Chapter Text
Sakura had gone on many missions.
Recently, Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Hokage, had assigned the Uchihas to go on a mission to help the Land of Lightning banish the Chinoike clan from the Land of Lightning.
That meant that the Uchiha fought the Chinoike clan all the way from the Land of Lightning into another country, until they finally exiled and escaped into Yugakure. The Uchiha were already extremely wounded and came home to Konoha, saying that the mission was done but that they were not entirely killed off. Sarutobi was satisfied with the job well done, and didn’t assign any follow-ups.
However, Danzo saw a chance with this.
Danzo patted Sakura’s shoulder. “Hey, Sakura, you will go with a ROOT squad of 50 to Yugakure to kill all the Chinoike clan members that are currently living in Yugakure. I also received information from my ROOT spies from Konoha’s intelligence division that there’s a Jashinist cult in Yugakure too. I don’t know what Jashinists do, but intel says that they’re powerful civilians learning the Shinobi arts, and that’s bad news for us too. The Jashinists are weaker than the Chinoikes. Kill the Chinoikes, and then kill all the Jashinists. Or kill whoever comes first; but hunt the Chinoikes down first, they’re the greater threat. Show no mercy. This will be your first mission outside of the village, so make me proud. And just in case, I am assigning Shisui Uchiha to supervise you.”
“I’ll make you proud,” Sakura said.
Danzo turned to Shisui. “Shisui, your clan FAILED to wipe out the Chinoikes, thereby putting Konoha in grave danger. It is your job to finish the job that they failed, clean up after your clansmen’s mistakes. Shisui, you will be ANBU Captain for this mission and lead 50 ANBU to kill them all.”
“Yes, Danzo-sama.” Shisui nodded. “I won’t fail you.”
Danzo assigned the 50 ROOT Shinobi to ROOT Captain Shisui. “Now go.”
(Itachi was not on the mission since he’s still an academy student.)
Many hours later:
Sakura killed at least 20 Chinoikes. She had her first kill there, but she didn’t have time to mull or gloom over it because behind her another Chinoike attacked her, and she had to kill that one too. She kept getting jumped by Chinoike shinobi trying to kill her, but she managed to take down many of them by stabbing them in vital parts.
The other ROOT shinobi were doing a great job, and finally killed most of the Chinoikes.
The Chinoike clan specialized primarily in Genjutsu, and Sakura somehow was immune to Genjutsu (due to her Rinnegan,) so she was able to kill most of them, easier than most ROOT shinobi could manage.
Once Sakura got her kill count up to 120, she turned to see Shisui had wiped out 300 more than her. Oh right, Shisui was also immune to Genjutsu; after all, he was an Uchiha. He easily saw through Genjutsu as easily as Sakura could.
Prior to the mission, Shisui had taught Sakura how to use her Rinnegan to break genjutsu. Initially, Shisui acted intimidated, not knowing how the Rinnegan worked, but then he realized that he could teach Sakura the same way he would usually train someone how to use the Sharingan. For some reason, the Rinnegan probably seemingly had all of the Sharingan’s powers, so it was easy to teach Sakura how to break, or even cast genjutsu, using her eyes rather than just using her hand signs. The Rinnegan probably had more powers besides Sharingan powers, but neither Shisui nor Sakura knew anything about that; they didn’t know how to unlock non-Sharingan powers within the Rinnegan. They only knew how to help Sakura use Sharingan powers that happened to come with the Rinnegan.
Of course the Rinnegan didn’t have ALL of the Sharingan’s powers, but it had MOST of them, so it made Shisui suspect that Sakura’s Rinnegan eyes might be a mutation of the Sharingan, due to how closely the red and purple eyes seemed to be related, ability -wise; particularly their abilities to break genjutsus.
So Sakura and Shisui and the 50 Root shinobi killed everyone, and wiped it all out, until there was not a single Chinoike left. They even killed all the children.
Which, Sakura and Shisui had no issues with doing, since they were literally 6 and 9 years old respectively, and the children were the same ages as them. So there wasn’t some sort of morality against killing children, since they were children themselves. The ROOT adults also had no qualms killing them.
“That was a job well done!” Shisui said, splattered in blood. “Good work, Sakura,” he hugged her blood-soaked form, and she could hear the smile in his voice. They were masked in Root masks.
