologize for…” he pauses, as if thinking hard about his next words. He finally settles for an all-encompassing, “…my cousin.” 

The elderly woman raises a wizened hand towards Itachi, patting him fondly on the cheek. 

Shisui jerks his head back in outrage. “Did you just apologize for my existence?”

Itachi simply stares as Shisui pretends to cry. Sakura pats his back and sends a fake glare towards the stoic Uchiha. A corner of his mouth lifts slightly, and he reaches forward to ruffle her hair. 

“Are you youngsters kidnapping my daughter for the day?” her father bellows from the back of the store, interrupting their reunion. From around a door behind the register, her mother’s head pops out.

“Oh, Shisui, Itachi! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? How’s the family, sweetheart?” This she addresses towards Itachi, who answers with a polite, They are well. Towards Shisui, she asks, “Not been getting into too much trouble, I hope?” 

Sakura slips away, allowing Shisui to stand to his full height. At fifteen, he assures her that he still has plenty of time to grow, but she thinks she’ll catch up to him soon. 

“Me, trouble? You wound me, Mebuki-san!” he says, clutching at his chest. Sakura giggles at his theatrics. When she had first learned of the Uchiha, she thought them to all be scary-looking, inexpressive individuals. Then she met Shisui, who had broken all of those stereotypical beliefs she had formed whilst observing—not stalking!—the Uchiha police who did their rounds near her house and their store. 

And then she met Itachi. 

“We’ll be back before dark, Mebuki-san!” Shisui brings her back to the present by crouching down in front of her. Knowing what to do, she climbs onto his back and settles her arms around his shoulders before he stands. They both wave towards her parents. 

“Bye, otou-san, okaa-san! See you tomorrow, obaa-san!” she calls as they leave. 

And now, her favorite part: Shisui takes off once the door behind them closes. He turns into an alleyway that allows him to leap back and forth between the walls, then hops across a multitude of rooftops. Colors and sounds rush by, and she turns to see Itachi attempting to keep pace. Her periphery is a blur, and if she doesn’t keep her eyes straight forward, her stomach pitches in a nauseating warning. 

“I think you got faster!” she yells in Shisui’s ear as she turns her head forward again. He laughs, the sound drifting past them as he speeds up even more. She thinks about closing her eyes, but settles for tightening her grip around his neck. She’s not afraid of falling, though. Shisui would never let that happen. 

They finally stop on the edge of a tall building that overlooks the main street of Konoha. It’s her favorite spot, because if she looks down, the people milling about almost look like ants. It’s also tall enough for her to see the end of the village, where the wall separates the city from the huge forests that had been made and tended to by the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama. She knows a lot about him now, because the Academy had focused on his life and accomplishments last week. 

She thinks about mentioning one of those newly-learned facts, but Shisui seems to be distracted by something in the tree line way off,  near edge of the forest beyond. Then she realizes that he probably already knows everything that she had learned in the Academy—and despite the smaller age gap between her and Itachi, the younger of the two Uchiha is well-read, and has a memory as good as her own. 

Being unable to share her new and interesting facts makes her mood plummet, but only slightly. One of these days, Sakura promises herself, she’ll learn something that neither of these two know, and she’ll impress them with her worldly knowledge. 

Her father affectionately calls her a know-it-all. Her classmates aren’t so kind in their observations. But Shisui—and Itachi, during the times he’s not away on some secret mission—both embrace her love of learning. Shisui says it’s good for a kid to be curious. Itachi says all knowledge is important to a shinobi, who should be able to utilize any information to their own benefit. She’s just glad that neither of them talk down to her when she does say something they already know.

But she’s getting better at choosing what she shares. Not so long ago, she visited the library to check out a book about summoning animals. It’s not very long, and she suspects that there’s plenty that the book doesn’t say, considering it was one of the available tomes for those in the Academy, but it sent her down a rabbit hole in researching the summons of specific historical figures.

Apparently, there used to be a small clan who all partnered with maggots. Her initial reaction upon learning this had been disgust. After all, what kind of person would want to be tied to a bunch of slimy bugs? But then she read from a different book that before Konoha had been founded, during the time the people of this area were nomadic by force rather than choice, not much was known about medical ninjutsu. Fights over land were a constant during that time, and those who were proficient at keeping other people alive were usually the first to be targeted. Medical jutsu wasn’t common, as no one would live long enough to either learn more about healing, nor would they be able to pass on what they did know due to their early demise. That clan’s summons, however, were beneficial on the battlefields and in keeping them alive long enough to eventually live to see the founding of Konohagakure. And—

Well. 

She’s rambling in her own mind again. 

Below her fingers, Shisui’s shoulders move as he breathes deeply. In the distance, the sun is beginning to set, which colors everything with an orange and yellow hue. It’s pretty, she thinks. It makes the world around them look like a dream. But dreams don’t have this type of oppressive heat, and she’s starting to feel it now that they’re no longer moving. She realizes in her excitement from seeing her friends that she had forgotten to take off the heavy apron she always wears when she’s helping in her parents’ store. The leather ties around the back of her neck start to stick to her exposed skin. 

It doesn’t take long before Itachi drops down to land beside them, his shinobi-standard sandals barely making any noise on the flat roof. They all take a moment to watch the view. Her eyes skip over the people milling about below them. She likes to guess what the passing strangers are doing during the tiny blips of time that they are visible to her. The shinobi heading to and fro across rooftops are the easiest—they’re obviously either on a mission, or returning from a mission. She’ll be one of them, soon, she thinks. Then, there are the families. The parents who walk together while trying to keep an eye on their rambunctious children. Those ones are usually heading toward the shopping district, and when she scans the crowds, she can see plenty of families carrying brown paper bags in their arms. The hardest ones are usually those who are walking by themselves. She wonders where their path is taking them. 

One of those singular individuals breaks off from the crowd and jumps atop the water fountain in the middle of the street. She knows where he hails from by the coloring of his hair. Even at this distance, and especially with the help of the last of the sun’s rays, she can see the slight color variations streaking through the man’s dark hair—like that of a raven’s feather. It matches the hair tickling below her nose. 

“Oh no,” Shisui groans. Itachi leans forward over the metal guardrail, and from the corner of her eye she can see his mouth turn down into a frown. Sakura slightly pushes against Shisui’s shoulders, raising herself in order to get a better look. “You don’t think…”

Itachi’s voice is pained as he answers, “I have no doubt.” 

The man on the fountain below brandishes something thin and metallic at the small crowd that had stopped to see what he was doing. Sakura squints, and realizes that he’s holding a flute. A small group of people drunkenly cheer from their position outside of a bar her father once told her to steer clear from. Like they’d even let me in! she remembers saying. 

Shisui lets out a huff of laughter, then cups his hands around his mouth. “Show us what you’ve got, Hideyo-kun!” he shouts down towards the fountain, confirming that the man below really is one of Shisui and Itachi’s many relatives. Not recognizing the name, she stares harder, taking in what she can see. He’s too short for the man she’s looking for, she observes. And maybe too young, too. 

With wide eyes, Sakura watches as Hideyo brings the flute to his mouth. There is a waning in noise as everyone waits, before a long, ethereal note pierces the air. She gasps. It’s amplified, somehow, and easily reaches Sakura despite their height above the crowd. As soon as the sound trails off, there is another pause. She can tell that Hideyo is teasing the crowd, letting them hang in the space between the last note and the possibility of the next one. 

Finally, another note drifts through the air, rising, rising, and then dropping. It’s utterly beautiful. He pauses again, before he finally begins a song. It’s a familiar tune, likely something she’s heard before while walking around the village. She thinks it might be from a story about some type of creation, but the words escape her. 

The Uchiha are like the songbirds of Konoha—it’s common to hear them singing while they’re out and about. One can’t walk past a training ground without hearing at least whistling. Shisui says it’s to help increase their lung capacity and breathing control for their fire jutsu, but she sometimes thinks they do it just for fun. Not all of them sing, of course, but the ones who don’t usually gravitate towards some type of wind instrument, like the man below them. 

Sakura glances to the side. And like Itachi, too. But Itachi apparently doesn’t practice anymore. He’s supposed to be a genius in fire jutsu, or something. He says Sasuke will be a genius too, but she hasn’t heard Sasuke sing or play anything at all during the few times she has ever seen him outside of the Academy. 

The beat suddenly gets faster, bringing her attention back down. Then faster still, playing in a way she’s never heard before. A small group of people loudly whoop below, partnering off to dance, drinks held in the air as they spin and switch partners. Her fingers tap excitedly against Shisui’s shoulders. 

“I didn’t know the flute could sound like this!” Sakura exclaims, jumping from Shisui’s back to land on the roof. Squeezing in between the two Uchiha, she leans against the rail, bouncing on her toes. 

“I, too, never imagined that one could play it in such a manner,” Itachi mutters from her side. 

A laugh bubbles out from her. “It’s so good!” She cheers along with the crowd, and their energy feels like a physical weight. It wraps around her and flows through her. It feels like one of those Capital-M Moments that Shisui is always talking about. One that becomes a memory that can’t be forgotten. She watches the shinobi down below as they dance together. Turns and smiles towards Shisui as she bounces to the music. He’s smiling back at her, but it doesn’t quite meet his eyes. They’re far away, despite the fact that he’s looking right at her. 

That’s been happening a lot lately. And it scares her. He doesn’t scare her, of course, but she is scared for him. Her parents—and especially her granny—have never shied away from telling her about the horrors of becoming a shinobi. There’s probably plenty of bad things that she doesn’t know about, too. And she may be young, but she’s not stupid. She knows Shisui is talented. She knows he’s strong. And only those who are strong and talented are sent on the Big Missions. The ones that end in someone dying. 

But it’s like what the Academy always tells them: the village will help the shinobi who return. And Shisui is always quick to come back. He had gotten onto her plenty of times over her worrying about him too much, anyways. Now, Sakura knows better than to overtly show her concern.

His eyes lose their unfocused quality, and she turns away, as if she hadn’t noticed anything at all. 

At some point during her inattentiveness, Itachi’s expression had morphed from pained embarrassment—likely from knowing the burgeoning street performer at all—to something akin to being absolutely scandalized—likely from the manner in which the flute was being played. No one else would probably see the emotion on the stoic teenager’s face, but Shisui had taught her Itachi’s micro-expressions well. She laughs at him, then copies a dance move she saw someone else doing a moment ago. She doesn’t think she’s doing it right, but she hears Shisui laugh behind her, and thinks that she accomplished exactly what she wanted. 

She feels a tap on her shoulder, and she turns. Shisui’s hand is held out between them, and she looks excitedly down at it. “Care to dance with me, Sakura-chan?” he asks. She takes it immediately, and he spins her until she’s so dizzy that she’s tripping over her own feet. They’re all laughing, even Itachi, though he hides it by looking away. The air turns blissfully cool around them as the sun dips lower, and she’s thankful for the breeze that blows her hair away from her face. 

Just as quickly as the music started, it stops, and the crowd below groans. Sakura spins to a stop, hanging onto Shisui’s arm as the world continues to whirl around her. “Aww,” she complains, panting. “Why’d he stop?” Looking over the rail, she sees three Uchiha in their police uniforms beside Hideyo. One is waving the crowd on, while the other two have their hands on their hips, obviously talking to the younger man. She can’t see their expressions from here, but she can tell he’s not really in trouble when one of the Uchiha reaches out to ruffle his hair and push him away from the fountain. 

“Dang,” Shisui says, “I was hoping he’d get to finish his song before they stopped him. C’mon.” He looks down at her before turning and crouching. Eager to rest her legs, she hops on and wraps her arms around his neck. “Some people just don’t appreciate—oh?” Before Shisui can fully rise, he pauses, then tilts forward. Sakura yelps at the change in position, feeling as if she’ll slide right over his head. 

“Look, Sakura-chan!” he says when he stands up and the world is righted for her yet again. He holds money in front of her face, waving three bills right in front of her nose. They’re crumpled and damp, and he puts them away before she can recognize the amount of each bill. Hiking her up higher, he sing-songs, “My lucky charm strikes again, and she goes by the name of Sakura-chan!”

Her face burns. “Stop it, Shisui,” she whines, hiding her expression in the space between his shoulder and neck. He knows how she feels about that nickname. The first time he had called her his lucky charm had been when the sweet old lady at the dango stand gave them extra sweets for free. Then it was when he won the prize she had pointed to during the first Summer Festival they attended together. After that, any time something good happened to Shisui, he always attributed it to her doing. 

Shamelessly laughing, he asks, “How do you think those got all the way up here? Had to have been a shinobi, right?” She feels his head shift as he turns his attention upwards. “We’ve still got enough light. Wanna go throw some kunai before we take you back home?” 

Bolting upright, embarrassment forgotten, Sakura shouts an enthusiastic, “Yes!” 

Itachi shakes his head in her periphery. "Not tonight. I promised to help Sasuke with his fire jutsu." 

Neither Sakura nor Shisui argue with the other Uchiha. Anyone with eyes can tell how much Itachi cares for his younger brother. Any time she has seen the two out together, she's always reminded of a hen and baby chick—Sasuke being the chick, burrowing into the metaphorical feathers of the older Uchiha. Her first encounter with Sasuke had featured him peeking out from behind his older brother's legs at her. He was surprisingly popular for someone so shy. 

"Ah, maybe next time then. See you soon, little cousin," Shisui nods towards Itachi, who nods back before disappearing in a blur as he speeds off towards the Uchiha district. "Alright," he addresses her as he hikes her up higher on his back. "Which training ground should we visit this time?"

"The one with the pond!"

"The one that's the furthest away from us? You just want me to run again, don't you?"

"No," she draws out, unconvincingly, then giggles as he turns his head to look at her from the corner of his eye. They flash a brilliant red. 

She wiggles her feet in excitement. 

Shisui laughs at her. "You have no fear, do you Sakura-chan? Now hold on tight, I don't want my lucky charm fluttering away."

With a single step, they flash across the sky. 

Notes:

I cannot for the life of me remember where I saw the headcanon that the Uchiha like to sing/play instruments to practice their breathing for their jutsu, but I have not been able to get that thought out of my mind because I love it so much. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, throw it in a comment down below so I can give credit to the person who opened my eyes to what one can do with the Uchiha lol.

Also, if anyone is wondering what exactly that one Uchiha is doing that is making Itachi nearly have a conniption fit, look up flute/recorder beatboxing on yt.

Click for spoilers

I mess with the ages a little bit, as well as the years certain things happen on the original timeline, like the Uchiha Massacre. But basically, Sakura is saved when she's around 4. The Academy accepts students around the age of 5. The Uchiha Massacre happens when Sasuke is around 8, Itachi is around 14, and Shisui would be around 16. Team 7 still form around age 12, and Sasuke still leaves the village around the age of 13. Sakura meets Shisui between the ages of 4-5.

As for the plot, because I begin with Sakura at an Academy age, there will be references to things that happen in the past between her and the Uchiha, but hopefully it all makes sense. For this fic, Sakura meets an elusive anbu who saves her, and she decides right then and there that she wants to find this person and thank them. But her only lead is the uncommon coloring of their eyes. Enter the Uchiha, and especially Shisui, who tells her that she'll likely never find someone who's in anbu, unless she eventually joins it, of course. And so begins her new dream of becoming a shinobi powerful enough to join the shadow ranks. But that doesn't stop her from still searching for that anbu operative in every Uchiha she meets.

This fic will also not pull any punches. These are child soldiers---even though they're in relative peace, so there aren't any front lines, so to speak, that they'll be sent on before graduation. Sakura and the Uchiha do form a bond, but the Massacre will still happen. Team 7's relationship and especially her relationship with Sasuke will be slightly different because of these changes. The chuunin exam will still happen, and the crush after it will have consequences. Sasuke will still leave the village. Naruto will still leave the village. Kakashi will still leave the village. I'm not sure yet what Tsunade's influence will be over Sakura, but I'm thinking she wont be her mentor, or at least not for a while. Because of these fractures in the team, Sakura will have to learn to survive on her own, which will be...slightly disasterous. Things will get worse, and worse, and possibly worse, before they get any better for her.

As for possible triggers, there will be graphic violence, death of minor characters, hints of and eventual bullying, loss of parent(s)/family members, general descriptions of things like loneliness and grief, as well as some other things that I am forgetting but will return and update once I remember/get to them. I will also warn per chapter if there is a specific trigger, likely in the same manner as I have made this for those who don't have triggers and don't want to be spoiled for that chapter.

Chapter 2

Notes:

Unbeta'd, so if you see any mistakes just tell me!

2

 

”Don’t rub at your skin, sweetie, I don’t want you to accidentally scratch yourself with your nails.”

“But the cut is still there, mama.”

Her mother turns Sakura on her lap, so they’re facing one another and Sakura is looking up into her eyes. She gently grabs Sakura’s wrist to pull her hand away from her neck.

“It’s not open anymore, remember? It’s scarred, now.”

“Scarred? Will it go away?”

“I don’t think so, Sakura-chan. Most scars don’t fade away. Does it hurt? Is that why you’re scratching at it?”

Sakura shakes her head, then drops her eyes down to her mother’s apron. She’s wearing it because they’re both behind the counter today. 

“Do all cuts turn into scars?” Sakura asks. She runs her fingers along the straps on her mother’s shoulders, feeling at the thick leather and the rough thread punched through it. 

Her mother makes a humming noise that means she’s thinking. “No, not all of them do. Papa cuts his fingers all the time, but he only has a few scars on them, right?”

Sakura’s brows furrow before she nods. “That’s true. Papa is clumsy.” 

Her mother laughs. “Yes, papa can be very clumsy. But why are you touching your scar, sweetie? Does it bother you that you have it?”

“No,” Sakura answers truthfully. “It’s small, and it doesn’t bleed anymore. But it’s different than here.” She points to another patch of skin and her mother tilts her head to get a better look. 

“Oh, do you mean it feels different than the skin around it? It is slightly more smooth,” she says as she runs a fingertip across the scar. “And a little bit raised.”

Nodding, Sakura says, “I don’t mind it. It feels kind of funny.” 

The bell over the door chimes as another customer enters the store, and Sakura gasps. She has a job to do! 

Turning, Sakura puts her palms against the counter and shouts, “Welcome to the Baited Blossom!”

“Bladed Blossom,” her mother corrects.

“I mean the Bladed Blossom! Let me know if you need help! I know where everything is!”

Her mother smoothes a hand along the hair on the top of her head and chuckles.

“Uh, I do need some help, actually,” comes a voice from near the door. She tries to rise up to see over the aisle that blocks them, but her mother grunts. 

“Oops, sorry, mama,” Sakura apologizes as she stops shifting. The sound of footsteps gets closer, before the sight of a big kid reaches her eyes. He’s busy looking around the entire space, eyes bouncing towards all the merchandise and even the rafters on the ceiling. 

He stops in front of the counter and smiles at both of them. Her eyes are drawn up to his forehead protector, which looks to be holding up his short, dark hair. “I heard that there was a new weapon shop here and I came to check it out.” He turns his attention to her, and she straightens her spine. “Do you know where the tantos are?” The way he says the words makes it sound like a very important question. 

As she had been taught, she lifts her head and confidently answers, “No. I dunno where those are.” Looking over her shoulder, she asks, “Mama, do we have those?” 

Shifting beneath her, her mother huffs in amusement and lifts her from her lap before standing and setting Sakura on the seat she had just vacated. “We actually received a few new ones during our last shipment! Give me one second, they’re still in the back.” Sakura watches as her mother turns and disappears through a door behind her before turning big eyes back towards the kid in front of her. 

“Are you a ninja?” she asks. 

“Mm-hm,” he hums, before leaning against the counter. “What’s your name? Do you work here with your parents?” 

“I’m Sakura. Aren’t you too young to be a ninja?” 

The boy sputters, eyes widening. “Too young? How old do you think I am? Besides, you’re probably around the age most kids start at the Academy. How old are you, like three?”

“Four!” she corrects, wrinkling her nose. 

“Most kids join the Academy at five. Do you think I’m that young?” 

She squints her eyes at him, looking him over. “I guess not.” 

At that moment, her mother returns from the back, arms cradling two short, sheathed blades. Placing them on the counter, she steps to stand beside Sakura. “These come from Kiri. The metal is a common steel, but the craftsmanship is impeccable.” Her mother points towards the front of the store. “We also have a couple up there, but when I saw that harness on you, I thought one of these might suit you better.” 

The boy turns slightly to look in the direction her mother indicates, and both Sakura and her mother’s eyes catch the clan symbol peeking around what they can now see of his back. 

“Oh no,” her mother murmurs. The impeding hand she was about to put on Sakura’s shoulder meets air.

“ARE YOU AN UCHIHA?” 

The leaf she had been painstakingly keeping attached to her forehead drifts down to land atop her crossed legs. 

“Shisui,” she groans, covering her eyes with her hands. “You know how hard it is for me to break out of the ones that make my mind wander.” 

Beneath her skin, her chakra rushes before settling into its normal flow.

“Which means that you just need more genjutsu practice. I’m helping you.” 

“You’re torturing me.”

“Helping,” he wags a finger at her and she rolls her eyes. “What are you going to do if you’re ever on a mission where you have to face a genjutsu-user?” 

Dropping her hands, she levels him with a flat look, aimed below his face. “Probably have the help of an Uchiha teammate.” The duh goes left unsaid. 

“Uh-huh,” he says disbelievingly, crossing his arms. “And what about if you’re on a solo mission? Or separated from your team? Or—”

“Alright, alright, I get it. But I don’t know why you’re choosing now to torture me. I’m supposed to be practicing my chakra control.” 

“Itachi is on a mission,” Shisui sighs, leaning back against the tree across from her. They’re in one of the training grounds, sitting beneath the dappled shade in an attempt to escape the humid, mid-morning heat. “And you’re not just practicing your chakra control, this exercise is for concentration, too. What’s a better way to improve at that than having a bunch of distractions happening around you?” 

“I think you’re just bored,” she mutters, picking her leaf back up. Before she can reattach it to her forehead, a light shines in her eyes. “Gah!” Blinking, she scowls at Shisui. He had used a kunai to reflect one of the sun’s rays towards her. 

Why does everyone always aim for my eyes? she thinks, rubbing the sting away. Seeing Shisui’s grinning face once she lowers her hands, she decides not to give him the satisfaction of a reaction and places the leaf back on her forehead. She closes her eyes in case he thinks to try the same trick again. The absence of sight makes it slightly easier to concentrate on her task, and it takes no time at all to draw a single thread of chakra up to attach to the leaf. 

“So, what did the genjutsu make you focus on?” 

Sakura huffs in agitation, but the leaf stays. “Are you going to try to interrupt me the whole time I’m practicing?” 

Something rustles nearby. Likely just Shisui shifting around.

“Probably. You’re surprisingly single-minded in applying yourself to your studies. You and Itachi have that in common.” The rustling sounds again, and she peeks open one eye to glance at him. He hasn’t moved at all, except to begin cleaning underneath his nails with his kunai. “Which is what makes it so fun to poke at the two of you when you’re like this.” 

When the sound comes a third time, Sakura opens both eyes and looks around. She can’t see any birds, and the noise isn’t low enough to be caused by some floor-dwelling creature of the forest. With a sudden realization, she sighs and breaks the new genjutsu. 

“I’m surprised Itachi hasn't blown up on you,” she says, then adds, “or blown you up. And I figured out the auditory genjutsu. Was it tied to your voice when you asked your question earlier?” 

Shisui lets out an impressed whistle. “Figured that one out already, huh? Of course it was, you’re slightly too far away for my chakra to reach you. And you’ve been weirdly not meeting my eyes this whole time, for some reason.” 

Sakura snorts. “‘For some reason,’ you say. As if I’d allow myself to be caught staring into your eyes after I realize you’re up to your tricks. You Uchiha are basically cheating with how easy your Sharingan makes ocular genjutsu for you.” 

With a twist of his wrist, his kunai disappears—from sleight of hand rather than from any illusion. She watches his hands as he begins to pluck at the grass near his side. “Too bad we’re so renowned for it. Almost no one looks directly at us anymore. Makes it hard to use our dojutsu.” He starts a pile of tiny grass clippings beside his knee. “Makes it hard to talk to them, too,” he laughs.

A comfortable silence passes between them. Sakura relaxes her posture slightly, letting her spine curve from its imitation of a steel rod. Iruka-sensei had told her to try being more comfortable while doing stuff like this. That she doesn’t have to copy the diagrams exactly, and that being in a position that feels more natural to her would benefit her more than being technically correct. A breeze blows through the leaves around them, and it topples the hill of grass Shisui had been building. 

“It was when we first met,” she finally answers his question. Despite her protests, she doesn’t mind Shisui barging into her training time. He’s her friend, and a great source of information that she otherwise has no access to. The books from the library she’s allowed to borrow can only take her so far, and there’s still so much that some of her classmates intrinsically know from being born within their respective clans. 

“I suppose it would be hard to forget meeting someone such as myself,” he says, tone laced with arrogance.

Ignoring him, she asks, “But why that memory? Was it because I was thinking about you being here, and it showed memories with you in them?” 

Shisui shrugs. “Probably. The genjutsu I used was one that latches onto a person’s thoughts and makes them run. It’s not usually noticeable until they start daydreaming and realize how hard it is to concentrate on what’s going on around them. It’s basically a type of suggestion genjutsu. Did you reverse the flow of your chakra to break out of it?”

“Mm-hm, but not on purpose at first. I felt when my chakra dropped the leaf, and it clued me in on something being wrong.”

“Do you remember the other ways to break out of a genjutsu?” 

She’s not surprised by his line of questioning. Most of the time when he interrupts her practice sessions (meaning any time she doesn’t realize he’s in the village, so she ends up leaving for one of the training grounds without him), he appears out of nowhere and either trains with her, or explains some of the things she’s working on in more detail.

Without hesitation, she answers, “Changing the flow of your chakra, having a teammate introduce their chakra to your system, and by causing yourself enough pain that you snap out of it.” 

