Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It had been days and she still didn't feel like herself. Everything was distant in a way—unreal, as if made of ash and lead, all things that would consume and bury her if she let them.

Sakura was alone.

It had been days since the fight on that rooftop—days since she’d last seen Sasuke-kun, days since Naruto had come back barely clinging to life. And even more days since everything she thought she knew had unraveled before her eyes, before the world tilted beneath her feet in a way she hadn’t been prepared for.

And maybe, even if she had been, it wouldn’t have mattered.

It had also been days since Kakashi-sensei had bothered to show up. But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Sakura had never really been his priority—not with Naruto and Sasuke there to burn brighter beside her, eclipsing everything like twin supernovas.

And so, civilian Sakura, poor, ordinary Sakura, was left behind. Forgotten.

She was alone.

Utterly alone.

Sasuke left.

She remembered standing by that bench, trying to make him stay in the only ways she knew how—but the words of a little girl, clinging to what she thought was love, were no match for a boy already hollowed out by a tragedy he couldn’t name yet, except in pain and rage.

Naruto was next—disappearing one day, all grins and bright eyes cast in her direction while he screamed his promises into the air like volume could make them real. As if he could undo everything just by being loud enough.

Both of them, taken under the wings of the Sannin.

So she went to one too.

Because wasn’t she a teammate of Team Seven?

Wasn’t she one of them?

It seemed only right to go to the one who was left—the one Naruto had dragged back from the edges of the world and into a village she hated, just so she could become the leader of its wreckage. A Hokage of a ghost town.

So she went to Tsunade. She did—and pestered her until she gave in, until she offered her one chance.

Sakura only ever needed one chance.

To be seen.

See her. No one ever did—

But Tsunade did. She threw her a challenge. Just one. Something small. Something Sakura was good at. The only thing she was good at. Her one advantage in a world of prodigies and monsters. Precision. Memory. Control.

That was all she had—because she wasn’t special. She was a civilian child in a village that praised bloodlines, a girl with no legacy to inherit and nothing but what she could learn and master with her own two hands.

But that, somehow, was enough.

Tsunade saw that.

She read all the medical books Tsunade threw at her. Memorized them. Answered every single test Tsunade handed her later—every question, every detail.

And Sakura remembered what Tsunade had said then: "I don’t do half-measures, little girl. You either come at this like your life—and everyone else's—depends on it, or you don’t come at all. I don’t have time for coddling or second chances. Not when I’ve got a damn village to drag out of the grave."

So Sakura had obeyed.

She’d gone back to her district. Back to her home. The sun was low, catching on old wooden slats and the shimmer of paper wards above doorways. The air smelled of sesame oil, vinegar, and boiled greens. People greeted her with two fingers to the temple. No one bowed. Everyone knew her name.

There was a kamidana tucked above the entryway of nearly every house, polished wood and ash-scented offerings in front of ancestral slips. Strips of folded paper—shide—hung over thresholds. Ofuda inked in red script were pinned above windows, tucked into lintels, tied to charms of woven bark. A few households still chalked divination grids outside their gates, washed them clean with saltwater after sundown.

Children had pinned leaves with brushstrokes to the alley walls again—small blessings shaped like foxes, birds, waves.

Sakura passed them all like she always had. Her fingers brushed her thigh where she still carried the one her grandmother had given her long ago—crease-worn, faded, but still bound in silk cord.

She took the long way home. Past the noodle shop run by the old man with cloudy eyes who never needed to see to know who you were. Past the cracked wall where someone always left sake for spirits that didn’t settle. Past the neighborhood ema board, hung with sun-bleached prayers written in loops and broken strokes, where no shrine stood anymore—only the memory of one.

She reached home and told her parents she had a test to study for. A very important one.

(Her parents knew not to disturb her when she said that. She loved them for it. They didn’t understand—not really. They tried, Kami, they tried—but they couldn’t know what it felt like to be powerless while one teammate was bleeding out beneath a rain of senbon and the other burned so hot with grief and fury it blistered your skin just to stand near him. Not in that place, cold and colorless and cruel. A battlefield. Not home.)

She stayed in her room all night, coffee cooling at her side like a silent companion. A single candle burned low in the dish on her shelf, ash curling at the base. Not for prayer—Sakura was done waiting for someone else to save her.

Her eyes were bleary but wide open. Her mind frayed at the edges, but sharp where it needed to be.

She read all five books. Every word.

The next morning, she walked into the Hokage Tower, sat the test Tsunade had prepared, and left unsatisfied.

She got one question wrong.

Tsunade had stared at her for a long time after she finished—long enough to make her wonder if she'd failed anyway.

Then she threw her head back and laughed. Loud and sharp, like something wild had finally slipped its leash. A laugh that echoed through the hall like it had teeth.

“Well, brat,” she had said, wiping her eyes. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

Then Sakura’s life changed again.

She could still hear it—Tsunade’s voice, rough and cutting. “Don’t expect softness, brat. I’m not here to coddle you; I’m here to make sure you live.”

Her jaw locked hard, her hazel eyes—sharp, tired, old in a way that had nothing to do with years.

“A dead medic’s a waste of everyone’s time. Before you even think about fighting, you’ll learn how to slip through death like an eel. No heroics. No hesitation. Just clean work and getting out alive.”

She had meant it.

Shishou—Sakura called her that now. In time, she'd gone from brat to pink brat to Sakura.

It started with the test. Not a written one. A test of resolve—or maybe will. Or maybe just stubbornness. Sakura still wasn’t sure. Shishou’s logic could be hard to follow, a kind of thinking Sakura hadn’t yet learned to read.

The fish.

Revive it.

It hadn’t been dead, not really. Just still. Stranded on land it wasn’t meant to survive. And Sakura, watching it, had thought—we’re the same.

A fish dying on land.

A girl dying on a bridge.

But she’d followed instructions. Gathered her chakra—carefully, deliberately. Precision was her strength.

She’d mastered tree-walking on her first try—she remembered Kakashi then, how he’d brushed it off like it was a curiosity, a trick to motivate her teammates, not a skill. Not a gift.

Water-walking came not long after, once Shishou began the chakra control drills.

("Education system’s gone to shit," Shishou had muttered once, squinting at her with something like suspicion. Sakura had caught the twitch of a smile under it.)

And she had done it. After three tries.

“Seems you’re good at something, brat,” Tsunade had said. But it was the glint in her eye, and the hand that ruffled Sakura’s hair, that stayed with her most.

It was praise—in the only way Tsunade knew how to give it. Old and bitter, rebuilding a village from its bones.

Sakura had soaked it in.

Because she was good at it.

Medical ninjutsu. Chakra control. Diagnosis. Thinking under pressure.

It was difficult—but difficulty never scared her.

If anything, she chased it.

Because this—this was the one thing she was good at.

The only thing.

~*~

Sakura looked out the window, coffee long cold beside her, and sighed—more tired than frustrated, though the feeling curled sharp beneath her ribs.

The window was cracked open, just a little. A paper jellyfish shifted in the draft, its tentacles curling in on themselves like half-finished handwriting.

Still, she flipped open the book Tsunade had assigned. “It’s time for another test for that big brain of yours, brat.”

Harsh, but not unkind.

Months under her had taught Sakura how to hear the difference—when Tsunade’s words meant thunder, and when they were just wind. Fondness lived beneath the bark, if you knew how to listen.

(She likes to test people, Shizune had said once, half-smiling.)

Sakura exhaled. Long and even. Breathe before the ink touches the page, her grandmother used to say. Her fingers brushed the faded cloth charm tied to her desk lamp—red ink nearly worn away, but still there. Still hers.

Her head already ached. The book blurred: chakra regulation in developing nervous systems. Long-term complications from overexposure, the delicate interplay with spinal nerves, reflex arcs, the push and pull of sympathetic and parasympathetic tracts, the role of the hypothalamus in keeping a body balanced. She’d read it more times than she cared to count.

Still, she turned the page.

Tests meant expectations. And if she couldn’t crush mountains or summon gods, then she would master this. Every nerve, every map of the unseen body.

This, at least, was something she could do.

She ran a hand through her hair. Short. Strange. Still unfamiliar months after the Chūnin Exams.

It felt like just yesterday.

The screams. The jeering. The boys unconscious behind her—and her, the only one left standing between them and the enemy’s blade.

She blinked hard.

Dragged both hands across her face, palms pressing into her eyes until pain pushed the memory back. Forget it, she whispered to herself. It’s over. They’re alive. You’re alive. And getting stronger.

Inner laughed, low in the back of her mind.

Stronger?

Sasuke’s learning under a traitor—the snake who slipped through our gates and nearly brought Konoha to its knees. Naruto’s training under a Sannin. Jiraiya. One of the old monsters. And you?

A pause.

You’re memorizing the projections of brainstem nuclei and spinal tracts like that’ll help when someone’s swinging a blade at your throat.

Shut up, Sakura muttered, though there was no force behind it. Some part of her agreed.

But no.

She breathed in, long and slow, grounding herself as she’d been taught—like she was lighting incense, steady hand, steady flame.

This is important, she reminded herself. Shishou said I can’t serve on the front lines unless I prove I can keep up. That’s why she throws boulders at me.

Her tone sharpened, throwing the words back: To teach me how not to be gutted like a pig.

Inner only laughed again.

Are you?

The echo lingered long after the voice faded.

Sakura clenched her jaw. Curled her fists until her nails bit her skin. Then breathed. In, out. Measured. Disciplined.

It didn’t help.

The words hit deep.

But Sakura looked down at the cluttered mess on her desk—scrolls, papers, books laid out like some frantic offering to a god that didn’t answer—and thought, I still have this to get through. For tomorrow. Focus. Just… focus. You’re good at this.

She didn’t move.

Just stared.

Her hand hovered over the page but didn’t turn it. Her eyelids drooped. Her whole body dragged with the weight of too many nights like this.

Scowling, she reached for her coffee—cold now, long abandoned. But the movement was too fast, too sharp. The cup tipped, and for one suspended second, coffee hung in the air like a threat.

No. Fuck. No. These scrolls aren’t mine—

Her heart leapt to her throat. Reflex overrode thought. She lunged.

And caught it.

Somehow, she caught it.

She exhaled, long and shaking. Still clutching the mug, she dropped back into her chair and let her forehead thud against the desk.

One inch more and I would’ve been screwed.

A beat.

Or maybe I already am.

The thought came uninvited, sharp and cruel. Her eyes snapped open. She jerked upright, too fast again, and nearly tipped the cup a second time.

Carefully—more carefully now—she set it down. Pink sea, white fish, darting mid-flick across porcelain. Beneath, just visible in the right light: a bone-white octopus, wrapped around the base. Waiting. Watching. Devouring.

A birthday gift from her father.

She adjusted the angle, just slightly. Away from the edge. Away from her hands.

Then—only then—did she dare check the scrolls.

She narrowed her eyes at the desk like the books might lift themselves up and accuse her. But they stayed silent. So she opened each one, gently, one by one. Page by page.

It was wasting time. She knew that. But she couldn’t let it go.

She didn’t have the money to pay for damage fees. And she didn’t want to tell her parents—not something like this. Not when they were already stretching thin. Not since the attack.

Not since everything changed.

Sakura knew. Heard the whispers—the civilian council meeting again, the merchant guilds her parents sat on trying to figure out what came next.

So she sucked it up, metaphorically rolled up her sleeves—she was in pajamas and a tank top—and got to work.

One scroll—fine.

Two—also fine.

Three looked good—

Was that a coffee mark?

She lunged. Eyes narrowed, nose nearly to the page, vision blurring from the all-nighter.

But she tried. Because hell if she was paying for damage with money she didn’t have.

Tilting the book under her desk lamp, she examined the spot. A mark, faint—maybe. But probably not coffee. And if it was, she’d deny it using the method her mother swore by: bullshitting with enough bluntness that people stopped asking.

Worked well enough in civilian circles.

But ninja? Different breed.

Sakura pressed her fingers to her temples, staring at the page. The stain was small. Probably nothing. Hopefully nothing.

But then she paused.

Stared at the diagrams. Sparse. Vague. Not the kind of thing you'd find in academy material.

Her stomach dropped.

