Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

sakura had been orochimaru's student for three years now.
their most brilliant, promising, bright student by far.
and today was her 16th birthday.

they had never celebrated her birthday before, nor had she expressed any desire for them to do so.
but 16 was...for one reason or another, an important milestone.
you've managed to reach teenagehood without dying was orochimaru's immediate assumption for the cause of celebration.

though they'd thoroughly forgotten the specifics of it, they knew that they hadn't particularly enjoyed that age themself. growing into a body they neither understood nor identified with, all the while struggling to advocate for themself medically considering just how different their anatomy was from everyone else's.

but perhaps it was different for sakura.
her anatomy certainly was, but orochimaru was a scientist first and foremost, and already knew a thing or two. they'd been more than prepared when she'd come to them with the issue of menstruation a few years back.

they didn't quite know what had inspired them to do this. the small black ribbon clutched in their hands was hardly a special gift, but it was the one they'd worn to every formal event at her age.
a part of them held the inexplicable belief that the ribbon was some sort of protection spell, that giving it to her meant she'd live and grow to be as powerful as they were.
sentimental superstition like this had always been their secret vice. there was comfort in the sheet absurdity of assigning some sort of paranormal attribute to inanimate objects.

they knocked on the door to her room once, twice, until she called for them to enter.

she was lounging, as usual, on the hammock tied to her ceiling.
her room was small, but seemed much larger than it was because of just how little was actually inside it.
unlike the other teenaged students their lair had housed, sakura kept her room clean. almost obsessively so. she was satisfied with very little: a bed for her to sleep in, a closet for her clothes, a mirror to check her reflection in. no clothes on the floor, no empty cans or pieces of trash.
in that way, sakura often reminded orochimaru of their teen self.

the only real changes she'd made to the place over the years had been the hammock (she apparently preferred to be somewhere high up), a hairbrush (stolen), and crude sketches of her former comrades scribbled onto her wall with a kunai. they'd commented on those a few times, tried to tell her that holding on to them was the same as holding herself back, but she'd retorted that she was effectively utilizing whatever sentiments she still held for them to motivate herself to surpass them all.

"sakura, will you come down here for a second? i have something for you."

"huh? why?" the girl questioned, though she jumped down in one smooth motion to see what they were holding.

"for your birthday." they clarified, as they handed her the ribbon, pressing it into her palm slightly as it passed between the two of them.

"...okay...?" she eyed the ribbon suspiciously, but knew better than to ask questions. their answers were always far too long winded and nonsensical to the ears of any normal person.

besides, orochimaru was already gone before she had the chance.

//

sakura laid in bed that night, rolling the ribbon around in her hands.
she very rarely slept through the night. her mind was just too active.

so, she tied the ribbon loosely to a few strands of her long, unruly pink hair, and began her semi-nightly routine.

she slipped out of bed in her typical nighttime outfit of a simple t-shirt and shorts, just barely bothering to slip on socks before sneaking out of her room.
the lair was a maze, but she'd grown used to it by now. even discovered a few shortcuts of her own.

soon enough, she was outside. she loved being outside at night, it was so eerily quiet and dark.
and cold.
she dug through the mud beneath the grass, and- sure enough, right where she'd left them; a pack of cigarettes and a small, metallic lighter. the ones she'd grabbed off of that one poor sod orochimaru had taken for kabuto to experiment on.

she checked the pack. almost empty. damn it. she'd have to either hope another innocent soul wandered into otogakure carrying some, or pay a little visit to her old home town.
she'd seen asuma sarutobi, one of the jonin of konoha, smoke, so she'd technically known what to do once she decided she wanted to try it for herself.
the first few times hadn't been particularly enjoyable, but soon enough, it had become an almost nightly habit.
she wondered whether orochimaru knew or not. they didn't pay too close attention to what she did in her free time, and she doubted they'd really care even if she told them.

she lit the cigarette.
would sasuke be able to do something like that with his fire jutsu?
she placed it between her lips, and inhaled the initial ignition.
naruto would cough at this point.
she blew smoke into the cold night air, and, as always, indulged in her imagination.