He nods. “But just because you can break out of a genjutsu doesn’t mean you’ll get to. The hardest part of breaking out of a genjutsu is realizing you’re in one. By the time you figure it out, your enemy is likely right beside you, about to aim a finishing blow.” He chops his hands in the air, as if hitting an invisible opponent. She giggles. 

“But what about your Sharingan?” she asks. “Doesn’t it help break genjutsu?” 

Dropping his palms to his thighs, he shrugs. “In a way, yes. The Sharingan is basically an eye of insight. It allows us to notice if another person is under a genjutsu, and it can help us fight off visual-based genjutsu, but other than that, we face the same problems as anyone else.”

Sakura frowns. “Are…you allowed to tell me that?” 

He waves a hand, casually dismissing her concerns. “It’s not a secret. Plus, you’re basically an honorary Uchiha anyways. They don’t show it, but the clan likes when you come through the district. You’re a cute kid, and they enjoy having someone to dote on.” He leans forward a little, putting a hand beside his mouth as if he’s about to deliver a secret. “And don’t get me wrong, Itachi and Sasuke are cute kids too. But the clan gets to see them every day.” He laughs before leaning back. 

Sakura feels heat rush to her face. 

“Aw, did that make you happy?” Shisui asks. 

“Don’t tease me!” Sakura’s grasp on her chakra turns tenuous, and she closes her eyes for a second and breathes through the embarrassment. And the joy. It had taken a little while for the Uchiha clan members to warm up to her, but now whenever she visits the district their compound is on, she can’t go five feet without someone pinching her cheeks or offering her sweets. 

“So easy to fluster! If you wanna be a kunoichi, you gotta work on hiding your emotions better, Sakura-chan!” 

Her face gets hotter and she turns from him with a hmph!

His laughter rings out behind her, and she hides her smile.

“Don’t be like that, Sakura-chan, I’m sorry!” She crosses her arms, still not deigning to look at him. “Aww, okay, how about this? You tell me everything you know about genjutsu, and if I’m satisfied with how you answer, I’ll treat you to some dango. Sound good?” 

Sakura makes a show of thinking about it, but quickly spins around with a finger pointing towards him. “Deal! But you have to get me two skewers!” 

“Only if you answer well enough,” he relents easily. 

Clearing her throat to buy time, Sakura thinks back to everything she had ever heard from the Academy and from Shisui himself. “Genjutsu is a type of attack that targets the five senses.” She holds up her hand and counts them off. “Sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. It happens when you layer your chakra over the chakra of your opponents while targeting their brain. It can be broken from either pain or a change to one’s own chakra flow.” Here she begins to struggle in her explanation, and taps her fingers against her crossed legs. “Uh, I think that’s basically it,” she finishes. 

Shisui claps, and she straightens excitedly. “Almost!” he exclaims.

She groans and deflates. “What more do I need to say about them?” she whines. 

“Well, you could have mentioned that the chakra doesn’t just target the brain, but the cranial nerves, specifically. Or you could have gotten more precise and said that the chakra affects the cerebrum for conscious thought, movement, and short-term memory, and the cerebellum for its motor control.”

Sakura slaps her hands to her face. Shisui’s the real know-it-all. 

“And,” he continues, ignoring her. “You could also mention that in order for those types of genjutsu to take hold, one of the senses must be stimulated. You can’t activate an ocular genjutsu on a person who closes their eyes. You can’t activate a sound-based genjutsu on someone who is deafened, and so on. In the same vein, you could have categorized the types of genjutsu based on their ranges. Short distance genjutsu are ones that require touch, as well as when you’re close enough to simply cast out your chakra to latch onto their own. Sight and smell can be both short- or mid-ranged. And sound-based genjutsu are long-range, while being by far some of the most deadly, as your opponent doesn’t even need to be near you to catch you in their attack.” 

Throwing up her hands and glaring at him, Sakura yells, “You can’t expect me to know all that stuff! Besides, the Academy hasn’t even taught us that our chakra targets specific areas of the brain! They just teach us how to break them with a kai.”

Shisui frowns thoughtfully and considers her. “Hm, I suppose you’re right. How about this, then: what is the most important skill to have as both a person casting genjutsu and a person attempting to break one?”

Her brows furrow as she carefully thinks his question over. Chakra control? No, even someone with bad chakra control could break out if they realize what’s going on. A kekkei genkai would help, but not everyone is going to have one like the Uchiha. “I guess…” she hesitantly begins, “they both need to have really good observational skills? The genjutsu user needs to be observant of their surroundings if they craft a present, believable illusion, while the person under a genjutsu must become observant enough to recognize when something is wrong with their senses or surroundings.” 

Shisui surges to his feet, startling her. “Got it in one, Sakura-chan!” 

Something suddenly lands on top of her head, and the Shisui standing across from her disappears. 

“But,” Shisui laughs from his sudden crouched appearance at her side, hand ruffling her hair, “it looks like your observational skills need some work, too.” 

Sakura screeches, knocking his hand away. “When did you—the kunai reflection!”

Shisui nods, smug grin in place. “What can I say, I’m a crafty guy. I don’t need you to look directly into my eyes when I have something that can reflect my genjutsu at you.” 

That was a cheap trick! Really smart…but cheap! 

Shisui reaches a hand down for her and she wrinkles her nose good-naturedly before taking it, brushing the dirt and grass from the back of her legs as she stands. 

“Are you sure you didn’t just shunshin over here?” The leaf flutters down from her face as she drops her chakra and his hand. Turning, she starts walking towards a well-worn path that leads to the village. Shisui follows beside her, hands in his pockets. 

“Believe it or not, I have other skills besides being fast.” 

“Okay, Shisui of the Shunshin. Whatever you say.” 

“Hey, I could have just as easily been named for my genjutsu skills, tanto skills, and—” he brings a hand up to his chin, giving a silly grin, “—my skills with the ladies.” 

Sakura snorts, caught off guard. “Yeah, right! If you were so skilled with girls then you wouldn’t be spending so much time with me. I think you have to actually talk to them for them to like you.” 

Shisui gasps. “How rude! Maybe I’m just an illusion, and the real me is somewhere else, flirting with hordes of girls.”

“As if. Genjutsu illusions like that would require the caster’s concentration and to keep within a range of sight.” She makes a show of looking around. “And I don’t see any hordes of girls within sight.” 

He raises his arm, hiding his eyes behind the crook of his elbow. “When did you grow up to say such savage things, Sakura-chan?” He pretends to cry, but she can see his smile. 

When they finally reach the village, Sakura moves closer to Shisui in an attempt to dodge the other people milling about. She’s not tiny but…some people don’t often watch where they’re going. 

“…and they have these huge scorpions there! The babies were probably as big as you,” he says, regaling her about his visits to Suna. 

She sidesteps a stroller, smiling down at the cooing baby as it passes by. “How do they get so big?”

Shisui makes an I don’t know sound. “Probably the same way the animals in the Forest of Death here get so big. They eat a lot of things that have large chakra reserves—like unaware shinobi. Or maybe they’re the offspring of some summoning animals. Either way, I did not want to get on their bad side.” 

“I think you could have taken them,” Sakura asserts. “They’re just scorpions.”

“Hah! I probably could’ve. But you shouldn’t assume that you could win against something—or someone—simply because you think you know their abilities or capabilities. The worst thing you can do in a fight is underestimate your opponent.” Sakura dodges a distracted civilian man who is in a heated conversation with an angry-looking woman stomping in front of him. “The second worst thing is to overestimate them—oh, look!” 

Sakura follows Shisui’s gaze, to where a small group of police officers are standing around a wall covered in paint. Akaji stands among them, one hand on his hip while the other one rubs tiredly at his face. She waves when he notices her, and he waves back before one of the other officers draws his attention. 

“Must be a slow day if they’re working on vandalism,” Shisui notes. As they pass, Sakura squints at the graffiti.

It’s…a face? she ponders over the messy lines. That sure is a lot of sharp teeth. And is that the hokage’s hat? 

Covering her gasp with a hand, Sakura whispers, “Is that supposed to be Sandaime-sama?”

Shisui looks back over his shoulder, face impassive. “Looks like it.”

Who would be dumb enough to do such a thing? Sakura wonders. And why? She had met the Third Hokage a few times while enrolled in the Academy. He had been a kind, grandfatherly man who greeted each of them by name. She remembers stammering out a hello upon first meeting him, and being so completely awestruck that she had almost forgotten to bow. 

“Now remember,” Shisui interrupts her thoughts, and she realizes that the dango stall is across the street from them. “I promised you two skewers. You can’t try to convince me to get you any more than that—Mebuki-san would kill me if you came home full of too many sweets.” 

Sakura nods sweetly, turning her face up towards him and giving him a gentle smile. 

We’ll see about that!

When they return back to her parents’ store later that afternoon, Shisui humming a tune they had heard while in the heart of the village earlier, Sakura is riding on the high of having had not two but three dango skewers. 

“Lucky,” Shisui teases her as they walk through the door. The counter at the front is straight ahead, suddenly reminding her of the memory from that morning. After she had attached herself to Shisui, he had laughed and asked her if she had treated his other family members in the same manner. Then he had asked her mother if he could take Sakura out for ice cream the next day—with her parents’ supervision, of course. Her mother had agreed, obviously swayed by his cuteness, and from then on was the start of their close friendship. 

And before he had walked back out of their store, he had told them that they should rearrange their aisles so they could see straight to the front door. “Always a good idea to be able to see who’s walking in!” he had said. 

“Not luck,” she disagrees, sucking at the side of her thumb where the skin was still sticky. “The dango lady just likes that my hair and eyes match the colors of her food.” 

Shishui just laughs. “Maybe, maybe.”

Notes:

Just a shorter, cute chapter featuring these two training, I'm sure there's nothing in here that hints at a lead up to anything in the future 😌

Shisui: someone told me about this new weapons shop and that I should definitely check it out, wait what's that pink blur heading straight for me
The Uchiha: do you think if we force those two together that she'll stop attacking us out of nowhere in the middle of the day. Or will this plan backfire

Also, there is tragically little information about genjutsu and how it works out there *shakes fist at kishi*. Sooo, I've tried my best at figuring out how it could work from what little we do know. We know that genjutsu can travel via sound (think the flute that Tayuya has), meaning that the chakra has to attach to *something* if it needs to travel. Hence genjutsu having to attach to a directed, reflected light source directly into sakura's eyes. If I remember correctly, Itachi once used the reflection of his nails or something to cast a genjutsu before (was that in the novels?? or am i making this up lmaoo), so I figure with the Sharingan it's possible. If you have any other insights to how genjutsu could work, PLEASE drop it in the comments, I wanna hear what everyone else thinks about it!

Chapter 3

Notes:

Unbeta’d, so if you see any mistakes that’s my bad

3

 

Pollen tickles at her nose, and Sakura fights the urge to sneeze. 

“Careful, girl; that one’s poisonous,” her granny remarks from in front of her, not turning around as she swipes with a curved, sharp-looking blade towards a group of dark green plants.

Glancing up from her crouched position, Sakura gives a wary look towards the outcrop of flowers she’s suddenly found herself surrounded by. “But I can still touch them?”

Her granny grunts. 

A warm breeze blows past, causing one of the blue flowers in front of her to wave towards her face. Sakura pulls back, grimacing. 

“Right? Obaa-san?” she reiterates, still unsure. 

A mumble drifts to her this time. 

Okay, Sakura thinks, hopefully that means what I think it means. Given the okay, she relaxes enough to gently push some of the fuzzy stems aside to pull at a patch of weeds.

They’re at her granny’s home today, doing outside chores. Of which, Sakura thinks, straightening her back with a pained groan and glancing around, obaa-san has a lot of. Flowers of all colors span the area around the house. To Sakura’s eyes, they look overgrown and in need of a good pruning, but her granny seems to like having them like this. Some have delicate petals, some have tightly-closed buds, and others have no flower she can see of at all. Most stay low to the ground, but there are a few that creep up thin tendrils that climb the walls and seem to reach for the sun. 

And nearly all of them, according to the elderly woman, are harmful to children who don’t pay attention to what they’re handling. 

“Why do you have so many of these plants?” Sakura asks, reaching over to drop the weeds into a woven basket at her side. “You don’t…use them, do you?”

“Why is your father in the business of dealing weapons if he doesn’t use them?” 

Sakura sighs. “Answering a question with a question again,” she mutters, and her granny snorts. 

“You’ll find your answer there, girl. Now, why is it noticeably quieter today?” 

That was Hanako’s way of asking where Shisui was. Her granny likes to act as if she doesn’t like him, but Sakura knows better. She’s witnessed—more than once—her granny fishing out one of the candies that she keeps hidden in her billowing sleeves and sneaking it to the Uchiha. 

Slumping back over to pull at a tenacious weed, Sakura grunts, “Shisui’s on a mission today. And he’ll probably be gone tomorrow, too. He didn’t say, but his bag was packed full when he said bye yesterday.” 

Her granny hums. “Always doing something, that descendant of Kagami.” Her words are almost softly spoken, like her attention had drifted in the middle of saying them.

Sakura tilts her head, hands pausing in their work. “Who?” 

Her granny’s shoulders had been moving under Sakura’s curious gaze, easily going about slicing and pulling the weeds, but after asking about the name, they still. A second passes before they shift again, this time in a deep breath. “He was a powerful man. But he’s dead now.” Grunting, her granny hoists herself up to her feet, using her cane for balance, before turning towards Sakura. “Now, tell me why you’re all the way out here.” 

All the way out here, meaning at my home, within the forest. Hanako lives outside of the main part of the village, in a small house unlike any Sakura has ever seen. Made almost entirely of wood, most of the pieces are slotted tightly together, giving it the look of having simply been sprouted from the ground, rather than having been built. Plants of all kind surround it, and a little ways away is a vegetable garden that Sakura itches to visit. 

“Okaa-san and otou-san had to travel outside the village to meet someone about a new shipment of supplies. They said they’d be gone all day and part of tomorrow, and suggested I stay with you.” Sakura huffs an irritated breath. I’m not a little kid anymore! I could have stayed home by myself. 

Her granny tilts her head down at her, cane twisting slightly in the dirt. “Hm. Can’t say I don’t like the help.” At Sakura’s continued silence, she adds, “Civilians don’t understand how quickly shinobi grow, do they?” 

“No,” Sakura mumbles, then looks up into the older woman’s sharp eyes. They’re aimed lower than Sakura’s face, and for a second the scar along her throat itches, before the sense fades back into nothing. The sun shines brightly behind Hanako, and Sakura brings one hand up to shade her face. “Were your parents as overprotective as mine, obaa-san?” 

“Not as such, no.” 

Sakura’s shoulders droop. 

“But keep in mind that things were different when I was younger. I’m sure my parents would have wanted the life you live for me and any of my siblings.” Her granny tilts her head towards the engawa, where a set of chairs sit. Taking the hint, Sakura rises and follows, leaving the basket and the scorching sun behind. 

“I didn’t know you have siblings,” Sakura says as she lowers herself onto the wooden chair. The grain of the arms is smooth and cool below her fingers, worn down from years of use. 

“Had,” her granny corrects, and Sakura stills, feeling suddenly guilty about saying anything. “They all died while I was still young. Two brothers and one sister.” She pauses, settling her wooden cane against her knee. “I was born during the rise of the Warring States Period, when the Senju and the Uchiha kicked up enough fuss to drag everyone else into their little spat.” 

Iruka-sensei had taught them about that war. He had said it eventually led to the founding of Konohagakure. 

Sakura hesitates before asking, “Did you have to fight in it, too?” She already knows—or, at least, had guessed—from what her granny had mentioned before that she had been part of some sort of conflict. But to be old enough to have battled near some of the great people of history? It’s a reminder of how young the village really is. It’s almost too much for Sakura to wrap her head around. 

The chair below the elderly woman creaks as she gently rocks it, eyes distant while she overlooks the garden. “Of course I did. The only children who didn’t have to fight were ones who hadn’t yet been weaned from their mothers.” Her eyes cut over to Sakura, losing their glazed appearance. “I was nearly fifteen when it ended. My parents taught us the best they could, though they had little experience in combat. War taught us the rest of what we needed.” 

“Oh,” Sakura says in lieu of not knowing what else to say. 

“And I am not the only one to suffer from such circumstances, though not many are left from my generation. Even Sandaime-sama is younger than I. There have been three other wars since my youth, and the last one ended not so long ago. I don’t doubt that I’ll see another one before my death. The life of a shinobi is one filled with strife. So long as there are still imbalances in power, still people displeased with their station in life, this pattern of long conflicts and short peace will not end. Even now, even within our village, there is danger. Your parents know this well—which is likely why they want to keep you safe for as long as possible.”

Saying nothing, Sakura sags in her seat, feeling chastised. She just wishes that her parents didn’t treat her like such a child. She pushes the toe of her sandals down against the floor to rock her chair. From her periphery, she can see her granny tilt her head.

Slowly, as if talking to someone terribly obtuse, the older woman emphasizes, “Just because you think you’re strong or talented because you’re training to be a shinobi doesn’t mean you are ready to experience the true horrors of the world—which is what your parents are attempting to protect you from.”

Sakura puffs out a breath that shifts a lock of sweaty pink hair away from her face. “I got it the first time, obaa-san,” she grumbles. 

Chuckling, her granny leans back in her chair. “Good, you know how much I despise having to explain simple concepts. Your parents love you despite your choice in career, yada yada.” She waves a wizened hand in a manner that says you get the gist. “Don’t fault them for their love. It’s the only precious thing in this gods-forsaken world. Now, shall we get something to eat?”

That’s her granny: one moment she’s spouting things that would make her parents share their look while Sakura stares on—not able to understand until much later and after a lot of serious thought; and the next she’s acting completely normal while talking about something wildly different. She often makes Sakura’s head spin with how quickly she can change subjects. 

“Uh…sure?” her tone rises towards the end, making her statement a question. “I mean, yes,” she amends. All that work had made her hungry, and she wouldn’t say no to a glass of water either. 

Deciding to stop moping about, Sakura instead focuses on what she had gathered from the older woman’s words. Obaa-san is right. They’re just trying to look out for me. She remembers not so long ago when a house just down the street from her own had been broken into. A man had apparently gotten upset about some sort of deal brokered between him and the owner of the house, and decided that the only way to solve the issue was to tie the man’s family up and attempt to torture them. 

Thankfully, an Uchiha officer had been making his rounds at that time and was quick to stop anything from happening. But that didn’t stop Sakura from wondering: what if it had been them that that happened to? 

The civilian district doesn’t have a particularly high crime rate, but that doesn’t mean that nothing happens. Taking a step back and looking at it from her parents’ point of view, she can sort of understand why they had asked her to stay with her granny. 

A comfortable silence settles between the two of them, and Sakura stares out over the patch of land in front of her. An idea suddenly occurs to her, and the chair beneath her stops rocking as she leans forward excitedly. “Should I make something from the garden?” Her mouth waters at the thought of all the side dishes she can make with all the fresh vegetables. 

Her granny lifts to her feet and stretches her back. “No,” she answers as she steps lightly down the stairs, cane tapping at her side. “No, this old woman wants a bowl of noodles before she dies. Come now, Sakura-chan, we should hurry; we don’t want to get caught in the lunch rush.”

Sakura sighs, getting to her feet and following. Another common saying that would have her parents sharing a look over. Sato Hanako is the type of person to do exactly as she pleases, Sakura knows. Along this line of thought, Sakura comments, “You say that every time you want something, but I don’t think you’re going to die anytime soon, obaa-san. The gods will take you when you want to go, and not a moment sooner.” 

Cackling, her granny smirks over her shoulder. “Ha! You may be right about that, my girl.”

Ichiraku ramen has been a staple in her life for as long as Sakura can remember. If her parents are too tired to cook? There’s always ramen. If they need to celebrate some achievement or other? The noodle shop is just a short walk away. The sight and scent of the small stall are almost as familiar to her as those of her own home. 

Her stomach growls the moment they push aside the cloth noren hanging from the sloped roof of the ramen stall. The rich scent of broth and meat washes over her and she lets out an appreciative sigh. 

“Welcome!” the owner—a middle-aged, jolly-looking man—cuts his conversation short with another customer in order to greet them. “What can I get for you?” 

Sitting on the far left of the bar, with her granny taking the stool to her right, Sakura smiles brightly and says, “Tonkatsu, please!” 

As the owner takes her granny’s order, Sakura shifts in her seat to look around. Steam rises from in front of the bar, where large pots of various broths simmer. The owner’s daughter is standing beside another pot, having already started boiling the noodles for their orders. She’s humming softly to herself as she waits. 

“Hey, hey, Ayame nee-chan,” a familiar voice loudly whispers. “Think you can sneak me some more of those eggs?” 

Head turning so quickly that her hair hits her face, Sakura stares over at the other customer that she had mistakenly ignored upon entering the stall. Sitting at the far end of the counter is Uzumaki Naruto—one of her classmates from the Academy. He’s often loud, disruptive, and entirely unruly. The epitome of a class clown. The teachers are always getting onto him for some reason or another. 

She inwardly groans, metaphorically shaking her fists at whatever god had decided to condemn her today. Shisui is wrong, I’m super unlucky! What’s he even doing here? Besides the obvious, she means. She turns her head back to the front, but continues to surreptitiously watch him from the corner of her eye. 

Goggles pushed up to sit on his forehead, he’s leaning over the counter, one hand blocking his mouth as he attempts some facsimile of sneakiness. He’s wearing a white shirt today, with a simplified figure of fire on the front, and his blonde hair is messier than usual. 

“Tch,” the owner clicks his tongue at the young boy, waving him back to his seat. “It’s not a whisper if the entire village can hear you.” 

Ayame giggles behind her father, and Naruto slumps in his seat, crossing his arms on the counter. 

“Aw, don’t be like that, old man. Can’t you see how much I love your food?” 

“If you really loved my food, you wouldn’t be sneaking behind my back when you ask for more,” the owner quips. 

Don’t cause a scene, Naruto! Sakura thinks as she watches the interaction. She hates having to watch other people getting chastised—and there’s no one who gets chastised more than Naruto. 

“Psh, I wouldn’t have to ask for more if your servings were bigger. What do you think I am, a baby?” 

Sakura cringes. Don’t insult the person who makes your food, dummy!

But to Sakura’s surprise, the older man just laughs. “Did you not get enough, Naruto-kun?” he’s asks familiarly. “You must have worked up quite the appetite today. Were you busy training?” With quick and efficient movements, the owner whips up a new order of ramen and sets the steaming bowl in front of Naruto in no time. 

“Heh, something like that,” Naruto grins, his foot sliding against a brown, paint-spattered canvas bag, pushing it further under his stool. Her gaze flies to his hands, but they seem clean enough. 

Her granny’s arm brushes against her elbow as she eats, their bowls having arrived at some point while she had been distracted, and Sakura picks up her chopsticks, face blazing. She hopes she hadn’t gotten caught staring! 

For the rest of their meal, she keeps her eyes locked to her food, but her ears stay open enough to catch the rest of the exchange between Naruto and the owner. 

It’s entirely novel to her. Not that Naruto can hold a conversation, of course, but that he can hold a normal conversation. One where there’s no yelling or name calling, and he actually seems to listen. 

“Mm-hm,” the owner answers a question Naruto had asked earlier. “Been in the business nearly twenty-four years now.” 

“Wow,” Naruto responds between loud slurps. “That’s a long time to do something. I guess that’s why your cookin’ is so good.” 

“It’s no time at all. When you find your calling, you don’t really notice how quickly the years pass you by,” he explains while wiping down a workstation. 

“Did’ja ever think about becoming a ninja?” Naruto asks. He must have finished his food, because there’s no sounds of his eating anymore. 

“Used to be in the Academy, once upon a time. I was a genin for a little while, but it wasn’t for me. I had no stomach for the work.” The owner sighs wistfully. “No, my craft to hone has always been this—making good food for the people of this village.”

From a distance, there comes a sudden shout of alarm, and Naruto cackles before swiping down for his bag, stool screeching under him as he jumps to his feet. Sakura finally turns to watch him as he gives a jaunty salute towards the owner.

“That’s my cue, Teuchi jii-san. I’ll see you later!” 

Without anything further, he hightails it out of the stall, away from where the noise was from. 

“Always making trouble,” Ayame laughs brightly.

Teuchi, Sakura turns the name over in her mind. Why did I not know his name? She’s been here multiple times over the course of her life, but had never remembered his name. It bothers her until her granny stands to leave, and she makes sure to thank both Teuchi and Ayame before she follows along behind the older woman. They’re not heading back towards her home; rather, they seem to be heading towards the shops in the direction of the Main Street. 

Her granny turns towards her, mouth open as if she’s about to say something, but is interrupted by a sudden shout of, “Hey! Sakura!” 

They both turn, and Sakura is surprised to see Sasuke, Itachi’s younger brother. He’s in her class at the Academy, too, but they don’t often interact there, despite her friendships with his brother and cousin. He mostly sticks to himself, not letting any of their other classmates distract him, which is probably why his grades are so high in all of their classes. He’s incredibly popular with the girls, though he usually pays them no mind. She’s witnessed him letting girls down gently more than a time or two—which she thinks is why they keep coming back. His rejections are way too kind, and Sakura can’t help but think that the words he says sound like they come straight from Itachi. 

Speaking of the girls from class, Sakura thinks, scowling over Sasuke’s shoulder as she spots a group of them attempting to hide behind a bench. 

“Sasuke? What are you doing here?”

He puts his hands in his pockets before turning his head away to stare off to the side. It seems to take him a second to pull the words through his teeth. “…You wouldn’t have seen my brother by any chance, would you?” 

Sakura tilts her head. “Itachi? No, I thought he was free from missions today.” Most of the time, Itachi uses his free-time to stay with his younger brother. He would visit Shisui and her every so often, but his little brother always takes the highest priority. 