This wasn’t just any text.

It was one of Shishou’s—one of the rare ones she pulled from high shelves and sealed with a flick of her fingers and a warning not to smudge the margins.

Sakura leaned in again. Checked the stamp on the inside cover. Blanched.

Definitely one of Shishou’s.

Priceless.

And certainly not the kind of book a little civilian-born kunoichi like her could find in a public library.

No.

This thing—

Her fingers trembled as she reached for it, smoothing her hand over the page, careful, almost reverent.

It spoke of kekkei genkai, vaguely, yes, but enough to catch her breath. Comparative neuroanatomy. Risks from prolonged chakra exposure. A rare bloodline with influence over the medulla oblongata—stronger than in most shinobi. Reflex disruption. Autonomic imbalance. Irregular breathing patterns.

But no secrets. No techniques. Nothing deep—just the shape of something someone already knew.

She skimmed, pulse rising. Neural degeneration. Reflex anomalies. Subtle shifts in cognition.

Not something you stumbled on.

Someone had trusted her with this.

A tight, fierce affection bloomed in her chest. She trusted me, Sakura thought, her palm still resting on the paper like it was sacred.

Shishou trusted me with this.

Almost certainly from her private archive. Her personal authority.

And you dirtied it, Inner whispered. Sweet as venom under silk. Ruined one of her priceless texts like the clumsy little ninja you are. A pause. A soft, cruel laugh. Who ever saw a ninja this careless?

Sakura clenched her jaw, but her hands had already tightened, crinkling the edge of the page—

She pulled back, instantly. As if burned.

She had already damaged it. She wouldn’t make it worse.

Slowly, she opened the book flat at the center of her desk. Careful. Precise. Began assessing the damage, scanning for solutions, fixes, anything.

Clumsy, the word echoed, sticky and sharp.

What kind of ninja are you?

And then—like a scab torn open—another voice joined in.

Useless.

Her breath caught. Eyes watered. But she blinked rapidly, refusing to let them fall.

She was over that.

Over him.

Over everything.

She was training. She would grow stronger. She would become a real kunoichi. A medic who mattered. Like Shishou.

Stop. She cut herself off, sharp. Just… fix it. Salvage what you can.

The mark was small. Deep brown, clear against the pale yellow of old paper. Maybe—if she painted over it—it wouldn’t show.

She tilted her head, analyzing the stain. Then glanced down to assess the paper’s tone, texture, grain—half her mind fried, the other scrambling for a solution—

And then her eyes caught something.

It snapped into focus like a pulled thread suddenly taut.

Some cases of new kekkei genkai appearing across the genetic pool are not uncommon, the line read, and something inside her sharpened. The kind of focus that cut straight through exhaustion.

The coffee mark, the money, the scrolls, Shishou—everything else fell away.

She kept reading.

These spontaneous mutations are rare but not unknown. Most are minor. Insignificant. Not like the well-documented bloodlines:

The Uchiha’s Sharingan.

The Uzumaki’s stamina.

The Senju’s endurance.

(Senju—the word smudged, like someone had dragged a finger across it too many times.)

Spontaneous. Mutation. Bloodline.

Her pulse quickened. She scanned the paragraph again, even as the edges of her vision blurred. The book lay open under her hands, read now with the kind of clarity only panic—or possibility—could bring.

She barely noticed the sky turning pale outside her window.

Mutation. Genetic. Change.

The words rang through her mind like a bell in fog. Distant, but getting closer.

And then, rising from somewhere beneath conscious thought, as natural as breath:

Can it be replicated by artificial means?

Chapter Text

“Shishou—” Sakura started, but whatever came next died in her throat as Tsunade hurled a boulder at her.

A full-on boulder.

Not a rock. Not a chunk. A house-sized, chakra-laced boulder.

Wind slapped her face as she barely flung herself aside—centimeters from being crushed. That close, she could see the film of dust clinging to the surface of the stone like skin.

“You’re flapping your mouth and not moving your feet,” Tsunade called, voice flat, unimpressed. One hand on her hip, the other already reaching for the next oversized projectile.

Behind her, a whole line of boulders loomed like giant soldiers—silent, waiting, each one a potential obituary.

More than enough to shatter bones.

But not kill.

Tsunade had been very clear about that on day one.

“You’ll break. I’ll fix you. That’s how this works.”

Sakura could still remember the smirk on her face when she’d said it, like the whole thing was some kind of joke only she found funny.

Because, really—who needed threats when you had Tsunade Senju launching boulders for fun?

Sakura staggered upright, arms trembling, legs gone soft with overuse. Every part of her ached.

She wasn’t sure that had ever qualified as reassurance.

Not when Tsunade had that look in her eyes.

The one that said she was just getting warmed up.

The one that said: You’re not allowed to be weak. Not in front of me.

“But, Shishou—” Sakura tried again, because apparently she had learned nothing.

Tsunade’s head snapped toward her.

“You still talking?” she said, low and dangerous.

Then she bent down, picked up another boulder like it weighed nothing, and chucked it at her with a roar:

“Move, damn it! You want a grave or a promotion?!”

Sakura dropped, hard, crouching as the boulder sliced the air above her. It flew past like some vengeful bird of prey, eclipsing the sun and her will to live in one long, terrifying second.

That would’ve splattered me, she thought, gulping.

The kind of gut-deep horror only students of war-hardened, semi-sadistic mentors ever really understood.

Then—

“Eyes forward!” Tsunade bellowed. “What, you think enemies give you a head start and a pep talk?!”

Another boulder was already in the air.

Coming fast.

Not high.

Straight for her.

Like it knew.

Like it had feelings.

Which—fine. It didn’t.

But Sakura swore it felt personal. And that was the only thing her panicked brain managed to cling to as she bolted—fast, frantic, and incredibly ungraceful, which Sakura was woman enough to admit.

She ignored the voice in her head that whispered she was still a girl.

Even with a hitai-ate tied snug across her brow, even with the scroll that said adult now. Deployed. Certified. Genin.

Still just a kid.

So she shut up.

Because she had to.

There wasn’t space to think, not with rocks the size of horses flying toward her at lethal speed.

She crouched so fast her knees screamed, twisted backwards with a spine that was absolutely going to need realignment—if not resurrection—

And she ran.

Ran like her life depended on it.

Ran like a headless chicken.

A headless pink chicken.

Sakura grimaced as another boulder slammed into the earth beside her, a teeth-rattling impact that sent up a wave of dirt, pebbles smacking her skin like shrapnel.

A chicken about to get flattened, she thought darkly, then seasoned and served for dinner.

“You’re finally starting to use your damn legs!” Tsunade hollered from across the field—

Still standing in the same exact spot.

Still spotless.

Not a speck of dust on her skin.

Not a wrinkle in her clothes.

Not even a hair out of place.

She’s absolutely using a jutsu, Sakura thought, sour and out of breath, her feet pounding broken earth. She already cheats with a genjutsu to look twenty-five—who’s to say she doesn’t have some secret Sannin technique to keep her makeup intact while trying to commit involuntary manslaughter on her apprentice?

No. That was stupid.

And Sakura wasn’t stupid.

She was a genin. Tsunade was a Sannin.

Of course she wasn’t tired.

Of course this was a game.

Sakura dared a glance over her shoulder—

Caught it.

That smile.

The sharp, feral one that meant Tsunade was having the time of her life.

The one that made Sakura’s blood go cold.

Sadistic, terrifying Shishou, she thought, and pushed her legs harder, faster, breath stuttering in her throat—

A rock whistled past her, so fast it slapped her across the face with its wake. Her hair—even this short—flew into her eyes. She blinked, blind, disoriented—

And that’s when it happened.

Her foot caught on a jagged chunk of stone—one of the many shattered leftovers from Tsunade’s enthusiastic assaults—and she went down hard.

She hit the ground with a choked sound, air knocked from her lungs, the broken terrain digging into her back like tiny knives.

Gritting her teeth, she dragged a hand up to swipe the hair from her face, huffing as dust stuck to her sweat-slicked skin.

She didn’t move for a second.

Just lay there, grimacing, breathing hard, the sky above her wide and uncaring.

And then:

“…ow.”

“Well, brat,” Tsunade said, suddenly there—so close Sakura flinched, jerking upright with a wince that she didn’t bother to hide.

Tsunade snorted, amused. “Little jumpy, aren’t we? Guess that means you’re learning. Marginal improvement. You lasted longer than last time.”

She gave Sakura a once-over—sharp, measuring. “Still too slow. Still not watching your surroundings. You should know—”

“A good kunoichi reads the field she’s in,” Sakura cut in, voice flat, automatic. “So she can use it to her advantage and not get caught off guard.”

Her legs felt like overcooked noodles, but she folded them under her anyway and forced herself upright. Her palms brushed at the dust out of habit—downward, outward, off her chest and down her arms, the way her mother always did before stepping into sacred spaces. 

It didn’t help. Her clothes were torn. Her limbs were scraped.

She looked like she hadn’t slept in days (true) and like she’d been personally thrown by the gods across the landscape (also true).

“I know, Shishou. It won’t happen again.”

Tsunade didn’t answer right away. She just looked at her for a second, something unreadable passing behind her eyes. Then—

A snort. A flick of her wrist. Her palm lit up in that familiar, vibrant green.

The sight still got to Sakura.

Every time.

Even now, after months of training, it stirred something wordless in her. Something that sat in the hollow of her ribs, like saltwater glinting under the soft light of the moon.

It reminded her of the old stories her mother used to whisper as she tucked her in—stories about foxes that watched from the treetops, gods that lived in waves, shadows that twisted if you didn’t bow right when you entered a sacred place.

Back then, Sakura thought those were the scariest things in the world.

Now she knew better.

The monsters worth fearing didn’t haunt shrines.

They wore smiles and spoke with silky words.

Still—there was something reverent about that glow.

Something she could do too.

It never failed to send a quiet, fierce thrill through her chest when her own hands glowed with the same color.

Not just power. Not just technique.

Proof.

Proof she was growing.

Proof she was earning it.

And Tsunade’s rare, sidelong almost-compliments—“about time,” “not completely useless,” “you didn’t die”—those counted.

She stood still as Tsunade pressed her glowing palm to her back. The worst of the ache melted instantly.

Sakura exhaled. Rolled her shoulders.

The relief made her blink. The warmth lingered.

She glanced sideways, smiling—soft, unsure.

Tsunade, of course, wasn’t looking at her.

Even so, the air between them had shifted.

Just slightly.

Like a wind changing direction before a storm.

Shishou was harsh. But not cruel.

Sakura had long since learned the difference.

And now—

Now that she wasn’t being chased by airborne boulders like a rabbit under a hawk’s shadow—

Now that her hands weren’t trembling and her throat wasn’t filled with dust—

The question returned.

That quiet thing that had settled low in her chest days ago, waiting.

She hesitated.

Then, licking her lips, she did it.

“Shishou…”

A hum, distracted. Tsunade was still focused on her work.

Sakura drew a breath.

Thought of the river trips from childhood—the way her parents would crouch at the water’s edge. How her mother would say: Ask first. Listen second. Then take.

She gathered that memory like a charm stone in her hand.

“Is it true,” she said quickly, “that kekkei genkai can develop spontaneously?”

The words tumbled together, fast and jumbled, like pebbles dropped into running water.

But Tsunade—

Tsunade didn’t miss a beat.

She heard the question.

And she understood.

Shishou paused, her hands still hovering over Sakura’s shoulder. The green glow of medical chakra dimmed slowly, retreating like the tide. Then Tsunade drew back, folding her arms, fingers curling against her elbows as she looked down at her.

“…Yes,” she said at last. “Sometimes those mutations happen.”

Her gaze drifted, sweeping the training field, slow and deliberate. Then she pinched her lower lip between two manicured nails, brows drawing in tight as if she were measuring something invisible.

“They’re not… special,” Tsunade continued, voice even. “Not like the ones passed down through bloodlines. The polished, curated ones with centuries of clan history behind them.”

A beat. Then, lower—bitter:

“Or shaped by human hands. Whether by clans meddling in their members’ lives, or someone too—”

She cut herself off, jaw tightening. But the sentence lingered in the air.

