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She has an apprentice out there, wearing her diamond and name, and she doesnāt even know her, Tsunade thinks. She nurses a drink in one hand, already feeling the buzz of the alcohol and graciously letting it stay. The dull hum of the night passes her by, patrons and saints alike ignored by a princess in a bar.
She (are they female?) is a smart one, who knows Tsunade well- knows how she thinks, writes, and talks. She is a virtuous one, for Katsuyuu not to leave a name. This is all in all, a very elaborate kick back to reality, she rues.
At first, she thought it a ruse, from Sensei to get her to go back to Konoha and take up the hat, but something in the way the red Godaime Hanko bears her name stills her hand. It looks real. They still write āSenjuā the exact same way they used to, she thinks with a touch of bitterness.
She didnāt live to this age without listening to her instincts; the letter is as real as it is forged.
This familiar stranger of hers- she has her kageās seal. The handwriting on the scroll, the words; theyāre hers. But if it were truly hers, there would be the Senju seal on there. Not the Hokageās seal, but one specifically made for Senju, by Senju. She hasnāt seen the seal in decades, opting to leave memories where they lie, but if she had really gone back to Konoha the way this letter implies she did, then the seal would be on there.
Itās absent.
Does she trust this person? This person who believes in her more than she believes in herself? Does she trust this nameless, faceless friend enough to try, for once in her life, to face the future and not turn away?
Tsunade tilts the last drop of sake from her bottle and makes her decision. She slams the bottle down on the table and gets up. She has an old family friend to pay a visit to at Mountainās Graveyard.
How curious, that his prized experiments are being poached, Orochimaru muses as he meanders through the dense forest, listening to the reports his snakes bring him. Who is this stranger, who has the daring and cunning to challenge him?
Kimimaro was first, and that itself led to one of Juugoās worst rages to date. It takes a visit from Orochimaru himself to knock Juugo out; Kabutoās poisons were no use on the giant, and he knew it.
Then the Sound Four were sent to find their leader, but they also disappeared into the night.
Even Kabuto, his most complete work to date, vanished from his base.
He supposed some things have to be done by himself if he wants it done right, Orochimaru thinks.
Undoubtedly, the radio silence only means that there are big (bigger) fish in the ocean than his children thought, but there are very, very few left out there who can pose a danger to him.
He approaches a cave (a lair? How clichĆ©.) with Kusanagi drawn. There are traps lining the caveās opening circling three times through, almost bristling with weapons hidden in every nook. The poison looks to be of Suna origin, Orochimaru ventures a guess.
Well, there is only one missing nin from Suna who would do this, he thinks. And therein, his answer to why no one was able to recover any bodies, or even any trace of a battle. He readies his weapon and knows that it will not be an easy battle.
He seeks to fight a scorpion in his den, so he stacks his deck. āKiyohime, goā he summons; a large viper appears as quickly as it disappears, its scales an iridescent green and purple.
Heās a hairsbreadth behind her, bypassing the traps with ease. He pauses; a measure of caution, because that is not Sasori of the Red Sands in there.
He finds a woman with pink hair in a workmanās apron hovering over Karinās prone form. She catches Kiyohime behind the jaw with the ease of someone long used to catching snakes by the neck. āNot now, Sasuke,ā she murmurs, heedless to the danger that stands behind her.
āSasuke?ā Orochimaru asks. There is no one named Sasuke on the Snake Summoning Scroll. He knows. He surveys the cave; on the dissecting table is Karin, her chest splayed out obscenely, cut at the costal cartilages. Any other person would feel their blood boil, at their hard work so callously stolen and dissected apart, but Orochimaru is merelyā¦ curious.
āMy husband,ā is the curt reply. She canāt be more than twenty, at most. There, at the center of her forehead is an oh-so-familiar diamond on display. The green of her hand fascinates him as she moves to close Karinās chest. With a flick of her fingers, Karin sits forward and blinks, tilts her head and pats down her skirt.
My, my. A medical puppeteer, he thinks with undisguised wonder. Tsunade has no apprentice except Shizune (apprentice, he scoffs. Caretaker, more like). So, who is this? There is no faking skill- no faking competence- and Orochimaru knows that this person is undoubtedly Tsunadeās, in one way or another.