Sasuke clicks his tongue against the back of his teeth in annoyance. “That’s what I thought too, but he hasn’t been home all day. I thought maybe he’d be with you.” 

Shaking her head, Sakura says, “No, he usually only comes to see me if Shisui is with me. Have you checked the training grounds? Maybe he’s attempting some sort of super dangerous move and doesn’t want you to accidentally get caught in the crossfire.” 

“Maybe,” Sasuke mutters, then adds on a weak, “thanks. See you.” 

She watches with a raised brow as he turns and walks away, looking as if he doesn’t have a single care in the world. 

Neither she nor her granny mention the way his ears burn a bright red. 

As Sakura begins to turn to continue their trek towards the shopping district, she hears a loud bellow from behind. 

“Young lady!” A deep voice calls, anger present in the tone. From the corner of her eye, she can see the girls that had been following Sasuke scatter. All except one, who is caught before she can run away. “What in the world do you think you’re doing?” a man asks, appearing from seemingly nowhere. His blonde hair, almost the same shade as the girl’s—who had to be his daughter, judging by what little similarities she can see between the two—swings as he catches her shoulder in his grip. For a second, Sakura’s eyes meet the brilliant blue of the other girl’s, before her granny pulls her away. 

“You keep such interesting company, Sakura-chan. And those Uchiha—always so intense. That one’s father, especially.” 

Sakura nods, having briefly met Uchiha Fugaku, the clan head, a handful of times before. 

“Otou-san says he’s so cranky because he has a stick stuck in him, but okaa-san always scolds him before he can say where,” Sakura explains solemnly. 

Her granny’s hand, which had been delicately placed on top of Sakura’s in the crook of her elbow, jerks as her head swivels to look down at her. Laughter bursts from her with such suddenness and raucousness that some of the people walking nearby give them strange looks. Sakura, embarrassed, bows her head in apology as she quickly leads the older woman forward. 

“Why is that so funny?” Sakura snaps.

Wiping a finger beneath her eyes, her granny chortles, “You say such surprising things sometimes, Sakura-chan. It’s easy to forget how young you really are.” 

“I’m not young!” she bristles. 

Her granny turns her head and gives her a weighted look. There’s a softness to her eyes that she doesn’t often show. Despite not knowing exactly how she had caused such a reaction from the older, hard-as-a-rock woman, and despite still feeling slighted, Sakura’s face heats in happiness. 

“You’re the youngest seven year old I’ve ever met,” her granny says, a heaviness to her words that Sakura can’t understand but can still hear. 

“That doesn’t make any sense, obaa-san.”

“Eh, must just be one of those things that you figure out when you’re older. You know—with age comes experience, and with experience comes knowledge.”

Sakura gives her granny a look that shows her exactly how crazy she thinks the older woman is. “Why spout such wisdom after such nonsense? Maybe you are as insane as everyone says you are.” 

Her granny just laughs and pats her hand. 

Notes:

The timeline for Naruto is so incredibly frustrating, but I’m doing my best to keep things straight for things that happened before these characters were born 😂

It’s my personal headcanon that I think Sasuke would have been a little shy around others when he was younger, but especially for this AU.

I’m already starting to introduce other characters—how did you like the small bits you got to see of them in this chapter?

I want to thank you all for how sweet your comments have been 💖 each one makes my day a little brighter 💖

Chapter 4

Notes:

Unbeta’ed, so excuse any mistakes you see <3

4

 

”Fingers spark on dry pine wood…” Shisui sings quietly at her side, voice as smooth as silk. “Strike the fire as you should.” It’s a tune she knows, sung in a lazy manner that suits him. Sakura hums along, enjoying the peaceful moment during their break from training. Sweat dries along the nape of her neck, where pieces of her hair stick to her skin. Her muscles ache from the Academy kata she had stretched through, but it’s a good feeling. Through the burn, she recognizes her improvement. Last month, she had barely been able to get through the end of the forms. Today, she had managed to get through them twice over, and without having to be corrected at all. 

Apropos of nothing, Shisui stops, and she can feel the weight of his stare on her face. “Hey,” he says, contemplative, “do you think you’re close to finding that guy yet?” 

Sakura glances down at him. He’s lounging on his back on the grass beside her, weaving flowers into a crown already partially completed. 

“I’m not sure,” she says, not needing any sort of elaboration on who he’s talking about. This is an oft-revisited topic between them. She drops her eyes to her lap, frowning in concentration. Her fingers clumsily weave together what were once delicate blue and white flowers. Beneath her graceless hands, they have shed most of their petals, leaving only their thin, green stems behind. The few petals that do remain seem to hold on for dear life. “Why do you ask?” 

Turning his head forward, Shisui plucks at the stem of an orange flower from the small pile sitting on his stomach without looking, then weaves it easily through the gaps in the crown he’s holding above his face. “I just keep wondering how many more Uchiha there are that you haven’t met yet. Especially any who might be in ANBU.” 

Sakura nods, always wondering the same. “Well, I definitely haven’t met all of your clan members. You have a huge family, Shisui.” 

Itachi, quiet up until this point, makes a noise of agreement from Shisui’s other side. Sakura takes a peek at the flower crown in the other boy’s hands, envy coursing through her at how perfect it looks compared to hers. 

“The Uchiha are one of the founding clans of Konoha,” Itachi, never one to miss a lecture, says, ignoring Shisui’s mocking face as he copies his cousin’s words. “It’s one of the largest shinobi clans among the village, and many of our members who do not work the police force are often sent on missions outside of the village. Even I do not know every person in the clan.” 

Shisui rolls his eyes playfully. “Ooh, even the person who makes everything his business has something he doesn’t know?” 

Itachi adds one last flower to the crown then holds it aloft, as if inspecting it for any mistakes. “Add on the inherent secrecy of ANBU, it is unlikely that we will ever find this unknown Uchiha.” 

“Way to give me hope, Itachi,” Sakura jokingly sighs. 

“Hey, it’s not like you need to find them,” Shisui remarks. 

Absently, Sakura lifts a hand to scratch at her scar. Nearly hidden beneath the crease of her jaw, most people only notice it if she tilts her head high enough. It’s a little more than paper-thin, and nearly the length of her pinky, but it’s raised enough to be felt as different beneath the skin of her fingertips. To her, it serves as a reminder for how close she came to dying. For how close her family came to being killed simply for the mistake of traveling a main road after dark. “No,” she answers after a beat, “but I’d still like to. I should thank him for how he helped me.” 

Shisui rises to a seated position using only his core, crossing his legs in front of him. “What if you never find them?”

“I guess I’ll just have to remember him well, then,” she answers truthfully. To be honest, this possibility had bothered her when she was younger. She hadn’t understood what a shinobi was at all. She hadn’t understood that shinobi dedicate their lives to saving other people. She had just thought that she had been special, somehow. Like a princess from one of the bedtime stories her mother had always read to her, where a girl is saved by a knight just before the dragon can eat her. 

But she’s older now, on a path where she’s learning how to help others. Had Sakura been in that man’s place, in a position to save someone, she would have done the same in a heartbeat, with no mind for being thanked afterwards. She would love to find the man and thank him, but if she doesn’t, well…she’ll simply savor the game of meeting as many Uchiha as she can. 

After a moment of contemplative silence, Shisui places his finished crown atop his head and stretches with a groan before getting to his feet. “Let’s get back to it, Sakura-chan. I have a mission later, and I still haven’t packed.” 

Sakura’s eyes flick up to him in surprise. “What do you mean you have a mission later? You should be resting, not training with me!” 

He waves off her concern with a lazy flick of his wrist. “Nah, it’ll be fine. I always have a bunch of energy to burn before missions.” 

Itachi stands to his feet as well, crown of red held delicately in his hands. She wonders if he’s going to give it to Sasuke, but the thought barely takes hold before he’s in front of her and placing it atop her own head. He readjusts it until it’s, presumably, perfectly centered. 

“Hah,” Shisui breathes out quietly. “You’re such a softie, Itachi.” 

Itachi removes his hand and she can almost see the ghost of a smile tilt his mouth up. “Nonsense,” he says, before turning and stepping back towards Shisui. He reaches up one hand to grasp at the older Uchiha’s shoulder. It looks a little funny with their slight height difference, and Sakura tilts her chin down to hide her smile. “Be careful on your mission, Shisui,” he intones with his usual sobriety.

Gaze softening, Shisui places his own hand atop Itachi’s shoulder. “I’m always careful, little cousin. Do you really have to leave so soon? You don’t wanna spar with me and Sakura?” 

Hand dropping, Itachi shakes his head. “No, not today. Otou-san requested I be home early.” 

Shisui sighs, tilting his head and closing his eyes as he crosses his arms across his chest. “More training for when you take over as clan head, I bet.” 

Itachi nods, and Sakura finally gets to her own feet, leaving her paltry attempt at a crown on the ground. 

It’s odd to think that her friend will one day lead the entire Uchiha clan. He’s barely older than her, and yet he already has so many more responsibilities than she does. 

Shisui, too, she thinks, watching as he says something else to the younger Uchiha. He’s a jonin already. And Itachi is supposedly going to be promoted soon, too, if the rumors can be believed. She can’t imagine the amount of pressure that they must be under. She’s glad that they have one another to lean on—a benefit of being born into a clan such as theirs. Clans seem to stick to their own, from Sakura’s observations. 

A thought drifts through her mind, unbidden. Would I have been like them if I were born to a family like theirs? Would I struggle as much as I do now? 

Her gaze drops, hands curling lightly into fists at her side. She shakes the thought away. I can’t think like that. Those thoughts don’t help her get stronger, and they just erase all the hard work of her friends. She may not have been born into a shinobi clan, but she has Shisui—and Itachi, when he’s not busy. They’re all she needs. 

“Ah, no matter,” Shisui is saying, bringing her back to the present. “I’ll see you in a few days, then. Promise that you’ll spar with me when you next have time, though?” he asks, and Itachi nods in agreement. 

With a tilt of his head to both of them, Itachi disappears in a cloud of smoke. 

“T-that brat!” Shisui chokes out, feet backpedaling away as he waves away the smoke, coughing. “He did that on purpose!” 

Sakura laughs, outside the area of the smoke cloud, and patiently waits for Shisui to catch his breath. His crown had become slanted with his movement and he fixes it with a frown. 

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” he grumbles, before his eyes cut over to hers. Her laughter abruptly cuts off and a shiver works its way up her spine at the sharp grin he sends her. “We’ll see if you can still laugh when we’re done here. Try your best to dodge, Sa-ku-ra-chan.” 

In the span of a blink, he’s in front of her, open palm raised in an attempt to strike. Embarrassingly, she squeaks as she throws herself to the side, rolling gracelessly to her feet. 

“You’re too fast, Shisui!” she whines as she catches her balance and hops back, trying to not trip over her feet. Her hair swings into her eyes, and she roughly pushes it back as she takes a quick look at the surrounding area. Thankfully, the training ground they’re in is mostly field, so she doesn’t have to worry about backing into a tree. 

Shisui laughs, easily coming within range again, and she brings her arms up to block. She can tell he’s holding back—any hit he lands leaves only the barest sting, and his movements have slowed enough that she can actually track them. This spar is simply to help improve her basic fighting skills. 

Noticing that he’s purposefully favoring his weight on one leg, she kicks out in an attempt to trip him. He takes the hit, shifts his weight, and reaches out to grapple her. She slips away easily, aiming another punch towards him.

They settle into a series of cat-and-mouse movements, and her mind drifts slightly as she becomes absorbed in the fight. 

These spars are some of Sakura’s favorite moments with Shisui. He’s talented, and kind enough to not make fun of her shortcomings—choosing instead to teach her what he knows while also helping her with improving her strengths. 

It’s a far cry from how the Academy teaches them. She’s embarrassed to admit that her physical abilities are not quite up to snuff compared to a lot of her classmates who had been trained to fight from the time they could walk. Thankfully, her sharp mind means she’s not dead last among the rankings. 

“Not giving up, are you?” Shisui taunts, noticing her weakening hits. She’s panting now, sweat running rivulets down her forehead. Her bangs stick to it, almost blocking her eyes. 

She feints a hit towards his face with her right fist before throwing a real punch at his stomach with her left. The hit doesn’t land. 

“No.” The words wheeze out of her, and her shoulder smarts from his counter. She stumbles away, wiping at her face with the back of one arm. It doesn’t help. Her eyes sting from sweat dripping into them. 

Shisui’s gaze sharpens. “Good,” he praises, just a moment before he trips her with a sweeping kick aimed at her feet. She screeches, eyes closing tightly in preparation for the painful landing on the hard ground.

But the landing never comes.  

Heart racing, she slowly opens her eyes. Shisui’s grinning face comes into focus above her. Behind him, the sky is a brilliant blue. Her neck is stretched backwards, and she tenses it to look down to where Shisui’s hand is wrapped around the cotton collar of her shirt. It’s the only thing keeping her from sprawling into the grass.

“It’s important to be resilient,” he quips—as if he hadn’t just ended their spar.  

She blinks, trying to parse his meaning, then scowls at him. “Why say that when you just won?” she sputters, incensed. He grins, her only warning before he releases his hand from her shirt. She hits the ground with a surprised oof, the thick grass below barely cushioning the fall.

“Just because I won doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” he goes on, but she’s too busy glaring daggers at him to really pay attention. “Resilience is an important trait. It can be the only thing standing between you and death in a real fight.” He flops down at her side, and she bares her teeth at him. Used to her antics, he simply laughs and holds out his full water canteen. 

Snatching it from his hand, she glares at him over the spout as she guzzles it. I’ll drink it all! How dare he let me fall to the ground!

He just watches her, an amused expression on his face as he props his head up with his hand, bent elbow resting on a knee. “As a shinobi, there’s one thing that everyone wants you to be: d-e-a-d,” he spells out the word, and she breathes deeply through her nose, rethinking her plan to drink the entire canteen. “But you shouldn’t just lay down and die simply because someone wants you to. You gotta—”

“Fight to survive,” Sakura interrupts, breathing heavily. Her stomach cramps, but she finishes her sentence before tipping the canteen up and draining the last of the water. “I know.” 

“I’m sure you do,” he murmurs. The soft breeze picks up, cooling her heated skin. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she holds out Shisui’s empty canteen. His eyes glimmer with amusement, and he wordlessly takes it back and straps it to his waist. 

“Feel better?” he asks. 

She has to swallow twice as the liquid tries to find its way back up. As primly as she can, she answers, “Yes. Much better.” 

She watches the breeze in the silence that settles easily between them. It shifts the grass around them, makes the wildflowers that dot the area dip and sway, and pushes Shisui’s hair back. His face relaxes, and she realizes it’s the first time it has done so since they started training today. It’s there, in the way the faint line between his brows disappears, that she can see a sense of peace about him. 

And in the span of a breath, his shoulders tense, that line between his brows returns, and he turns to look at her, lips tilted up in a smile that’s real but not true. A smile that is for her, but has no place in relation to the moment. 

“Shisui,” she hesitantly starts, previous annoyance gone. She wants to ask him if everything’s alright. If he’s worried about his upcoming mission. If someone is giving him trouble. 

But Shisui just shakes his head and stands. “C’mon,” he holds a hand down to her, and after a moment she accepts his help in getting her to her aching feet. 

They don’t immediately race back to her parents’ shop that day. Instead, they take a scenic route, one that meanders through a multitude of training grounds. They stay far away from any shinobi they stumble upon, keeping out of harm’s way. A pair of what looks to be chunin practice in one training ground that they walk past. One is breathing large fireballs, aiming them towards a post lined with targets, while the other one uses a water jutsu to put out any wayward flames.

In another, a jonin woman is facing off against three genin. She disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving a log in place where she once stood. Kunai and shuriken pierce it, splitting it in two. She and Shisui move on, but her head turns to keep watching. One of the genin—an Uchiha, based on his coloring and the crest that she had spotted on his back as he turned earlier—spots them. He waves, and she waves back. 

They eventually return to civilization, striding out of the last treeline. Buildings of all types surround them, made mostly of wood and stone and painted in hues of tan, orange, and red. She pays attention to the people they pass, hoping to not see anyone from the Academy.

“Don’t you get in my fucking face!” 

Sakura flinches, head turning in the direction of the yell. Across the street, a group of people surround two men—an Uchiha police officer, and a red-faced chunin. 

“You don’t want me in your face?” The chunin yells back, and she’s surprised to realize that the initial yell had come from the Uchiha. The chunin man steps forward, until the two of them are standing chest-to-chest. “Then you shouldn’t have been born to a family of fucking traitors!” 

The crowd bursts out into a cacophony of noise, each voice tangled and unintelligible to Sakura. She automatically shrinks back. There’s a sudden tension to the air that feels like a physical weight. Goosebumps erupt along her arms, and sweat starts to bead along her brow. 

“What’s going on, Shisui?” she asks, frozen. She can’t tear her eyes away from the two men. Danger, her mind screams, but she’s not sure what to do. Why are those two shinobi even fighting? They’re in the village, she thinks. Shinobi aren’t supposed to fight in the village. It’s in the rules. 

Shinobi Rule No. 62: To antagonize a comrade is to antagonize the very foundation upon which—

A hand lands on her shoulder, breaking her out of her stupor. 

“Don’t worry, Sakura-chan, it’s probably just a little misunderstanding,” he says, bringing his eyes down to meet her own. She stares back until her heart no longer pounds painfully behind her ribs. When he’s happy with what he sees in them, he nods his head towards the crowd. “I’m gonna go help them out over there. You stay here, okay?” 

Her hand snakes forward without thought, grabbing tightly onto his wrist. More people are starting to notice the fight that’s about to break out, and some shout encouragements to either man, goading them on. 

“What if you get hurt?” 

Shisui blinks, then gently extracts his wrist from her grasp. He reaches up to his head and plucks off the crown of flowers before laying it in her still-outstretched hand.

“I can’t get hurt with my lucky charm around, remember? I’ll be right back.”

And with that, he disappears from in front of her only to reappear across the street, smile on his face. She can’t hear him from here, but she still watches as he waves his arms around, trying to calm the crowd. He speaks at length to the two men, and eventually he and the other Uchiha are bowing while the red-faced chunin sneers and turns away. The crowd disperses, bored now that there’s no scent of blood in the air. Her pulse beats frantically beneath her fingertips, and she drops her hand from around her throat before Shisui can see her.

When he returns to her side, his smile slips away. He’s different, like this. Almost entirely strange. Exhaustion seems to cloak him like a second skin. 

She waits until they’re a few streets away before asking, “What was going on back there, Shisui?” 

He sighs, gaze fixed straight ahead. She thinks he might not answer. “Just a misunderstanding, Sakura,” he eventually says. Woodenly, he repeats, “Just a misunderstanding.” 

When she laces the fingers of her empty hand up into his, trying to offer comfort, he grips back onto her tightly.

 

Notes:

Oops, Shisui isn’t as happy-go-lucky as he makes himself out to be! Wonder what might be going on behind the scenes with him?

Next chapter features Sakura at the Academy!

Chapter 5

Notes:

Before you start, make sure to check those triggers and read those tags!

Click for triggers

Bullying is sprinkled in throughout this chapter. From this point on, there will be more references to bullying as well as darker subjects. While this fic will have its happy moments and its happy ending, the beginning will be tough for Sakura.

5

 

The sound of many feet pounding against dry ground echoes around her. They are unharmonious and discordant compared to the rapid drumbeat of her heart. Air burns her lungs as she sucks as much of it in as she possibly can, yet it still feels like it’s not enough. She gasps, one hand clutching at a stitch in her side while the other pumps out of time with her stride. Not far off in the distance, leading from the front of the pack of her classmates, Yuto-sensei calls out to the students lagging at the very end. 

None of this, however, blocks out the venomous voice from beside her. 

“Looks like…even when you’re trying your best…you still suck, fivehead.” 

Though the words dig sharply into Sakura’s tender feelings, they’re slightly dulled by the way Ami huffs and puffs her way through them. Her jagged, purple hair is wild about her face, slick with sweat in some sections. A part of Sakura likes that she’s not the only one suffering right now. 

“Just quit, loser. It’d be better for us all, anyways. Less of a chance to be paired up with someone who would be sure to accidentally kill her teammates because of her clumsiness.”

She knows better than to react. Nothing good comes from letting her bullies know just how much they’ve hurt her. Keeping her eyes ahead, she ignores the other girl and focuses on not passing out—which is a challenge in itself. 

From above, the sun shines wanly, covered by the thin morning clouds that will likely disappear as the day wears on. Dry heat is already settling and making a home in the air around them, and not even Sakura’s thin clothing keeps her from feeling as if she’s roasting in an oven beneath them. 

“Look at you,” Ami hisses. “Your eyes are glued to him. It makes me sick to think about how someone as weak as you really believes that he would ever look your way.”

Everyone and their mother knows how obsessed Ami is with Sasuke. Has been since their first year in the Academy. Despite his rejections, she keeps insisting that they’ll get together eventually. With a start, Sakura realizes that her eyes are trained on Sasuke, but not on purpose. He’s at the very front, his form nearly perfect even with how long they’ve been out here. He’s directly in front of her, despite the distance, and she would have to turn her head to look anywhere else. 

No matter how often Sakura denies liking him in that way—and she doesn’t—it’s useless to get Ami to believe any differently. 

Especially after what Sakura will forever remember as the pencil incident—where, in their second year, Sasuke had turned towards her to ask if she had an extra pencil. After class had ended, Ami and her friends had thrown rocks at Sakura until she had finally lost them in the winding alleys near the civilian district. 

Shisui had barely believed her when she said that training had just been rough that day. 

She used to fight back. Not anymore, though. She’s since learned to choose her battles a little more wisely

Ami wheezes, attempting to keep pace with Sakura. “You are—”

Sakura will never know what Ami thinks she is, because someone runs into the other girl, making her stumble and fall behind. 

“Hey—!” Ami screeches, then cuts herself off. 

A flash of blonde hair, barely long enough to be tied into a ponytail, bobs into Sakura’s view. A clan kid had passed them; the Yamamaka heir, if Sakura remembers correctly. Ino. It doesn’t surprise her that she had knocked into Ami. She was as much of a Sasuke fan as the other girl. 

Ino doesn’t turn to apologize, and Ami doesn’t seem to want to tell her to watch where she’s going, as she normally would have. 

It’s enough of a distraction for Sakura to pick up her pace and leave her seething classmate behind. 

After their morning conditioning, Iruka-sensei takes them to run drills in the obstacle course laid out in one of the training yards. It’s mindless work: weaving, crawling, jumping, and climbing. Her overall time has gotten better, and not even Ami’s heated glare on her back is enough to sour her mood. 

They stop early after Naruto somehow gets tangled in one of the woven ropes they were meant to climb. 

After lunch, Mizuki-sensei leads her and her classmates into a room empty of everything except three men and an elderly female nurse. It looks to be an extra classroom that has long since seen any use. Motes of dust float in the air, made visible in the rays of sunlight that spear through the open window. 

“Half of you line up along this wall, please,” Mizuki-sensei calls out, gesturing towards the front of the room, where the blackboard stands out stark against the white paint. “Everyone else line up along the back of the room. We’re a little behind, so evaluations and inoculations will be happening at the same time today. Lucky for you guys, this means that today’s an early release day!” The groans that had started upon realizing what these people were here for quickly morph into cheers at the promise of a short school day. 

Around every six months, each student is evaluated based on scores they receive in multiple subjects. Those who are falling behind are supposed to take remedial classes, but since a majority of the students come from shinobi clans, they usually let the family deal with helping them catch up. She once heard the complaints of an older, civilian-born girl about what happens in the remedial classes, and it has since spurred her on to never fall behind enough to have to take it. 

Because the students will eventually become apprenticed to a jonin sensei after graduation, where they will learn any specialized skills under their tutelage, most of the Academy’s subjects are kept at a basic level. Core classes like mathematics, science, and history are some of the subjects taught by their homeroom teacher, Iruka-sensei. These classes are the easiest for her, and she soaks up the information like a sponge. 

Then there are the other subjects specific to becoming a shinobi: taijutsu, tactics, ninjutsu, and genjutsu. These subjects are split between Iruka-sensei, Yuto-sensei, and Mizuki-sensei. Yuto-sensei also helps with morning conditioning. The girls have a separate kunoichi class taught by Nanae-sensei, who teaches about the need of kunoichi within the ranks, the ins and outs of seduction and infiltration missions, and basic sexual education. 

In truth, it’s mostly where they sit and gossip while making bouquets that are supposed to have some sort of meaning based on the flowers used. 

Sakura is usually by herself in that class, trying not to listen to the pointed giggles made by Ami and her crew. 

The bottom of the blackboard sits against the base of her spine as she leans back to wait for one of the jonin to stop in front of her. Holding clipboards stacked with paper, they speak to each student about their scores before writing something down and moving to the next person in line. 

Her legs ache by the time it’s her turn, but she ignores the uncomfortable feeling and stands at attention once the evaluator comes to a halt in front of her. 

Taller and broader than everyone else in the room, he cuts an intimidating figure. An unlit cigarette sits behind his left ear, and he scratches at his jaw while he speed reads the top paper of what she can only assume is her file. 

“Subpar physical conditioning,” he grunts, his critical eyes moving from his clipboard to her and back, before he draws a line down the page with his finger. “But that’s to be expected. Average weapons handling, excellent strategic and tactical work. Excellent recall and memory…what year did Nidaime-sama pass on the title of Hokage?” he asks out of nowhere. 

Sakura somehow finds the energy to straighten even more. She wants to prove herself worthy of having that high score. “Year 34 after the founding, sir. It was handed over during the First war, after he was killed in an ambush.” 

The jonin sucks his teeth in consideration before returning his attention back to the clipboard in his hands. The stack of paper is quite large, but he seems to only be paying attention to a series of five pages for her. 

“Nanae-sensei remarks that you are currently unsuitable for a majority of kunoichi-specific missions, should you graduate. She cites, and I quote, that ‘Haruno has an aggressive personality when prodded, with extreme levels of self-consciousness for her appearance.’”