“…But yes. It happens. Rare, but real. And more often than not, it causes more trouble than it’s worth.”

Shaped by human hands, Sakura repeated silently, the phrase slotting neatly into a quiet, shadowed shelf in the back of her mind—something to unwrap later. 

Alone.

Tsunade didn’t look at her when she asked, “Why do you want to know?” 

Her eyes flicked toward the trees. To the canopies. To the low shadows pooling under their trunks.

She’s checking for listeners, Sakura realized. The thought made her press her lips together. But… if Shishou was still talking, still answering, then they weren’t being watched. Probably.

She spoke carefully. “There was one of the books you lent me—before the test a few days ago. It mentioned something about spontaneous traits. Said they were rare. I just… I hadn’t heard of that before.”

Tsunade hummed low in her throat. 

“So you got curious,” she finished for her, voice drier now. She uncrossed her arms and let her hands fall to her hips. “Well, brat, for your medical career, odds are you’ll never deal with something like that. Not directly.”

She sent her a look—sharp and unamused. “The closest you’ll get to kekkei genkai cases are with the village clans, and even then, the real work—the kind you’re asking about—is handled by their personal medics. Or an outsider with a seal on their tongue and a short leash.”

A pause followed. Long enough that the wind shifted in the trees.

“…Seems harsh,” Sakura murmured, twisting her fingers together.

She didn’t mention the truth behind her question. 

That this wasn’t about clinical cases or treatment plans. That she didn’t care about protocols or redacted files. That what she wanted was to understand how something could start from nothing.

She didn’t ask if there were more books. Not yet.

Not when Shishou’s shoulders were tense, her mouth set in a line of old distaste.

So she stayed quiet. Twirled her fingers, like turning a charm between her hands.

Tsunade huffed. Glared up at the open sky as if it had dared to disagree with her. Her scowl deepened.

Then, finally, she muttered, “It is harsh. But that’s the way of clans, I’m afraid.”

Another beat, and softer, almost to herself:

“A damn foolish one at that. Full of pride and old rules… and the idea that medic-nin are meant to be quiet and disposable.”

Her voice curled on the last word like it tasted bitter in her mouth.

Sakura didn’t speak.

Then Tsunade passed a hand over her face and glanced up at the sky again, checking the time.

Sakura did too.

The sun was already drifting low on the horizon, sky bleeding orange into violet, as if the day had cracked open and started to spill.

Time passed so fast these days, she thought, blinking in surprise at how late it already was.

She could barely keep up.

Shishou kept her moving. Constant. Purposeful. In a way Kakashi-sensei never had.

It was… a good feeling.

Not warm, exactly—but grounding.

Satisfactory, like she was stacking stones one by one into something solid.

Something bigger than herself.

And she quietly, deeply liked it.

“In any case, brat,” Shishou called, already moving away, lifting a hand in parting. “I’ve got important things to do. Go home. Rest.”

She threw a wink over her shoulder.

“Consider this a reward for doing the bare minimum.”

Sakura smiled a little, just enough. The curve of it lingered even as Tsunade vanished from the training grounds—her silhouette swallowed by a flicker of leaves and motion.

Ninja speed. Ninja silence.

The kind of thing Sakura promised herself she’d learn to do just as well. Someday.

She shook her head and glanced back up at the sky, then started the walk home—her feet moving while her thoughts wandered.

Her head, like the clouds above her, drifting in an endless sea of what-ifs.

Shishou said those genetic mutations are more trouble than they’re worth most of the time, she thought. So what makes them different from the bloodlines of the ninja clans?

She sidestepped a man juggling several grocery bags, offering only a small nod when he apologized. Her mind was too busy turning.

It was strange.

What made them different?

Natural selection?

But then the first mutation had to survive long enough to be passed down.

Breeding?

The thought made her grimace.

It felt… wrong. Discomforting to think that way about her friends’ clans.

But the civilian families had stories.

Good ones. Bad ones. And the ones with endings that never got told.

The classic tale: a civilian with potential becomes a shinobi, marries into a clan, earns a name.

The quieter stories: of being passed over. Of being second. Of being nothing until proven otherwise.

She didn’t need to hear them to believe them.

She already knew.

She’d lived the outlines herself. In flesh. In silence. In glances that lingered too long or never long enough.

The shinobi world was not kind to the civilian-born.

She sighed, dragging a hand through her hair and twisting a few strands between her fingers.

They were already a mess—knotted and wind-tossed from the fight. She couldn’t do much more than what the ground had already done.

She closed her eyes just for a breath, then opened them again.

And made peace with what she already knew: these weren’t the kinds of answers anyone would give her.

She was just a genin.

A civilian-born genin.

No one, yet. Not really.

Not even with Tsunade’s name behind hers.

And until she became someone—

Until she carved her way into their system and survived the cut—

She wouldn’t be trusted with truths like this.

Maybe not even then.

It was frustrating.

So much it felt like her ribs were shrinking inward just to hold it all in.

Inner’s voice slithered through the quiet like oil on water. Poor civvy child. No name. No gift. No bloodline. Just skin and blood, born to break. Just fodder for the clans to throw forward first.

A body. That’s all.

Sakura ignored it.

But her fist curled tight, and her feet picked up their pace.

She was almost home. Just had to turn right at the next corner and—

She saw them.

Her steps halted so abruptly someone behind her muttered a curse, narrowly avoiding a collision.

Sakura didn’t move. Didn’t answer.

Just stood there.

Team Ten.

Ino.

Her former friend was facing her—head tilted slightly, expression unreadable. Behind her, Shikamaru and Choji talked like nothing had shifted in the world, but Sakura could see it.

The flicker in Shikamaru’s eyes.

He’d noticed her. He always noticed everything.

She couldn’t take it.

Couldn’t look too long at a team still whole, still orbiting together.

Couldn’t look at the girl who’d once pulled her out of darkness with nothing but a word and a ribbon.

There was too much silence between them now.

Too many unsaid things, too many cracked places that had never been mended.

Maybe someday she’d reach for that bridge.

Maybe.

But not today.

Sakura dipped her head, gaze falling to the street, and kept walking.

Let her feet carry her forward, even if her thoughts stayed lodged back there with the weight of what-ifs.

The main streets were loud, clattering with the end of day—vendors packing up, paper signs flapping in the breeze, oil sizzling somewhere nearby.

She passed rows of apartment blocks, their walls all dull with city dust, all the same beige and gray, built to blur together.

Then slowly—quietly—the color began to return.

Houses with gardens tucked into their edges. Flowers pressed against fences. Bright patterns painted on doors, not random, not decorative—seals.

The cords above the street shifted in the breeze. Strings of folded paper and old coins rustling softly as the wind moved past them.

She sprinted the last stretch.

Turned the final bend, and there it was—her house. Green with ivy and garden leaves, its windows glowing. Alive.

A place that was hers.

She slipped through the front door fast, shut it behind her with the same instinct she used in training.

Then stood there. Just stood.

Breathing too hard. Hands stiff at her sides.

She didn’t know what she was reacting to.

Only that she was.

She let her forehead drop against the door—just a gentle knock of wood to bone. Breathed in.

And out.

Again.

Let the storm inside her pass through the wood of the house, let it bleed out where no one could see it.

“Sakura?” her mother’s voice came from the kitchen, warm and light, like always.

The smell of dinner floated with it—familiar and grounding.

“You’re just in time, sweetheart! We made your favorite!”

“Oi, and I don’t exist anymore?” her father added, stepping out from his office, a stack of ledgers tucked under one arm. His grin was crooked and bright, the same grin he wore when he was about to do something dumb on purpose.

He winked.

The same wink from years ago.

The one that used to mean: watch this, I’m about to get yelled at again.

It was funny then.

Still funny now.

And Sakura smiled.

Just a little. But it stayed.

She followed the sound of her mother’s voice, her reply quick and dry.

Her dad gasped theatrically, staggering back like he’d been struck. “Wounded! That’s it, I’ve been betrayed! Sakura-tan, help me! Your poor father’s collapsing—your light, your only light, fading—!”

Sakura snorted. She squared her stance, hands planted firmly on her hips.

“Mama,” she said gravely, voice full of authority, “you can’t just attack someone under my protection.”

Her eyes gleamed.

And for now, here, that was enough.

Her mother snorted, waving a pan in Sakura’s direction as she sent a withering look toward Kizashi.

“Oh, I see how it is. The old team-up-against-mother strategy.”

“My dear, of course not,” her father said immediately, already slipping into his seat and blinking up at her like a guilty dog. “I’m innocent. Entirely.”

Mebuki did not look convinced.

She exhaled through her nose—long and dramatic—and waved a hand like she could sweep her husband’s antics off the table with the sheer weight of her exhaustion. Then, with the same hand, she set the pan down in the center of the table and took off the lid.

The smell hit Sakura instantly.

Rich. Salty. Sea-flavored.

Her mouth watered.

Fried octopus over vinegared rice.

Her favorite. Always had been.

But—

“…How did you get this?” she asked, already reaching for her dish but pausing with it in hand, eyes narrowing slightly as she glanced up at her mother.

Mebuki didn’t answer.

She looked at Kizashi. He looked back.

Something passed between them—a whole conversation in half a second, silent and closed.

Even with ninja training, Sakura couldn’t track what exactly moved behind those glances. Maybe it was a skill you developed only after decades of cohabiting the same kitchen.

Still, she waited.

“Well,” Kizashi scratched the back of his neck sheepishly, “I was walking through the lower districts earlier, and I passed a few food stalls, and—don’t get me wrong, the food’s good! But I wanted something a little more… us, you know?”

His voice went soft at the end, just slightly.

“And it’s your favorite,” he added. “I figured, why not? You’ve been working hard. Hokage’s apprentice and all. You deserve a little something nice.”

He winked at her, cheerful as ever.

Sakura felt something warm rise in her chest.

But still, her chopsticks hesitated. She poked at the octopus—it twitched faintly.

Already dead, she knew. Just the nerves firing.

“But…” she lifted her head, picking her words with care. “Isn’t this kind of… expensive now?”

“Don’t start,” Mebuki said, cutting her off with a sharp tch. She snatched Sakura’s plate and loaded it again—more rice, more octopus, no room for protest. “We have enough to treat you once in a while. Let us.”

“Yeah, Sakura-tan!” Kizashi chimed in, grin never faltering. His hands twitched slightly before settling against the table. Nothing in his face gave anything away.

Sakura wasn’t like Kakashi.

Not like Naruto, either, who could read a room with nothing but gut instinct.

She was just Sakura.

But she knew this.

She knew the shape of this offering—what it meant.

Her parents couldn’t protect her out there. They couldn’t stop the bruises or the hours or the quiet things that crept under her skin in the middle of the night.

But they could give her this.

A plate full of memory.

She let out a breath, soft and low, and took it back when her mother shoved it toward her again.

Her eyes flicked between the two of them, just a little suspicious.

But her voice was quiet when she said, “…If you say so.”

And she meant it.

“I do say so,” Mebuki snapped, dragging her chair back with a screech of wood against floor. She plopped into it like a woman declaring war, immediately serving herself with practiced efficiency—and slapped Kizashi’s hand away without even glancing.

“Just a taste,” he protested, drawing his hand back and nursing the imaginary wound.

Mebuki shot him a look. “You had a taste. When you hovered over the stove. Twice.”

“That was sampling,” he said, wounded. “You know. Quality control.”

“You’re lucky I haven’t sealed the pot shut.”

Sakura smiled a little, the kind that barely tugged at her lips but stayed there.

She took a bite.

Octopus and vinegar. Salt and heat.

The taste of home. Of belonging.

Even as a piece of octopus slipped between her hashi like it still thought it had somewhere to go.

She looked down.

Several of the tentacles still twitched, curling and uncurling in slow, reflexive spasms.

Not alive. But still moving.

She prodded one with the tip of her chopsticks, watching how it flinched at the contact.

Peripheral nervous activity. No brain involvement. Autonomous motor control within each limb. Post-mortem residual response. Octopuses carried their intelligence differently. Two-thirds of their neurons were in their arms. Each limb could process stimuli and react without consulting the brain. High reflex capacity. Delayed decay of synaptic signals. Independent reaction centers.