Except, she dares to go where even Tsunade does not. Tsunade had so much potential, he thinks- such unrivaled medical prowess- the only limit is imagination. There is but one thing; one small, tiny detail about Tsunade that makes him so, so disappointed in her. Sheās moralistic. Moralistic and just, sanctimonious in ways that grates on him on the best of days.
As if her precious anatomy, her surgical precision didnāt start once upon a time in a dingy basement with illegally obtained corpses, cut open for Godās own secrets. As if her poisons and antidotes were not trial and error at first- on animals then on people who would not be missed. She has no moral grounds to stand on, no right to sneer, for one perched atop a ladder built on blood.
True progress requires sacrifice. True progress requires work. Requires a willingness to venture where other people do not, dare not. Where Tsunade turned her nose up, it seems like her little apprentice rolled her sleeves up and got to work.
There is puppet pandemonium in the lair in short order, and Orochimaru would have sighed, if it wasnāt so banal. Even for him, four hundred puppets is no gentle workout, and it pains him to have to go this far just to retrieve a lab rat or two (there is little to no chance that heāll find his specimen alive, but he wonāt be walking away empty-handed). Though, it is curious that Sasori of the Red Sands (the real one) is indeed here, and working in tandem with this curious little unknown. The scorpion has only ever worked alone. It was a known fact in missing nin circles.
Heās of the opinion that the girl is by far a master on her own, rather than a measly apprentice. He hasnāt fought Tsunade in decades, but even he can tell that she has taken what Tsunade has and refined it, honed it to an edge that puts her above her own master. There is a swiftness to her fists that Tsunade doesnāt have, a ruthlessness and apathy that is unique.
His demise sneaks upon him while he is busy with the puppets and crawls over his shoulders. In the end, it is Suigetsu who kills him; he didnāt expect what it truly means, to have a medic on the other end of a puppetās string.
If Suigetsu was still alive, he thinks heād approve. His vision fades into black, his blood bleeding into a pool. (Does he bleed sin, as monsters do? Monster, he remembered Jiraiya calling him, hate written in every line of his face. He didnāt deny the claim.)
āDonāt worry, Orochimaru-sama. Your hard work wonāt be wasted; after all, death is just the beginning,ā is the last thing he hears before his mind crumbles.
He thinks he might be proud, if he knew her in a different time.
The news comes by the grapevine in piecemeal. A rumor here or there, a note tacked on the end of a receipt, a sentence whispered on the winds, an off handed comment in the market.
āOrochimaru is dead,ā they say. Ding dong the snake is dead. Hallelujah the king is dead.
Jiraiya doesnāt believe it. He can count on one hand the number of people left in the Shinobi world who can seriously injure Orochimaru, if not outright kill him. Even Sensei canāt, for all he used to be Konohaās best in his prime. He knows that he himself canāt. Tsunade canāt.
Canāt, wouldnāt, wonāt. It all boils down to the same answer in the end: no.
Anyone who is ruthless enough, sly enough to get the drop on Orochimaru is someone to be wary of, he knows. So, he keeps his ears to the ground but quashes the impulse to go avenging his one-time friend.
He finds an origami rose by his bed one evening, and he sobers up, gears up. In all his time wandering the world, there is only one person who uses origami based techniques, and sheās long dead to him. (Heās equally dead to her, and the shame in him keeps him away at countryās length).
He opens the origami cautiously, wary of what the Akatsuki could want with him.
Bullseye Mark, 2230.
He hates being led by the nose anywhere, but this is the most solid lead he has had in a long time, and everyone worth their salt knows that heās looking for his teammateās killer. He hesitates and doesnāt want to go, but itās already ten. He makes a split-second decision.
He goes.
Heās there, but heās cautious. Thereās a reverse summoning seal planted back at his hotel, and his hands are in his pocket but his fingers held in a half-ram seal. He holds a sake dish in his other, but itās only warmed water in the bottle.
He doesnāt see the flash of blue and white like he expects; instead, he sees a head of pink. A pink haired slip of a girl walks next to the hunched form of Sasori of the Red Sands. She moves around jerkily, as if ill accommodated in her own body, and sits down at the bar.
She orders a drink, but she doesnāt drink it. No, she tilts the alcohol onto a napkin and lights it afire with her chakra. She narrows her eyes, and the fire changes colors, changes intensity. She extinguishes it and asks for a different cocktail from a nervous bartender.