She shrinks under his sudden stare that disinterestedly rakes from her head to her toes. 

“And you let it become a detriment to your safety, I see.” He takes his pen and shifts her bangs away from where they are nearly falling into her eyes. Her face burns, but she refuses to give him any other reaction—especially since this feels like a test after hearing Nanae-sensei’s assessment. 

He pulls back, gives her a considering look, then writes something down, speaking as he does so. 

“Above-average chakra control that would have the medical corps slobbering after you, but it’s ruined by your meagre chakra stores and the obvious inability to adequately grow them due to your parentage.” He signs off with a flourish, and she clenches her fists so tightly that she can feel the sting of her nails. 

I hate this. 

But she needs to hear it. How else would she know what to work on? 

Mizuki-sensei chooses that moment to stop beside the jonin and tilts his head to read over the man’s notes. She wonders what he had written for her taijutsu scores. 

The jonin doesn’t even look up to acknowledge him. “This one is likely to be a permanent genin. More suited for the Intelligence Division, so make sure to notify them—their numbers are still low, even after all these years.”

He moves on without another word to her, calling out a gruff “Name?” to the cowering boy at her side. Mizuki-sensei gives her a tight-lipped smile before stepping away. She doesn’t relax her posture until the evaluator is further down the line and the elderly nurse stops in front of her, her large cart rolling to a halt. A series of styrofoam boxes sit atop the cart, and a plastic box made for holding used needles is hooked to the side. 

“What are those?” Sakura can’t help but ask. It’s what she does when she’s nervous—ask questions. Her eyes flit across all the sharp, pointy, pain-inducing things. 

The nurse answers while she gathers chilled vials and new syringes in preparation. “Another set of shots, dear. We have a new live attenuated vaccine to combat against that dreadful new strain from Kiri.”

Sakura doesn’t know what those words mean, nor does she know what new strain of illness the nurse is referring to. The nurse does not elaborate. 

Both of Sakura’s arms ache when the elderly woman is done, and Mizuki-sensei indicates that she’s free to leave with a nod of his head. 

As she leaves, she overhears a different evaluator praising one of her classmates. Inuzuka Kiba—a rough-and-tumble boy who likes to get on Iruka-sensei’s nerves. His ninken, Akamaru, is sleeping in the crook of his crossed arms. 

“Yuto-sensei says here that you’ve gotten better at showing up for morning conditioning. Keep that up, and you’ll definitely improve your mile!”

There’s an invisible divide between them, she thinks on her way out. Despite its intangibility, she can see it clearly in moments like this, where the other kids are praised for something she has done a hundred times before. 

Some of the students who had finished before her stand in front of the Academy, likely waiting for their friends to come out. A few of them look up at her as she exits, before turning away disinterestedly when they see it’s just her. From beside the exit in the fence that surrounds the Academy, a familiar head of jagged purple hair waits. Sakura seriously considers jumping over the fence and making a run for it rather than chance another interaction with Ami. But she squares her shoulders and marches on. 

“Look at you, still trying to keep your head held up high. You’d think after all this time that you’d get it through that thick skull of yours that you should just quit.”

Sakura’s feet stop without conscious thought. 

Ami takes this as an invitation to continue prodding at her. “You heard them yourself, you’ll never be anything other than a forever genin. Take this as a sign to stop trying so hard. People like you will never reach the same heights as someone like them.”

She doesn’t have to ask who Ami is referring to. She also does not say that Ami is like her, too. 

A civilian-born.

Something within her shrivels. She feels sick to her stomach.

“...and you can’t even transform more than three times in a row! You have the worst chakra stores out of everyone I know.”

Sakura wants to shout at the other girl. At least my transformations look how they’re supposed to! she would say. Iruka-sensei himself has even commented on how flawless I cast them! But before she can open her mouth, a set of shinobi-standard sandals lands in her lowered sights. 

“Sakura-chan! How was your evaluation?”

She looks up dumbly at the sudden appearance of the jonin. How does he always know when I need help? she wonders. “Shisui? What are you doing here?” 

He rocks back on his heels, casually placing his hands in his pockets. “I’m waiting for Sasuke. Itachi couldn’t make it in time to pick him up today, so he asked me for help. How’d you do? Were they amazed at your genius? Did they label you a prodigy-in-the-making?”

Her face burns. “No,” she laughs awkwardly, aware of the stare burning into the side of her face. “I think I might just be average.”

Shisui makes a disbelieving noise before taking one hand from his pocket and ruffling her hair with it. “Those guys obviously don’t see what I see. You’re anything but average, Sakura-chan.” 

She says nothing, and Ami quietly leaves without another word to her. 

“Hey,” Shisui says gently, and she looks up into his face. “How about we train again today? Meet me near our usual place?” 

Eyes burning, she blinks. Shisui is sometimes strange and oftentimes dramatic. But more than anything, he is kind. 

“I’d like that,” she says around a lump in her throat. He drops his hand from her head, and nods behind her. 

“Let me just get this little guy home, and I’ll head on over there straight after. You have time to pick up whatever you need, so don’t rush yourself, okay?” 

“I’m not little,” Sasuke intones from behind her. “And why are you even here? I know where I live.” 

Sakura shuffles to the side, surreptitiously looking around to see if any of the other students notice Sasuke standing beside her. 

They do. 

She sighs.

She’s never told Sasuke about how some of his fan girls treat her after the few times they’ve ever interacted. Why would she, when there’s nothing he could do about it? Even their sensei normally look the other way when it comes to issues such as these. Shinobi live in a sink or swim world. Sakura just has to grow fins and adapt.

Shisui pounces forward, wrapping the younger Uchiha in a headlock. “Is that any way to talk to your elders? I swear, you get more rude with each birthday. Should I shunshin you home? Hm?”

Sasuke struggles, but his attempts at escape prove useless. “No! I hate when you do that!” 

“Aww, poor little guy can’t go too fast without puking. Sounds like you just need some exposure therapy.”

Sasuke claws at Shisui’s arms, which only makes the older Uchiha laugh harder. As naturally as she can, Sakura backs away, and throws a small wave their way. 

“See you later, Shisui!” she calls out, before jogging away, towards her parents’ shop. 

The bell rings above her as she opens the door to the Bladed Blossom. Her mother looks up from a book, smiling brightly. 

“You got out early today! How was school, sweetie?”

“Good,” Sakura answers noncommittally. 

An age-roughened voice floats over one of the aisles. “Were your evaluations today?”

“Yes, obaa-san.”

“Well? How were they?”

Sakura slips up to the front counter and tosses her bag to the floor beside her mother’s stool. She kisses her mother’s cheek before turning towards the door to the back room. “They were fine, obaa-san,” she calls over her shoulder. For her mother, she asks, “is otou-san in the back?” 

“Yes, he’s been checking over the new shuriken all day. There’s some packed food back there if you’re hungry.” 

Quickly, she heads straight through to the back. Arms wrap around her as soon as she steps through the door. 

“You—” she wheezes as all the breath in her body is squeezed out. 

“You? Is that any way to address your poor old father?” 

She relaxes into his hold, both needing the embrace and knowing how futile it would be to try to escape. Her father’s bear hugs are legendary. An idea pops into her head, and she goes limp. 

“Eh?” her father mumbles. She can feel him pull back and stare at her. She keeps her eyes closed as he shifts her in his arms. “Sakura-chan?” He pokes at her face, and she reigns in the instinct to blink her eyes open. “Sakura-chan?” 

A smile threatens to pull her lips up, and she fears that she hadn’t held the expression back well enough when her father sighs. 

“Guess I’ve gotta ask Sato-san for some of those reinvigorating herbs she grows. Hmm…but how will I bring you to her?” 

With a grunt, he lifts her dead weight and tosses her over his shoulder. 

“Wait, no!” she laughs, trying not to kick his face as she flails. “I’m okay! Let me down!”

He bends over and lets her slide from his shoulder. “Why didn’t you say so, Sakura-chan?” His laugh booms from his chest as he pats her shoulder. “The Academy must have been tough today for you to fall asleep out of nowhere.” 

Sakura rolls her eyes before turning and making her way towards the mini fridge her parents keep back here. Within it, she finds a simple bento, which she opens and quickly devours. 

“I’m gonna go train with Shisui,” she explains between bites. “I’ll make sure to be back before dark.” 

Her father nods, before stepping over to a box and grabbing a shuriken from within, examining the sharp edges. “Sounds good to me. Hey, tell him to come over soon; we have a few new things in stock that I think he’d like.”

After she says bye to her family, she heads to Training Ground 16. It's one of the smaller training fields, but it’s the closest one to the civilian district. It’s surrounded by trees, and a small creek trickles around the border before weaving off in the direction of the other training areas. 

As she’s making her way along the trail, a noise forces her to come to a stop and listen. Thinking that maybe someone else is already using this training ground, she leaves the trail and creeps forward, keeping her eyes peeled for anything strange. 

It takes her less than a minute to find where the noise had originated. Unconsciously, she ducks behind a bush and glances out from around the edges of the foliage. Across the way, Itachi and Shisui stand, surrounded on all sides by dense forest. She only hears the barest sliver of conversation, but the seriousness of Shisui’s tone—so unusual for him, unlike Itachi’s perpetual state of sobriety—raises the hair along her arms. 

“—cannot allow it to happen,” Shisui asserts.

“And what do you think we should do—” Itachi asks, tone menacing, but he closes his eyes and cuts his words off. A heavy silence seems to settle around them, and beneath her stare, Shisui’s shoulders shift as he breathes deeply. He places his hands on his hips and tilts his head to the side. 

“It’s alright, Sakura-chan. Come on out,” Shisui calls. Itachi throws him a sharp look, to which Shisui gives an infinitesimal shake of his head in response. 

She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but that’s exactly what happened. Her ears burn as she rises to her full height and steps around the bush, stopping once she reaches Shisui’s side. Without a backwards glance, Itachi turns and jumps away, neither sending her a greeting nor a goodbye. She stares at the place he had been. 

“Is he not joining us today?” 

Shisui’s face does something funny, but she can tell it’s not on purpose. It’s like the muscles of his face are trying to hold two different expressions. He covers his eyes with a hand, leaving the lower part of his face bare to her. He lets out a laugh that has no hint of humor in it.

It seems to take him a moment to answer, and each second that ticks by makes her more and more nervous. 

“Nah,” he finally says, dropping his hand. His eyes are closed, and the smile that pulls his lips up does nothing to ease her sudden worries. She startles as he ruffles her hair, and she reaches up to grab his wrist. It is him that is suddenly startled at the unexpected touch, and his dark gaze meets her own. 

In the shadow cast by the trees surrounding them, she can’t tell if the white of his eyes are reddened or not. 

“Are you two fighting?” she asks.

His features soften, and his hand stays in her hair a second longer before he lets it fall. She feels the warmth of him pull away with it. 

“No, Sakura-chan. We’re not fighting. Not really. Just a little disagreement.”

She doesn’t know how long they stand there, breathing together, before they head to the training ground. 

Notes:

Hiiiii everyone 💖 it’s been a second since I posted a new chapter, but I needed the time to really think through some other important parts of the fic. Also, have you noticed anything new with the fic style? I added drop caps, made a chapter image, and made a title image for this fic! You can hide creator’s style if they’re not for you, but I really enjoyed making them 💖

I really liked writing this chapter. I ended up writing everything at once, so excuse any mistakes you see. The hardest part for this fic so far has been writing how these kids react lmao. Me to myself while writing: “These seven year olds would NOT say the word ‘ineptitude’.”

I would love to hear your thoughts about this chapter/this fic! I’m in the mood to talk about this AU, so send me anything you thought while reading 💖

Chapter 6

Notes:

Click for triggers

This chapter references Shisui's suicide and goes through the initial grief that Sakura feels upon learning of it

6

 

It’s the end of the weekend, and she’s working in the shop today. Bundled up behind the counter, pages of homework sprawled on its glossy wooden top, she enjoys the quietude of the end of what had been an easy day. 

Her mother and father both putter about in the front aisles, restocking in preparation for the morning. The sound of their quiet laughter as they share private jokes drifts over to her. To her right, leaning against the counter and overlooking Sakura’s neat writing, stands her granny, lips pursed severely. 

Iruka-sensei had assigned them homework to turn in by the start of this coming week. Two pages of questions asking what they would do if they were put in certain scenarios. 

Sakura had mentally labeled it as easy enough to ignore until the last minute, so here she is, working on it the night before it’s due. 

“The answer to most of these questions should be run,” her granny scowls.

Sakura sighs, pencil pausing against the paper. “It’s just homework, obaa-san.” 

“Pah!” her granny exclaims, tapping one sharp-nailed finger on question ten before reading it aloud. “‘You are in enemy territory. Dense forest and uneven terrain surrounds you. The weather has been unusually dry in this area for the past week. The enemy—a single shinobi of unknown rank—has spotted you. What are three types of traps you could utilize in this situation?’” The older woman scoffs. “What shinobi has time to set up traps when the enemy can see you?” 

“They just want to test our creativity, I think.”

“They just want to get you killed, is what I think. You write this down: ‘I take into account that I have a working brain and realize that traps won’t work when the enemy already has his peepers right on me. Assuming I still have function of the legs I was born with, I use them to increase the distance between us and live long enough to think of a better plan’.”

Sakura groans. She should have known better than to do homework near the crotchety old woman. “I can’t just run away every time I see an enemy!” 

Nonchalantly brushing invisible lint from the satin of one of her billowing sleeves, her granny sniffs petulantly. “I don’t see why not.” 

Running a calming hand through her hair, she glances away, lest she be tempted to roll her eyes. Outside, the sky melts from brilliant shades of orange and red to bruised purple. The days are quickly growing shorter, and the nighttime temperatures are finally beginning to drop. Soon, the leaves will all change color, and her favorite season will briefly settle into the space between Konoha’s harsh summer and frigid winter.

A group of shadows pass in front of the shop windows, catching her eye. Shinobi returning from a mission? she wonders idly. Maybe the extra patrols rotating their shifts? Mizuki-sensei had mentioned not so long ago, during one of the days Iruka-sensei had missed class because of a flu that had been making its rounds, that Konoha increases their guards during the colder seasons. Historically, Konoha has been more grievously attacked during the winter than any other season. Having to rely on other countries for importing food during the cold months—especially for their growing population—puts them at great risk for those supply chains to be cut off. It’s a vulnerability that they can’t yet overcome, and other villages know it.

It is in the middle of this train of thought that the door opens. Curiously, the bell does not ring. 

Unfortunately, it won’t be until much later—when she has revisited this moment an incalculable number of times—that she will recognize the absence of sound for what it really is:

A warning.

To that far-off Sakura, the absence of noise from a working bell is not so dissimilar to the warning sound of a kunai as it sails towards one’s head.

Both, of course, end with devastating outcomes.

A split second after the chime of the bell does not ring out, something precedes the boy who steps through their doorway. A sort of tension so thick and heavy that it has gained physical presence. 

In the back recesses of her mind, some long-dormant animal instinct rears its head and cowers. Sakura, young and inexperienced, has no idea what this charged feeling is, and it leaves her unbalanced, blinking confusedly atop her chair. 

Silence descends in the shop. 

Slowly, her granny lifts away from the counter, standing to her, albeit hunched, full height. Sakura can only see her from her periphery, as her focus is entirely on the boy in the entrance. 

“Itachi?” Sakura questions, laying her pencil down. “What are you doing here?” It’s nearly closing time. He has never once visited this late. She looks him over more closely. A cloak covers him from his shoulders down, leaving only his head and dark sandals bare to her. Purple smudges line the space beneath his eyes, as if he hasn’t slept since she last saw him a few days ago. 

He does not look at her. His eyes remain averted, even as he shatters her entire world. 

Approximately thirty minutes ago, at 8:03 p.m., 57 years after the founding of Konohagakure, Uchiha Shisui was officially declared deceased. He had thrown himself into the Naka River sometime between the early hours of 1:00 and 3:00 that morning. His body had been searched for among the roaring currents and deemed irretrievable. 

Itachi delivers this news, solemn-faced and factual, in the threshold of their store. When he’s done, he bows his head, turns, then stops just as his hand lands on the handle of the door. 

“He left no will behind, merely a message asking that he be given no funeral,” he says, not looking back. “He considered you important. I thought it only right that you hear this from me, before the rest of the village knows.”

And with that, he leaves her behind to pick up the fragmented pieces of her heart. 

She is distantly aware of movement around her, but she is stuck to the stool below, frozen. 

It hits her, suddenly and terribly and so out of place, that this is a Moment. She will never forget being here, in this time and space, and learning this terrible truth. That Moments aren’t restricted to happy things hits her like a secondary wave, and she’s left breathless and unmoored.

“That has to be a joke,” she chokes out, but Itachi has never once joked with her. Only ever with— “Shisui would never do something like that.”

A sense of numbness envelops her. Her ears buzz, and if not for the stool beneath her and her hands braced on the counter in front of her, she would be a puddle on the floor. 

Her father steps forward, having reached her side at some point. His hand hovers in the air beside her, as if hesitant to touch her in fear of her breaking.

Her granny has no such qualms, and her palm lands atop Sakura’s shoulder in a surprisingly strong grasp. It knocks something loose within Sakura at the same moment it grounds her. She sucks in a sharp breath and glances up. Her parents are sharing a watery look with one another, seemingly at a loss for words, before they turn pleading gazes towards her granny. 

“Stay at my home tonight, Sakura-chan,” the older woman murmurs. It is not a question. 

For the next indeterminable amount of time, Sakura stares blankly into the air before her, unseeing. She knows that her parents are busy with locking up early. She knows that her mother is barely holding it together, her choked-back sobs breaking free from her throat every so often. She knows that her father can’t see from the tears obscuring his vision on account of how long it takes him to unlock the safe in the back, his key scratching audibly against the metal front. 

But she can’t look at them. She’ll fall apart if she does. 

Shinobi Rule No. 3: a shinobi should never show weakness. 

It is not her voice that recites these rules in her mind. 

They separate from her parents in front of the store, and her granny guides her home with a steadying hand on her shoulder. Sakura doesn’t notice the passage of time, nor does she recognize their arrival until her granny is pushing her through the front door.

The inside of Sato Hanako’s house is cozy, if one ignores the weapons and suspicious powders lining the shelves across every wall. With only three rooms—a large, spacious kitchen, a small bedroom leading off the side, and a bathroom that had only recently been outfitted with modern plumbing—her granny says it’s all she needs. 

The kitchen hosts long wooden counters, short cabinets, a gas stove, and a large table whose top is scarred in certain spots and blackened in one corner. It looks as if something had caught fire there before being put out quickly enough to not spread to the rest of the wood. 

Dried herbs hang from the ceiling, giving the air a floral scent. A fireplace sits, unlit, in one corner.

Sakura takes in none of this. 

Her granny leaves Sakura to stand in front of the hearth while she bends to coax flames to catch on the wood she piles into the dark pit. Soon, warmth seeps into Sakura. She hadn’t realized she was so cold. 

“Help me with these, Sakura-chan,” her granny calls from the open bedroom, having left her side at some point. Slowly, as if in a trance, she steps towards the sound of the voice. A folded futon is immediately pushed against her chest, and she automatically brings her arms up to hold it. A blanket is added atop it, then a pillow. “Let’s sleep out by the fire tonight,” the older woman murmurs, guiding Sakura back out. 

Within moments, the futons lay side by side, and Sakura sits atop one, knees clutched tightly to her chest. Her granny is silent at her side, sitting cross-legged and staring into the flickering flames. 

The silence digs at her. Causes her mind to run wild. Not even her recitation of the Shinobi Rulebook can keep these terrible thoughts at bay. Unwillingly, she thinks of how the Naka River is beautiful during the spring, when the water roars below and splashes rainbows above the currents when the sunlight catches the spray. How in the fall, clumps of leaves and limbs drift down the snaking bends, briefly catching on tall, sharp rocks that jut above the water, before racing down to end in some other part of the country. 

She imagines the jagged cliff side of the Naka River as it would look at this moment, of how the water would be slightly lower now that the spring and summer showers have passed. The current would be no less dangerous, but more of those hidden rocks, spearing towards the sky, would peek above the water. She thinks of the long drop to the bottom. Wonders if Shisui had been afraid in between the jump and the landing. 

It is the unsettling nature of her thoughts that pushes Sakura to break the silence.

“Shisui was supposed to show me an easier way to cast the transformation jutsu this week. He promised.” Her words come out flat, monotonous. “I… I didn’t even get to say goodbye.” Her eyes suddenly burn, and she forces them to stay open. Her chest is tight, and her throat swells with an emotion she can’t name. It’s heavier than sadness. Sharper than anger. 

The fire crackles, and one of the logs snaps as the heat splits it open. Her granny watches on, the light flickering in her dark eyes, casting shadows across her face. 

“Why would he make that promise? Why would he—” Her voice falters, her tight grip on her emotions nearly loosens, and she drops her head to her raised knees. “I’m so stupid,” she says into her lap. “Why didn’t I see that something was wrong?” 

Why hadn’t he told me he needed help?

She bounces her forehead against the hard bone of her kneecap. It doesn’t ease any of the pain welling up inside her. She does it again anyways. 

“Stupid,” she says, before the wood snaps again and she snaps with it. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” She grinds her forehead against her knee, uncaring about the pounding in her head. Through gnashing teeth, she growls, “He left me! He left, and I’ll never know why, and I’m just so stup—”

Her granny’s hand lands tenderly on the back of her head, almost cradling her skull. “Sakura-chan,” she calls out, and the uncharacteristic gentleness in her tone is enough to finally break the dam that had been holding back Sakura’s tears. 

A choked sob rips free from her throat. She throws herself into her granny’s arms, uncaring how childish it makes her look. Her mind is a jumbled mess of fragmented memories and opposing thoughts. How can he be dead when she had just seen him yesterday morning? Why couldn’t he have just asked her for help? Were they not as close as she had assumed? How can she continue to live, when her heart is surely broken within her chest?

He was her friend. Her confidant. The one she could always count on. 

And now he’s gone. 

She cries so hard and so much that she thinks she might just drown. Her lungs constrict, and she’s left gasping between each great heave of emotion. 

Her granny holds her tightly through it all. Doesn’t tell her to hide her tears. Keeps her in her warm embrace, even after exhaustion overtakes her and her cries turn into quiet whimpers. 

She dreams of him that night. 

They’re running together. He’s ahead of her; laughing, joking, and alive. Every so often he grins at her over his shoulder, checking to see if she’s caught up yet. 

Her feet pound frantically on the ground below her, but no matter how hard she tries, she can’t catch up. 

“Let’s go play in the water, Sakura-chan!” he calls over his shoulder. 

Terror sparks within her. She doesn’t want to play in the water today. 

“We can’t, Shisui!” she yells out. Her chest heaves with exertion. “The water’s too cold!”

He laughs, and the sound echoes eerily around her, like he’s shouted it across a great, cavernous distance. 

She tries again. “The water’s too high, Shisui!”

“It’ll be fine,” he assures her. “I’ve got my lucky charm with me!”

Nearly tripping, she catches herself, and when she looks up, he’s further away than he had been just a moment ago. Her feet are snail-slow, her heart feels as if it’s about to jump straight out of her chest, and she screams into the increasing distance between them. 

“Wait for me! Please!” she shouts. “Please don’t leave me behind!” 

She awakes with a gasp. It takes her a moment to recognize where she is. Sweat gathers at her forehead and under her arms and back. The futon is soaked beneath her. 

It had all been real, she thinks, clenching her eyes shut tightly. Everything comes back to her in a rush, and her stomach roils. She feels sick. 

Her eyes burn, but tears don’t gather in their corners. She’s completely dried out. 

I’ll never see him again. The thought hits her like a punch. She’ll never laugh with him again. Never explore the village with him. Never train with him. She has no idea what to do in a world without him in it. 

Exhaustion plagues her more than it had when she fell asleep last night. Her throat is raw, and her head pounds unbearably. There’s nothing more she wants to do than stay beneath this blanket and let the world fade away. 

“Are you finally awake? How are you feeling?” Her granny’s creaky voice startles her, and Sakura’s eyes jolt open. 

Standing in the kitchen, her granny fries something in a large, cast iron pan. The smell of food turns her stomach. 

Sakura answers a different question, rather than the ones posed to her. “I’m not hungry, obaa-san.”

Her granny gives no indication that she had heard Sakura. She flips at the pan’s contents with a pair of long chopsticks. “I have some fresh fish here, fried up the way you like. There’s wild rice in the pot over there, too, and some of the last of this season’s vegetables on the table. Now, do you want your egg runny to top your rice with?”

Anger surges through Sakura with such suddenness that she feels fevered. She throws back the blanket and sits up, spots floating in her vision.  Her voice turns hoarse as she raises it. “I said I’m not hungry—”

“So you’re just going to sit there and starve to death?”

Sakura flinches at the calm tone. Her granny does not turn to look at her. 

“No, but—”

“Then come over here and help me set the table. Nothing good ever comes from wallowing.” 

After a long moment where she considers burrowing back under the blankets, she stiffly gets to her feet and slowly walks towards the table. The floor gets colder beneath her feet the farther away she gets from the hearth. 

“Grab those plates,” her granny indicates to a pile of dishes on the counter near the sink, where they had been left to dry. Distantly, Sakura realizes that they’re not the ones they normally use when she comes to visit. She turns them over in her hands. They’re heavy, thrown from clay. The glaze is a speckled cream that reminds her of the eggs they sometimes get from the market. An imprint of a leaf sits in the center of all of them. She absently draws a finger across it. 

“Are these new?” 

The click of the gas burner turning off sounds between them, and her granny places the sizzling food onto a serving platter. “No. That boy brought them back from a mission years ago.”

Her entire body tenses. The need to dive beneath the blankets and hide from the rest of the world returns tenfold, and she nearly drops the plates to the floor. 