She nudged another piece. It twisted slightly, curling on itself.

Faster than thought, she realized. Defense before recognition. Movement without command.

She thought of shinobi.

Of how much they relied on split-second decisions. How everything filtered through the spine, the mind, the will.

But what if it didn’t have to?

What if the body knew first?

What if it didn’t wait?

She placed the piece in her mouth. Chewed slowly as it resisted—not alive, but not still.

She swallowed.

A dangerous thing to think of, she thought, remembering Shishou—and everything she hadn’t said.

And then again, as if tearing straight through her hesitation:

Possibility.

Chapter Text

It was a stupid plan. Sakura knew that. Of all the things she could say about herself—studious, meticulous, cautious—reckless was never one of them.

But this—this went beyond her.

Bigger, fiercer, more consuming, it ignited something within her. A flame she might even call the Will of Fire, driving her forward with an intensity she'd only felt once before, back when she'd chased the affection of a boy who was too broken to even glance her way.

This, though? This was dedication. Persistence. Perhaps even obsession.

She was smart—Sakura could admit that without arrogance.

Among the rookie shinobi—even compared to Shikamaru, heir of the Nara clan—she had always been near the top. She studied. She remembered. She connected the dots before anyone else even realized there were dots. She’d aced every single question on the written test for the Chūnin Exams.

(Yet, somehow, she had completely missed that the true test had nothing to do with answers or careful calculations. It had been about expectation—cheating without getting caught—and she hadn't needed it.

She had been too focused to see it coming.

Too focused to notice her best friend—ex-best friend—slipping into her mind with the Yamanaka clan’s techniques, stealing her answers clean off her thoughts.

Ino. Even now, the memory burned like an old wound.

Though—later, in the arena against that same once-friend—when Sakura had clawed her way free with nothing but sheer stubbornness and the jagged, broken edges of herself, she had learned something important.

Something that hadn’t been taught in any classroom.)

Still. It was a stupid plan. Sakura wasn’t naive enough to pretend otherwise.

It was a gamble. Dangerous. Maybe even reckless—not just for herself, but for her family too, if Tsunade’s unsaid warnings meant anything.

But it would be her body she tested this on first.

That had to count for something.

She'd be careful.

Or, she thought grimly as she flipped through the library book she'd borrowed, eyes scanning diagrams of octopus nervous systems side-by-side with Tsunade’s medical texts on human anatomy, as careful as you could be with something that sounded this close to insanity.

It was just an idea. Barely even that.

Far-fetched. Ridiculous. Probably impossible.

But trying felt better than sitting still and letting it rot her alive from the inside out.

If she failed, it would be one more disappointment on a list already too long to pretend otherwise.

But—if by some miracle she pulled it off—

She chewed on the edge of her pencil, staring hard at the diagrams in front of her. Octopus nervous systems: all loose and sprawling and instinctive. Then over to the next page—human structure, neat and centralized, locked in place.

A decentralized system against a centralized one.

That was the difference. That was the secret behind their insane reflexes, their ridiculous adaptability—the reason their severed arms could twitch like they were still alive, even after they'd been chopped up and thrown onto a plate.

Her father always said octopuses weren’t from Earth. Lunar immigrants, he’d called them, come to dazzle humanity with how strange and marvelous life could be.

Or maybe, she thought dryly, just here to be fried up with rice. Her favorite.

Either way, they were different. Alien in a way that made Sakura’s hands itch with the want to understand.

She slumped back in her chair with a sigh, twisting the crimson charm dangling from her lamp between her fingers, her mind running itself ragged.

The theory was there. She could feel it, just beyond her reach.

The practical application, though?

How the hell was she supposed to layer a structure like that onto a human body? Onto her body—civilian-born, normal, painfully ordinary in the ways that mattered?

That, Sakura thought grimly, was the real problem.

Chakra.

It had seemed so obvious at first—chakra could fix it. Chakra could do anything. Hadn’t it already saved lives from the brink of death? Summoned fire from the empty air? Split stone and flooded valleys and healed wounds no medicine could touch?

Surely, it could do this too.

Surely.

But she had heard Shishou’s warnings far too many times to casually dismiss the dangers of meddling with something as delicate and irreplaceable as neurons and their pathways.

"Listen, brat," Tsunade’s voice snapped through Sakura’s memory, cutting clean and sharp the way only Tsunade could. "I know you're dazzled by that spontaneous kekkei genkai bullshit. Let me be blunt—their bloodline limits? Shit. All they do is give people health problems and make more work for people like me. Just suffering. All around."

She had tapped her temple then, eyes hard.

"The ones related to the nervous system—the knock-off Sharingans, the bargain-bin Byakugans, anything even close to the brain—awful. Horrible to watch. And people have tried to replicate it before—unethical experiments, disgusting stuff."

Tsunade’s eyes had gone distant for a moment, memories she didn’t voice flashing behind her gaze.

Then she scowled, snapping back into the present.

"Hell, probably still happening now," she added darkly. "Especially in that barbaric mess they call a village in Lightning. Kekkei genkai-obsessed idiots."

Sakura remembered the way Tsunade had sighed then, arms crossed tight over her chest, hazel eyes pinning her in place like the warning was something she had to carve into her bones and never forget.

"Those experiments taught us something important," Tsunade had said, low and grim. "Your brain's fragile, Sakura. One wrong move, and it's over. You can't shove chakra wherever you want in there and expect it to work. Neurons don't regenerate. Not like muscle. You damage them, you’re done. Balance, coordination, consciousness—gone. Some shinobi ended up catatonic. Some just dropped dead.

“The line’s thin. Thinner than you think. And it's easy to cross."

Sakura clenched her jaw, brows knitting tightly as her mentor’s words haunted her like a stubborn ghost that wouldn't leave.

But Shishou was right.

Sakura exhaled heavily, her hand dropping to the wooden table with a dull thud. Trying to push chakra through every nerve in her limbs without something like the decentralized ganglia octopuses had would probably fry them. Nerve degeneration. Loss of coordination. Maybe even paralysis if she was stupid enough to force it for too long. She could lose her hands. Her arms. All of it.

It was reckless, dangerous, and probably impossible.

Besides, keeping something that intricate running while conscious would take an insane amount of control. She had control—better than most. Better than nearly anyone her age, if she was honest.

But this? This was something else. Borderline superhuman.

Even on her best day, Sakura couldn’t see a way to spare that much attention to the little, internal wiring of her own body while fighting for her life.

It was a shame, though. The advantage of having reflexes like an octopus in the middle of a real battle—instant, untouchable—was enough to make her ache for it.

She groaned aloud, biting down on her lip hard enough to sting, trying to stifle the frustrated noise clawing its way up her throat.

She'd even skipped her scheduled study hours for this. Dove headfirst into this side project like it would save her. Like it would be worth something.

And now what? Giving up at the first real wall?

A massive wall, sure. She could admit that much. Rebuilding her neurons, rerouting her own nerves—that wasn’t just delicate work. It was the kind of impossible that tore people in half.

The kind of thing you only survived if you were either brilliant or too stubborn to die properly.

Sakura dragged herself upright with a grunt, propping her cheek against her hand, her eyes drifting listlessly around the room.

Her mind circled and circled, fast and useless.

Neurons didn’t regenerate. She knew that. Had known that from the beginning.

They were precious. A one-time gift. Once lost, they were lost forever.

And here she was, thinking about tearing hers apart on purpose. For faster reflexes.

Ridiculous.

Impossible.

She ran both hands roughly down her face, dragging her palms hard over her skin, the motion too fast, too raw. Already cursing herself.

Why am I even bothering with this? I’m just a civilian-born kunoichi. No special blood. No legacy. Trying to build a kekkei genkai out of nothing like some arrogant idiot. I'll probably just end up dead—

Would you prefer dying trying, came Inner’s voice, curling up from the hollow spaces in her mind, or dying quietly as cannon fodder?

Do it, coward. If you fail, it’s nothing new. But if you manage to pull it off—

A pause.

Maybe you won’t be useless anymore.

The word echoed.

Not soft. Not distant. It slammed through her like the heavy toll of a shrine bell, loud enough she flinched from it.

She found herself gripping the edge of her desk, wood splintering under her fingers, jagged bits digging into her skin.

Useless.

I’m not useless! she snapped inside her own head, furious, spitting the words back—

But her chest was tight. And the heat behind her eyes betrayed her.

She blinked fast, refusing to let the tears fall, forcing her gaze toward the window.

But there was no calm waiting for her.

Instead, she caught the little paper jellyfish her mother had made for her years ago, still hanging from its string. It spun lazily in the air, its paper tentacles curling and drifting, tracing shapes she couldn't quite see.

Jellyfish, Sakura thought, tension slipping from her shoulders as her mind latched onto it.

No brain. No ganglia. Just a nerve net.

Like chakra.

If she rerouted hers right—spread it thin instead of forcing it down paths that would’ve crippled her—maybe she wouldn’t have to control every neuron.

Maybe it would just flow.

React.

Jellyfish might be the answer, Sakura thought, and this time, she didn’t even bother trying to stop the rush of hope that kicked hard against her ribs.

~*~

"Little flower! It's not like that," her father whispered in a rushed hush, like it actually mattered. As if it wasn’t broad daylight, inside their own house, with no one asleep, no one even caring.

Still, Sakura played along.

"Why, big flower?" she whispered back, lips twitching up despite herself.

Her father’s hair was a duller pink than hers—hers had come from him, technically, though her mother’s brightness had burned it into something impossible to ignore.

His was unruly. Fluffed up and sticking out like a big, ridiculous sakura blossom.

She didn’t really know what went through his head to not just cut it off and save them all the embarrassment.

Once, he said his hair had a mind of its own.

Another time, he said it was symbolic. She carried the name; he’d carry the flower. Matching.

Silly.

"You can’t be too rough with your lines," he said now, crinkling his eyes up like it was the most serious thing in the world as he made a very exaggerated, graceful stroke in the air. "Remember what your granny used to say—"

"Breathe before the ink touches the paper," Sakura finished, already frowning as she dipped her brush again, biting down on her lip hard enough to taste it.

It wasn’t just art.

It was training.

A way to keep something alive—her grandmother’s habits, her district’s culture—after the sea and the mist swallowed their ancestral land.

She tilted her head, narrowed her eyes, leaned in close to draw the kanji.

A little tilted.

Sakura grimaced. Pulled back.

A lot tilted.

"Better than before, little flower!" her father said brightly, picking the paper up like it was some priceless scroll—a lost offering from a shrine tucked deep in the mountains—and not the crooked mess she'd just dropped onto the world.

Probably shamed all her ancestors, her shishou, and any spirit still haunting the corners of their old, stubborn house.

Steady hands, she thought, looking down at hers. They trembled. I don’t have them.

Useless, her mind whispered, soft and familiar, sinking in slow and heavy like an ofuda pressed too long against the skin.

"Dear," her mother called, still kneeling by her own work. Her brush hovered for a second before it dipped again—slow, exact.

A stroke like cutting mist.

Her mother’s hands didn’t shake. Of course they didn’t.

Mebuki had been trained by Grandma herself—one of the last women who remembered when brushstrokes weren’t just words.

They were seals. Prayers. Wards against the things the sea could not drown.

Her mother’s writing still looked like that. Like it belonged on a shrine board, or stitched into old cloth tied to the wind.

“Teach Sakura properly.”

"But, dear—" Kizashi tried, excuse already halfway out.

Clack.

Her mother tapped the base of her brush against the floor. It wasn’t loud, but it was enough. It cut through the room sharp, like a sutra bell struck once. Her father shut up immediately.

"Then I will. If you can’t do this," her mother said, wiping her fingers clean on a cloth before getting up. Her clothes rustled as she moved, soft like a breeze slipping over stones.

She sat down beside Sakura without ceremony, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Her smile was small. Her eyes were steady. All focus.

"Show me."

So Sakura did.

She dipped her brush again, stuck out her tongue without thinking, trying to will her hands into steadiness. They still buzzed from a full day of training, muscles loud under her skin.

But that couldn’t be an excuse.

The seal masters of old had been both—shinobi and sealer. Blade and brush.

And so would she.

If she worked hard enough.

Or that’s what she told herself, anyway.