Sasori watches her, equally bored and amused but humoring her all the same. He says something, his gaze flickering to him. Jiraiya tenses bracing himself for a confrontation, but the only thing he gets from the pink haired woman is a glance (that diamond-), before the two of them vanish into thin air.
A seal, he thinks. Some sort of space-time seal. Pink hair.
What is an Uzumaki doing with Sasori of the Red Sands, and why does Konan think she has anything to do with Orochimaru?
They have an unspoken camaraderie, the two of them. Itās a certain warmth in the cold of their cave, the knowledge of having a back to lean on. Itās a respectful distance, a professional courtesy. Somewhere between the demise of Orochimaru and the arrival of Akatsuki, the respect they have for each other morphs into something more.
She lets whatever this is grow organically to the backdrop of their work. Sasori claims he has no human heart, and whateverās left of hers has long withered away. What they have is comfortable, Sakura thinks as she oils Orochimaruās hinges, brainstorming of ways to add poisons to his hair, senbon to his clothes. To her left, Sasori adjusts the armor on the Sandaime; heās completely biased, Sakura thinks. But she canāt exactly blame him for it. Ā
The human need for companionship doesnāt go away no matter which dimension sheās in, and she knows that Sasori feels the same even if he will never admit it on the pain of death. Thereās no reason why he would join the Akatsuki otherwise- for boredom and for company, twisted as it is. He thinks himself heartless, and would probably die before he admits that he isnāt. And thatās how he ends up dead- at the hands of someone like her (young and burning bright, old and ideals burnt to ashes).
Sasori doesnāt need Aktasuki anymore; he doesnāt need to die to live. He has her. Thatās all he needs.
They have a professional relationship that links them together, these days. Theyāre less master and pupil and more partners- some days even in crime. They talk puppetry, brainstorming of ways to use sealing to advance their art, poisons and medicine both a mirror to each other.
āSeals can be carved on wood almost unperceivably,ā Sasori brings up the issue one day, in an almost-question. He doesnāt ask.
Sakura smiles. āYour puppets arenāt made of wood anymore. But yes, they can be carved on skin too.ā She knows he wants to learn; he turns his head, glances her way whenever she unrolls her sealing scrolls. Heās much too prideful to simply ask her, or even to admit that thereās something he doesnāt know. He thinks of himself preserved at perfection, but thereās no such thing. Sheās always reaching for more knowledge; how can anyone be perfect when thereās so much more out there to learn?
Stubborn, Sakura sighs to herself.
āScoot over,ā she says, casually clearing space on his work desk.
āIf I must,ā he grumbles and drags over a chair. She shakes her head and fetches a blank scroll and a brush.
āSealing starts at the base coil,ā she lectures, twirling the brush in ink and twisting it on paper. āHereā¦ the first thing you want to decide is whether it goes clockwise or counterclockwise- to unleash something or to lock it away. After you decide that, then you have to look at the size of the sealā¦ā
He listens with rapt attention.
Yes, what they have is comfort. Comfort in the forbidden knowledge they share, their common purpose and easy companionship. A shared a quenchless thirst for knowledge, no matter the price. The lines they cross, they donāt even see. There are no lines drawn. No limits acknowledged. All they have is an endless yearning for what they do not know.
What they have is something beyond words. And for Sakura, it is enough. It doesnāt need to be more.
āThis isnāt how the Sandaime is used,ā Sasori says, his eyes narrowed. Heās using Orochimaru this time, and loathe as he is to admit it, it runs smoother than his own Sandaime Kazekage. Itās almost unreal, how human-like the Sanin is as a puppet.
Heād argue that heās more humane as a puppet, but maybe thatās because the one holding his strings isnāt as far gone. Yet.
āThatās only because you never thought of using him this way,ā Sakura sniffs. Thereās still emotion in her voice, he notes. Sasori sees no reason for why she kept that part of her intact. Thereās a lot of modifications that she made to his human puppet procedure, and the merits of it is still a hot topic of debate between the two of them.
She uses the iron sand to grind away at the structural integrity of their hideout to generate more iron sand, and Sasori fights the urge to tell her that if they have to move hideouts āagain- because of her, sheās going to be the one finding the next place herself.
āGaara used to do this a lot in our spars,ā Sakura shrugged. āHe always complained that Konoha doesnāt have enough sand. Whenever we were done with our spars, the chunin would always use the sand to refill the sandboxes in the playground.ā She snickers.