Her granny’s keen eyes miss nothing, and the gentleness she had shown towards Sakura last night seems to have disappeared with the rising of the sun. With a loud, admonishing click of her tongue against the back of her teeth, the older woman sets the plate of fish down on the table. 

“Take this to heart, my girl,” her granny says, grasping at the cane she had left leaning against one of the chairs. “This is just the beginning of the life you are choosing to live. To be a kunoichi is to suffer.” She says this matter-of-factly, eyes burning into Sakura’s own. “That boy’s death is just the first of many losses to come.”

“I know!” Sakura snarls, then flinches. Anger such as this is unfamiliar to her. That it comes so easily scares her. Her fingers tighten around the plates she’s still holding on to, and she swallows thickly. “I know,” she repeats, far quieter this time. “Everyone talks about how shinobi die all the time. But he wasn’t even on a mission! He just…just…” The words get lodged in her throat, cutting off her air supply. She feels like she can’t breathe around them. 

With a heavy sigh, her granny pulls out a chair and settles into it. She lets Sakura figure out how to regain control over her own natural processes. 

Sakura takes in deep, steadying breaths. They shudder on the way out. The room begins to spin, and she clenches her eyes shut to hide from the dizzying sight. Slowly, the moment passes. When she finally feels up for opening her eyes, she’s surprised to see that she’s bent nearly double, the plates gripped tightly to her chest. 

She pushes her sweaty hair away from her face as she raises back to her full height. Avoiding her granny’s eyes, she finally asks the question that won’t stop plaguing her. 

“How could he do that, obaa-san?” she whispers brokenly. 

The older woman takes a moment before responding. “I don’t know,” she says. “Neither of us likely ever will. Such is the life of those of us left behind. But look at me, my girl,” she implores. Sakura glances up from where her gaze had dropped, into the reddened eyes of her strong granny. “We cannot let the deaths of our precious people take us with them.” With a nod to the food cooling on the table between them, she gives Sakura an obvious choice. 

Sakura sniffles, nose running. She wipes the back of her sleeve against it. Birdsong echoes distantly outside, finally heard as they both fall silent. She stands there long enough that the steam coming from the fish dissipates before she nods solemnly. Dropping into the chair opposite, she slides a plate over to the older woman then sets her own gently in front of her. 

“Okay, obaa-san.” 

Notes:

*hides from the potential of thrown tomatoes*

Yeah. This was a rough chapter to draft, simply because of how difficult it was trying to capture a realistic (for this au) view of Sakura's initial grief. She's so young, but has all of these different outside influences in her life that have carved away at the possibility of her ever acting like a normal kid.

Tell me your thoughts for this chapter! I'd love to hear them!

Chapter 7

Notes:

Sorry for the slightly later posting, here’s a slightly longer chapter to make up for it! Unbeta’d, so ignore any mistakes (or tell me if they’re bad enough lmao)

---

7

 

Sakura is allowed one full day of mourning before she has to return to the Academy. 

With no funeral to attend and no grave to visit, Sakura and her granny had taken that day to wander out into the dense forest beyond the village walls. They gathered herbs and other plants her granny needed before the frost could start to kill them off, and carried their bounties in woven baskets that hung from the crooks of their arms. 

While they explored, they spoke of him. At first, it had been nearly impossible for her to drag up any thoughts of Shisui. The wound of his loss from her life was still too raw, too fresh, to see beyond it and remember the time it wasn’t there. Each instance she tried to speak of him, the words would lodge themselves in her throat, preventing her from doing much more than breathing through the pain.  

He was gone, her granny had told her in serious tones, but they shouldn’t let their memories of him fade.

And with the light of this new morning, she’s still undeniably numb. Wrung out. Unstable on her feet, feeling as if the ground that had once been solid below her had, without warning, turned into this constantly-shifting sand that leaves her more unbalanced with each step. 

None of it feels real. No matter how much time passes, she thinks as she slides into her regular seat near the back of the classroom, it will never feel real. 

He had been gone for days before, out of the village on missions that had no set return date. If she wanted, she could pretend that he’s just away on a really hard mission, and when he gets back everything will return to normal. She imagines that when he returns, he’ll find her when she least expects it, dropping down from some ridiculous height to surprise her. He’ll pick her up and spin her, then search through his pockets for a souvenir that he had brought back from some place or another. 

She digs through her bag and pulls out a notebook, flipping through it until she finds a sheet of paper not filled with the messy scribble of her notes. Tipping her head down until her hair hides her face, she closes her eyes. 

He’ll never return this time. Pretending is a game meant only for children.  

Right on time, Iruka-sensei steps into the classroom, whistling a jaunty tune while he juggles a steaming mug of coffee in one hand and a stack of papers in the other, attempting not to drop either as he struggles to shut the door. His arrival snaps her out of her head and drags her mind back to thoughts less likely to make her burst into tears. 

“Good morning, class! I have your homework graded here for us to review. We’ll be going over some of your answers today, picking apart both the good and the bad for each scenario given.” 

Groans ring around the room, and Iruka-sensei hands the stack of papers to a student in the first seat of the front row, where they take their homework before passing it to the next person. 

“I know, I know,” he chuckles, waving their lukewarm response away as he strides across the room. He takes a sip from his mug before placing it on his desk and clearing his throat. The rustling sound of papers passing between hands fills the room, and he flicks his own copy of the work to keep it from bending. Turning to the blackboard, eyes on the paper in his hand, he blindly reaches down for the chalk. “Now, let’s start with the, uh, first…question—alright,” he sighs, head dropping, outreached hand agitatedly knocking twice against the empty ledge. “Ha-ha, very funny. Where’s the chalk?” Dropping his hand to place it on his hip, he faces them, surveying the class with an unamused stare. 

No one answers. 

His eyes flick towards the back of the room, on the side where the window sits, glass panes open to let air circulate. 

“Naruto?” he sighs, easily guessing where the blame may lie. “Is this your doing?” Sakura automatically turns to look, but as she does, her eyes catch on the person who sits at the desk just in front of her prankster of a classmate.

On Sasuke.

He’s not watching Naruto like the rest of their classmates, but staring at her. There’s a slight frown of concern on his face that makes her chest instantly ache. 

She drops her eyes to stare at the scratched wood of her desk. 

“It wasn’t me! What would I even do with that stuff?” the blond boy yells, thumping a fist against his desk in emphasis. 

For the rest of the class, she doesn’t look up. She stays quiet, pencil scratching down notes for a lecture that she only half-pays attention to. 

Once class is over, Iruka-sensei tells them that Yuto-sensei will be a little late, and to stay in their seats. Chatter instantly starts up the moment he shuts the door behind himself, and Sakura wishes she could shrink down into her chair to hide until their next teacher arrives. 

“You look worse than usual,” Ami begins from her right. The pop of bubblegum echoes in her ears, and Sakura inwardly groans. 

I really, really, don’t want to deal with her today, she thinks, staring blankly at her notes. Maybe if I ignore her, she’ll leave. 

Only a few seconds pass before Ami loudly smacks at her gum and sarcastically inquires, “Are your classes getting too hard for you? I noticed you skipped yesterday.” 

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy to get rid of her. Continuing to implement her new vow of silence, her pencil scritches nonsense into the margins of her notes. This only seems to agitate Ami further, and she lays a hand on Sakura’s desk and leans into her space. 

From Sakura’s left, her deskmate fidgets uncomfortably. 

“Do you wanna know what I think?” Ami asks in a flippant way that suggests she’s discovered something of incredible intrigue. 

No, Sakura thinks. She has never wanted anything less. Now knowing that ignoring her is not working, she raises her eyes away from her notes, and Ami takes this as a sign to continue. 

“I think you’re just not cut out for this place. Think about it,” she widens her eyes and opens one of her hands, palm tilted towards Sakura and fingers spread wide. “I push you, and tease you, and you just sit there and take it. You’re spineless. You don’t ever fight back. You just run, run, run away.” She smirks, and Sakura flinches at the underlying vitriol in the expression, wondering why this girl just won’t leave her alone. “And it’s only gonna get worse the longer you stay here. Do you think your genin team will like having a teammate who won’t even protect herself?” 

Sakura lowers her eyes, jaw clenching. 

Ami drops her head until they’re nearly nose-to-nose, her eyes glaring daggers into Sakura’s face. Sakura can smell the fruity scent of her gum on her breath. It’s cloying, and turns her stomach. 

“You must have been a worm in a past life,” Ami hums, much too closely. “Or an ant.” Her eyes fall to where Sakura grips at her pencil, then dart back to Sakura's face, as if goading her to try something. When Sakura gives no further reaction, she pulls away with a sigh, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Yeah, just like I thought—spineless.” 

“Everyone, back in their seats!” Yuto-sensei shouts as he enters the room, saving Sakura from having to respond. 

Ami blows another bubble and pops it in Sakura’s face, giving her a considering once over. Before she leaves, she gifts Sakura with one last piece of her mind. 

“I hope I can be there on the day someone finally squishes you under their shoe,” she sneers, then turns on her heel and flaunts back to her desk. 

Anger churns in her gut, but Sakura tamps it down with a shaky breath. 

She does not look up for this lesson, either. 

During their lunch break, Sasuke tries to approach her. This in itself is odd. He usually hangs around some of his cousins from the other classes when it’s time to eat. She often wonders if he sits with them to keep Ami and her friends at bay, or if he just doesn’t socialize well with other people. Either way, it seems to work just fine for him. 

She’s busy choking down the homemade lunch her mother had handed her that morning when he steps beside her, toes barely crossing into the shade the tree above casts over her.

“Sakura, I…” he begins, and she looks up in surprise. A conflicted expression sits uneasily on his face. His hands are balled in his pockets. “I’m sorry. I know you two were close.” 

Swallowing thickly, she drops her gaze, making herself busy with wrapping the plastic around what’s left of the crumbling onigiri in her hand. 

She hates having to hear Shisui spoken about in this way. Were. Was. Like he's already a thing of the past. 

“Yeah,” she says, in lieu of having no other response. It’s okay, would be a complete lie. He was my closest friend, would make her sound pathetic, though it was the truth. Still remains the truth, even. 

The noise of their classmates swells as a nearby group bursts out in laughter over something someone says. 

In the weighted silence between the two of them, though, Sasuke’s throat clicks as he swallows. 

“He didn’t say who he wanted his things to go to. But if there’s anything you want, I can get it for you.”

This manages to sink into the fog surrounding her mind and yanks her to attention. Her head jerks up towards him, and she scans him, really looking him over instead of watching him from the corner of her eye. His shoulders are a tense line, nearly rising up to his ears. He looks tired, too. Most others might only be able to see the aloof facade he’s currently trying to don, but she’s well-versed in the micro expressions of the Uchiha. 

“Really?” she asks. “You would do that?” She stares at him uncomprehendingly. 

He nods, dark eyes meeting her own long enough to show her he’s telling the truth. 

“The clan is already starting to box his stuff up before they divvy it out amongst the other members. It’s what we do if there’s no will.”

“Will you get in trouble?” 

He shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. Besides, even if I got in trouble, Itachi nii-san would just talk my way out of it.” 

Sakura closes the lid on her bento in order to hide her expression. 

Itachi hasn’t looked for her since he came to the store a couple nights ago. She hopes he’s okay. 

But the thought of him makes her wonder—why is Sasuke the one approaching her for this?

“He had a bunch of weapons and scrolls,” Sasuke continues, then drags one sandal in the dirt below his feet. “Not many personal items—which is respectable for a shinobi.” 

Sakura nods, slowly. “I appreciate the offer but…I’m not sure. It feels weird, thinking about taking his stuff.” 

He’s quick to refute her. “Shisui would want you to have those items more than some of the people who’ve already called upon otou-san to look through them.” 

Would. Another word indicating his absence. She feels something gathering in the back of her mind, something sharp and hot and painful. She dams it up quickly, not allowing it a moment longer to grow or to trickle through her defenses. 

“I suppose he would have,” she murmurs. She gives herself a mental shake and gets to her feet, knowing that their lunch break is almost over. “But I don’t know what I’d even want.” Averting her eyes, she fiddles with the box in her hands, holding herself back from checking who might be watching the longest conversation they have ever had with one another. “I’m not any good at using a tanto. And most of my kunai are his, anyway.”

A whistle sounds out, their only warning that they have five minutes to put their stuff back in their classroom before their taijutsu training with Mizuki-sensei starts. 

Sasuke hums in thought, nodding. “I’ll look through his things and see if there’s anything that might suit you, then.” 

He turns and leaves without another word, and she waits a long moment before following his footsteps back to the classroom. 

After she puts her bento away, she returns to the field outside, where the rest of her classmates wait around the tall figure in front of them. 

Mizuki-sensei glances over the gathered students before looking down at his wrist to check the time. The sun shines against his pale hair, turning it nearly white—so different from the artificial lighting of the Academy, where his hair is almost a sickly, pale blue. Out here, it’s like a beacon. She shuffles into the back of the group, hoping that she’ll be one of the ones picked that won’t have to spar. She’s entirely too fragile today, and fears that even one hit might just shatter her.

“Listen for your name to be called and step towards the side of the field that I indicate, please and thank you. Aikoku,” he begins, jerking his head towards the right. A boy she has never really interacted with jogs over, pushing his glasses up as he stops and turns. “Ami,” Mizuki-sensei continues, gesturing to the left of himself. 

This continues on, dread gathering in her stomach with each new name called. 

Just kata for me today, she silently begs. 

“Haruno Sakura. To the left, please.”

Cautiously, she trudges to the end of the line, not liking the glint she had seen in Ami’s eyes as she walked past. 

After the last name is called—Yamanaka Ino, to the left—Mizuki-sensei turns and looks over each group. A small smile sits on his face, but his gray eyes are serious. “Perfect! Those of you over here—” he points towards the group Sakura is in, “—will be sparring with a partner. The rest of you will be practicing your kata today. I want to see some real concentration and improvement from you guys, so let’s do our best, okay?” He claps his hands together, and they all answer with a dispassionate yes, sensei. 

The moment Mizuki-sensei tells them to start, Sakura frantically looks for a friendly face. The boy beside her is already clapping hands with another of her classmates, and she moves away, trying to catch anyone’s eye. 

No one looks her way. She’s surrounded by her classmates, and yet she’s entirely alone. What few civilian-born students are in her group have already paired up, and the clan-born students are easily finding their friends and separating off from the group to begin their training. 

A sense of loneliness washes over her. 

She has never quite fit in here. From her looks, to her birth, to her personality, to any other facet of her life—no matter the amount of influence she does or does not have over it—she has never quite been able to meet the standards of her peers.

Ami putting that metaphorical target on her back and making her a social pariah hadn’t helped, either. 

But until now, she’d had Shisui. And he had been all she needed. All she wanted. Why would she try to reach out to other kids when she could just go home and wait for him to show up? Why would she try to befriend people who never tried to reach out to her? Who never grew up with her, and thus never extended the same trust they had to other children who had? 

And now, she has no one. And no idea how to rectify this isolation.

At the edge of the group, her eyes meet Ami’s. Her mouth slowly turns up into a wicked smile, as if she can hear Sakura’s thoughts. 

“Sakura?” Mizuki-sensei’s voice shouts from across the field. His hand is cupped around his mouth. “Where’s your partner?” 

Panicking, her mouth dropping open and her tongue deciding to tie itself right then and there, she tries to figure out a way to say that she doesn’t have one yet without everyone hearing and getting confirmation on what a loser she really is. 

“Oh, Sakura-chan’s with me, sensei!” A sugary-sweet voice chimes in, and a hand grips tightly around Sakura’s bicep. Ami had jogged over and slung an arm across the back of Sakura’s shoulders, embracing her like they’re old friends. 

“Wonderful. Ami, make sure you don’t telegraph your attacks this time. Shinobi should never show their next move unless it’s as a distraction!” 

The grip around Sakura’s arm turns painful, and she fights back a grimace. 

“Yes, sensei!” Ami aims a smile at him, only to drop it when his back is turned. Sakura takes a step away and frowns at her, cursing her bad luck to have been put in this situation. 

“C’mon,” Ami growls, shifting her feet into a fighting stance. “You may have the highest scores for a civilian-born girl in our class, but let’s see how well you can actually fight. I’ll bet you’re not better than me.”

Without warning, Ami lunges for her, throwing a punch that doesn’t land because Sakura blocks it with her forearm and redirects it to the side, throwing Ami off balance. She doesn’t stay that way for long, and before Sakura can take advantage of her awkward position, Ami throws her other arm around the back of Sakura’s neck to pull her down and knee her in the stomach. 

Hard. 

Much harder than a spar calls for. 

Sakura doubles over, gasping and fighting the urge to be sick all over her dusty shoes. Ami gives her no time to recover, wrapping Sakura’s hair around her fingers and yanking her head up. Pain sparks along her scalp as a few strands rip free in the other girl’s grip. A practice kunai taps against her throat, the edge and tip dull enough to not break skin.

“How many seconds was that?” Ami gloats, grinning down at her. “Ten? I don’t think you deserve that top spot at all,” she laughs. 

Sakura feels the weight of eyes on her and flushes red. In the back of her mind, something shifts. And with it, so, too, does Sakura. 

With one hand, she slaps the kunai away from her throat, where it had been hovering over a scar caused by a similar weapon. She hits Ami’s hand hard enough, or perhaps surprised her enough, that the practice weapon sails out of her grasp to land somewhere too far away to reach. With her other hand, she grips onto Ami’s wrist, squeezing until she feels bone shift beneath her fingers and the other girl cries out and releases her hold around Sakura’s hair. Keeping her grip, Sakura pulls Ami’s arm, sweeps out a leg, and trips her.

Following her down, Sakura uses the momentum to her advantage, keeping Ami from rolling out of the attack. It’s a complete tangle of limbs in the process, unrefined and not at all graceful. Nothing to be proud of as a kunoichi-in-training.

But Ami lands beneath her with a pained oomph, and Sakura has never heard something so beautiful. Ami immediately tries to claw at Sakura’s face, scratching her cheeks before she can pull her head back. Baring her teeth, Sakura attempts to catch Ami’s hands, but ends up only able to grasp at her upper arms. With her knees on either side of Ami, she shuffles higher and uses her weight to pin Ami’s arms to the ground, settling her knees into the crook of her elbows. It’s an awkward position, but Ami is unable to throw her or do much more than scratch furiously at the back of Sakura’s calves and thighs. 

Adrenaline ensures that Sakura feels none of it. 

Below her, Ami squirms helplessly. Her eyes are wide, pupils dilated. Fear and anger shift in equal measures across her face, before fear quickly takes over once she realizes that she’s trapped.

Any anger she had had pales in comparison to Sakura’s fury. 

For years, she has put up with Ami’s antics. Cried herself to sleep more than once because of her harsh words. Developed a habit of always looking over her shoulder, because she never knows when the next rock is going to sail towards her head. She has made Sakura lie to her parents, to her granny, to Shisui, about how much fun she has at the Academy. 

No more. 

Sakura takes the moment in. It feels good to be the one with the influence over the situation. The one in control. She could do anything right now. Make Ami pay in any way she wants. She can rip at her hair. Claw at her eyes. Punch her face until it’s a bloody mess. Use the forehead that Ami hates so much to break her nose. 

One of her hands drops beside Ami’s head, bracing Sakura’s weight above her. 

Strangle her until her eyes bulge and her face turns first a dark red, then a garish purple to match her hair. 

Pull out a kunai—a real kunai—and slit her throat. 

It would all be so easy. They had been trained to expect to do those things, after all.

A sense of horror turns her stomach. 

This was supposed to be a spar. And despite the fact that Ami had turned it into a fight, she is still a classmate, not an enemy. A horrid bully, yes, but an ally of Konoha, and therefore an ally of her own.  

Sakura’s arm pulls back without conscious thought, fingers curling into a fist, and hovers beside her own head. 

Am I any better than her if I continue the fight? If I hurt her while she’s defenseless? 

Ami sucks in a ragged breath below her, eyes clenched tightly shut, head twitching to the side as she braces for the hit. 

All of the anger she had felt so ardently evaporates in less than a second. Her fist drops away, and she just sits there, attempting to process anything through the sudden numbness that envelops her.

“Ami,” Mizuki-sensei disappointedly calls from nearby. “Get up. Spar with someone who will take you seriously.” 

She’s breathing like she just finished a race, and Ami isn’t faring much better. They stare at one another, then Sakura shifts and climbs off of her. She reaches a shaking hand down to help the other girl get to her feet, but Ami glances away and stands on her own. 

Fallen leaves rustle as Mizuki-sensei steps to their side, and she can see his clipboard from her periphery. Once again, she wonders what he has written about her. Probably nothing good. Likely something about how she has zero follow through. 

Sakura just hangs her head. 

“Who wants to switch partners?” Mizuki-sensei asks, head turned. She and Ami had gathered an audience at some point and Sakura hadn’t even realized it. 

“I can, sensei,” a confident voice responds. Sakura glances up. Ino leaves the side of another girl, Hyuuga Hinata, and jogs to Mizuki-sensei’s side. Her icy blue eyes land on Sakura for a moment, and her chin tilts up. 

“Alright,” Mizuki-sensei nods. “Sakura, you’re with Hinata. Ino, Ami, face off. The rest of you, back to your training.” 

Kiba passes her, Akamaru trailing along close behind, and his shoulder bumps into her own, jarring her. 

“Woah, scary,” he taunts, giving a fake shiver. Akamaru barks in what she can only assume to be agreement. 

I don’t want to be here right now. 

The feeling overwhelms her. It itches beneath her skin, forming into a need that she can’t ignore. 

A few meters away, Hinata fidgets with her hands. She’s even more shy than Sakura, but she’s a Hyuuga—the heiress to the clan, in fact. She never wants for a partner, having grown up with the other clan kids, most of whom are also next in line for the positions as head of their respective clans. 

Dimly, she’s aware of Ino and Ami squaring off. The sound of their shoes shifting and stomping against the dry grass reaches her, but she has no desire to watch them. Despite the open air surrounding her, she can’t help but begin to feel as if something is closing in on her. An invisible hand, palm around her throat, squeezing. 

Her feet step back of their own accord. Hinata, still staring at her from far away with those unsettlingly white eyes, just watches, a small downturn to her lips.

She’s never skipped class. Not once. The thought of missing and risking the chance to learn something new would normally be enough to break her out in hives. 

But right now, the thought of staying here upsets her more. 

Mizuki-sensei is no longer paying her any mind, his back to her as he watches Ami and Ino’s spar. Her eyes dart to them despite her earlier aversion to watching them, and she catches Ino’s eye. With a quirk of her blonde eyebrows in an expression that almost says watch this, Ino grabs Ami by her hair and yanks her forward. 

“Hey—” is the only thing Ami manages to say before Ino punches her right in the nose, blood splattering everywhere. 

“Yamanaka!” Mizuki-sensei barks, making no move to rush forward. “No hair pulling!” 

He obviously hadn’t seen what Ami had done earlier, Sakura thinks.

Kiba jeers from the other side of the field, and someone sighs nearby. Realizing that this is her only chance, she takes advantage of everyone’s distraction and runs for the fence, easily vaulting over it and disappearing from view of the field. 

With nowhere to go in mind, she sprints until her lungs feel as if they’re about to burst. 

Notes:

I’m really having a lot of fun right now with Sakura being an unreliable narrator 😂 she’s in the unfortunate position of being unaware of the impact that being from a clan has on each individual’s social norms and how they interact with one another, AND so few interactions herself with other civilian children that she’s a little behind on all fronts. Hope that makes even a little bit of sense, I’m suffering from an awful cold lmao

Tell me your thoughts! I wanna know how you’re enjoying the fic so far 💖 What do you guys expect to happen throughout this fic? What are you excited to see? I think I’ll have very few more chapters where they’re in the academy before a time skip to their graduation!

Chapter 8

Notes:

Happy Halloween 🎃 Here’s an early chapter to celebrate!

Click for triggers

vomit mention and grief of a lost loved one

8

 

Whatever adrenaline that had been rushing through her veins and enhancing her stamina runs out by the time Sakura makes it to a street lined with all manner of market stalls. 

In the middle of haggling aunties, older men and women shouting their prices, and families rushing through the street to shop and talk, Sakura catches her breath in the chaos. Hands on knees, hair messy around her face from her slapdash attempt to escape her own thoughts, she gasps in panicked breaths. 

What am I doing? 

She has never skipped class before. It’s not what she does. It’s not who she is. 

She’s the bookworm, the know-it-all, the constant in a class full of erratic students. The one who pushes through every snide comment made about her; who tries her best to show that despite her weaknesses, she can still keep up with her peers. The one who shows up every single day and gets the work done without complaint, no matter how hard it is.

But she’s certainly not doing any of that right now. She’s not acting strong in the face of adversity. No, she’s losing her temper. She’s running. 

“Hey, you!” 

Why did I do that? she thinks despondently, clenching her eyes shut. I’m gonna get in so much trouble!

Regret at all of the choices that led her here cuts through her mercilessly. She should have just hit Ami and finished the fight. One punch would have ended it, likely leaving nothing more than a bruise across Ami’s cheekbone and an ache in her fist. 

But she remembers the fear that she saw in Ami’s eyes. Remembers the creeping satisfaction she had felt at being the cause of that reaction. Remembers the ease with which she could have caused any manner of pain towards the other girl. 

Her stomach tightens, burns—like a molten weight of lead is sinking within it. Is this anger? she wonders. If it is, she is chock-full of it. Her fingers dig into the dusty hem of her shorts. How dare she? Sakura thinks. How dare she, and everyone else?

To whom this thought refers, she doesn’t wish to dissect. 

“You! Girl!”