"the stars are beautiful tonight, aren't they, sakura-chan?", that's what she'd say.
and sakura would respond,
"i can't see any stars. there are no stars visible tonight, silly."
"hmm. ah, you're right, hah. and she'd chuckle, and turn her gaze from the sky back to her.
she'd look at sakura like she was something beautiful. something worth looking at.
...yeah, that's what she'd do.

sakura rubbed absentmindedly at the curse mark on her neck.
these feelings...how long had she harbored them? and how much had they changed, in her absence from ino yamanaka?

the small spark she'd held close to her chest, ever since the day they met. and how she'd assumed, then, that this must have just been what friendship felt like. and when that convenient interpretation no longer worked, she had to find another label for her feelings. if it wasn't friendship, then surely it was rivalry and jealous. that was why her heart skipped a beat at the sight of her.

but now, she didn't know anymore. friendship, rivalry, companionship, something more- she didn't care anymore. there was this incessant hunger and yearning in her heart to be close to her. a flame that only grew stronger with their seperation.
she wondered what ino looked like nowadays.
her mouth twisted into a grin, as she felt the white hot searing pain of the curse mark beginning to open, and spread across her body.
this often happened, when she thought about ino.
her body telling her to feel something, aggressively, violently.

she stifled her cigarette against the ground, rolling over onto her stomach as the power surged through her veins.
she grabbed at the ground manically, something like a laugh bubbling in her chest.

ino...ino yamanaka. when we meet again, i'll kill you.
the words tasted sickly sweet in her mouth, and she held them there, rolling them around with her tongue. it was a promise only a lover could give.

Chapter Text

it was a doomed mission. everybody knew that.
sakura swung her feet back and forth off the table as she addressed kabuto, who was trying his best to ignore her entirely while simultaneously answering her questions.

"why are they so caught up on sasuke anyways?"

"it's not about sasuke, it's about the uchiha bloodline. the sharingan is lord orochimaru's aspiration."

"right, right. and i'm being sent to bait him out?"

"essentially, yes. lift your arms, please, sakura-chan."

she did, and he wrapped a belt around her waist. it held three seperate pouches.
"what're these for, senpai?" she inquired, opening each pouch individually and examining the contents. two of them were filled by packs of tiny, dark pills. the third one contained a vial of a saline-like misty liquid.

"plasma pills, food pills, and...a special ninja tool i've been working on. once drunk, it induces a temporary loss of consciousness. drink it only in the worst case scenario, in which you have to convince the enemy that you're dead."

sakura narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
"what exactly are the ingredients, senpai?"

kabuto sighed, though he hadn't really expected anything less from a fellow medical ninja. much less one whose education in the field he'd personally overseen through the last three years.
"high concentration of benzodiazepines and saline solution. it'll take a while to settle in, so if you end up taking it, earlier is better than later."

"depressants? you're telling me to take depressants if i'm about to be killed? that seems a bit inefficient, senpai..."

"well, i'm not giving you cyanide pills, am i?"

"why not? you're not going soft on me, are you, senpai?"

"don't push it, sakura-chan."

//

the way to konoha was long and exhausting.
and, worst of all, horribly boring. after all, this was a solo mission.
or so she'd been told.
if sakura was honest with herself, she couldn't quite believe that she wasn't being tracked. after all, she was bait.
she tried not to let that get to her.

kabuto had advised her to take as many breaks as she needed, to conserve her energy for battle, so she stopped at some point, under a tree. that was how she knew she was getting closer; the leaves were packed tightly at the tips of its branches, covering the blue sky.
konohagakure.

she took a few swigs of water from the flask she was carrying, relaxing for a moment in the shadow of the tree.
she wondered if this'd actually work.
if any of them still remembered her.
if they even missed her.

she wondered what they all looked like now.
naruto, did he still wear that orange outfit of his?
sasuke, did his hair still protrude in those little spikes at the back?
what about lee? had he changed at all? was he still the spitting image of his sensei?

and ino.
had she grown her hair back out, like sakura had? had she gotten new earrings? new clothes? how much had she matured? how different did she look, now...older, taller, did she wear high heels? make-up? did she paint her nails?
did she wear bras? how much had she developed in that regard? oh....
sakura felt her face heat up at the idea. she leaned against the tree, sighing and gasping slightly.
she didn't understand the feelings stirring inside her, but she didn't care. they warmed her insides, and that was enough.

she couldn't wait any longer.
she got up, and continued her way through the forest.