Her hands still trembled. The lines still came out crooked. The kanji looked like something a monkey would scratch out, pretending it knew what it meant to be human.

Ugly.

Sakura set her brush down a second too late. The tip dragged, bleeding ink across the paper like a wound she couldn’t take back.

She didn’t bother hiding it. Just let her head drop, hands folding in her lap, the old familiar weight settling over her shoulders again, heavy and cold, like it always knew how to find her.

Not one she wanted to be close to. But one that always knew where to find her.

Her mother hummed.

Paper rustled as she picked it up, tilting it one way, then the other. Like maybe if she looked hard enough, the kanji would shift, show its real face, say something different.

But it was still just Sakura’s crooked lines.

Then she smiled. Small. Real.

"You have a strong character, flower," she said, pride slipping into her voice like it belonged there. "Full of personality. Fire."

She paused.

"If your grandmother were still here..." Her mother shook her head a little, smile tightening like she didn’t want it to crack. "She’d be proud. She’d probably say the kami nudged your hand. That the onmyōji could use more girls like you—not the spineless ones who forgot where their ancestors had come from but still had the nerve to act like their ink meant anything."

Sakura snorted into her hand, shoulders hunching. "Yeah. Grandma would say that."

Then it faded. Fast.

Her fingers twisted together in her lap.

"But it’s still bad," she muttered, voice low. "I'm not... good. Not like you."

Her mother just watched her for a second. Something steady in her face, like still water. Like the way old charms still clung to broken gates.

"Things like this take time," she said finally. "This art—it’s not just about technique. It's practice. Patience. Years of it. Your grandmother didn’t write those—" she nodded toward the scrolls lining the wall, where brushstrokes curled like the breath of old prayers. “—in a few months. She bled into them. Year after year. Ink, breath, and bone."

Years, Sakura echoed to herself, staring at the clean, elegant lines threaded across the walls. Every mark more than aesthetic—each one a statement, a thing that meant something.

She thought of Sasuke—his eyes that could memorize in seconds what she had to sit with, turn over, learn slowly. Naruto, all raw chakra and reckless intuition, stumbling into mastery like it was muscle memory. Kakashi, a chūnin before he could even reach the doorknobs without standing on his tiptoes.

Years, she told herself again.

But it hadn’t taken them years.

Her lips thinned as she turned back to her own work. The paper stared back at her, ink dried awkwardly.

Loud in its failure.

There was a lull.

The kind that wasn’t peaceful—too full of things not said. Sakura didn’t look up, but her gaze slid, just slightly, just enough. Tsunade had taught her how to listen without turning her head.

Her parents were having one of those conversations again—the kind made of glances and eyebrows, full of unspoken meaning. Quiet, but heavy, like old shrines that hadn’t been visited in years.

She didn’t have the energy to reach for the meaning tonight. Not before her mother moved—smiling, standing in a single smooth motion, her hands settling on her hips like she’d made a decision and there was no going back.

“Well,” she said with a grin, “you’re progressing more than enough.” She patted her chest, winked. “Better than I was at your age. And I was one of the best.”

“Oh, she was,” her father said, nodding with the kind of certainty that belonged to someone who’d carved a shrine in his heart for his wife and knelt there daily. “She left us in the dust. Outran the clan kids like she was born under a lucky star—linework like a brush kami took her hands and decided not to give them back."

“Don’t exaggerate, Kizashi,” her mother said, but her voice was warm. The kind of warm that lives in old homes and ink-stained scrolls. She straightened her back, pride still tucked into her spine. “I was good. Good enough that your grandmother brought me to the brushmasters. They studied my strokes, said I had something rare.”

She stopped. Just for a breath. The kind of breath that felt like the air before a storm.

Then her father leaned in with a grin and said, "But they were scandalized when you chose the worst student in the room to date."

Sakura snorted into her hand, trying to smother the laugh before it escaped. "Then I guess I get my lack of skill from you, Dad."

He gasped, hand on his chest like she’d cursed him. “My own daughter! A betrayal most foul!”

Her mother clapped once and shook her head with a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Then she turned to Sakura, lifting her chin slightly. Her eyes caught the light.

“No. You may have your father’s hair, but the rest? That’s me. Including your brushwork.” She raised a finger. “Which brings us to the point.”

She paused, tone shifting. Quieter. Like a door opening.

“Your grandmother left behind scrolls,” she said. “From before.”

Sakura didn’t need to ask before what.

“I never touched them. After. But I think you could have a use for them, flower.”

“…Are you sure?”

Her voice came out smaller than she meant. And there it was again—that quiet tangle in her chest. The weight of being trusted. Of being seen. Of being given something sacred and asked to hold it without shaking.

What if she wasn’t good enough?

Her mother didn’t hesitate. Just smiled like she already knew.

“I am. Now come,” she said, with the certainty of someone passing on more than paper. “Let’s bring your legacy to you.”

~*~

Later—late in the night, far too late—the moon was high, pale and indifferent, and her parents had long since retreated to their beds.

Sakura lit her lamp. Soft light spilled across her desk, haloing the scroll her mother had placed in her hands hours earlier. The one handed down from her grandmother.

She opened it carefully. Reverently.

And as the paper unfurled, so did memory.

Her grandmother’s eyes surfaced first—green, sharp as broken sea glass, the same green that stared back at her every morning from her own reflection. No nonsense. Wind-hardened. Salt-stained. The kind of woman who had seen too much and still carried it, tight across her shoulders like a second spine. Steel under wrinkles.

The kind of person who left holes when they went.

Holes you could still feel, long after the mourning ended.

Uzushio had been lost to the sea, but not all of it had drowned. Some of it had clung to the survivors, pressed into blood and brushstroke and ritual. Into memory.

And into this scroll.

They couldn’t pass down everything. But they passed what they could.

Sakura sat there, heart twisted tight with something too big to name—pride, maybe. Longing. She brushed her fingers lightly over the paper, feeling the roughness of it.

The fiber. The ink.

Just for a beat.

Then she opened her notebook. Took a breath.

Began.

Seals.

The scroll began with the philosophy—of course it did. No seal existed without it. Children born of salt or descended from it all knew: a seal was not just chakra and ink. It was will made visible. A whispered pact with the world.

But Sakura flipped forward, almost trembling, until she found what she wanted.

The actual seals.

Not the brushwork practiced for meditation, not the delicate forms meant for prayer or balance or warding. No—these were shinobi seals. Battle-forged, blood-soaked, dangerous. The kind other villages would kill to get their hands on.

And they were on her desk.

A real Uzushio sealing scroll.

Sakura stared at it, breath catching for a second, chest tight with too many things at once. The reverence she expected was there, sitting heavy and proper where it belonged.

But there was hunger too.

Sharper. Meaner.

The hunger for knowledge—for mastery.

For something that would make her mean something.

She didn’t want to hold this inheritance like something delicate. She wanted to grasp it—bleed for it, if needed—but never let it slip from her hands.

So she read.

The lines must be inked precisely. Not a single stroke misaligned. Each shape follows logic, structure, sequence—but never forget: the seal is personal. Some forms carry more power in one hand than another. The true masters need no structure at all. They write with chakra. With will. The word becomes reality because they say so.

Sakura paused.

No ink? No brush?

She’d only ever seen seals drawn with ink. Sometimes blood. But never just chakra. Never just thought.

She kept reading.

Seals can shape the world. Terrain. Barriers. Space. But also—

Her eyes stopped there.

Also the internal.

She leaned closer.

Regulation. Enhancement. Refinement of the self. Seals are thresholds. Doors to the impossible.

Her breath caught.

Doors to the impossible.

She repeated the words in her mind, not even aware she’d stood. Her notebook fell open across the desk, her brush trembling faintly where she’d left it.

She knew she should stop. Knew she should wait, plan, breathe.

Idiot, a voice whispered—maybe hers, maybe not—you’ll hurt yourself.

But she wasn’t listening anymore.

And Inner was silent.

As if possessed by a yōkai, Sakura moved. She didn’t remember deciding to—only that one moment she was blinking at the scroll, and the next, she was on the floor.

Brush in hand.

Ink ready.

Knees folded beneath her.

The lines and shapes of seals—older than her, older than Konoha, born from people long returned to salt and sea—etched themselves across her mind like they had always belonged there.

She moved slow. Reverent. And so fluidly, so instinctively, that if she’d been any more herself, she might’ve paused just to marvel. That Sakura Haruno, who couldn’t draw a straight line just a few hours ago, was now painting full arrays on the back of her hand.

A test.

Just a test.

She wasn’t even sure what the seal did—hadn’t translated that far yet. It was half doodle, half experiment. A structure she’d been messing with when she had time, sketched out from jellyfish patterns, stitched together from notes and too many late nights.

And now mixed with the arrays of old.

She activated it before she could think better of it, before the part of her brain trained by Tsunade could slap her with a sharp, “idiot!”

She felt it immediately.

Her skin pulled in too tight, wrong directions—chakra catching on tissue. Sakura gritted her teeth. Her mind logged the failure with practiced clarity: dermal strain too high—painful, inefficient—requires redirection of current.

Still, she held it.

Held the shape. Focused. Let the chakra spread—not concentrate, not surge, but diffuse. Chakra laid over her nerves like cloth over skin.

She picked up her pencil.

And stabbed.

Her hand moved before she could think.

Stopped it.

Sakura froze.

It worked.

It actually worked.

“Kami,” she breathed, voice barely audible.

With shaking fingers, she deactivated the seal. The chakra receded. Her body sagged with it, suddenly too heavy, and she let herself fall back onto the floor.

The ceiling above her blurred in the lamplight, her chest rising too fast, lungs pulling in air like she’d run a sprint.

This is possible, Sakura thought, dazed. The realization crackled through her like lightning.

This is actually possible.

Chapter Text

Sakura’s routine shifted again.

Nights bled into study time, but not the kind you did for grades—this was different.

This was obsession.

She threw herself into it like something bigger than her had taken root and needed out. Something old. Something pressing. Something that didn’t care if she was tired or had other things to do.

And she wanted it. She wanted it badly.

She wanted to understand. To get it right. To make something real from it.

Even when doubt crept in—quietly, like it always did, somewhere in the middle of everything, when she was already halfway through a diagram and her hand wouldn’t stop shaking—she kept going.

She didn’t stop.

Even when it was exhausting.

Even when her eyes burned and her fingers cramped from too much sketching and too many trial seals that didn’t quite line up.

She spent most of her nights buried in anatomy charts, lining up nervous system structures from three different species—human, octopus, jellyfish—stacking them against each other to find the points that made sense and the ones that didn’t.

The octopus model had decentralized ganglia—independent reflex control in each limb, responding directly to sensory input without needing a central command.

Fast. Efficient.

The jellyfish were stranger—simpler, but cleaner.

No brain, no hierarchy, just a nerve net spread across the whole body, reacting all at once like a living field.

Sakura filled notebook after notebook trying to figure out if something like that could be mapped onto a chakra system.

If seals could be built not just to store chakra or trigger effects, but to think.

To sense. To react faster than she ever could on her own.

She diagrammed signal latency, drafted modified tenketsu paths, tried to predict where overload would occur based on her own conduction maps.

Most of it was guesswork layered over theory, but it wasn’t nothing.

And every night, she tested.

Sometimes on her arms, sometimes over her spine, sometimes on the back of her hands where the lines could settle without disrupting muscle strain too much.

The seals glowed low and pale when she activated them—barely enough to light her desk, but enough to prove they worked.

Each time, they held just a little longer.

Stabilized just a little faster.

It made her hope.

She chewed on her lip as she flipped through her notes again, tired but focused.

She was always focused now.

Even she was surprised by it sometimes—how deep she’d gone into this thing, how much time had passed already.

How she hadn’t burned out yet.

She wasn’t even sure where the line was anymore.

Whether this would lead to something real, or end in nothing, or maybe worse.

She tried not to think about worse.

Didn’t want to.

But sometimes her mind went there anyway.

To that boy in the hospital. The one Shishou had let her see once she’d started her real medical training—face blank, body still breathing but no one left inside.

A casualty of something that had gone wrong.

Someone who had tried too hard. Or pushed too far, or maybe just made one mistake too many.