One of these days, heās going to cut open each and every single one of those people she mentions just to see what makes them tick. Too bad Razaās brat is three.
Orochimaru moves at his very thought, at almost a twitch of his fingers, he flies across the cave. Itās the culmination of her hard work, Sasori thinks. All those milliseconds she saves on the response time adds up. It shows even on her own response time, the way she slides across the floor, her fingers moving faster than his own.
Sheās fast for a human, impossibly fast for a puppet, but heās not a master at his trade for nothing. He has Orochimaru twist away from a geyser of iron and opens his own blades to block the attack.
Thereās a grin on her face and a light in her eyes as she ducks out of Kusanagiās swing, and her fist charges up with chakra. Itās not going to be anything more than a love tap, he knows. Orochimaru is her baby, and sheās the one fixing all the damages.
Their spar ends with a kunai to her throat and a poisoned sword pointed diagonally at the left side of the Sandaime, ready to slide in between the ribs and hit the chakra core.
āYield?ā he asks dryly. Itās been an hour, and heās starting to doubt the structural integrity of their cave. He starts mentally packing their bags and wonders if itās about time to revisit Suna.
āYield,ā she breathes a gusty sigh, not even fighting the way her lips curled up at the corners. She swipes a cursory hand over Sasoriās body, diagnostic medical chakra running through him. It is as alien as it is soothing. She feels like mint, or a dip through the cold waterfalls of Taki.
āThereās no need,ā he says, pushing away her hand and shrugging his jacket back on. There was no lasting damage done; heās always careful when using himself.
āFine,ā Sakura huffs, dancing the Sandaime out of Sasoriās reach with a flick of her hands. āIāll just tend to him instead,ā she says with a sly smile.
Sasori scowls as Sakura patches up the Sandaime with care- everything from his skin to his robes and even rights the askewed hat.
The Sandaime Kazekage is his dammit.
Sakura knew that Sasori is a missing-nin; the thought is on the periphery of her mind, always on her awareness, in the way they move hideouts almost every other week and in the way they check on their safe houses. Dozens of them. They have stashes of weapons and cash stored and more poisons than they know what to do with.
She doesnāt understand what it actually entails until they stop at a small city at the outskirts of Suna one day, for supplies and a bounty cash-in.
Sakura has her arms full of scrolls and wood planks when she feels it. A prickle of unease at the corner of her senses. She didnāt live this long to ignore her instincts, so she scans her surroundings. Sasori is three feet in front of her, Hirukoās hunched back distinct in the midst of a crowd of shoppers. But heās not whatās bothering her; someone elseās eyes are on him. There: that woman- the dried persimmon seller.
She looks to be middle aged, a hint of grey at the temples and smile lines around the corner of her mouth. A teenager stops to buy a pack from her, biting into it with relish. His gaze flickers over once to Sasori; Sakura doesnāt miss it. Doesnāt miss the way the seller gives him the wrong change or the way the pack of preservatives in the persimmons has a piece of paper around it.
Hunters, she realizes. Theyāre everywhere, if they managed to find Sasori this far south. Theyāre omniscient and nothing like the ANBU. The ANBU are assassins in the dark, doing the dirty work thatās needed by their military dictator. But Hunters- theyāre everything. Theyāre spies, infiltrators, seducers, torture specialists, assassins, trackersā¦ in this case, they sell dried persimmons, Sakura thinks dryly.
Thereās a special name for them in every country, for all they do the same work. Wolves, in Konoha. Sharks, in Mist. Jackals, here.
Hyenas, more like, Sasori remarked once in disgust, shaking bits of entrails off of his coat one day after an unsuccessful ambush. Sakura didnāt particularly care and held out a hand for the coat anyways. It needs to be soaked.
She doesnāt need to care; she doesnāt exist in this world (somewhere, she thinks that she must be giving Teenage Sakura Haruno a great deal of grief). The Hunters arenāt for her; theyāre for him. Which means, they might as well be for her.
Well, thereās only one way to handle this, she thinks.
She steps up to the hungry teen slowly, looking for all in the world like a young traveler doing some shopping. Sakura taps the boy on the shoulder politely. Once, then twice.
āExcuse me,ā she says in a falsely high voice. She smiles.
He turns around with a reply on his lips, and the last thing he sees is cotton candy hair and bright green eyes before a dainty fist meets his face, and he knew no more.