//

it was another normal day.
another ultimately empty day.
it had been three weeks since naruto's last real mission. he was growing bored, and the more bored he got, the closer he got to...unpleasant memories.
he needed a distraction.

that was why he was on his way to the training field, when he suddenly heard a sound.
leaves rustling.
branches cracking.
someone was with him in the woods.

with anxiety that he'd grown used to ever since the loss of his teammate, he glanced around, god- if only someone more attentive than him was here, if only-

there.
up in the trees, a figure stood, around the same height as him.
so, a teenager, or a very short adult.
he squinted against the sunlight blocking his vision, and finally, the person came into full view.

a girl about his age, posture confident and perfectly still. a kunoichi, then.
her shirt was sleeveless, revealing lean biceps. it was tied at the back, leaving her stomach exposed- for someone so small, this girl certainly had muscles. not those of a body builder, either; those of an experienced shinobi, clearly developed over years of hard physical work and battle.
her harem pants were the same color as her shirt; a sort of dirty pale beige. the pants ended at her knees, slits cut into both sides of them.
her platform sandals were made of rope, and wrapped all the way up her ankles.

the most striking detail of her appearance was the otogakure headband tied around one of her thighs...and the bubblegum pink hair that swayed gently in the wind, wild and untamed, overgrown.

oh god.
oh god.
it couldn't be-
it wasn't.
surely not.
definitely not.
and yet...

"...s-sakura....?"

Chapter Text

feeling warm, strong arms wrap her into a tight hug for the first time in three years was a strange sensation.
naruto was crying, sakura realized, and something inside her tore itself to shreds.

"you're back. y-you're actually back, dattebayo...you- you're alive..."

"of course i'm alive, stupid. did you really think i died? naruto, you saw me go willingly."

"don't- please don't say that, sakura, y-you don't mean that..." he wrapped his arms around her tighter, so tight it hurt.

"you don't know a thing about me." it was a simple statement, it held no anger or resentment. a mere, neutral acknowledgement.
as she pulled her hands up from his embrace, the kunai clutched in her hand sliced his sleeve open.

naruto jumped back, shocked.
"s-sakura! what's gotten into you, huh!?"

"where's sasuke?"

"what-"

"where is he?"

she didn't have to wait for an answer.
the noise they'd been making had apparently alerted half the village.

"yo, uzumaki, what's going on?" sasuke called out, stopping abruptly in his tracks when he saw the two of them.

huh.
he looked different, but not all that much.
his hair had grown a bit, but not all that much.
his sense of style had stayed the exact same.
his fingerless gloves resembled the ones kakashi sensei had worn-
oh, look at that, he's here too.

"...well, this is unexpected. hi again, sakura." her old sensei waved casually, though he couldn't mask the surprise in his one visible eye.

"sasuke." she pointedly ignored kakashi, reaching a hand towards sasuke. she tried to be all warm smiles and welcoming gaze, to invite him gently into her world.
"come with me, sasuke!"
she closed her eyes into her wide grin.

"what? what's wrong with you?" he frowned, genuinely confused.

"what...?" she asked, and something inside her froze over.

her instincts must have kicked in just then, because there was nothing left to do but fight.
it was a blur of blood and horrible cracking noises.
her fists met naruto's face first, then sasuke's stomach.
at some point, she was on the ground, beating someone into a pulp. she had no idea who. maybe a genin. too bad.
bones cracked underneath the impact of her hands.
and this wasn't even the full extent of her power. that realization came with the maddening rush of power she'd grown used to.

"that's enough, kid." someone was behind her.
the hand on her shoulder mimicked that of a disappointed father.
"...sakura, i don't know what happened to you, but whatever it is, we can help yo-"

"shut up! shut the fuck up! stay out of this, hatake! god, you don't get it, none of you get it!" she laughed manically, a bad habit she'd developed when angry. laughing, when she wanted to scream.

"sakura." kakashi's voice was firm.
somewhere in the midst of the chaos, he'd engaged his other eye.
his sharingan.
he eyed her with both pupils, one warm and dark with sorrow, the other small and precise with cutting judgement and disappointment.
something inside her shattered.

she grabbed onto him with both arms, now wailing and sobbing, and he was thrown off balance long enough for her to wrap her arms around him tight enough for him to be unable to escape.
then, she howled and roared in animalistic rage against his vest, squeezing hard.
harder.
harder.

ribs cracked. it was a horrible, lovely sound. she felt them snap against her skin, somewhere around where her cheek was buried against his chest.
kakashi was wheezing and coughing and trying to cry out something, but all his words had been reduced to pained gurgles.
she was certain he'd go limp in her arms, soon enough.

that was when her arms stopped moving.
she tried to force them to squeeze again, but they wouldn't budge.
she tried to turn around, but her body was immobilized.
right.