The pointed shout surprises her. She had forgotten that she is not as intangible as she often believes herself to be, and that she is very much in the middle of a very busy crowd. Beneath a plastic cover acting as a sort of protection from the sun and elements above, sits an older woman, gray hair tied back into a neat bun. A thick blanket cushions her from the hard ground, and she has her legs folded beneath her. She’s waving frantically at Sakura, looking as if she’s been trying to catch her attention for a long time. Showcased in her stall—grouped atop a long table, hanging between what seems to be collapsible metal poles connected by a fraying rope, and folded atop a thin sheet of plastic on the ground at her side—are all manner of fabrics, each dyed with different colors and sporting different patterns.

She takes this all in within the span of a second. Swallowing thickly, she points a finger at her chest, and asks, rather unnecessarily, “M-me?” 

The older woman clucks, gesturing for Sakura to come forward. Somehow, despite already being red-faced from the harrowing escape, the woman’s scrutiny manages to cause it to heat even more. Cautiously, she rises to her full height and walks up to the edge of the older woman’s blanket, having to step aside once in order to dodge a fast-walking auntie carrying a stack of boxes, determination etched onto her face.

“Yes, you! What are you doing showing up here looking like that? What happened to you?”

Sakura is slow to understand, until the stall owner leans to the side and shakes out a white handkerchief. She gets to her knees, grunting as she does, and wipes at Sakura’s face. It stings, and the cloth comes away red.

“Did you lose a fight with an alley cat? Look at you, my goodness.” Her voice is as coarse as rocks, though her touch is gentle. 

Sakura lifts a hand to grab the cloth and wipe at her own face. She had forgotten about her wounds completely, but now that she is made aware of them again, they throb painfully. 

The older woman fusses, muttering and waving her hands as she squints at Sakura. “What kind of trouble are you youngsters getting into these days—why, what happened to your legs?”

Sakura follows the other woman’s gaze and winces. The back of her calves are covered in scratches, and some even lead up to the back of her thighs. It’s obvious that they’re from fingernails. A few still bleed slowly, soaking into the tops of her socks. Sakura knows that she will never get the stains out, and should probably throw them away before her mother sees them. 

The stall owner’s hand hovers in the air between them. “Th-that…those are…are you okay? Do you need help?” 

Face lined with age, wrinkles made more prominent by a worried frown, she looks at Sakura—and Sakura can almost see herself through her cataract-clouded eyes. A young girl, bleeding and hurt, running from some unknown threat. 

And her first instinct had been to help. 

A wave of new emotion washes over her, and Sakura backs slowly away, hand clenched around the handkerchief.

“I’m fine,” she says, hating the way her voice has thickened. “Really! Thank you!” 

Before the older woman can respond, Sakura turns and runs, pushing through the crowded market, uncaring of whose toes she steps on, or whose shoulder she hits. The only time she falters is when one of those shoulders doesn’t budge, sending her sprawling for only a moment, knees scraping painfully against the ground. A pair of green flak vests appear above her, but her eyes stay lowered as she clambers back to her feet.

“You oka—”

“Sorry,” she mumbles, already pushing away from the shinobi and disappearing into the crowd, not glancing back. 

She turns down street after street, stepping from familiar pathways onto ones unknown to her. Absurdly, she worries that someone from the Academy will have been sent to track her down. Irauka-sensei had done just that before, when a group of laughing boys had escaped through the window and ran off. She would hate to face him right now, she mutedly thinks. The disappointment that would surely be on his face would be too much on top of everything else.

Throughout her entire run—then walk, then limp, as the pain in her legs grew—there had been various noises and all manner of people enjoying their day around her. Cafés filled with couples getting together for long chats, parks overrun with civilian children, various restaurants emitting mouth-watering scents of grilled beef with long lines of customers waiting outside. Her feet lead her all across the village, taking no signal from her fuzzy mind and only going where they want to go. 

It isn’t until those familiar sights and sounds disappear from around her that she finally stops, panting heavily. Chipped, gray brick walls surround her on both sides. Tiny shards of glass glint along the concrete path and, from their faded colors, have likely been here for a long time. The overpowering stench of urine clouds her nose, and she unconsciously covers it with her sleeve, to no effect. She’s standing in the crossroads of an empty alleyway, with no clue where she is. 

Tsss. Tsss. Click, click, click. Tsss.

From the mouth of one of the passages in front of her comes a loud, metallic shaking sound, then the noise of something being sprayed. Had she been in her right mind, Sakura would have turned and attempted to find her way back home. Instead, she creeps forward on silent feet, peeking into the shadowed alcove.

Standing atop a rickety wooden box, satchel slung over his shoulder, is Uzumaki Naruto. A can of spray paint is in his gloved hands, spritzing out a jet of red. It’s the source of the noise, she realizes. His eyes are squinted in concentration as he leans back and tilts his head at whatever he’s painting.

Not wanting to make him aware of her presence, she begins to back away; unfortunately, her shoes scrape against the rough path, and their gazes meet across the distance. His eyes widen in surprise, but he makes no move towards her. 

Whipping her head back from around the corner, she turns and attempts to power-walk away, giving no more acknowledgement towards him. 

Thankfully, he doesn’t follow. 

Now that her mind is no longer trailing behind her, and she’s once again in full control of all her faculties, she finally pays attention to her surroundings. After leaving the alley, she stumbles onto an unfamiliar street, lined on each side with rundown buildings that look as if one harsh gust will be enough to topple them over. They seem to be mostly apartments, but every so often she passes a business tucked into a shadowed cranny, windows boarded up and covered in multicolored graffiti. Street lamps guide her way forward, but many of the bulbs are broken, leaving large swathes of shadows to wade through.

Most of the windows above her are darkened, she notes, their curtains pulled tightly shut, but a few shine dimly with a pale orange light. One such window highlights a woman leaning out of her balcony, cigarette in hand, one breast nearly hanging out of her dressing gown. She stares dispassionately down at Sakura as she sucks in a long drag, cheeks hollowing, and breathes out a cloud of white smoke through her nose. 

Shivering, Sakura continues on, eyes peeled for any road sign or marker indicating where her foolish feet have taken her. 

The shadows grow around her as she walks, the sun setting quickly, and she wishes more than anything right now that she knew how to scale and leap across buildings in the way she often sees older shinobi travel. Instead, she's stuck on the ground, jumping at every little sound. 

Surely I’ll find my way out of here if I just keep walking, she tries to think positively, eyes darting in every direction. The buildings towering above her feel like they’re closing in, and she ups her pace, fingers clenching into fists at her side. A pair of cats startle her as she passes a stinking garbage can, rolling and clawing and hissing at one another in a fight over whatever morsel of food they’ve found. Glass shatters from somewhere in the distance, followed by a cut-off yell, and Sakura flinches, instinctively darting into another alcove. 

“You!” A voice shouts, drawing her attention further down her new path and pulling her up short. 

Naruto is there, in the grip of an Uchiha officer, shirt collar pulled taut in the older man’s hand, toes of his ratty shoes skimming the ground. His satchel is missing. The officer says something to him that she can’t hear, shaking him as he does, and Naruto lifts a hand to stick a pinky in his ear. 

“I didn’t do anything, seriously. I mean, look at me! I’m literally empty-handed!” 

Despite the oncoming darkness, Sakura realizes with a start that she knows this Uchiha, though he’s not the one she’s been searching for since that horrible night as a child. No, this is the man who had nearly gotten into a fight with another shinobi in a public place, only pulling away when Shisui had intervened. 

“Show me your hands,” the man growls, and Naruto groans but obliges. 

“See? See?” He waves his hands in the officer's face. “They’re as clean as they always are! Now, let me—”

“Empty your pockets.” He drops his grip on Naruto’s shirt. Naruto’s feet go flat on the ground and he backs up a couple steps, shoulders tense. 

In his back pocket, a paint-spattered finger from one of his gloves peeks out.

Sakura doesn’t know what comes over her in that moment. She’s never gotten along with Naruto. He’s always been too loud, too annoying, too forward. And she’s always had a soft spot for the Uchiha. But this man has a look in his eyes that she doesn’t like. It’s the same look Ami and her friends get when they corner her. 

Without thought, she runs forward. The Uchiha officer turns in her direction, but Naruto, whether intentionally or not, is smart enough to keep his back to her. She keeps her trajectory at an angle to where once she’s behind Naruto, the man can’t see her hand as she pulls the gloves out and slides them into her own pocket. Once she has them, she steps to the side and gives a small bow of her head in acknowledgement to the officer. It all happens in an instant, the sleight-of-hand so smooth that Nanae-sensei would have been proud had she been here to witness it. 

Heart pounding, she asks sweetly, “What seems to be the problem, Uchiha-san?”

Frowning severely, the officer answers, “I’m looking for a culprit in a recent crime whose description matches that of this boy.” 

Giving a dramatic sigh, Sakura places her hands on her hips and turns towards her classmate. “How is it that every time you’re all alone you manage to get in trouble?” Turning back to the officer, she gives a sheepish smile. “Iruka-sensei gave us homework today, and Naruto and I were partners. We only just finished and were about to head home. I don’t know who the culprit really is, but Naruto is innocent this time.” 

The man’s dark eyes carefully observe her. She’s mindful of keeping her features relaxed, as if she’s an open book. 

“What happened to you?” he asks suspiciously, waving a hand over his own face in indication of her scratches. 

“Oh!” she exclaims, as if just remembering them. “It was a training incident. I didn’t keep my head up while crawling under the wires at the Academy’s obstacle course. The ground scratched me up pretty badly, huh?” she laughs, as if the cuts are inconsequential. 

He hums, either believing her lie, or not caring at all. “Be that as it may,” he turns his attention back to Naruto. “I still want you to turn out your pockets.”

“But I haven’t done any—”

“Now.”

Making a show of grumbling, Naruto pulls his pockets inside out. A crumpled receipt falls to the ground as he empties his left pocket, and a handful of coins scatter as he empties the right one. 

“Back ones, too,” the officer snaps, obviously angry that this shakedown isn’t going to his plan. 

Naruto turns—then smacks his butt.

Loudly. 

“See?” he yells. “E-m-p-t-y! I’m innocent, believe it! Like Sakura-chan said, we had just said bye to each other when you popped up out of nowhere and assaulted me like some night-pervert! Do you have a manager I can complain to? A boss? I shouldn’t be the suspect every time something goes missing, or someone thinks they saw someone trying to break into some place, or, or—whatever it is you think I did this time!”

Sakura tenses, expecting the worst the moment the officer’s face darkens at the beginning of Naruto’s rant, but once the Uchiha pinches his nose and sighs as if he would rather be anywhere but here, she relaxes. 

“Fine!” the man says, cutting off whatever Naruto was about to say next. “Fine. Since you have an alibi, I’ll let you off this time. Just get home, and don’t let me see you back out here again.” 

With that warning, the officer turns and stomps away, muttering darkly to himself until he’s out of their sight. 

“Wow, what an asshole,” Naruto says, entirely too loudly. 

Deciding that she would not help him again if the officer had heard that, she turns and quickly starts to walk away. A few seconds of silence pass where she travels alone before Naruto jogs up to her side and matches her pace. He’s uncharacteristically silent as they make their way back onto the main path and turn a couple of corners. 

“Uh,” he finally says as they pass a group of stumbling adults who pay them no attention. “Thanks for the help back there.” He scratches at the back of his head, eyes burning into the side of her face. “That move you pulled was real sneaky. Total badass kunoichi move.”

She says nothing, instead continuing to squint for any sign of where she’s at. 

“What’re you doin’ here, anyways?”

Sakura stops suddenly, before reaching into her pocket and pulling the black leather gloves free and tossing them in his direction. They leave her fingers sticky from paint not yet dry. She finds that she doesn’t care. 

“Here,” she says, though he has already caught them and slipped them into his back pocket without taking his eyes off of her. His stare leaves her feeling unsettled.

As she’s about to continue on her way, a man stumbles out of an apartment up ahead, braces himself against the wall, then proceeds to puke for a solid twenty seconds. Sakura stares, eyes glued to him in horrified fascination. She has never before been around this many blindly-drunk people as she has in the past—well, however long she has been in this area. The man finishes, wiping his mouth while breathing heavily, then falls over. He does not move after that. 

She takes a half-step forward, maybe to help, but Naruto grabs her sleeve and redirects her back onto the sidewalk with a firm shake of his head. 

She decides that, yes, she has helped enough people today, and the faster she can return home, the better. 

“I know you were following me when you got caught,” she states, deciding it’s better to get straight to the point with him. Naruto sputters, proving her hypothesis correct. Subtle, he is not. She holds up a hand, interrupting his denial. “I don’t care. I just want to go home. I’ll forget this day ever happened and consider us even if you can help me get back to somewhere I at least recognize.”

Naruto’s face scrunches up in the passing lantern light. 

“You don’t know where we’re at?” he asks. 

“No; otherwise, I would have gotten myself home already.”

He swivels his head and turns to look behind them before he crosses the street to the other side. She follows close behind after a second’s hesitation. 

“This place is close t’ the call houses,” he says, like that’s explanation enough. At Sakura’s blank face, he clarifies, “You know, the flower district?”

Sakura blinks, before realization dawns on her and her face heats. As potential kunoichi, the girls in the Academy are all given in-depth talks about all things to do with—Sakura cringes—s-e-x. She’s familiar with the existence of such places, as well as things that go on there, both above and below board.

He’s still talking when she finally tunes back into the conversation. “A lot of the women live in this neighborhood, and you can sometimes see them hanging around. They’re not working this area, though, according to them.”

“H-how do you know this kind of stuff?” Sakura whispers, afraid that they’ll be overheard. 

Naruto shrugs. “It’s just stuff they’ve told me before. They’re usually nice, so I don’t paint their buildings if I can help it. And they tell me if trouble’s nearby when they can.”

Why in the world is Naruto in this place? From what she’s seen, only those whose lives are spiraling out of control seem to come here. Me included, I guess.

“Hm? Oh, I live near here. My apartment is just a little ways that’a way,” he points off into the distance, and Sakura’s jaw drops. Crap! She must have said that out loud! 

“Wait,” her brain passes by the wave of mortification over the faux pas and catches on to what he said. “You live near here? Your apartment? Do you live alone, or something?” 

Now that she thinks about it, she doesn’t know anything at all about her classmate. They don’t get much time to bond with one another in between him being the one who normally skips class, and her doing her best to fade into the background most days. 

Until today, where I skipped class and lied to the police. Is she turning into him? Her stomach lurches suddenly at the thought. 

His arms lift up, and he puts his hands behind his head, lacing his fingers together. “Mm-hm. I’m an orphan. All orphans are given the choice to either stay in the orphanage, or join the Academy. If they choose to become a shinobi, they’re given a place to stay and a little money for rent and stuff.” He shrugs, and she has no idea how he can be so nonchalant. She can’t imagine living alone at their age. 

“Besides,” he continues, “It’s not so bad. The old lady at the orphanage really hated me, so any choice that got me outta there was an easy one.” He thumbs at his nose, smiling. “Plus, I always wanted t’ be a shinobi.” He looks at her from the corner of his eye. “What about you? Why’d you end up here?”

Sakura knows he saw the whole fiasco with Ami that day. She had seen a glimpse of him struggling with his balance across the field before the fight had even started. The thought of denying him a real answer goes through her mind, but her mouth has other plans. 

“My friend died. And I can’t get him out of my head long enough to make good choices.” 

Naruto’s shoes scrape against the pavement as he stumbles to a stop. She halts, too, and turns to wait for him. 

“I didn’t know you had friends,” he says dumbly. 

Her brows raise in surprise, and before she can tell him to buzz off and that she’ll find her own way home, he seems to realize what he said and waves his arms frantically at her. 

“Wait, that came out wrong, believe it!” he yells, face blazing. “I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!” 

From somewhere high above, someone shouts an angry stop being so damn loud, you brats! Sakura glances up nervously and scurries on, not wanting to draw any more attention. Naruto follows close behind, face looking like a kicked puppy as he continues to apologize, voice not lowering at all. 

“I really didn’t mean it like that, Sakura-chan. I just meant that I never really see you talk to anyone except those bitchy girls.”

“Why do you keep saying stuff like that?” she squeaks, turning on him. 

“Like what?” 

She crosses her arms as if she can physically distance herself from the curse words. “You know! Bad words.”

He sends her a confused look. “Adults say them all the time.”

“So?” she says, grasping onto this change in conversation like it’s a lifeline. “Adults do a lot of bad things. Are you going to copy the other bad stuff they do, too?”

Naruto sniffs, jaw ticking forward. “No. But I’m not wrong. Those girls are kinda bitchy.”

Sakura tilts her head to the sky in a plea to the universe for patience. She wonders if she had brought this on herself through today’s disappointing actions. Though she’s thankful he doesn’t push her to say more, taking her deflection in stride. 

“Hey, Naruto?” she asks after a moment.

“Hm?"

“Where’s your bag? I saw you wearing one earlier.”

“Oh, that. I hid it once I felt that guy trailing me. I’ll probably loop back and get it tomorrow.”

She hums thoughtfully. He must have more awareness of his surroundings than she initially thought. It’s evident in the easy way he navigates them through each area, as well.

He leads her down another alley, and this time they step onto a street beaming with neon lights. The streets glow in various shades of reds, pinks, greens, and purples. As they pass late-night restaurants and bars just beginning to really bustle, she glances into each clear pane of glass dividing them from everyone else who seems to be reveling in the end of the day. Distantly, she realizes that she recognizes this area, and quickly finds the name of this place on a large sign at a crosswalk.

She’s about to turn and thank Naruto for his guidance when she hears two voices from within the din of the many people around them. They come from one of the bars they pass. Melodic, yet shaky. Slurred from drink, most likely. But they’re joined together in a melancholic song that instantly pricks her ears. Not so loud as to be spectacle, but loud enough for her to hear. It’s a pair of Uchiha, she knows almost instinctively. And she doesn’t know if the song is for Shisui specifically, but the lyrics are made for mourning.

They strike her out of nowhere, and she feels his absence tenfold. 

She has lost him all over. It is all she can think, an ongoing thought repeating itself infinitely in her mind. Understanding dawns, and she realizes that from now on, she will find ways in which she will constantly have to say goodbye to him. Like now, for instance, she must live with the absence of his breezy tenor joining in and know that she will never hear it again. 

He would have loved to sing along, she tearfully thinks as she suddenly rushes past a confused Naruto. 

Shusui is dead, yes. And yet, to Sakura, he will perpetually be dying in ways anew as she finds all the gaps in her life that he had once filled.

“Hey, wait!” Naruto shouts, but she’s already striding away. 

“It’s okay, Naruto!” she calls over her shoulder, not looking back while she wipes at her face with her sleeve. “I can make it from here!”

This time, he doesn’t follow her. Instead, he watches her vanishing figure, his hand still held out as if to pull her back. 

 

Notes:

In the spirit of Halloween, I give you a chapter featuring the ultimate trickster, Naruto. We’ll be seeing a little more of him before team 7 forms, so don’t worry too much about how erratic their interaction was lol

Tell me all your thoughts!

Chapter 9

Notes:

Hiiiii <3

9

 

"Are you hungry this morning?"

This question drifts from the kitchen to Sakura’s crouched position at the bottom of the stairs. The surprise of it freezes her completely in her tracks.

It’s almost supernatural, Sakura thinks, just how aware her parents have been when it comes to her movements lately. 

Maybe they should have tried becoming shinobi. I’ll bet there’s no sensor as good as okaa-san when she thinks I’m sneaking about. 

Sighing quietly, Sakura stops tiptoeing towards the front door and instead changes course for the kitchen. 

Her mother stands at the stove, back to Sakura as she stirs something in a small pot atop the low flames. It smells incredible—the familiar scent reminding her of warmth and comfort and home in its particular blend of spices. But she has no appetite this morning. 

“No,” Sakura answers, stopping just inside the archway. “I’m not hungry yet.” 

At the dining table in the middle of the room sits her father, a newspaper in hand as he peruses the editorials. His foot taps at the floor while he turns a page. Plates, bowls, and silverware are already placed around the circular top, waiting to be used. Still set for three, despite how rare it’s been for her to join them for breakfast, as she has instead been opting for grabbing something on the way to school. 

She stands there, fingers clenching around the straps of her backpack, hesitating. Neither of her parents seem to be surprised by her refusal. Her mother turns the stove off before shifting around to face her. A weight forms in Sakura’s chest as their eyes meet, but she holds her gaze, despite the discomfort. It allows her to examine her mother in turn, who is sporting a suspiciously neutral expression. 

“Are you sure? I made your favorites.” 

A towel hangs from the handle of the stove near her mother’s hip, patterned with tiny, embroidered bees. It had been a gift from some years ago, though Sakura can’t recall who had given it. Her mother reaches down for it and wipes at her fingers. The broken eye contact gives Sakura a moment to breathe. 

“You can save any leftovers and I’ll eat them later,” Sakura says, aiming for politeness. “Can I go to the library today?”

Her father clears his throat loudly, the newspaper rustling in his hands. She catches the way her parents’ eyes fleetingly meet across the room, an entire conversation spanning between them in that singular moment. 

She braces herself. 

“Sure you can, Sakura-chan,” her father answers easily, then clears his throat again. His eyes flicker up to her mother once more, before he reaches out for his glass of water and takes a few deep gulps. The glass taps against the wood of the table as he sets it down, takes a deep breath, and blurts, “Say, how have you been sleeping lately?” 

A grimace instantly springs to his face the moment the words leave his mouth. 

“Kizashi!” her mother groans, exasperated. She throws the towel onto the counter behind her. “I thought we agreed on subtlety!” 

“Then you should have been the one to ask!” he snipes back. His eyes dart between the two of them before he grunts and tosses the newspaper onto the table. It’s only then that she realizes it's upside down. “Sakura-chan—I—we—” he stutters, then pulls back in his chair and runs his hands over his face. After a moment of silence only broken by the ticking of the clock on the wall, he says through his fingers, “We’re just worried about you.” 

“I’m okay.” The words spring automatically from her mouth, and she knows they don’t believe her. Her father drops his hands and frowns, slumping even further in his seat. Without the towel, her mother wrings her own hands together. Before either of them can refute her, she hastily adds, “Really! I’ve been sleeping just fine. No nightmares, or anything. A solid eight hours.” 

Her parents share a look again, and that weight in her chest from earlier returns. She itches to get out of here, away from their sad looks and overwhelming concern. Away from this guilt that keeps eating at her—the guilt of being a bad daughter. 

“Okay,” her father sighs, clearly unconvinced by her spectacularly-bad answer. “Okay. You can go to the library, sweetheart. Just take something to eat while you walk. Please?”

Her heart nearly breaks at the defeated looks on her parents’ faces. 

I’m the cause of those expressions. It’s hard for her to understand. 

Without thought, her feet take her to her mother’s side of the kitchen first. She snatches up a piece of food from one of the platters on the counter and steps onto her tiptoes to give her mother a hug. Her mother’s arms wrap around her shoulders tightly, and Sakura squeezes back before pulling away and crossing the room to her father, giving his whiskered cheek a quick peck. 

“I’ll be back later, okay?” she tells him. 

He reaches out and squeezes her hand once before dropping it. With one last soft, shared smile, she turns and makes her way out of the house and onto the sparsely-populated street outside. 

She doesn’t mean to upset them. They love her very much, she knows that—but all the questions? The worrying? The constant watching? 

It’s smothering, and sometimes she just needs to be alone. 

It has been months, now. Winter has come and gone, and spring gradually unfurls around her as nature awakens and blooms in the slowly-rising temperatures. Sakura spent most of the colder months within the warm confines of the library, walking there every day after the Academy bell rang in signal that their school day was over. 

She plans on spending the rest of this season there, as well. 

It makes everything a little easier, having something to focus on. If she’s too busy thinking about what she’s reading, or too busy training, or too busy with her work at the store every weekend now, then she doesn’t have to think about…

Sakura chokes on a too-big bite of her food as her thoughts drift to dangerous territory. She coughs, eyes watering, and a few people look on in concern. She waves them off, attempting to suppress the pain in her diaphragm. It passes quickly, and she scurries away, hands buried in the pockets of her thin jacket, careful to avoid any lingering puddles on the sidewalk in fear of slipping and causing any more embarrassment.

The Public Library of Konoha is a rather old building, designed by the Second Hokage and built by his older brother, the First Hokage. Like many of the buildings sprung forth by the Shodaime, it’s located near the Hokage’s Tower, meaning Sakura has to pass through the center of the village to get to it.  

She dodges shinobi and civilians both, and wonders how some people, who are supposed to be trained to always be aware of their surroundings, can simply just not see her on the sidewalk. 

It’s like they turn their eyeballs off when they’re in the village, she thinks, wrinkling her nose as another person clips her shoulder. I’m not that tiny!

The hustle and bustle of a busy morning surrounds her, and she is drawn into it, finally flowing into the crowd without any other problems. Uchiha police patrol in pairs every so often, though she can’t spare them more than a glance. The sound of a bird calling draws her attention, and she spots a group of teenage genin standing around a bench. A girl with long, jet black hair holds her hands up to her mouth, and the bird call sounds again. 

She’s really good at that, Sakura thinks. One of the other genin makes an attempt to copy the noise, but it sounds as if a crow were drowning. She passes them as they break out in laughter.

The two-story building of the library finally appears within her sight, and she wipes her hands on her pants before entering through the doors, worried about any remnant food from earlier sticking to her fingers.

“Back again?” Hori Chieko, the librarian, whispers to Sakura as she finds her way to the front desk. She’s a shorter woman, perhaps only slightly younger than her parents. Her hair is pulled up in a neat bun, and she slides a pair of wire glasses down as she reaches out for the books Sakura passes over from the confines of her backpack. 

Having read through countless texts these past few months, Sakura has become a well-known patron here, with most of the regular staff knowing her by face and name. Her grasp on history and chakra theory has also never been better, much to the delight of Iruka-sensei. Though those aren’t the only things she reads about. 

“Of course, Hori-san.”

“Oh, to be young again and have the time to read as many books as you want,” Hori-san sighs wistfully, gathering the books in a pile before sending her a sly look. “Are you sure you haven’t read everything here?” 