--
āI could have handled that,ā Sasori says later, Karasu and Kaori melting out of the woodwork with the persimmon sellerās head in their grasp. It drips steadily into the sand, and Sasori gives it a good shake to dislodge the clots.
Youāre on their radar now, you idiot, he thinks. And he really would have handled that himself; as if he didnāt already know that there were Hunters around. Heās been in this field for long enough that he can see their tells. What he misses, he has six hundred eyes to see.
Six hundred and two eyes now, it would seem.
āHm, I know you would have,ā Sakaura says casually, checking the range of Karinās joints for what seemed like the twentieth time.Ā āI just felt like it.ā She shrugs. She had sent the kid through two walls and a cabbage cart with a punch. While the marketās abuzz in confusion, they make their escape (to a particularly loud wail of āMy Cabbages!ā).
I wouldnāt leave you to them, is what she doesnāt say and what he pretends not to hear.
He doesnāt say thanks, and she doesnāt say youāre welcome. They simply shoulder their supplies and make their way to the next hideout. She makes a note to unseal her puppets with her, the next time theyāre out. She could use a couple extra eyes too.
Her past catches up to her one day when theyāre halfway through River Country, tracking the last survivor of a rare kekkei genkai.
āHeās mine,ā Sakura snarls. Sheās so agitated that her hairās bristling, and she brushes it down because she doesnāt want the poisoned senbon in there to accidentally-on-purposely turn Sasori into a pincushion. Itās her information that theyāre tracking him with; the bodyās hers, dammit.
āOnly if you find him first,ā Sasori smirks. He wants that kekkei genkai too, but too bad thereās only one of it left.
Sakura huffs and opens her mouth to reply- no doubt arguing the logic of āfinders keepersā when a large explosion blows out a stretch of forest in front of them. They duck under the storm of splinters as trees topple over and crash into a pile.
āAsuma-sensei!ā yells a panicked, familiar voice that tickles the edges of Sakuraās awareness.
She doesnāt wait, doesnāt look back to see if Sasori follows. All she remembers is that voice, a funeral, and a chain smoking habit started way too soon.
She unseals Orochimaru with one hand, Suigetsu with the other. Sakura leaps into the fray, cutting through Hidanās scythe with Kusanagi and washing away his blood circle with a suiton.
The Jashinist curses her black and blue but backs off just a smidgeon. Wary, in the face of an unknown. Oh, she knows what she looks like- all of five foot three and bubblegum pink hair, wide green eyes and a diamond on her forehead like a calling card. She stands tall, and stares him in the face where she once would have shrunk. The rest of her puppets wait by the trees, murder in hiding.
āā¦ Sakura?ā The voice asks. Sakura creates a water clone. The original doesnāt turn to face the team of genin and chunin; she wouldnāt dare take her eyes off of Hidan even if she has no more blood to bleed nowadays.
The clone however, kneels down and places glowing green hands on Asuma. āSarutobi-san, allow me to heal you,ā she says. Shikamaru moves to complain, his shadow barely an inch from the cloneās. A sharp smile keeps him at bay.
āHello, Ino,ā she says casually.
Ino takes a step back. āYouāre not Sakura,ā she says and frowns, seeing her friendās older appearance, her porcelain smooth skin, the way she doesnāt blink and doesnāt breathe. There are lines where her joints are, Ino thinks, horrified. She looks like a doll. Exactly like a doll.
āIām not your Sakura, no,ā she says easily and finishes healing Asuma. It takes all of ten seconds and instantly makes Shikamaru wary. The Sakura he knows canāt heal that well yet. Even the Godaime would take more than ten seconds with an injury of that caliber.
āYou took your time,ā Sakura says to a shadow stepping out of the woods. To her side, Karasu blocks Kazukuās tentacles from reaching her, even as she sends Kimmimaro to keep him busy. There is no heart, no blood, for the zombie duo to latch onto. He knows it, she knows it. Itās a farce of a battle, and the two idiots havenāt even realized.
āYou take too many detours,ā he says, a hint of complaint in his tone. āI already found him.ā Thereās a body bag still dripping ominously behind him, that he waves in her general direction.