"shikamaru? will you let go of me? pretty please?" her voice was a sweet, gentle purr.

"ino, now! get kakashi! i can't hold on for long!" he called out, instead of answering her.

suddenly, sakura's heart began to beat faster. a strange sort of elation overcame her.
sweat rose to her skin, a smile rose to her lips.
this, finally, was what she'd been waiting for.
to see her rival and friend again, after three years.

as soon as ino yamanaka came into her field of vision, something inside her was set alight.

Chapter Text

the beating of their hearts was as one, a constant rhythm of pain and brutality.
what had happened before was an irrelevant side note.
when had shikamaru's hold slipped, releasing the vicious tiger of the sound upon her former rival?
it didn't matter.
how had ino managed to hold her off long enough to hand kakashi's unconscious body over to the barely recovered naruto?
it didn't matter.

what mattered was this moment.
sakura felt the curse mark on her neck inflamed like a snake bite, its poison flooding her system, rising to stain her skin and moving like fire through her veins.
her nails sharpened into claws, her teeth into feline fangs.
her pupils lengthened and thinned until they were predatory slits, teal irises brightened into glowing yellow.
her hair, already wild and unruly, spiked and puffed itself at the sides, like a lion's mane.
even her ears seemed to sharpen at their tips.

she was upon ino once again with inhuman speed, claws digging into her shirt, a sort of roar rising in her chest.
she wanted to dig her jagged teeth right into ino's soft, pliant skin.
she wanted to bite her, chew her flesh, consume and own everything there was to her.
mine, mine, mine. an animalistic hiss demanded within her mind.
she had her mind set on complete domination.

"you...you've grown...so much..." ino's voice was an awed whisper, at once terrified and, despite herself, utterly impressed.

"i'll bring you back. i'll bring you back to my nest. my prey. mine. mine. ino...i own you. sasuke won't listen. won't come. he doesn't matter. this was always about us. the two of us. at least i own you. yes, yes...pure, perfect ino, so soft, so kind...i'll feel you with my teeth, yes, yes..." her words were an open documentation of her train of thought, careless and free, wild with desire.

and then, a harsh, backwards kick landed directly into the back of her left knee.
it caught her by surprise, and when it buckled, her grasp on ino's wrists faltered long enough to allow the other girl the chance to land a direct, powerful punch onto sakura's face.
directly into her eye.

her world was sent into a spiral of pain and confusion as half of her vision went dark. she blinked in a desperate attempt to regain the vision in her left eye, but even as the world came into view again, it was blurry and tinted with red.
she could work with that.

she growled and hissed, hands on the ground as she ran at ino on all fours.
this time, though, ino was prepared.
before sakura's claws could reach her, she raised her foot, and landed a kick onto her ribs.
sakura yowled in pain as the impact threw her back.
something in her chest cracked.

"sakura! snap out of it! have you lost your mind?!" she yelled, but her voice didn't shake. there was no fear in her tone. just a simple anger and disappointment. as if her voice alone could tame the wild beast her friend had become.

sakura heaved and whimpered on the ground, fighting not to give up just yet. her broken rib sent shocks of searing pain through her entire chest at every breath she took, her eye ached and bled.
she demanded her body to rise again, even though the power of the curse mark was already receding from her.
she spat blood.
"you're coming with me. as my prize." she pointed a shaky finger at ino.

"you've lost it. i guess i'll have to beat the sense back into you." ino sighed, pulling out five shuriken from her bag, tossing all three at sakura.
she dodged them easily, but they seemed to only be a distraction, as soon enough, a kunai was pressing into her cheek, breaking her skin.
her blood splattered both of their faces as ino pulled the kunai back, tossing it to the ground.
why?
was she going easy on sakura?
she resented the idea, grabbing onto ino's arm with her own teeth, no longer sharp but no less strong for it.

ino's other hand reeled back for another punch, this one landing directly onto sakura's forehead.
the pain resonated through her skull.
her knees bruised and scarred as they hit the ground.

"sakura!" ino raised sakura's face by her jaw, before undoing her own konoha headband, shoving it towards her opponent's face.
"did you forget who you are!? huh!? where you came from!? look at it! look at it, you fucking bitch!"

"such loyalty....to a system...that wants you...dead by 20...ha...ha...ino...ino....i thought you were smarter than this...this bullshit we were taught..." sakura mumbled, voice thick with blood and bile.

"and what would you know about me and what i've been through!? you disappeared! for three years, sakura! and now you come back, and you're...this."
she looked down at her with disgust.