Sakura laughs, handing over the last book from her bag before zipping it back up. “Definitely not all of them, but I’ve probably made a decent dent in the ones I’m allowed to borrow.” 

The library is divided into a few different sections based on shinobi rank. Civilians are free to borrow any of the regular books, but aren’t permitted into the sections meant for shinobi. Most of the books and scrolls Academy students can access are theory-based, as they don’t want a bunch of children to attempt random jutsu that they aren’t ready for yet. Though there are a few scrolls detailing the Academy Three—the three basic jutsu that every Academy student has to master before being able to graduate. 

She can’t wait until she’s a genin and can gain access to the part of the library that the rest of the shinobi are allowed in. 

It’d be really nice to get into the jonin section, she thinks, eyes following a man in a green flak vest as he walks up the stairs to the section where she hears they keep the super-cool jutsu scrolls. 

Hori-san breaks through her wandering thoughts. “Irrigation Through the Ages? Are you planning on becoming a farmer?” 

Sakura blinks, her attention drawn back to the book Hori-san is holding up, a grin on her face. 

It had been a rather dry read, though someone had written some very interesting thoughts in the margins. The entire thing had changed how she viewed elemental jutsu and their uses. Jutsu don’t have to only be utilized for offense or defense, she learned; they can also be used to help ease the chores of everyday life. Like digging trenches for irrigation, or providing water to crops. In places less war-torn than them, many farmers utilized elemental jutsu for tending to their land. 

“Ah, maybe if the whole shinobi thing doesn’t work out,” Sakura jokes. Hori-san laughs, before placing the book atop the tall pile at her side. 

“Well, I hope you find some more interesting reads in there! I’ll see you soon!”

Sakura waves and walks off, towards a section of shelves near the back of the library. A few people mill about, quietly perusing the books surrounding them. An elderly civilian couple whisper together in an aisle of cookbooks that she passes. In another aisle, a young mother carries her child on her hip as she shows them the front illustrations of picture books. She continues on until she reaches a section watched over by a bored-looking chunin, a comic in his hands as he sits at a small desk. 

She gives him a polite smile when he glances up at her, and he nods her on, not bothering to check her Academy ID. 

Instead of choosing a specific section, Sakura decides that today she will roam the shelves and grab whatever draws her eye. 

Which is entirely too easy to do.

Flora of the Elemental Nations is the book that begins her stack. She thinks of her granny when she finds it, and quietly puts it in her arms. Weather Patterns and Seasonal Storms of Sunagakure is next, though she doesn’t know when she’ll ever visit their allied country. 

Plenty of books make it to her hands that she doesn’t take, for one reason or another. Their reshelving is always reluctant. A Survey of Familial Symbols, Years 17-32. Duties and Limitations of Government. Strategy Beyond Strength: Environmental Traps, Volume III.

It’s as she’s pulling out Legend or Folktale—Summons Through the Ages that she sees it. 

Encased in the shadows and tipped onto its side is a small, leather-bound brown book. It nearly fades into the background of the shelf, though it calls to her like a beacon.

For some reason, Sakura hesitates to grab it. In all of her time here, she has never seen a single item misplaced. And yet, this book has been shoved into the back of this shelf for who knows how long. 

I need to get out more if a misshelved book is making my heart beat this fast, she scoffs at herself. Still, she glances around before snatching it up. 

Turning it over in her hands, she’s surprised to find that there’s no title etched along the spine—just broken cracks that signify how often it’s been opened. She opens it now, to the first page. 

Since the council elders refuse to allow me a student of my own during these times where fresh blood is much needed, I write this in the hopes that someone out there will make use of it.

Get fucked, you old windbags. 

Sakura slams the cover shut, a squeak escaping her mouth that she barely disguises as a cough. She frantically glances around, but her aisle is wonderfully empty of anyone, save herself. 

Who would be bold enough to say that about the village Elders? Her thoughts run rampant. Is this book even something she’s allowed to check out? She turns it over, then checks the inside cover for the slip of paper the librarian uses to keep track of who has what item. 

There’s nothing. Nothing except those inflammatory words and a smear of something that she can’t help but think might be blood on the corner of the first page. She can’t peek over her shoulders again or risk looking like she’s up to no good, so she instead relaxes her posture and flips to the next page, as if she’s simply looking through the book to decide whether or not she likes it. 

Should I live long enough to finish this journal, she reads, eyes greedily tracing over the scrawled words, the information contained within should be enough for a person to start the basics of healing. Should I die, and leave this journal unfinished, I will say that the keys to healing are fine chakra control, a great knowledge of anatomy, and the ability to distinguish a mortal wound from a paper cut. Good luck.

Sakura closes the journal again, more gently this time. Her heart races. A book about healing! Not just about famous figures throughout time who have healed, but about healing itself! And how to do it! 

She needs this book. 

But there is no world where she will be able to check this book out. It’s obviously not meant to be here. 

Her shoulders tense as her brain catches up with the beginnings of a terrible plan. 

Am I really going to steal this journal? she wonders. The answer is an immediate, Yes. With that ethical question out of the way, she considers how she’s going to do this. One of her arms is already filled with books, caught between her inner elbow and her chest, while her other hand holds the journal. She can’t slip it into her bag, as she can now hear the chunin guard speaking quietly to another person close by, their voices approaching slowly. They’re too close for her to risk getting caught simply because they decide look into her aisle as they pass. 

Glancing down, she looks at her unzipped jacket. An idea springs forth, though she’s not too confident about it. But it’s the only way, she thinks. Slipping the book into the hand that is held near her chest, she pretends that she’s holding it while still browsing. She keeps her eyes up, towards the shelves above her head, then stands on her tiptoes, reaching her unoccupied arm up. This opens one side of her jacket enough to hide the fact that she extends the journal out, and as she brings another book down, she closes the journal beneath her armpit, then places the random book atop the pile in her arms.

Is it uncomfortable to keep her elbow tucked to her side hard enough for the journal to not slip out? Yes, but thankfully she’s able to make it look more natural by shifting the pile of books between both arms.

“…and the villain doesn’t even double check the knots. Can you believe it?”

“Rookie mistake.” 

The chunin guard passes by her aisle, sparing her a quick glance. She sends him a small smile, then turns on the spot and ambles towards the check-out counter. 

She doesn’t run. She doesn’t look around. To anyone looking, she is just a normal student done with their browsing. She is nonchalance personified.

Sweat gathers uncomfortably at her back. Her mind keeps telling her that the chunin is hot on her heels the entire walk over, though she knows he’s not. Twice she feels as if the book is about to slip, though it thankfully stays hidden.

Years seem to pass before she makes it to the front of the library. 

“Lovely choices as always,” Hori-san says as Sakura carefully places her stack of books onto the counter. 

“Yeah,” Sakura says distractedly, one corner of the hidden journal poking into a tender spot. “I don’t know how people can choose just one at a time.” 

Keeping her arms bent, she rests her hands on the edge of the counter while she waits. Her fingers tap once before she stills them. 

It’s all over if it drops out now. She’ll get into so much trouble. Probably banned from the library. Or stripped of the ability to attend the Academy. What are the punishments of theft again? She can’t even remember. 

Hori-san hums in agreement as she stamps the due date for each item. She returns the books to Sakura when she’s done, and Sakura gathers them into her arms carefully enough to not dislodge the journal. 

“See you later!” Hori-san cheerfully waves, unaware of the crime happening right under her nose. Sakura nods in return before she turns and walks out as normally as possible. 

Don’t mess this up, she mentally chants. Don’t mess this up. 

The journal slips slightly as she descends the stairs, the leather cover turning slippery as her sweat gathers. Elbows bent and pressed tightly to her sides, she gets as far away from the library as she can before finding a bench and collapsing into it. 

I am never doing that again, she promises herself, attempting to catch her breath. She feels as if she’s just ran a hundred miles. 

Easing up on the pressure, she allows the book to slide out of her jacket. She catches it, then stacks it on top of the others and leans forward to slip her backpack off. She places each book gently inside before zipping it back up, eyes down while she slips the straps back onto her shoulders. 

A tomato rolls to a stop in front of her foot. 

She pauses. Looks again, because maybe the lack of oxygen from her tension-filled heist has gotten to her head—but no, her eyes were right the first time. 

Gingerly picking it up, she glances around to see where it came from. It doesn’t take long before she finds the owner.

Sasuke stands close by, arms filled with overflowing paper bags. He’s attempting to pick up the last of a set of vegetables that have dropped by his feet, a scowl set firmly on his face. 

Shifting the weight of her backpack, she hesitates, before making her way over. 

“Did you drop this?” she asks, stopping near him.

He quickly looks up from his awkward position, tensing. Though when he sees it’s just her, he relaxes, albeit only slightly. 

“Ah, yeah. Can you—?” He trails off, but she understands what he’s asking for and bends down to grab the items he can’t reach. She places them in one of the bags that look the least likely to topple out again. 

“Need some help?” 

He pauses before nodding, and she grabs a bag, surprised by how heavy it is. It crinkles as she adjusts it.

Without prompt, Sasuke complains, “Okaa-san needed some items for an unexpected dinner. Otou-san and Itachi nii-san were both out, so the task fell to me.” 

Sakura grunts as she hefts the bag up higher in her arms, getting a better support on the bottom. “This is all for one dinner? Is it for your entire clan?” 

He snorts, then shrugs. “Who knows?” 

They quietly walk together, side by side, away from the shinobi-filled streets to ones packed with civilians. 

The Uchiha district is near the civilian district—something Sakura used to take advantage of when she was younger. 

It’s been a while since she last visited. 

“Hey,” Sasuke murmurs, keeping his eyes straight forward. “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten any of that stuff for you yet.” 

There’s no need for clarification. Sakura glances away from him, inhaling until her lungs feel full and she has to release all the air in one long breath. 

“It’s okay,” she finally says. 

“It’s not. I made a promise and I haven’t fulfilled it yet. Uchiha don’t go back on their word.” Sasuke kicks at a pebble and it shoots off into the street. “If it’s not otou-san, it’s nii-san. Both of them keep pushing me to train harder on my fire jutsu lately. Every time I get close to the place they keep his stuff, someone always finds me and orders me around. It’s annoying.”

“That sounds very hard,” Sakura says truthfully. “Iruka-sensei always tells us that rest is important too.”

He frowns. “That wasn’t the important part of what I said.”

“It’s still true.”

With a roll of his eyes, he sighs at her. “Doesn’t matter if you don’t wanna talk about it. I said I’d do it, and I will. It’s just gonna take a little while longer.” 

The gate outside the Uchiha compound looms into view. They stop before it, and turn towards one another. Sakura meets the unwavering steel of his gaze and nods slowly. 

“Okay,” she answers. “I can wait.” 

His fingers tighten on his bag as he looks out towards the direction of his home. She thinks of a way to not have to venture in with him.

She’s saved by a passing officer.

“Lookee here, it’s Sasuke-kun and—do my eyes deceive me? Is that little Sakura-chan?” 

They both swivel their heads towards the voice, and Sakura finds the approaching Uchiha to be vaguely familiar. His name escapes her, though she has a flash of memory of her jumping out of the bushes at him. 

Her face reddens immediately and she attempts a bow that doesn’t send Sasuke’s food scattering to the ground. 

“Yes, sir!” 

The man laughs, coming to a stop in front of them. “Those bags look heavy! Need some help, kiddos?” Sasuke nods, looking relieved, and Sakura follows his lead in handing her bag over as well. The man easily holds them, then glances down at Sasuke. “These going to your place?” 

At Sasuke’s nod, they both start forward. It takes him a few steps before he realizes she’s not following. 

“Are you not coming?” Sasuke asks.

Sakura shakes her head, taking a step back. “No, I have to work at the store today. If I take any longer, okaa-san might hunt me down and drag me back. It gets more hectic in the spring, and—” she bites down, ending her nervous rambling before it can begin. “Well, it’s just really busy, is all.”

With a firm nod that says he knows she’s not being honest, Sasuke turns and waves. “Thanks then,” he says over his shoulder. 

She watches him go, hand absently rubbing at her throat as the crest on the back of his shirt disappears around a corner. Shaking her head, she turns, pushing away thoughts of ghosts with thoughts of the new book hidden within her backpack. 

Maybe this will be the distraction she needs. 

Notes:

Sorry for the delay! Between getting sick for two straight weeks, wherein I had to visit the er not once but twice, I had to put writing on the wayside for a little bit lmao. I'm all good now though!

How was the chapter? Tell me alllll of your thoughts!

Chapter 10

Notes:

Hiii 💖

10

 

Time is tricky for Sakura. The days all melt together, becoming hard to remember whenever she attempts to pull them apart. Months pass her by without much notice. 

March had been just another one of those passing blips in time, filled with studying and working, full of boring days and restless nights. 

Until her parents woke her early one morning with a cake topped with so many candles that she worried it was a fire hazard. 

It had been a surprise—a wonderful one. 

They had taken the day off to celebrate, and her practically-hermit granny had even come along, slipping an envelope of money into her hand as a gift. 

That night, after Sakura collapsed into bed, exhausted from the rare good day, stomach full of all the delicious food and sweets that she had gorged herself on, Sasuke had shown up outside her house. He had pelted her window with pebbles until she roused from the comfort of her blankets and pillows and angrily ripped it open, wondering who was stupid enough to wake her at that hour. Limned in the light of the moon, he waited until her window was fully open before he tossed something to her. She caught it on reflex, surprised and confused and still half-asleep, but he merely tilted his head towards her before disappearing back into the shadows. 

In her hands had been a storage scroll. The paper was rough against the skin of her fingers. The ends were dyed a faded red. She had never used one before, so it took her a moment to recall how to activate it. With a small burst of chakra, it produced three items: a whetstone, a kusari undershirt, and a tanto. She had shakily settled onto her bed, staring unblinkingly down at the weapon. The sheath showed signs of wear—scratches in the wood, likely from being used as a makeshift shield—but the blade was perfect. Devastatingly sharp, with no signs of any chips or prints or corrosion. 

She had held it between her hands and wept. 

“…thus, while it is common among shinobi to use objects that utilize seals, such as exploding tags and the like, the knowledge of making these seals is a more obscure path of specialization.”

Iruka-sensei’s lecture brings her back into the present. Her fingers fall still from where she had absently been fiddling with the metal coils in the hem of her undershirt. The kusari is lightweight, but the extra pressure around her is comforting. She doesn’t care if it’s not yet her size—wearing it almost feels like one of Shisui’s hugs. All-encompassing. 

“And while our more prominent users of fuuinjutsu are currently outside of the village—or perhaps ignoring my messages—” he mutters to himself as he writes something on the chalkboard, “—my own knowledge is nothing to sneeze at. This week, we’ll be learning how to make flash tags. Pay close attention, class, because you’ll find that this type of non-lethal weapon can be very important in our line of work.” 

Her eyes are drawn, yet again, to the other side of the classroom. 

Sasuke is intensely focused on their sensei, jotting down notes with quick flicks of his pencil. His brows twitch every so often, seeming to coincide with each time Naruto, seated in the desk behind him, mutters to himself. 

His birthday is soon. A week from now, if she remembers correctly. Always during the scorching part of July. They’ve never been close, but…she wants to make him something as a thank-you for helping her. 

Her eyes drop before returning to him only a moment later. Almost immediately, she feels the weight of someone else staring at her. Startling, Sakura glances around until her eyes meet the unflinching, blue-eyed gaze of one of her classmates. 

Yamanaka Ino. 

Sakura looks away quickly. She doesn’t want to get on the radar of Sasuke’s fangirls again. These last few months at school have been rather peaceful, and she doesn’t want to jinx it over something as small as a stolen glance. 

Now, she thinks, copying her sensei’s drawn seal into her open notes. What would he even like? 

She spends the rest of the day coming up with ideas before summarily dismissing them. Weapons? He has plenty, and they’re not even genin yet. Calligraphy supplies? Too old fashioned. Books? She doesn’t know if he reads for pleasure. 

It’s as she’s sifting through the contents of her fridge later that evening that she finally settles on an idea. 

A cake.

It’s the perfect gift—everyone likes food, right? And it can be personal without being too personal. 

The only issue is that—

“Sakura-chan, is that smoke coming out of the oven?”

—she’s never baked anything before. 

Her first attempt at a cake ends in a disaster. Two pieces of coal sit in the sink, the window opened above them as they let the smoke dissipate from the kitchen. 

Was 425 degrees too hot for these small cakes? she wonders morosely.

Her mother slowly approaches her, oven-mitted hands on her hips. “Is there…a reason you’ve decided to pick up baking, Sakura?” she delicately asks. 

“I’m making it for Sasuke,” she quietly admits. “His birthday is soon.” 

That earns her a curious squint. “I didn’t realize you two were close.” 

Sakura shrugs. “We’re friendly.” 

Silence settles around them as her mother seems to wait for her to say more. When Sakura doesn’t, she sighs and discards her mitts before pushing her sleeves up to her elbows. “Guess we better start cleaning this up. You grab the rag over there, and I’ll get these into the trash.” 

She follows the directions and they work together quickly to clean the mess Sakura made. Flour is scattered across the counter from where she had accidentally tipped too much out of the bag, batter drips from a cabinet door and puddles on the floor, and dirty bowls line every available surface. She’s never seen the kitchen this messy. 

“Sorry,” Sakura apologizes sheepishly. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention and got it everywhere.” 

Her mother snorts. “You come by it honestly, Sakura-chan. It’s why I never let your father help with anything more than setting the table. That man could burn water.” 

Feeling only slightly better, Sakura huffs a laugh. “I don’t know why it turned out so bad, though. I thought I was doing everything right.” 

“Well,” her mother draws out as she rinses a cloth beneath the kitchen faucet. She wrings it out and drapes it over the middle portion of the sink before turning towards Sakura. “What recipe were you following?” 

Sakura’s movements slow as she glances over her shoulder. “Recipe? I was just doing what I’ve seen you do before.”

Her mother opens her hands in a well, there you go gesture. “Not all baking is the same, sweetheart. Cakes are a little more delicate than roasts.” 

“Ah,” Sakura sighs, shoulders falling. 

Her mother’s expression gentles. She chuckles, then turns towards one of the upper cabinets—one that Sakura has rarely seen used—and opens it. “Yes, well, now you know. Luckily…” she trails off as she rifles through the inside, and the sound of papers sliding against one another drifts out. “Ah-ha! Here it is!” A small, rectangular piece of yellowing cardstock is thrust under Sakura’s nose. 

“What is this?” Sakura asks, pulling her head back and taking the card from her mother. 

On the top, written in a swirling hand of fading ink, are the words Strawberry Cake—Two Tier. 

Her mother settles beside her, resting a hip against the edge of the counter. She crosses her arms as she nods down at the recipe card in Sakura’s hand. 

“It’s my mother’s. She used to make this for me every year on my birthday. A great, big, monstrosity, overloaded with pink icing. It’s a vanilla cake, but she would put strawberries in between each layer. My brothers used to tease me about it relentlessly.” Her eyes turn distant with memory.

Sakura shifts on her feet. They don’t talk about her mother’s family. It’s an unspoken rule, one that she’s never learned the reason behind. 

“That sounds perfect,” Sakura quietly says. 

“It was.” Her mother turns her head to hide the way she dabs at the corners of her eyes. With a sniff, she seemingly shakes herself out of whatever memory had taken hold of her and rises to her full height. She taps twice at the card in Sakura’s hand. “And I bet Sasuke would love it. Though, I’d halve the ingredients. And maybe not include the strawberry powder in the icing. He might not have the same girlish tastes as I had when I was five.” 

Affection for her mother spears through her. 

“Woah!” her mother wheezes in surprise as Sakura wraps her arms around her middle and squeezes. Her arms drop down to return the hug. “What brought this on, Sakura-chan?”

She burrows herself deeper into the embrace. “You’re just the best, okaa-san.”

---

Attempts two and three fare much better than her first, though they aren’t quite up to her standards enough for her to be confident in giving either to Sasuke. 

“This is definitely better than yesterday’s, Sakura-chan!” her father exclaims around a mouthful of cake. Icing clings to the side of his mouth. 

Akaji hums in agreement from in front of the counter, one hand brought up to cover his mouth as he chews. 

“Really? You’re not just saying that because I’m your daughter?”

He shakes his head, though Akaji is quicker to answer. “I’d eat this every day if you made it! The strawberries add a nice sweetness to it—”

“Hey, don’t start critiquing my girl’s cakes again!” her father interrupts, jabbing his fork in the other man’s direction.

Akaji frowns, pointing his own fork at her father. “Complimenting, Kizashi-san, complimenting. And you can’t tell me the last one didn’t have too much salt in it.”

Sakura sighs. Should’ve known better than to ask these two anything. Maybe her granny might like a piece…but no, she doesn’t enjoy when things are too sweet, Sakura faintly remembers. Besides, it’s a little too early for the older woman to visit the store. 

“…can’t get anything done lately,” Akaji is complaining when she tunes back in. The two men must have gotten back to whatever business they were speaking about before Sakura interrupted them. Their empty plates are stacked off to the side, only crumbs remaining. 

No way to improve if I don’t eat it too, she thinks, only a little giddy at the thought of extra cake as she pulls up another stool to the counter. She slices off a piece of the vanilla cake and digs into it, eyes falling closed. 

Almost perfect!

“Gah, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with clan politics,” her father grumbles as he bags Akaji’s purchase. Another order of shuriken, a few coils of wire, and one of the new katana that was brought in last week. “Sounds like a nightmare.” 

“Yeah, well, maybe this move will be the last one. Everyone’s been ordered in to help. Say, do you have any extra cardboard boxes? Can’t believe how much stuff I’ve got around the house.” 

Nodding, her father makes to get up. 

“I’ve got a few in the back, gimme one second, Uchiha-san.”

Akaji groans at her father’s retreating back. “How many times do I have to tell you: call me Akaji! We’ve known each other for years!”

Her father’s chuckle drifts over his shoulder. “But you’re my best customer, Uchiha-san! Surely that deserves some respect?” 

Sakura grins as Akaji rolls his eyes. He notices and sends her a playful wink. 

“At least little Sakura-chan listens to me, right?”

Licking the last of the icing from her fork, she politely answers, “Of course, Uchiha-san.” 

His weary sigh sends her into a fit of giggles. 

---

This is it, she thinks, stepping back to better take in the scene. It’s perfect. 

On the counter before her sits two cakes. One is Sasuke’s—a small, round cake, with little sprigs of edible flowers decorating the white icing in equidistant intervals. It's delicate, sensible. Perfect for posh Uchiha tastes. 

The other is for her mother. A two-tiered, pink monstrosity, topped with sliced strawberries. She had followed the recipe exactly. 

Hopefully obaa-san never strayed from what she wrote down. 

Now all that’s left is to—

Footsteps enter suddenly through the kitchen doorway. “Sweetheart, have you seen—” her mother begins before abruptly cutting herself off. 

Sakura turns, surprised, though her parents look even more surprised than she. Her mother stands frozen in place, eyes wide, hand covering her mouth. Her father is behind her, brows nearly in his hairline as he looks over her shoulder. 

Her heart pounds as if she’s been caught doing something bad. She suddenly realizes that she hadn’t thought about whether her mother would want this cake. She had just talked so fondly about it that Sakura thought it would make her happy to have it again. 

“Uh, well, I wanted it to be a surprise, but…” Sakura stutters, trying to parse what her mother is feeling with what little she can see of her face. She wrings her hands in the apron she had donned earlier. Something sticky coats her fingers and she tries not to cringe. 

A moment passes before her mother gathers herself, hand falling to her side. “Is that cake for me?” she asks quietly. 

Sakura can’t look at her. Had she made her mad? Or worse, sad? She catches the way her father slides a hand down her mother’s forearm before clasping their hands together. 

“Yeah. I’m sorry—”

“No!” her mother interjects, startling her into finally looking up. 

She smiling. 

Yet tears are running down her face.

Sakura’s mouth drops open in horror. 

“No, I didn’t mean to make you cry! I’m so sorry!” 

Shaking her head, her mother steps towards her and crouches to her level. She wraps her arms around Sakura and squeezes tightly. “Don’t apologize, Sakura-chan. I’m not mad, see?” She pulls back, and her eyes glisten with tears. “I’m just really happy. It’s been so long since I’ve seen that cake, it just surprised me, that’s all.”

“Really?” Sakura asks thickly, feeling the pricks of relieved tears behind her own eyes. 

“Really,” her mother smiles. “I promise.” 

“Why are you crying, then?”

Smile dimming, her mother looks over her shoulder at her father. He nods, then leans against a nearby counter, crossing his arms. Her shoulders rise in a deep breath before she returns her attention back to Sakura. Though she stands again and takes a step back, she keeps her hands atop Sakura’s shoulders. “Because it’s still painful to think about my family. I haven’t seen them in a very long time.” 

Sakura tips her head to the side. “Why haven’t you? Can’t you visit them?”

Lips pressed tightly together, her mother shakes her head. “I can’t. I lost all of them the year you were born.” 

Sakura gapes up at her. “What happened?”

Her mother averts her gaze. “It was just a byproduct of the times. It was the whole reason your father and I moved out of the village all those years ago.” 

Sakura hadn’t known. She’d never wondered about why they hadn’t lived here when she was younger. Her hand drifts to her neck, just under her jaw. 

Her mother tries meeting her eyes. “I’m sorry I never told you. You were too young, but now it seems that it was a mistake not to say anything. Can you forgive me?”

“Only if you can forgive me,” Sakura answers, sniffling. 

“Oh, Sakura-chan,” her mother soothes a hand over her head, petting down her flyaway hairs. “There’s nothing to forgive. You did nothing wrong. Thank you for making me this cake.” She bends down to kiss Sakura’s forehead, before giving her one last squeeze and pulling away. 

“Now, let’s not let this go to waste. Who wants a slice?” 

That night, Sakura goes to bed with too many thoughts swirling around in her head. Thoughts of how she doesn’t really know what her parents’ lives were like before she was born. Thoughts about Sasuke’s birthday tomorrow, and how she’s going to act if she sees Itachi there. 