Sakura rolls her eyes, letting Kabutoās regenerative abilities drive Hidan up a wall. Have a taste of your own medicine, you cockroach, she thinks. To Sasori, she says, āI wonāt bring you along anymore if youāre going to be like this.ā
He smirks, knowing that she doesnāt mean it. Sheās the one who sought him out in the first place. He sends a couple more puppets out, and just to make sure they know precisely who theyāre fighting, he unseals the Sandaime Kazekage.
The Leaf nin in the back gasp. Oh, he has nothing against those two zombies in particular- the world is big enough that S ranked ninja with flee on sight orders generally avoid each other (if only to avoid collateral damage), and heās in no hurry to tangle with the Akatsuki, but Sakura clearly has a bone to pick with them. Thatās enough for him.
(Heās not nearly done with the Akatsuki- not when they set Jiraiya of all people on their tail. This is only partial payback, not even counting the interest they owed.)
āWell, what are you staying here for?ā Sakura asks them, her back still turned. Shikamaru looks between the four S ranked missing nin uneasily and shoulders Asuma. Ino takes one more uncertain look at Sakura before she leaves with her team.
(Shikamaru has no idea why Sakura stepped into this battle- she has no reason to- but heās endlessly grateful because he knew that blow would have killed Asuma, and there was nothing he could have done about it. Thereās a million questions he wants to ask- why is there an older version of Sakura here? Why is she with Sasori of Red Sands of all people? Is that Orochimaru?- but all those can wait until theyāre out of blast zone of a kage level battle between four S ranked nukenins. He takes his team and leaves.)
Sakura cracks her neck, releasing a slow acting airborne poison from the storage compartment she hid in one of her lymph nodes, and gets to work.
In the end, she gets Hidan with a punch to the face and caves in his skull. She slips a kunai through his brainstem and ties him up in industrial grade steel wire. She crouches next to the corpse and pokes at it with morbid curiosity, mentally calculating the speed in which the tissues regenerate. She cuts off a limb watches it regrow. Interesting; this has research potential.
Sasori packs up the remains of Kazuku (practically all rags, with maybe half a body left in tatters between the five holes in his chest) and observes the process with her.
āI found them first,ā Sakura says, restarting their argument anew.
In the end, they settle on one half of the duo each. They donāt fit in either collection, but theyāre a collaborative work, and thatās that.
It doesnāt have anything to do the way Sasori scowls when Sakura comes back from her next trip with the last of the Rinha clan in a bag and waves it in his face.
He sees her for the first time when the world is ending. There is some sort of malicious sentient plant matter out there trying to rule the world, and Obito claims heās late because of it.
He canāt even tease the Uchiha for his shitty excuse because heās too busy denying that heās crying tears of blood from their Sharingan eye, nevermind that itās actually true.
The venus fly trap has a Sharinganin in one eye and a Rinnegan in the other, but they have a clan of Uchihas and the five united great nations under one great banner.
But thereās thousands of clones and only so many expendable shinobi, in the face of an inexhaustible army. He doesnāt even have the courtesy of making them genin level. Rude.
Kakashi doesnāt want to think of how this will end; heāll go down fighting- he knows they all will, but heās only just gotten one fourth of his dead pack back and he doesnāt want to let go. He holds his breath, pinned under four zetsu clones and ten more dead around him. One is reaching slowly towards Obitoās eye, and he screws it shut- one last feeble defense against the inevitable. Is this ā¦ it?
It is not. He takes a breath and opens his eyes to the red of an Akatsuki coat and a three bladed scythe. Thereās Orochimaru of all people beside him, and thereās Kusanagi three inches from his shoulder, spearing through the back of the Zetsu clone reaching for his eye.
Kakashi blinks and takes down the rest of the zetsu clones with his freed arm and a kunai that Hidan tossed to him.
The two missing-nin donāt say anything; they canāt, he realizes, seeing the thread-thin chakra strings that pull at them from the joints.
āClose call there, Kakashi-sensei,ā a familiar voice says. The strings lead behind him, and heās almost afraid of what he finds.
Sakura, but older. Sakura, but dead and turned into a puppet.
She smiles, though the emotions donāt quite reach her eyes. He wants to say something- did he fail her again? Why else would she- but heās interrupted when a clone erupts from the ground behind her, and his words turn into a shout.
āShannaro!ā She spins around and punches the Zetsu through three boulders and leaves half of his body and his mangled spine stuck in a tree, startling a Kumo nin in the process.
Thereās no doubt in his mind. Thatās definitely Sakura.