"sakura-chan, it's time to go." a voice all too calm spoke from behind ino.
naturally, kabuto had been there for several minutes already, watching the fight without interfering. sakura forgot too often that the skillset he'd developed for most of his life was not simply medical jutsu, but tracking and espionage.

he jumped to stand behind sakura, picking her up onto his back in a strangely gentle, caring manner, considering the fact that he'd allowed her to get into this state in the first place.

ino stood, baffled, as the two exited the stage of this little tragedy they'd all been playing out; the tiger cub carried by the fox, back to the snake's nest that raised them both.

Chapter Text

"sakura-chan, please don't move around so much-"

"i had her! i had her, you miserable fuck, if you hadn't interrupted me-"

"-you would have died. sakura, please, listen to me. you have a broken rib, a black eye, and an open wound, not to mention how much chakra you've exhausted. It's a miracle you can even talk- When I intervened, you couldn't even walk. Have some sense."

sakura knew he was right, of course. her body had been broken down, worn out, she couldn't possibly have gone on any longer.
but she hadn't been ready to give up either.
she never was.

once kabuto was done with the exhausting and frankly thankless job of tending to her various injuries, he left her to wallow in her self-pity and shame in her room.
unlike the others, he never had to use medical jutsu as pain relief with her. she could do that herself. all he had to do was clean, sew, and bandage her.

and, sure enough, as soon as he left the room, sakura pushed her hand up her own shirt and let the healing chakra flow from her fingertips into her broken rib. she wasn't skilled enough to heal it in one go, not yet, but the warm buzzing relieved the sharp aches that followed her every subtle movement.

//

the mission had failed.
just as orochimaru had expected it to.
of course, the point was not for sakura to singlehandedly take sasuke; by proving to her former comrades that she was still alive, she'd planted the desire to come look for her in all of their minds.
soon enough, orochimaru knew, they'd come looking for her.
the perfect trap.

"how severe are her injuries?" they asked casually, when they heard kabuto enter.

"non-lethal but severe, she'll be unable to participate in missions for the next month or two, depending on her own willingness to rest and heal herself regularly."

"hmm. i see. thank you, for tending to her." they turned to walk out of the lab themself.

kabuto had apparently deduced their intent to visit sakura.
"she's not exactly cooperative at the moment, orochimaru-sama." he warned.

"teenagers rarely are, i've found."

"...you've grown strangely fond of her, haven't you?"

orochimaru stopped in their tracks for a second, but didn't respond.

//

"sakura...how are you feeling?"

"will you cut my hair?" the girl responded, almost immediately. her voice was, to orochimaru's surprise, perfectly stable and calm.
she was holding out a kunai towards them.

they could assess from her bandages and body language that she wasn't in too much pain or distress. from that, they further deduced that her request wasn't an impulsive one, but rather a purely cathartic one.
"...hmh. even if that is what you want, there's no need for such barbaric methods, my dear." they pulled out a shiny pair of delicate scissors from their lab coat.

she seemed surprised by their cooperation. she placed the kunai onto her night table, turning her back to them.
"orochimaru-sama? i want you to do...whatever you want, to my hair. really. anything."

orochimaru considered, for a long while, exactly what they'd do. they knew it didn't really matter, but somehow it felt immensely important.
they began to cut away at the hair she'd grown for three years, gently, hands brushing at her scalp all the while.

after about thirty minutes, a mess of pink hair lay on the floor, cut off.
orochimaru observed their work.
sakura's new haircut was significantly shorter, barely reaching her jaw. it was straight and clean, shorter at the neck, growing longer closer to her face. they'd even gone through the trouble of giving her curtain bangs.

"do you like it?"

she observed herself in the mirror in the hallway they'd brought her to, and smiled.

"yes. it feels...light. easy. i'll be able to move a lot faster like this." she shook her head back and forth, to get the feel of how the new hair settled against her cheeks, not even close to getting in the way of her hands.
she ran a hand through her hair.
"orochimaru-sama..." she looked at them pointedly.
"...i'm going to heal myself before sasuke-kun gets here. and i'm going to beat him myself. then he'll have to join us."

"i've no doubt you will, my flower, but please, don't lie to me. there's someone much more important to you that you're hoping to defeat, isn't there? you covet your fresh wounds like a kiss."

"nothing escapes you, sensei."
she smiled brightly, turning to them again with aggressively hopeful energy, despite her physical state.
"i'm going to surpass my rival."