She attributes these swirling thoughts as the reason she wakes with a gasp in the middle of the night, reaching, once again, for her own throat. 

---

“Is the box shut tight?” 

Her mother fusses around her, checking and double checking things that Sakura has already triple-checked. 

“Yes, okaa-san.” 

Early morning light drifts through their open windows, bringing with it a breeze that hints at the heat that will soon settle around the village. 

“And you’re sure he’ll be awake this early?” 

“I’m positive, okaa-san. Can I go now?” Sakura whines, picking the plastic cake box up by the handle, making sure to support the bottom as well, just in case the clasps fail.

Her mother smiles at Sakura’s poorly-concealed excitement. 

“Yes, yes, go see your little friend.” 

Barely sparing her parents a goodbye, she runs out of the kitchen and is soon out the door and on the street, turning in the direction of Sasuke’s house. 

She pays no mind to the people rushing past her, busy despite the early time. She’s so full of nerves that even her thoughts are scattered. 

What do I even say? ‘Happy birthday, Sasuke, hope you don’t think it’s weird that I made you this to thank you for your help. I figured since it’s your birthday and all…’ It feels like too long of an explanation. And what do I even say to Itachi? He will doubtlessly be there. Sasuke is his number one priority, after all. He wouldn’t miss a day as special as a birthday for his little brother. But she hasn’t seen the elder Uchiha heir since that night when he delivered the news of Shisui’s death. 

Shisui had apparently been the only glue holding their feeble friendship together, and without him, Itachi had wordlessly slipped away. 

She drops her head, shoulders hunching as if to physically ward off that line of thought. I don’t want to think of that right now.

Perhaps it’s due to the introspective nature of her thoughts or the jittery nerves plaguing her that dull her senses, but by the time she realizes something is wrong, it is far too late. 

Her head snaps up as a shadow drops down from above, blocking her path. Her breath catches in her throat, preventing the scream that rises within it from coming out as anything other than a breathy gasp. A hand clasps firmly, painfully, around her arm. 

One moment her feet are planted firmly on the ground, the next her assailant twists, and she’s airborne. There’s a flash of brilliant blue sky before her head bounces off of the ground and she’s rolled to her front. Copper floods her mouth, choking her. She whimpers as her arm is twisted, her hand pulled to reach too far up her spine. It feels as if the joint of her shoulder is about to be ripped from its socket. They bear down on her, pinning her with one knee on her back. 

Distantly, Sakura recognizes it as a textbook execution of a restraint. Tears spring to her eyes, and she blinks them away. In her periphery, the cake box has fallen open, the gift she had spent so long making for Sasuke smashed into the grit of the cobblestone road.

The tops of the gates of the Uchiha Compound just barely spear up over the distant horizon, and she struggles to pull in any breath at all. If she can yell out, surely someone will help her. There’s always an officer patrolling close by this area.

The weight on her back grows heavier as her assailant shifts, bending closer, stealing the rest of Sakura’s breath. 

“How did you get this close?” A female voice hisses into her ear. Sakura cries out as her arm is pulled higher up her back. “Konoha commands you to answer truthfully.” 

Sakura can barely parse what the woman wants from her. The pain makes her thoughts scatter. This feels nothing like any of the training scenarios she’s faced at the Academy. There’s no sensei watching over her and her classmates to make sure that no permanent lines are crossed. No amount of tapping will release her. 

This pain is relentless. Terrifying. She can feel the shift of her bones grinding together. Her chin and cheek sting, and the world spins around her. 

“I don’t know!” she gasps. “I just walked here!”

“Lies! Someone would have seen you before you got this close! Tell me what you’re doing here!”

“M-my friend! I’m here to visit my friend!” Pain spikes through her shoulder again, and Sakura nearly sobs. “I’m telling the truth! I swear it! Please, please, please, just ask anyone! My friend lives here!” 

The weight on her back shifts, and Sakura gets the uncomfortably terrifying feeling that the woman behind her is deciding on what to do with her now. 

I can’t do anything! she thinks, panicking. She’s trapped, defenseless. She scans for anyone who can help, but the streets are completely clear. The curtains of a window nearby twitch, but no one exits the house to come to her aid. 

The weight lifts from her back, letting her heave in one full, glorious breath before she is roughly dragged to her feet. There’s an overwhelming scent of metal in her nose that she can only assume is the blood she feels dripping from her mouth before her sight darkens. It returns after a second, though spots still drift in her vision as she forces her eyes to stay open.

A bone-white ANBU mask stares down at her, red markings painted into the facsimile of a badger streaked upon it. Golden-brown eyes pierce into her from behind the eye holes. 

Sakura wasn’t being mugged, as she had initially assumed. She had been attacked by a protector of her village. 

“Return to your home. All citizens are to remain indoors until further notice.” 

Sakura tenses, eyes widening before they catch on a dark shape flickering along the rooftop behind the woman. It's only then that she realizes that they’re surrounded by the shadowy forces of Konoha. Animal masks of all kinds observe from high positions, glinting in the light of the sun, their dark cloaks billowing behind them like black voids. Weak-kneed, she follows them like a trail of ants, to where they seem to congregate around the Uchiha District. She can only just see them darting about, jumping from roof to roof in the distance. 

“Were my orders not clear?” the woman snaps, and Sakura jolts in place. The ANBU’s hand had dropped to her side, where a weapon pouch is strapped to her thigh, the clasp undone for easy access. 

Taking an involuntary step back, Sakura’s hands come up in a pitiful attempt at a shield. She has to speak around the blood pooling in her mouth. “No, ma’am! I’m leaving!” 

The woman jerks her head, and Sakura turns and sprints away on unsteady legs, not even bothering to grab the remains of her mother’s cake carrier or to clean up the food that she had involuntarily spilled. She wants to be far away from that woman and their silent onlookers. The world spins as it blurs past her, and she nearly falls twice, feet tripping over themselves. By the time she bursts through the front door of her home, her head pounds terribly. 

“Sakura!” Three voices shout simultaneously as she skids to a stop just inside the living room. She has no time to wonder why her granny is here; she can only fold herself in half in an attempt to heave in more oxygen. Her brain is screaming that the air is too thin, that there’s not enough of it, and with her hands braced against her knees, she wheezes.  

Hands scrabble at her shoulders, trying to pull her up, but she can’t raise her head. Every time she moves, the world tilts on its axis, threatening to send her sprawling. 

Her father’s face appears in her line of sight, ghostly pale as he crouches in front of her. 

She hasn’t seen this expression on him since she was little. 

“What’s wrong, Sakura? What happened?” 

“She’s bleeding, Kizashi!”

Calmly, he says, “I can see that, Mebuki.” He doesn’t look away from her, just cradles her face between his hands, thumbs brushing at her cheeks. The pain in her head increases tenfold, and she feels bile begin to rise in her throat.

“Grab her, quick!” her granny suddenly commands, just before the world around her turns pitch black. 

Notes:

Soooo…how’s it going 😶‍🌫️

Don’t worry about cliffhangers, the next chapter is already finished and ready for next week. While you’re waiting, tell me alllll your thoughts!

😭—cant handle this
🤬—who does that ANBU think she is
💀—I thought this was going to be a fix-it fic (😂 I’m sorry to anyone who got this far without reading the tags lol)

Chapter 11

Notes:

Hope everyone had a great holiday!

11

 

She awakes to the pounding of knuckles against wood. 

The smooth white ceiling of her living room blinks into blurry focus. 

From nearby, a voice is droning on in the way that suggests they’ve already said the same thing hundreds of times beforehand. Fast and no-nonsense, with little room left for questions. “Businesses may reopen at noon today. Should any of your family members be currently enrolled in the Academy, I am to inform you that classes have been canceled until further notice. A curfew has been imposed by Sandaime-sama, limiting all activities to between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. We ask for your patience, apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your cooperation.”

“Wait!” her mother interjects. “Can’t you tell us what’s going on? Was the village attacked again?” 

The man gives a non-answer. “Everything is still under investigation. You may petition the Hokage, as per your rights, though the wait time may be quite substantial. Good day.”

Her mouth tastes like an apothecary had been emptied in it. She smacks her lips together, unsticking her tongue from the roof of it. 

From nearby, her parents are whispering furiously. 

“It’s happening again, Kizashi. I don’t know what to do.” Her mother’s voice breaks. There’s a quivering fear in her words that Sakura has never heard before. 

“It’s not—look at me, my love. This is not the same.” 

A groan leaves her without her permission, and the whispering stops immediately. 

“Sakura-chan?” her father asks loudly. “Are you awake?” 

Their faces appear above her, both pinched with worry. Dark circles line the space below their eyes, telling her that they haven’t slept since she last saw them. 

The muted sensation of sleep leaves her all at once, leaving her feeling surrounded and suddenly on edge. She attempts to rise into a sitting position atop the couch she had been placed. A muscle in her back protests, and she winces before leaning against the armrest. 

Her entire body feels bruised. 

“How are you?” her mother prods, gently trying to brush away the hair that clings to Sakura’s face. “Do you remember what happened yesterday?”

It’s been an entire day, Sakura slowly processes that fact. Memories flash instantly through her mind, and Sakura nods. 

Her father crouches beside her, knees popping. “Can you tell us about it?” 

Sakura does. She starts from the beginning and ends with the ANBU woman tossing her around before ordering her to run away. 

It’s embarrassing, admitting that she had been caught unaware. What’s the point of being in the Academy if she can’t fight back when it matters? She commits what little features she had seen of the woman to memory. The sharp eyes. The badger mask, with a chip in the porcelain near the left temple. The strand of light-colored hair peeking out of her hood before all Sakura could see were stars. 

I may be inexperienced right now, she thinks with a frown, hands fisting at her side. But that won’t be the case when I’m older. 

“How can they be allowed to do that?” her mother asks, horrified. “And to a child?”

Her father growls, “They’re not. But we don’t know what got them in such a frenzy yesterday.” 

As they mutter to one another, Sakura glances around. There had been three people here, last she remembered. “Where’s obaa-san? And why was she here yesterday?” 

They share a look.

Her mother is the one to answer. “She told us that she woke up feeling as if something was off. We just thought…well, she is quite old, so we were humoring her. Talking, offering tea, trying to keep her calm until the moment passed. She doesn’t have anyone else, as far as I know, so it made sense that she would come to us. But then you ran through those doors looking like—like—”

A tear slips down her mother’s cheek, and she brushes it away quickly. Sakura realizes that her eyes are rimmed red. “Your face was all scratched up, Sakura-chan. There was blood smeared everywhere, and I couldn’t see where it was coming from. You passed out on us.”

“Concussion,” her father grunts. 

Her mother nods, lips thinning. “Sato-san was our savior. She knew exactly what to do.” 

Sakura’s brows furrow. “Where is she now?” 

A heavy sigh leaves her father. “You know how she is. Nothing will stop her once she sets her mind to something. She slipped out after she was done giving you whatever concoctions she had stored up her sleeve. Told us she was going home, and for us to stay here. I tried asking her to stay, but she wouldn’t have it.” He runs a hand over his face. His palm scratches at the stubble that hasn’t yet been shaved. “Shinobi sure are a strange bunch, but I’m forever in her debt for her help with saving you.” 

I…don’t feel as if I’ve had a concussion, she takes note. The pounding in her head she had felt yesterday is gone. The skin beneath her chin, along her cheekbones, and on top of her nose are all still tender, stinging if she moves her face too much. Much of her hurts, but at least her head no longer feels as if it's about to rip apart. 

Bringing her knees up, Sakura folds her arms around them, hugging them tight. The clothes she’s wearing are different than the ones she had on yesterday. Her mother must have changed her out of them. There’s no telling what their condition had been when she returned home. A thread hangs loose from the hem of her long-sleeved shirt near her wrist and she pulls absently at it. 

“They were all over the Uchiha District,” she murmurs into her knees. “I hope they’re okay.” 

There’s a moment of silence as they all turn their thoughts inward before her mother crouches down beside her, joining her father. 

“We can open the store today. I don’t know how much business we’ll get, but maybe we’ll hear something.” 

Sakura turns to face her. “Really?”

Nodding, her mother says, “Really. Go get ready. We’ll leave together.” 

Gingerly, Sakura gets to her feet. Her back is sore, her shoulder twinges with pain every other movement, but nothing is going to stop her from leaving today. 

I have to know what’s going on. 

In the bathroom, the mirror reveals the true damage that had been done to her. Her chin is scraped raw, there’s road rash on her cheeks from where she had dragged her face against the ground to look around for help, and her nose has a small cut on it. A nasty bruise blossoms beneath the wound on her chin. Dragging her eyes away from it, she opens her mouth and sticks out her tongue. 

Not too far from the tip of the appendage is a faint line in the shape of her teeth. She knew she had bitten into it when her head hit the road, but she hadn’t known how bad it had been. She never would now, as whatever damage there had been has been repaired.

She’s thankful to whatever gods or spirits or fair wind that had been responsible for having sent her granny this way. She hopes the older woman didn’t run into any ANBU agents when she snuck back home last night. 

As quickly as possible, Sakura returns to where her parents await her by the front door. Keys jangle together in her father’s hand as he fidgets with them. There’s a nervous energy in the air, and she unconsciously edges closer to them. When they exit, the feeling of being watched immediately settles along her shoulders. 

Their walk is a quiet affair. The civilians who brave the outside speed off quickly to get where they need to be, eyes darting everywhere as they look for danger. 

I don’t like this, she thinks. I don’t like how scared everyone is. Especially her mother, who grips her hand tightly as they cross the streets, as if afraid of losing her among the non-existent crowd. 

Dark shapes move in her periphery every so often, disappearing from sight whenever she turns her head. Whatever forces sneaking about the edges of the village are either operating under extreme speed or illusion, though she doesn’t attempt to find out which is true. Dispelling a genjutsu now would only draw their ire and notice, both of which she doesn’t want. 

They open their shop with little fanfare, and the three of them sit behind the counter. 

And wait. 

No one enters. No one even glances into their windows. 

They entertain themselves in the few hours that pass. Her mother oscillates between skimming a book at her side behind the counter and reorganizing shelves nearby. Her father sits beside her, head leaning against his fist as he crunches numbers in a thick book. 

She just sits there, eyes drifting up every so often to watch people as they pass by. 

It’s just before the sun begins to set that her mother drops her head with a groan and mutters a quiet Damn it, beneath her breath, startling the other occupants of the store. 

Haruno Mebuki couldn’t have snatched their attention faster than if she had grabbed a broom and started dancing in the middle of the aisles. 

Her parents never curse in front of her.

“Mebuki?” her father questions, brows furrowed in worry. 

“We don’t have any food for tonight. I was meaning to go out yesterday, but…” 

Sakura perks up. “I can go—”

“Absolutely not,” her mother instantly refuses. 

Beside her, her father rises from his stool and walks around the counter to wrap a comforting arm around her mother. 

“There’s no use in staying cooped up in here. How about we all go, together,” he stresses, looking pointedly at his wife. “We might even hear something while we’re at the store. You know how those old biddies like to gossip near the carrots.”

Her mother relaxes slightly into his hold before slowly nodding. “Okay. We’ll go together. We’ll stop by the store that’s across from the ramen stand—I don’t feel like cooking tonight, but I’ll grab stuff for the rest of the dinners this week and we’ll eat takeout when we get home.” 

Her father presses a kiss against her mother’s forehead. “That sounds like the perfect plan, my love.” 

She’s sent into Ichiraku Ramen by her father when they arrive, and she’s surprised to find the seats packed full of other shinobi. A couple even stand near the wall, holding their bowls as they eat. 

Over their bowed heads, Teuchi shouts out from his place behind the stovetop, where he’s busy sautéing something within a well-seasoned wok. “What’ll you have? I can do takeout if you don’t want to wait!”

Sakura shakes her hands at him. “Takeout is fine! Three orders of tonkatsu, please. And can I get two extra eggs?” 

“Three tonkatsu!” He yells over his shoulder. 

Ayame places their homemade noodles into large pots of boiling water, hair frizzy beneath the tied cloth on her head. “Three tonkatsu, heard!” 

Sakura attempts not to seem too interested in the conversation happening at the counter in front of her, keeping her head lowered as she stares at her shoes. One of the men standing by the wall sends her a quick look before dismissing her completely as he turns back to his friends. 

“I dunno, orders are a mess right now, and they don’t tell us chunin anything,” he complains, wiping broth from his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“Ain’t that the truth.” 

He leans down, and his friends shift closer to him. He lowers his voice, though thankfully it still carries over to her. “But I heard there was an escaped prisoner on the loose. Some guy with a flee-on-sight order.” 

His friends groan in unison, pulling away. “There’s no way the whole village would get this worked up over one guy. The Uchiha are well equipped to handle any of our prisoners anyways, no matter their status in any bingo books.”

“Unless it was an Uchiha who set ‘em free,” one man snarls. The other men shift uncomfortably in their seats. 

“Either way, it still doesn’t fit with how everyone’s acting,” a younger woman says in the ensuing silence. “Lots of people are saying it’s war on the horizon, but I can’t believe it. Uzo-san,” she turns to the man beside her, who has been quietly eating up to this point. “You were around during the last war. Does it feel like it’s heating up to that again?” 

The man sighs, resting his chopsticks on the edge of his bowl. Sakura strains to hear his low, gruff voice. 

“Couldn’t say. Everyone’s certainly nervous enough, but the higher-ups are staying tight-lipped.” 

Teuchi interrupts their conversation when he reaches a bag over the counter towards her. 

“Here you go—oh! Are you alright?”

Sakura freezes as her hand wraps around the outstretched bag. She had completely forgotten about how she looks. 

Laughing nervously, she pulls the food free from his loose grip. The shinobi at the counter all glance curiously at her, eyes tracing over the wounds on her face. “Ah, I, uh, fell on the sidewalk. Thanks for the food!” 

She rushes out before she can stick her foot further into her mouth. 

I fell? she scoffs at herself. Seriously? I’ve gotta come up with a better lie than that. Better yet, she needs to stop getting beat up.

Her parents are waiting for her across the street when she pushes through the cloth noren of the ramen stand, their arms filled with paper bags about to burst. Her mother looks the most relaxed she has been since Sakura left yesterday morning. She’s giggling at something her father says, bumping their shoulders together. Whatever thoughts and fears that had been plaguing her seem to have been momentarily forgotten. 

I can’t worry her again, Sakura thinks to herself. 

When she reaches their side, she falls into step with them, speaking before they can ask her any questions. “Did you learn anything while you two were in there?”

An exasperated breath whooshes from her father. “Old lady Tanigawa is dating a new man this week,” he says. 

Her brows raise in surprise—she certainly hadn’t been expecting that. “What happened to the one she was dating last week?” 

“Couldn’t keep up with her, apparently,” her mother laughs, shaking her head in amusement and gesturing for Sakura to follow in their footsteps. 

The next day is much the same, with only a couple customers who come in to break up the slow day. During lunchtime, her parents send her out to go grab food and to stretch her legs. 

She searches for familiar faces within the crowds in an attempt to possibly get better information, but all she sees are strangers. Rumors of all types still reach her ears, each as unbelievable as the last, though she tucks every last one of them away for scrutiny later. 

Spies in the village. Old explosion tags that had been unknowingly planted during the last war unearthed and destroyed. That this is all just a training drill that’s being treated seriously. 

But ANBU don’t move like this unless something is very, very wrong, Sakura thinks. 

It’s the start of war again. 

That’s the fear that everyone falls back on. That rumor spins through her mind that night, keeping her awake. She tosses it around, thinking back to any book or scroll she’s read that recounted the days preceding the wars Konoha had fought in. 

But something feels wrong. Why would those ANBU agents surround the Uchiha district? They’re still around, last she had looked. Had a prisoner actually escaped? One so strong that the village needed to deploy their most powerful shinobi? She feels as if she’s looking in the wrong direction. Like she’s missing something—something big, something important. 

The third day out, she sits in the middle of the heart of the village, on a bench that digs uncomfortably into the back of her legs. 

She’s people watching. 

Jonin have returned to the hustle and bustle. Most of them look exhausted. Some of them move with an edge of unchecked anger, while others seem to barely be aware of where they’re going. 

And it’s loud again. No longer are people whispering to one another, careful about who may overhear. Normalcy seems to be returning. 

For some reason, it’s unnerving. 

Her eyes skim over a group of chunin who stroll in the street before her, heads huddled together. She catches some of their conversation as they pass by. 

“…course I don’t know what’s going on, I just got back from Suna, didn’t I?”

“Well, no one really knows…”

They fall out of earshot, and her eyes flicker away. 

Stranger after stranger after stranger. 

The noise of a busy day. 

Something prods at the back of her mind. She takes a closer look. A jonin she had seen earlier walks past her again, her eyes trained on the crowds. Another jonin walks the same pace on the other side of the street, keeping watch. 

Sakura goes very, very still. 

No, she thinks. None of these things make sense. There’s something worse at play here. She can no longer deny the fear that has slowly been building within her. 

It’s been days since she’s seen a familiar head of dark hair.

Slowly, so as not to draw any attention to herself, she picks herself up and begins her walk back home. When she reaches the Civilian District, she doesn’t take the turn that would lead her back to her house.

No, she continues past it, strolling down the street, keeping her pace natural. 

I live in this direction, she tells herself, attempting to morph her face into one of boredom. I walk this way every day. This is not new to me. 

People pass her by, too busy in their own lives to notice the pink-haired girl travelling all by herself. 

The gates of the Uchiha Compound loom ahead. 

No one has stopped her yet. 

Heart pounding, she steps through them. 

It’s completely empty. The guards that are normally posted at the entrance are nowhere to be found. The streets are bare of the young Uchiha children who usually flock to her when they see her, all curious about her hair. The curtains are drawn on nearly every house. 

She moves forward cautiously, casting her senses out for any ANBU who might be around—no matter how futile it may be to try, considering their chasmic difference of experience. 

It’s dead silent. The only noise she can hear despite straining her ears is the sound of her own quick breaths. 

With her next step, something squishes beneath her shoe. She pulls it up slowly, brows furrowed. There’s a puddle in the dirt path, but it hasn’t rained in so long…

Sakura gasps, stumbling backwards, nearly tripping over her feet in her haste to get away. 

Now that her horrified gaze is turned down, she sees that the dusty path below her has been recently overturned. It’s been hastily-mixed, likely from some sort of earth jutsu. But there are patches of dark, reddish-brown stains seeping into the parts of the path that had been missed.

What she had initially assumed to have been a puddle of water is instead a puddle of coagulating blood. So much had been spilled in this spot that the middle is still damp, despite days having passed. 

With a frantic sort of desperation, she runs. 

“Sasuke!” she screams, blinking sudden, terrified tears from her eyes. Her heart threatens to beat straight out of her chest, pounding against the back of her ribs. She sprints down a path she knows by heart, the wind at her back, pushing her forward, faster, almost guiding her footsteps. 

Her ears roar, and there’s suddenly a figure right in front of her. This time, she doesn’t allow herself to be grabbed. Whoever this agent is, they made the mistake of showing themselves to her before attempting to stop her. 

They throw their arms out, and she uses her size to her advantage to spin away, dodging them entirely. They overextend trying to catch her again and stumble, which puts a good amount of distance between them. 

A man’s voice snarls, “Why, you—!” but she pays him no mind once she’s out of his reach. 

The further she gets from the front of the compound, the messier the cleanup becomes. Blood stains splatter across the outer walls of houses, scorch marks burn dark patches into the ground. One house she passes is missing the front door entirely. 

She has to find Itachi. He would know what’s going on. And wherever he is, Sasuke surely is. He would never let any harm come to his younger brother. Of that, she has faith in. 

“Ita—”

A hand clasps firmly around her mouth at the same time as what feels like an iron beam wraps around her waist, squeezing the air from her lungs and picking her up until her feet leave the ground. 

A new voice hisses in her ear. “Do not say that name!”

She tries to squirm free, but their arm is wrapped around her too tight. She bites his fingers, and he rips his hand away from her mouth. “No!” she yells, attempting to kick backwards, but the angle is too awkward to do any real damage. “No! Let me go!”

The man grunts as her heel catches his kneecap, but he doesn’t drop her. “I’m trying to help you, kid! Quit wiggl—ouch! Damn it, my mask—just fucking stop—!”

Throwing her head back had done nothing except cause her pain, but it fades into the background as she fights to free herself. 

A sob tears free from her throat. “Akaji!” 

Can’t anyone hear me?

The man is walking backwards with her, pulling her away from the worst of the scene. She finds a gap between his gloves and arm guards and digs her nails into the exposed skin. Blood wells up beneath her fingers. The man only hisses through his teeth, but she barely registers that the noise isn’t as muffled through the mask as it had been earlier. 

Her mind is filled with the white noise of panic. 

No one comes out to see what the commotion is. Silence hangs heavy in the air. 

Exhaustion overtakes her without warning. She goes limp in the ANBU’s arms, tears and snot streaming down her face. She whimpers, “Sasuke,” but the name carries no further than her lips. 

The man behind her grunts before she is turned and dropped outside the gates. Her legs buckle, unable to hold the weight of the knowledge she found here. 

“Woah there, kiddo.”  

She looks up. The man is wearing a tanuki mask, one that he has to re-center from her earlier headbutt. But his eyes aren’t aimed down at her, they’re glaring at something behind her. 

“That’s unnecessary—”

She only has one thought before a hand meets the back of her neck and her entire world goes black.

The Uchiha—one of the great founding clans, the songbirds of Konoha—are no more. 

 

Notes:

Here’s the end of what I mentally think of as “Act 1”. It won’t be too much longer until we reach Sakura’s graduation and finally see Team 7.

Tell me your thoughts about this chapter! I love hearing them!

🧐- I know who’s beneath that Tanuki mask
😰- how many times is she going to be roughed up by ANBU?
😭- where is Sasuke???