Instead, he considers what to say- sheās gone rogue, but sheās here, when sheās sorely needed. She has two hundred puppets to her name and enough strings attached to her hands and wrists and everywhere, really, to prove that. Two hundred undead puppets is an army on its own, and sheās taking down clones that much faster when her puppets donāt bleed and donāt stop.
āWelcome back,ā he says finally, and gets up. Heās old and tired, but he thinks just maybe the tide is turning. He wants to rest, but heāll see this through at least.
Thereās something in her expression that shifts, turns softer, when she sees a river of iron sand rise above the treesā¦ and the surprised shouts of Suna-nin who are caught off guard.
āDonāt die, Kakashi-sensei.ā She grins, blood thirsty in ways she never knew her to be. He sees Orochimaru and Hidan by her side, cutting through another battalion of clones, and suddenly doesnāt want to know what she would have done, if she was a second too late and found him dead on the ground.
āI wonāt.ā
Theyāre huddled around a fire when the apocalypse finishes and the world gives a great shudder. Thereās a new moon in the sky, and no one has any clue what to do with it. The war is over. And she can live with that, new moon or not.
She gets up and walks to her teammates, a green glow around each hand. Ā Naruto and Sasuke are missing an arm each. Their recklessness really knows no bounds, she thinks, exasperated. There is no reversing this, but maybe if they use whatās left of the Hashirama cells, they can regenerateā¦
A small hand shoves hers aside. She has an angry shout on her lips before she registers what sheās saying. āMove over,ā her own voice tells her.
Sakura looks up and sees herself. Older, but undeniably her. Thereās a coldness in her gaze that has her taking a step back, a distinct lack of breathing and fidgeting- an unnatural grace to the living that makes her think. There are rumors, of a pink haired puppeteer in the company of Sasori of the Red Sands. Sheās had to explain herself to Suna nin more times than she can count, and it even gets to a point where Gaara has to step in to stop her from punching someone into next week.
She steps away (in horror? In fear?) from what she becomes. Thereās an unreadable expression on her older selfās face- something like pain and resignation and stubbornness in equal parts- before she pulls something out of a storage seal.
Or rather, someoneās somethings. There are two left arms in her grasp. One tanned and one pasty pale.
āWhat? You canāt-!ā Sakura says, because thatās blasphemous- attaching two strangerās arms onto Naruto and Sasuke. Their chakra networks would never align, thereās going to be enough rejection and reperfusion to kill them both. Thereās no saving the arms they blew apart, so these have to be someone elseās.
Older her raises an eyebrow, patronizing her. āDo you really think I would harm them?ā Or that you can harm me? The apathetic gaze flickers down to her hands. Sakura realizes sheās palmed a kunai in her panic but doesnāt put it away.
Sakura doesnāt know what to think, at this point. Oh gods, sheās turned herself into a living puppet.
But somewhere deep inside her, something whispers, utterly fascinated. How would that even work though? She stamps down on the voice with all her might.
āThese are their arms; there isnāt going to be rejection. I kept them alive, so thereās no reperfusion,ā older Sakura flicks the arms onto the corresponding shoulders with hair-thin chakra strings.
āThe Hashirama cells wonāt work,ā the stranger continues coldly. āNaruto would have suffered chronic pain from it for the rest of his life, and the chakra pathways canāt channel bijuu chakra correctly. Sasuke wouldnāt even accept his, that idiotā
Sakura grimaces- Sasuke would. āAnd these are better?ā
The other her shrugs. āOrochimaruās brain had more than just jutsu stored in it,ā she says chillingly. āFor all heās a genius, he was never a medic. Rudimentary at seals, if you can even call it that.ā
And she combines the three, Sakura sees the way she stitches the vessels and nerves in with chakra strings and marvels at the miniscule seals that run like ants across the strings. There are seals in the strings, and she should stop her- who knows what these seals would do to Naruto and Sasuke- but she wants to see the end product.
She justifies her reasoning; this version of her is still herself, and she would never hurt them. Or, this about yourself and your curiosity, the voice curls in her mind.
The other her is bone grey with exhaustion when sheās done and takes a step back. Sakura rushes over to check their pulses. The limbs are warm, and aside from the small scar at the junction where the shoulder meets the arm, there is nothing to tell that there was once only a bloody stump there.
āAmazing,ā she canāt help but breathing.