Sakura felt her heart flutter as she was hugged by Shisui. “Wow, thank you Shisui! I love going on missions!”
“Damn kids.” The other Root ninjas shuffled around awkwardly, before one of them shouted “Let’s go hunt down the rest of the targets!”
“Yes sir!”
They walked around the village hidden in hot springs (Yugakure), and interrogated villagers (using genjutsu) about the Jashinist cult.
They managed to find the Jashinist cult’s hideout, and underestimated them. They thought that killing the Jashinists would be as easy as slaughtering the Chinoike clan, but they were wrong.
There were 30 Jashinists. They outnumbered the Jashinists by almost double, they had Shisui and Sakura on their team. By all theories, they should have won.
But they didn’t. They lost.
All 30 Jashinists killed all 50 of the Root Shinobis. It was a bloodbath.
Only Sakura and Shisui barely made it out alive, and Sakura was heavily injured and wounded in almost all vitals.
The Jashinists, however, didn’t come out unscathed either. All the Jashinists were all torn into shreds. Even though the Jashinists were immortal—and nobody in ROOT even knew that immortality was even possible—the Jashinists were still defeatable and still severable.
So it wasn’t a real loss. They sliced and decapitated all 30 Jashinists. It just took 50 Root deaths, and only 2 survivors, to finish the job.
There was one boy who was tied up at the alter. Sakura ran over to the boy and untied him. He gazed up sleepily at her. He had silver-gray hair and red eyes. He looked older.
“You saved me. They were about to sacrifice me.”
“Yes. Run along now kid.” Sakura said, behind her mask. “Don’t tell anyone what you saw here, in return for us saving your life.”
The boy nodded. “May I see behind your mask so I can repay you someday? I never forget a face.”
“No, that wouldn’t be necessary, but I appreciate it all the same. What’s your name?”
“Hidan. No last name. They were about to sacrifice me because I’m an orphan. This blood smells good.” He looked around all the severed heads and bodies, in awe, eyes wide. “This is amazing. Please teach me how to do that so that I will never end up in this position again.”
Sakura frowned. “You don’t want to be in this lifestyle. You’re too soft. Please just enjoy your freedom, I—” Sakura started coughing blood onto the silverhead boy.
“DON’T LEAVE YOUR BLOOD HERE IN THIS PLACE,” Shisui’s voice resounded behind her. In a flash, Shisui was behind Sakura, and he tore off the boy’s shirt. “What’s your name, boy?”
“I’m Hidan—hey, that’s mine.”
“Let’s go,” Shisui picked up Sakura bridal-style, “We have to get out of here. Don’t leave your blood behind.” Shisui vanished with just Sakura.
Soon, they were back in Konoha.
“What about the others? Their blood was there and they’re all wounded.”
“The rest of our Root Agents are dead, so there was no point bringing them back; Jashinist powers kill based on having their enemy’s blood but if our Root ninjas are already dead then it makes no difference. And furthermore, the Jashinists are all dead too. I’m sure that young boy will spread legends about us.”
Sakura thought back to that boy. No… I sensed bloodlust in his eyes. That begging me to teach him…that wasn’t out of a desire for self-defense. But Sakura took a look at Shisui’s deranged, stressed out expression and held her lips, she wasn’t going to add onto Shisui’s stress levels. He just had 50 comrades die, and herself heavily injured. Who knew what punishment awaited Shisui. And she was too tired and exhausted to tell him anything, so she passed out in his arms.
Once they made it back to the ROOT base, Danzo was mad. Furious. Once he saw Sakura barely surviving, losing so much blood. And the fact that Danzo no longer had Nono Yakushi as a medic either. There was no Tsunade either. And Danzo used to have Orochimaru who could heal too, although he wasn’t as good as Tsunade, he could heal. The problem was that Hiruzen fucked up and Orochimaru defected from the Village and is probably thousands of miles away from now. So now Danzo had nobody who was a reliable medic, and now he had to ask Hiruzen to admit his “daughter” into the hospital to get her healed, and to keep it a secret.
“DAMN IT SHISUI.”
“But the job’s done, Danzo-sama. All the Chinoikes and Jashinists are dead.”
“Were there any survivors?”
Shisui thought back to the silver-gray haired boy. But he wasn’t a Jashinist, he was just a sacrifice. “None.”