“He’s catatonic,” Shishou had said at the time, her voice even, her eyes somewhere between stern and tired. Her hands glowed green with chakra as she passed them over the boy’s temples, slow and methodical. “Too much nerve damage. His prefrontal cortex has too many lesions—chakra-based. Maybe he tried something. Genjutsu, or something worse. Doesn’t matter.”

Then she turned to Sakura, like she always did.

“What does the prefrontal cortex do, Sakura?”

A lesson, even there.

But that was how it worked.

Medic-nin learned in pain—someone else’s or their own. That was the curse. The cost.

“Personality,” Sakura had started, automatic. “Judgment. Conscious decision-making. Memory—”

“Long-term is the hippocampus,” Tsunade corrected gently. “But yes. The prefrontal handles the short-term ones.”

Her face didn’t change. Not once.

She just stared at the boy with his empty eyes, then stepped away, the sound of her heels marking the end of the conversation. She didn’t look back.

“Nothing but a tragedy,” she said as they walked down the corridor, voice flat. “To remain in the body but be gone behind the eyes. Like the old shrine-keepers used to say—the soul slips out first. The rest follows later. But come, we have more patients to see.”

But the boy never really left Sakura’s mind.

She saw him sometimes, when she was three hours deep into her notes, cross-referencing seals and chakra diagrams and nervous system maps, her fingers cramping from writing too fast.

The way his eyes looked—glassy, turned inward.

Gone.

And still breathing.

She bit down on her pen and shook her head hard, trying to shake the image loose. It didn’t work.

Tonight she was studying the sealing scrolls.

The ones her grandmother had left behind after her death—script faded in some places, thick in others, still holding something inside them, something that hummed low under her skin when her fingers passed too close.

An echo. 

Still, they were brilliant. A treasure too precious to name. Unpriced.

She’d known that from the start.

Any time she wasn’t drowning in her project—the one that had taken over everything—or keeping up with the materials Shishou assigned her, she came back to them. Wide-eyed.

Greedy.

Because they felt like hers.

Legacy lived in them.

And maybe more than that.

It fascinated her, how seals worked.

How they could interact with the world even when they were abstract, theoretical—metaphysical, almost.

Concepts drawn in ink. But they moved things. Held things. Changed things.

Like will made tangible. Like a thought you could tie down.

And tonight, as she unfurled one more scroll and traced a pattern she’d stared at so many times the lines were practically burned into her vision, she let herself think it again.

This might be the key.

Not just to doing something impossible.

To making it survivable.

Her brow furrowed.

She had the plans—sketches, flowcharts, nerve maps, everything modeled off octopus and jellyfish, all of it overlaid with chakra pathways and tenketsu estimations.

She’d even worked out how her chakra control, already near-perfect, could be tuned even tighter, made responsive at a level no one else had achieved.

She had the theory.

Sakura knew what she wanted: reflexes that fired before thought, chakra that moved with sensation, not after it. A whole second layer of control laid across her body, responding like a seal net—fast, intuitive, automatic.

But she hadn’t tested it.

Not really.

Sure, she’d run the smaller trials—reflex points, short activation windows—but nothing close to what it would take to see if the full system worked.

Nothing that touched her whole body.

Her eyes flicked to the window.

The sun was already rising, soft light spilling into the room like it had caught her staying up again.

Her paper jellyfish drifted gently in the breeze, ribbons curling slow, like they were waving to the morning.

Sakura leaned back in her chair, breath slow and careful. She still didn’t know how she was going to do it.

Not exactly.

The ideas were there. But ideas were easy.

Making them real?

Putting it into motion?

That was different.

And she was scared.

~*~

“Don’t worry, Sakura. You don’t have to figure it out all at once. You’ll get used to it,” Shizune said, leading her through the hospital with the kind of practiced ease that made it look effortless. Like she’d memorized every turn, every shift in floor tile, every shortcut between chaos.

And maybe she had.

Sakura barely managed to sidestep a nurse who nearly clipped her without so much as a by-your-leave, and then again—flattening herself against the wall—when a team of medics came around the corner fast, carrying a stretcher and shouting instructions over each other.

A shinobi. Middle-aged. Bleeding fast.

Her brain kicked in without meaning to: extensive injuries, likely abdominal trauma, vitals unstable. He’d need multiple blood bags and monitoring, possibly chakra stabilization depending on internal damage.

She stared a beat too long after the disappearing medics, then blinked and hurried to catch up to Shizune, who hadn’t missed a step. Hadn’t flinched.

Hadn’t slowed down.

She was used to this.

Moved through it like water through stone.

And the hospital itself felt different now.

Sakura had been here before, years ago, before Shishou had taken over. It hadn’t felt like this then.

It was still chaotic, still loud, still half-running on adrenaline and exhaustion, but there was structure beneath it now.

Rhythm.

Something like order, even under pressure.

Shishou had been forcing the med-nin to review all their basics. Even the civilian staff had been pulled into lectures and drills, studying beside shinobi to meet her standards.

Shizune helped run most of that.

Sakura glanced at the back of her head as they walked, her posture perfectly straight, footsteps light and certain.

She moved like she belonged here—owned it, even.

And she did.

Tsunade might’ve been the official director, but she was Hokage first. Which meant the day-to-day wasn’t hers to carry anymore.

Sakura knew that.

Everyone did.

It wasn’t said out loud, but it didn’t have to be.

Shizune was the one keeping everything running.

And Shishou had been… uneasy lately.

Sakura wasn’t sure why.

Not yet.

She didn’t know the details. Not exactly. But Sakura could tell something was wrong—had known for a while now, even if no one said it outright.

It was in the way Shishou had been swallowed by meetings. Clans. Council. Civilian representatives. Guild heads. One after another, hour after hour, like some slow-brewing disaster was trying to negotiate its way through the Hokage Tower.

Sakura didn’t need a full briefing to feel it. She felt it in her own house. Her parents smiled too easily these days, forced brightness in their voices when they changed the subject, like they were trying to keep the walls from listening. But their eyes were tired. The shelves were a little barer than they used to be, and their portions had quietly shrunk—not so much that it was alarming, just enough to make her notice.

They didn’t think she would. That was the mistake.

She noticed everything now.

Tsunade had made sure of that. She’d taught her to look beneath what was obvious, to track patterns, to pay attention. The thing Kakashi always said—look underneath the underneath—Tsunade had turned that into a method, made it real.

So Sakura did.

She caught up with Shizune just as she turned down a narrow corridor, mind still half-lost in her own spiraling thoughts. The meetings, the tension, the way Shishou had been brushing her off more lately.

Shizune had to know what was going on. She’d been by Tsunade’s side longer than anyone. She was a proper kunoichi, full medic-nin, and walked through the hospital like she belonged to it.

Sakura followed behind her with quick steps, only half aware of her surroundings until she nearly crashed into a medicine table. 

“Sorry,” she muttered, folding in on herself as the medic working the station shot her a look like she’d just committed a war crime instead of almost knocking over a tray.

But she kept moving—right until someone barked from the end of the corridor that running wasn’t allowed unless someone was actively dying.

She slowed her pace, eyes down, heat crawling up the back of her neck.

But she didn’t stop.

Tsunade had been sending her away before meetings for a while now, long before the council started showing up in full. It wasn’t subtle. Sometimes she did it with a half-hearted excuse. Other times she didn’t bother explaining at all, just waved her off and muttered something under her breath. 

Some things were clearly never meant to be heard. 

Others felt like she wanted Sakura to catch them.

One line still echoed in her mind from the last time: “Those old farts need to get off my back and stay in their beds where they belong. I swear if I have to sit through one more hour of their whining about paperwork they didn’t read, I’m going to throw something.”

She’d looked at Sakura after that, half-expectant.

And Sakura, who had learned to take her chances when she could, had asked, “What were they upset about this time?”

Tsunade didn’t even blink.

“Way above your clearance, brat. Go review your trauma response charts. I’m testing you on them tomorrow.”

As Sakura had turned to go, Tsunade added, just like always, “And I don’t want to see a single mistake. Got it?”

It was always like that. Without fail.

The clan meetings were off-limits. Tsunade didn’t even let her hover near the tower when those were scheduled. But the guild meetings—those she could sometimes sit in on, as long as she kept her mouth shut.

She did. Every time.

She didn’t understand everything, but she understood enough. The numbers made more sense now, the structure, the way the talk always circled back to reconstruction and recovery. Konoha was rebuilding.

Slowly. 

But it was happening.

And when she thought about her parents—their tired smiles, the worn look around their eyes—that fact settled in her chest like something warm. Not quite comfort. But something close.

Still, the fact that Sakura was only allowed to sit in on the civilian meetings… it shouldn’t have mattered. But it did. That sharp, sour twist of inadequacy stirred in her chest no matter how hard she tried to smother it.

She was a genin. Not cleared for clan affairs or council secrets or anything stamped with the Hokage’s seal and shoved into locked drawers.

She knew her rank. She knew her place.

But—

You’re just a civ-born ninja. A girl playing pretend. Inner’s voice slithered in soft, smug—threading through her thoughts like acid, burning holes she’d tried to patch up. Shishou knows. That’s why she won’t let you near real shinobi business.

Sakura gritted her teeth.

That’s not true! she bit back, fingers curling tight. Shishou said I’m just a genin. That I should focus on passing the next exams instead of sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong.

That’s what she told you, Inner whispered, almost fond. But is that what she really meant?

It made something sharp curl in her chest before she could stop it—before she could stop wondering if—

“Sakura?”

Shizune’s voice cut through the spiral, and Sakura blinked, realizing too late that she’d stopped moving. Just standing there, right in the middle of the hall like a lost kid.

Shizune was staring at her, brows drawn, clipboard tucked against her chest. Tonton was at her feet, tiny eyes just as concerned.

Stupid.

Sakura shouldn’t have drifted like that—shouldn’t have let her head spin out when she was here to learn, when every second counted, when she was supposed to be proving herself. She was wasting it. Wasting all of it because of some stupid, creeping voice in her own damn skull—

“I’m fine!” she said too fast, slapping on a smile and trying to make it stick. Her mind scrambled for something to say, anything to make this not weird. “I was just… wondering. If I’ll actually get to help soon.”

Not a lie. She had wondered.

But she also knew Shishou didn’t trust her unsupervised around patients yet—definitely not with chakra, and definitely not with anyone bleeding.

Not until she was ready.

Not until she proved it.

“Ah,” Shizune sighed, still watching her closely. The kind of close that came from years of reading battlefield tension—of unthreading truths from posture, from silence. 

Sakura wondered what she saw now.

“By the rate you’re progressing, soon enough,” Shizune said, voice gentler. “Tsunade-sama’s just being careful. Making sure you’re steady. Comfortable.”

Then she smiled—soft, almost conspiratorial—and brought a hand up to her mouth like she was sharing something private. “But she’s proud of you, you know. She might not say it, but I can tell.”

“Really?” The word was out before Sakura could stop it, too raw and too hopeful.

“Really.”

Shizune stepped forward, placed a hand lightly on her shoulder, and gave it the kind of squeeze that anchored you to yourself. “You’re very talented, Sakura. Better than I was when Tsunade-sama first took me in. Like a fish in water.” She smiled, then lifted a finger as if to say but hold your horses. “That said, the things I think you can inherit—things I couldn’t—they take time. And you’re learning. You’re doing it right.”

Sakura nodded. Just a tilt of her chin.

Shizune’s smile softened.

“You’re going to be a great medic-nin one day,” she said. “Don’t forget that.”

Sakura smiled, warmth blooming slow in her chest, spreading through her limbs like something had finally settled there.

She wasn’t sure she fully believed Shizune’s words. But she liked them. Liked the belief. The trust.

Her team didn’t give her that—not really. But maybe she didn’t need them to. Maybe she had others who saw her. Who believed she could be more than just the leftover on a team of prodigies.

Even if she still struggled to believe in herself.

She kept walking, falling back into step beside Shizune, who moved through the halls with practiced ease. Room to room, clipboard tucked under her arm, tone calm and sure as she checked over patients—nothing too severe today. The more stable cases, the quieter rooms. That’s why Sakura could be here. So she wouldn’t get in the way.