Older Sakura waves the compliment away. āItās nothing you canāt do.ā
āItās nothing I will do,ā she frowns. She looks at her human puppet counterpart and canāt even begin to understand how she fell this far.
Her twisted mirror image looks at her sadly, like thereās something she wants to explain but thereās no words for. āā¦There was once a mission I was called in for, not long after Naruto returned from his training trip. The Akatsuki captured Gaara, poisoned Kankuro, and the pair that had him was Deidara the Bomber and Sasori of the Red Sands. We gave chase, and then suddenly I had to face Sasori.ā
Sakura swallows down an instinctual wave of fear at the thought of going toe to toe with the puppeteer. She doesnāt see the point of this story, but she keeps her silence.
āHe had three hundred puppets, and I had only three antidotes on me,ā she chuckles. āIt was reckless, but in the end, I managed to kill him. I punched through whatās left of him. Do you know what he said to me with his dying breath?ā
Sakura has seen the two of them working together- on the battleground with five hundred puppets weaving the skies; their puppets intermingle and change hands like theyāre born working together, and Sakura canāt even imagine one killing the other.
āHe told me that in another life, I could have been his student,ā Older Sakura confesses.
The wind goes out of Sakuraās breath. Something like a spark of interest lights her mind.
āIt took me ten years, a world war, and a failed marriage to take him up on his offer,ā she says with a wry smile. āI donāt expect you to understand. Youāre not me. You could never be. Donāt even try to be me. Walk a different path, love.ā She pats Sakura on the cheek, her hand deathly cold and unnervingly smooth, and leaves. There is no regret in her voice, merely a curiosity and a warning for a path untaken.
Sheās so young, Sakura thinks. Her hair is cropped short and still sticking up, her apron stocked full of various bottles and tools she has yet to learn to seal away (or to scale down, because itās cumbersome to carry so much).
Thereās a bright fire in her eyes when she looks at her, something like disgust and revulsion. She grips her kunai like sheās facing an enemy, when all she sees is herself in twenty years time.
Is she what she has become? A monster in her own eyes?
She thinks of Sasori; the comfort she takes in his presence and knowledge, the nights they spend with their heads together, arguing over decimal points in an equation that balances the acids and bases in their latest poison. Thinks about the way she knows he always has her back, the times when they canāt settle on who gets who and ends up collaborating (because neither of them will settle on losing, and he wonāt share).
She will pick the same, if sheās given a second choice.
She takes out the arms she has painstakingly grown from mere cells, when she realized that Tsunade alone canāt stop an apocalypse. Sasori doesnāt understand her sudden foray into organic chemistry, even less her bond with people who donāt even remember her, but he allows her space to do her own work.
They connect smoothly, as she knows they will. Her seal of a hundred is empty, spent healing everyone on the battlefield so that Tsunade wonāt go into a coma again. Sheās swaying with exhaustion by the end, but she feels the burning of her younger selfās gaze on her as she works.
Sheās half dead, half alive and out of her time, but she wonāt stand aside to let them be cripples this time. For whatās left of her attachments and memories to Team Seven, this is her thanks. There is a debt to be paid; invisible, unknown, unacknowledged by anyone by her, and this is her way of paying it. This is the pinnacle of her work; the pinnacle of Orochimaruās and Tsunadeās and her own research. Her gift, for any lingering sentiments.
Thereās a part of her that thinks, maybe Sasuke will stay this time if he has his arm back. Lucky her, Sakura thinks bitterly.
Sheās set out bait for her younger self; she sees hidden interest in her eyes, in the way she holds her breath and her stiff posture. Sheās hit a nerve (and she knows where all those are, every single one).
But everything is still in place here. Nothingās changed, nothingās broken and bent beyond replacement. Sheās still naĆÆve, optimistic and looking forward for the future that awaits her.
So, she tells her younger shadow to stay; stay where she is like the good little housewife that she will be and hopes that this girl will have a path open where it never existed to her. Somewhere, stay sanctimonious, stay oblivious and on the right side of the law.
Ā But she knows herself, knows what that small taste of forbidden will bring. She knows that yearning and smiles.
When she gets back to camp, she tells Sasori to start buying supplies for three. Itās a mark of their partnership, that he only levels a look at her and tosses a topographic map in her general direction with all known caves of the elemental nations. Half of which have already been crossed out in bright red xās.
Well, thereās Sasoriās answer to that.
Ā
Ā