“Good. Sakura can be healed. Lucky for you, you brought my most prized asset back home in one piece, albeit drained. We can simply refill her later.”
Danzo added, “And those 50 Root that I assigned you, they were a necessary sacrifice. They died a noble death. A shinobi’s duty and greatest honor is to die protecting the Hidden Leaf Village and future generations, from the shadows. Thank you, Shisui.”
Shisui nodded, but asked, “Will she be okay?”
“Yes, I’ll just call in a debt that Hiruzen owes me. Hiruzen owes me plenty for taking the Hokage seat from me, I’m sure he’s wracked with guilt that he won’t give me too hard a time.”
So Danzo went to talk to Hiruzen who agreed, and then they brought Sakura to the Hospital bed, where many medics with top secret clearance treated Sakura.
After days of being passed out, with IV drips, Sakura awoke in the hospital bed, seeing Shisui’s sleeping face as he slept curled over her hospital bed.
“Shisui?”
Shisui jolted awake. “S-Sakura? You’re awake! You’re okay!” Shisui hugged Sakura.
Sakura hugged back. “Shisui, I’m so glad.” She peeked at her hospital bed and saw tons of food and soup. So she started gobbling and eating as much as she could.
Danzo came inside the room while Sakura was still eating. “Glad to see you back awake, daughter.”
“Thanks dad, I’m so happy to see you,” she said, her eyes filled with tears. Danzo swallowed, then told Shisui, “Shisui, get out. I need to talk to Sakura alone. Here’s your next solo-mission,” Danzo handed Shisui a scroll and dismissed Shisui. Shisui winced and made a pained smile at Sakura and waved her goodbye, before body flickering away out the window. “Goodbye and see you later, Sakura-chan.”
Sakura pouted and then turned towards her dad, still eating. “Who brought this food in? This food is so good.”
“I did,” Danzo responded. “I decided to treat you like the Shimura clan princess you are, after a job well-done on your final mission. You deserve it.”
Sakura stopped eating. “Wait, final mission?!” Sakura gasped. “Wait, please don’t tell me you’re banning me from missions now. I loved missions. It was no big deal..”
Danzo touched Sakura's forehead. "You almost lost your eyes on the mission. The alternative if you’re so desperate to attend missions, we’ve discussed with Hiruzen about is that… We're thinking of taking your eyes before you go out on missions, and then we'll return your eyes after you're done with your missions. After all, your eyes are valuable; the enemy can steal it. Furthermore, you've had enough training that you can survive even without the Rinnegan."
"What?! No!" Sakura gaped, mouth hanging out. "What... That's crazy, dad!"
"Then you can't go on missions," Danzo said.
"But..." Sakura blinked. No way, then you won't give me my eyes back. "Fine, I won't go on missions." But I really wanted to... I wanted to see what it's like outside. Sakura's eyes filled with tears, but she tried not to cry, not letting a single drop out.
Danzo stared at her, expressionless for a bit. Then he slapped her across the face with his hand. "Sakura. Didn't I teach you? Shinobi are not allowed to reveal emotions, no matter the circumstance. Root Shinobi are not allowed to have emotions."
Sakura bit her lip, struggling not to fall back from the scathing pain, and glared at her father Danzo. Then she cooled her glare immediately and tried to blanken her expression before Danzo reacts more.
"Sorry, father."
Danzo nodded. "Don't ever show emotions again. As for the missions... Well, think about it. I have spare Sharingan eyes that can replace your Rinnegan eyes if you think about going on missions again. If you’d rather keep your original pair of eyes, then you must stay home. After that scare, the Rinnegan is too valuable to risk losing again. You’re banned from missions forever.”
Sakura dropped her chopsticks, and fell backwards onto the headboard of her bed.
“Damn…”
“Go to sleep, Sakura. Heal up. From now on, you are the civilian noblewoman of the Shimura clan. You’re also back to the cryptographic division, maybe the intel and interrogation division, if I have a use for you. No more going outside. I can’t afford to lose you. You almost died. That’s your fault. You’re too weak to go outside. Stay inside from now on, it’s your punishment.”
Sakura frowned glumly. “Okay…Father. You know best.” She curled up under her blankets and cried to sleep. Danzo left her alone.