And she didn’t. She watched. Shadowed. Wide-eyed, scribbling notes at every turn, her hands always ready, always eager, her mind cataloguing each movement, each word, each shift in chakra or expression. Memorizing how a medic was supposed to move.

She hadn’t treated anyone yet. But it was getting easier to imagine herself doing it. The motions were making sense now—the flow of the room, the unspoken rules, the way Shizune’s chakra always steadied before her hands even moved. Sakura was starting to understand not just the what, but the how.

Maybe that was why Shishou sent her here, even if she wasn’t allowed to heal yet.

To be in the space is to absorb its rhythm.

Her grandmother’s voice rose faintly in her mind, rough and dry like aged parchment, but firm in the way all the women in her family had been.

Yes. Sakura was getting used to this.

She followed Shizune out, still scribbling notes as she walked, listening carefully as the older woman explained how to handle stubborn patients without losing your temper—and how to stand your ground when dealing with shinobi, especially the kind who thought their rank excused bad behavior.

Then Sakura heard a voice.

“Otou-san, I’m fine.”

It was Ino.

She stopped walking without meaning to. Her head turned before she could stop it too, and there it was—that old instinct. Something in her would always look back at Ino. Would always search for her. That child-self still curled somewhere inside her chest, still reaching for the first friend who had ever chosen her. Before a boy who never looked back tore it all apart.

Sisterhood, her grandmother’s voice whispered—half memory, half faith. The kind of bond that passes through generations. The kind that doesn’t need words to recognize pain.

But they weren’t friends anymore.

Sakura stood frozen in place, mouth shut, shoulders locked, the ache blooming in her chest too familiar to be new. She fought the urge to walk over, to pretend nothing had changed, to smile at Ino’s father—Inoichi-sama, who had once smiled at her like she belonged even if her name came with no clan. He had always treated her kindly.

Shizune had stopped too, taking a step back with a quiet, concerned, “Sakura?”

But before she could respond, Ino looked up.

Their eyes met.

“Sakura?”

Sakura startled despite herself, muscles tensing before she could stop them—then just as quickly, she forced her shoulders down. 

Relax. 

Breathe.

Ino was staring at her. So were Shizune and Inoichi-sama.

“Ino,” she managed, keeping her voice even. Then she bowed—low enough to show proper deference, the exact angle expected when addressing a clan head. “Inoichi-sama.”

“Little Sakura,” he said warmly, stepping closer with the easy familiarity of someone who remembered her when she was small. He returned the bow—shallower than hers, but still present—before lifting his gaze to Shizune. “Shizune-san.”

“Inoichi-sama,” Shizune replied with a polite smile, crisp and professional. “I was doing my rounds with Sakura—getting her familiar with the environment before we noticed you.”

“I see,” Inoichi said, then turned back to Sakura. His hand landed gently on Ino’s shoulder as he studied her—his gaze still kind, still that same soft voice—but his eyes, pale and pupil-less, felt different now.

Sharper.

Not unkind. But assessing.

Like he was weighing something.

“I’m sure Sakura-chan will make a fine medic-nin,” he said, voice warm, words deliberate. “Chosen by Tsunade-sama herself, no less—over all other possible candidates.”

Beside him, Ino looked at her. Just a glance. Quick. Neutral.

But it meant something. Sakura could feel it. She just didn’t know what.

“Indeed,” Shizune said, her tone cooling ever so slightly, the edges suddenly less soft. “Tsunade-sama has high expectations. Choosing Sakura wasn’t a whim—it was a decision. One based on merit.”

Inoichi didn’t say anything for a moment. His gaze held Shizune’s—calm, unreadable—and for a breath, it felt like something passed between them that Sakura couldn’t hear.

Then he smiled again. Soft. Civil. Polished like a well-used blade. He turned slightly, angling his body away as his hand pressed lightly against Ino’s shoulder.

“Well then,” he said, voice pleasant, “I won’t keep you. Ino has her check-up scheduled soon.” His eyes slid back to Sakura, and the smile didn’t quite reach them. “It was good to see you again, Sakura-chan. Your performance during the Chūnin Exams was… interesting. I’m sure you’ll continue to grow under Tsunade-sama’s guidance.”

And then he left—Ino silent beside him, her posture impeccable as ever. They disappeared down the hall, like silent phantoms.

Shizune turned back toward her with a too-careful smile and gestured down the opposite corridor.

“Let’s keep going,” she said, voice light. Too light. “There are still a few patients we need to follow up with today. We’ll stick to the civilian wing for now—you’ve had your fill of acute trauma cases this afternoon.”

She turned, steps practiced, clipboard steady against her hip.

“Most of what we’ll see on this side are chronic pathologies—hypertension, diabetes, autoimmune flares, post-op recovery. Nothing like battlefield injuries, but that doesn’t mean they’re simple. Some of these patients have been coming here for years, and managing long-term care comes with its own complications. Especially with the elderly… or the ones who think they know better than the staff.”

Her voice kept going, calm and informative, but Sakura’s thoughts had drifted far behind.

She was still hearing his voice.

Your performance was interesting.

Not good. Not impressive. Not promising.

Just interesting.

Sakura’s jaw clenched, heat rising behind her eyes before she could push it down.

He hadn’t said anything cruel. Not really. But the implication slid under her skin like a blade.

Not a clan heir. Not a prodigy. Not born to anyone with status or lineage.

Just a civilian.

A civilian pretending to be a kunoichi.

The thought echoed louder than it should’ve.

Just a stupid civilian.

Undeserving.

~*~

It echoed long after.

After she left the hospital. After she got home and slipped into her seat at the dinner table like nothing was wrong. She smiled. Laughed. Said the right things at the right times. Played the part of a girl who wasn’t thinking too much, who wasn’t weighing every word and watching every twitch of her parents’ faces.

Trying not to worry them. Trying not to add to what they were already carrying.

Dinner had been a little smaller tonight. Just a bit less than yesterday. Enough to notice.

But when she closed her bedroom door behind her, the smile dropped.

Sakura’s fists clenched at her sides, her jaw tightening, and she bit down on her lip so hard the taste of blood hit her tongue—sharp, metallic, grounding.

Interesting, Inoichi-sama had said.

Other candidates, he’d mentioned. As if she’d been a placeholder. A last pick. As if her position—Tsunade-sama’s apprentice—had been charity.

Not earned. Not deserved.

She could still see it—his hand on Ino’s shoulder. The neutral look on her old friend’s face. His eyes on her, unreadable, sharp in a way that didn’t feel like praise.

A clan heir. A Yamanaka.

Sakura breathed in sharply through her nose. Her jaw ached. Her fists trembled.

She’d earned it. Tsunade-sama had chosen her. Her. Not someone with a legacy behind their name, not someone with a crest on their back. Her.

But—

You’re just a civilian-born girl playing dress-up, Inner whispered, low and inevitable. Like a broken record. They see you and they wonder what the Hokage saw. Why she chose you. What you could possibly offer.

“Shut up,” Sakura snarled, peeling herself off the door like the words physically burned her, scowling at nothing—and everything.

Why? Inner’s voice slithered back, too smooth. You know it’s true. A little civ-born girl, dreaming too loud. Pretending it fits.

“I said shut up,” Sakura hissed again, louder this time. Her voice cracked through the stillness of her room, soft but too loud not to echo. The only response was the rustle of wind brushing past the window, the quiet hiss of leaves outside.

“I’m trying,” she muttered, pacing now, hands clenched tight as if that alone could hold her together. “Shishou chose me. That means something. It has to mean something.”

Does it? Inner’s voice cut again, sweet like poison. You can’t even treat patients. Shizune didn’t trust you near the real cases—sent you to the civilian wing like you’d break at the first open wound.

Sakura flinched.

Too soft, Inner cooed, more venom beneath the silk now. Too sentimental. Too civilian. That’s what they all think. That’s why they never let you in.

“She said I was talented,” Sakura whispered, voice hoarse. “She said I could inherit Shishou’s techniques. That Shizune couldn’t.”

A kindness, Inner replied, bored now. A little sugar to hide the medicine. You’re not special. You’re convenient.

Sakura froze mid-step, her eyes flicking to her desk—the one drowning in ink-streaked pages, chakra theory, cross-species diagrams, nerve schematics, everything she had poured into her project with trembling hands and stubborn hope.

She stepped toward it.

“Not yet,” she whispered.

A beat of silence followed.

Then: Finally willing to prove it, coward? Inner laughed, echoing inside her skull like thunder across stone.

But it didn’t matter now. Sakura’s hands were already reaching for her notebook, fingers trembling but certain.

She flipped to the seal diagrams she’d drawn—months of work, of testing and refinement and fear—and whispered, “I will.”

And this time, Inner said nothing.

Chapter Text

Sakura woke up like it was any other day.

She rose from bed slowly, moved through her morning routine with practiced ease: the quiet ritual, a single bow toward the makeshift altar on the shelf, the nod to the paper jellyfish that had been hers for years now. But today, she looked at it like it might be the last time—like she was still just a child, and already losing something.

She brushed her teeth with care. In the bath, she washed her hair like it mattered—shielding her eyes from the sting, working the conditioner through in slow, practiced strokes. A small ritual, like it might be the last time.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, like she was searching for the sun. Or rain. Anything real. But only the shower answered—artificial. It would have to do. If she stayed still long enough, it almost felt like rain. Like the kind that knew how to grieve.

(She tried not to want the sky to mourn her.)

Her hands slicked back her hair and stilled. Fingers curled at the nape of her neck, brushing the short strands there. Something empty settled beneath her ribs.

Sakura mourned the hair she’d cut.

She remembered—vaguely, like an old sea-story told too many times—how before Sasuke, before the team, there was a rumor. That real shinobi never cut their hair. That the long strands meant they were too skilled to be touched. That it was proof.

Now, her hair was short.

She sighed, drawing in the steam like it might fill something hollow. Like it might reach sea-starved lungs aching for a tide she'd never touched, but still somehow missed.

The blood sings, her grandmother's voice echoed—not spoken, but threaded through the air like incense, smoke curling in her ears.

Sakura opened her eyes. The water didn’t sting. She looked into it anyway. And wondered what kind of thing she was, to feel so wrong on land.

She turned off the shower. No answers came.

Later, wrapped in a towel, she stood before the mirror and stared. Like she didn’t quite recognize the person there. Like a ghost had forgotten its own face. Her fingers lifted, tentatively brushed through the pink strands like they weren’t hers.

So much time had passed, and still it didn’t feel like her.

But she didn’t regret it. Not really.

It had been a risk—and it worked. It saved them. When no one else was around, when she was the only one left standing, when her hands were the only shield they had—she saved them.

A risk, she thought again, leaning closer to the mirror as if it might change her reflection. As if it might change what she was about to do.

A risk that paid off, she repeated to herself, a quiet mantra.

She took a deep breath. Reached for her hairbrush. And began to run it slowly through her hair, motion by motion, like a ritual. Like something she was clinging to with both hands—desperate, blind, maybe afraid—so tightly she could almost feel blood, even though her palms were clean.

She kept brushing anyway.

Brushing this too-short hair, born of the risk she’d taken and survived. From before she understood she had to become something else—but after she had already been left behind, and hadn’t yet realized it.

Back when she still stood in limbo. Back when she was just a girl on a team of giants, too blind to see that if she stayed the same, her fate would be to fall. Ungracefully. Forgotten. Snuffed out by her own ignorance. Or someone else’s.

There were many reasons. She knew that.

Another breath, deeper this time, but shaking.

She set the brush down and stared at it like it might stop time, like if she just held onto this moment tightly enough she could make it stretch. Just a little longer. Just a little more time to stay here, untouched.

Already hesitating? Inner chimed in, voice soft with that particular mockery she always used when she wanted to make Sakura feel small. Weren’t you the one talking big yesterday? Said you’d do it. Said everything would change.

A beat. Too sharp. Too poisoned.

Why did I even think this time would be different? she whispered, quiet, almost gentle.

But the words coiled behind her ribs like a nest of snakes.

Self-hatred threaded through her, quiet but insidious, and Sakura kept staring at her reflection—at the girl with too-short hair and too-green eyes, with pink crowning her like shrine blossoms left out of season.

We are blessed, Sakura-chan, her father’s voice came, bright and laughing, a memory as fragile as birdsong. We are light-bringers. Like the sakura trees in bloom. A rare kind of treat. He’d winked then. Like Konohanasakuya-hime. The mountain goddess. A kami of beauty and fire.

She had loved that once. Had picked up her own hair in her fingers and held it to the light, almost cross-eyed, thinking, So this is the goddess’s color.

Now she knew better.

It was just a color that made her easier to see.

Ninjas weren’t meant to be bright.

Not the weak ones.

Sakura didn’t want to be weak.

“I’ll do it today,” she whispered—to Inner, to her reflection, to the ghosts that might still cling to the corners of the house. To anyone listening.

She said it again, quieter but sharper this time, gripping the sink until her knuckles turned white. “I’ll do it today. Today.”

Inside her mind, Inner only laughed—high, mocking. And maybe, if Sakura let herself believe it, just a little bit proud.

She didn’t linger.

She flicked her gaze away from the mirror before the girl staring back could speak. Before she could fall back into the old rhythm—

Postponing.

Not this time.

Her feet moved like they had a will of their own. Ridiculous, she thought. I haven’t even done anything yet. Even with a kekkei genkai, it wasn’t like her body could move without her.

She stepped into her room. The same as always: futon, desk, the mahogany wood still smudged with old ink stains. Too many scrolls, too many books. Her mother always huffed when she saw the mess—eyes catching on the stains with half a frown, half a smile, muttering “little scholar” like it was a blessing disguised as a complaint.

The light through the window told her it was late morning. The sun was already high.

A clear day, she thought. As if the heavens had blessed it. Then, frowning: My parents are probably waiting.

Which meant she’d be late. And Shishou would yell.

She stood at the window for a moment longer than necessary, then turned to the clothes already laid out. Her fingers brushed the fabric, rough from too many washes, too many falls in training. She didn’t let herself feel too long. She dressed slowly.

Red shirt—sleeveless, snug against a frame more defined than it used to be. Her arms, lean and hardened, bore the memory of every punishment Shishou had handed her. Black leggings. Shinobi sandals.

Her hand hovered over the forehead protector.

She usually wore it like a tiara—had worn it that way for years. Then came the Chūnin Exams and she had tied it across her forehead, standing across from Ino, who mirrored her with the same glint in her eye.

Real ninja, they’d said.

Voices of childhood, echoing through years of dust.

But this time...

Sakura gritted her teeth, whipped her hand forward, and grabbed the forehead protector—already tying it before her mind could start playing tricks on her.

Before she could remember that once, she and Ino had a bond.

Sisterhood, her grandmother’s voice echoed, soft and close as breath in her ear.

Sakura ignored it. Her hands dropped to her sides, her hitai-ate now secure across her forehead, glinting in the morning light.

She breathed in—and didn’t give herself time to hesitate. She grabbed her pouch and marched out of her room, passing through narrow corridors lined with old seal-threaded tapestries. Her grandmother’s hand was heavy in their weave. Some were her mother’s. Others came from family she never got to meet.

Finally, she descended the stairs and stepped into the kitchen, the scent of breakfast already thick in the air.

Her parents were seated at the table, the food laid out in full—but untouched.

“Sakura, you woke a little late today,” her mom said without looking at her, already picking up a plate and starting to serve herself. “We waited for you. Sit down, but don’t eat too fast.”

Across the table, her dad mirrored the motion, hands diving into the food with the eagerness of a man told to wait by a terrifying woman he loved more than the sky loved the stars.

“Yes, Sakura-chan, eat up!” he grinned, piling food onto his plate. “No skipping meals, no weird diet things—you’ve got to eat to keep up your strength!”

He puffed up theatrically, striking a pose that made Sakura snort behind her hand.

“Just like your otou-san! Look at this—”

“Kizashi,” Mebuki’s voice cut clean through the room—like a hammer strike, sharp and unyielding. Beneath the calm tone was a very clear stop messing around, you moron, you’re embarrassing yourself.

Her father froze. Just for a moment.

Then he folded, poking at his food with exaggerated sheepishness.

“Yes, dear…”

Sakura smiled—just a little. The scene tugged warmth out from under the numbness that had blanketed her since waking. She sat down quietly and began to fill her plate, piece by piece, until it was nearly overflowing.

The food was the same as always: warm rice, miso thick with root vegetables, tamagoyaki with a bit too much sugar, and greens dressed in oil that clung more than it crisped.

“Someone’s hungry today,” her father joked through a mouthful, eyes sparkling.

“I’m already going to get chewed out for being late,” Sakura replied with a shrug, popping a bite into her mouth. “Might as well eat while I can.”

And then—flavor bloomed behind her eyes. Warm. Sweet. Sea-laced beneath the flavor of land-grown substitutions.

Home.

Somehow, it was the best thing she’d ever tasted, even though she ate this every morning.

She closed her eyes. Just for a second. Quick—too quick for her parents to notice—but enough to hold the tears in place. Her eyes stayed dry.

She kept eating. Kept listening as her parents bickered, laughed, moved through familiar motions like they’d done it all a hundred times before. And she laughed with them. Low, real. The warmth in her chest built slow, heavy. Like something she’d always had, but only now realized how much she was trying to hold onto. As if tomorrow, it wouldn’t be here. As if tomorrow, she wouldn’t be.

So she stayed. Just a little longer. Threw a few jokes, let her father puff up and act ridiculous. Her mother rolled her eyes, fingers laced under her chin as she muttered, “Both of you are brats—don’t smile, Kizashi, that wasn’t a compliment,” with the kind of tone that meant she didn’t really mind.

But she couldn’t stay. Not forever. Not even a few more minutes. Shishou didn’t tolerate lateness. Said it meant lives lost. Blood spilled because you hadn’t moved fast enough. The words echoed now, sharper than they’d been when she first heard them. Louder, too.

“I have to go,” Sakura said at last, the silence around the table still warm—still family-warm—even if it didn’t quite reach her the same way, not today. The plates were empty. Their bellies full. Smiles still on their faces. Everything looked the same.

And maybe that was the hardest part.

She stood. Reached for the dishes—maybe just to feel useful. Maybe just to stay a little longer.

But her mother was faster. In a blink, the plates were stacked in her arms, balanced neatly.

Sakura blinked. Frowned, just a little.

…Mom’s a civilian.

“Don’t worry about it, flower,” Mebuki said, voice gentle but too final to argue with. Her eyes flicked to the clock with the sharpness of a drawn seal. “It’s already late. I won’t be the reason you show up behind schedule.” She turned toward the kitchen with a sigh, scowl settling into place like it had always been there. “And I’ve got work, too.”

“And me!” her father added, hand raised like he was waiting to be called on.

“And Kizashi,” her mother echoed, flat.

She didn’t look back.

“Go on,” she added, already disappearing into the kitchen. “You worked too hard for that apprenticeship. I won’t see it ruined.”

No, Sakura thought, as the weight settled again beneath her ribs. If it gets ruined, it won’t be because I was late.

It’ll be because of something else. Something stupid. Something I’m too stubborn, too desperate, and maybe a little too proud to walk away from now.

Still, all she said was, “Okay then. I’m going!”

Their voices followed her to the door. Familiar. Steady. The same as always.

Then she stepped outside. The morning light brushed her face. The wind moved through her hair.

Her smile faded.

But she kept walking.

She was already late.

~*~

“You’re thirty minutes late.”

Tsunade didn’t yell.

And somehow, that made it worse. Sakura thought she’d prefer the yelling—at least then it burned fast. This kind of quiet disappointment settled cold, slow, like ice in the lungs. It stayed.

“Thirty minutes,” Tsunade repeated, tone flat. “You know what you can do in thirty minutes, Haruno? Suture a bleeder. Stabilize a collapsed lung. Restart a heart if you move fast enough. Or you can stand around like an idiot, and watch a kid code because you weren’t where you were supposed to be.”

There was a pause. Not dramatic—just tired. Sakura kept her eyes down, heat crawling up her face. Her shoulders curled in. She hated this feeling. Hated that Shishou was right.

Tsunade continued, voice lower, but no softer.

“You are not like them. And this will not happen again.”

She tapped her fingers beneath her chin, sharp and thoughtful, the way she always did before deciding if something was worth yelling over or just breaking a table about. Her gaze locked onto Sakura—hazel, bright, and sun-shot, but steady as stone.

“Do you understand?”

Silence.

Too long.

“I said,” she growled, that edge cutting in now, “do you understand, brat?”

Her vein was already throbbing. Sakura could see it. And weirdly, that almost made her feel better.

Usual Shishou. That’s good. That meant she hadn’t completely fucked it up.

Not yet, at least, she thought, sobering fast.

She straightened just enough, already bracing for impact. Tsunade looked like she was two seconds away from going into full cardiac arrest, flaring her chakra out of spite, or launching Sakura straight out the window just to see if her apprentice could land on her feet like a cat. Or maybe all three. Hard to tell with her.

Still. She wasn’t going to test it.

“…Yes, Shishou. I understand,” she said, voice thin—barely above a whisper. Like the stem of a flower too soft to hold its own weight. Like the ones she used to watch with Ino at the back of the Yamanaka shop—bent, folding in, but not quite done living.

She didn’t let herself think about that.

Tsunade raised one brow. Didn’t move. Just stared at her like a surgeon assessing a break—clean, not dangerous, but still something that needed setting.

“That better not be a lie,” she said, voice rough. She exhaled through her nose, ran a hand through her hair, half to push it back, half to keep from breaking something. She turned like she was done—then stopped.

One eye still on her.

“You’ve got potential,” she said. “But if you start screwing around like this again—kami help you, Haruno—I’ll have you scrubbing blood off the tiles with the interns until your chakra burns out. And I’ll make sure they like you just enough not to help.”

She didn’t raise her voice.

She didn’t need to.

"I won’t disappoint you, Shishou," Sakura said, her voice steadier than she felt.

Tsunade stared at her a beat too long. Her gaze settled sharp, dissecting—not just the kind she used in the hospital, peeling back tissue to find a cause of death, but the kind Sakura knew she’d once used on enemy corpses, too. Back when it was war. Back when the work didn’t stop just because decency had.

To find what they didn’t want found, Tsunade had murmured once, eyes fixed somewhere past the horizon, seeing things that weren’t there anymore.

Sakura stilled her hands. Kept them by her sides. Locked her gaze to Tsunade’s. Steady.

Tsunade hummed. One eye still open, still on her, before she let out a breath and slammed both palms onto the desk with a loud crack and stood.

“Well, brat,” she said, tone too dry to be kind but not quite sharp either. “Looks like you’re lucky I’m feeling generous today. You won’t be getting intimately acquainted with how dirty a hospital floor can get. Or how clean it has to be.”

She jabbed a finger in Sakura’s direction. “Consider yourself lucky.”

Sakura startled—just a little—then caught herself in time and bowed, fast. “Yes, Shishou. Thank you, Shishou.”

Tsunade sighed. “Kami,” she muttered, rubbing her temples. Her eyes stayed on Sakura, narrowed slightly—not angry, just… watching. Like something wasn’t quite aligned. Like she’d noticed a loose thread in an otherwise perfect tapestry.

“You’re jumpy today. What’s the matter? Another one of your little overnight cramming sessions?”

“Ah—no.” Sakura shifted her weight, nearly fidgeted, but froze at the look Tsunade shot her. Good kunoichi don’t fidget, she’d said once. It’s too loud a tell. She’d also said she was raising Sakura to be a good one.

“I’m just... not feeling that well today.”

Tsunade narrowed her eyes. Scanned her. Said nothing for a moment.

“You look fine.” Another pause, longer. “Was it yesterday’s training? Don’t tell me you’re still tired from running from a few rocks.”

Yeah, Shishou, Sakura thought. Except this time I was carrying half my weight in iron and painted like a target.

But that wasn’t what made her like this.

The thought sobered her.

“Maybe a little,” she said. “I’m still sore.”

Tsunade snorted. “You’ll live. And you’ll thank me when it keeps your ribcage intact after someone tries to cave it in.”

She turned, grabbed a scroll from the pile behind her, and tossed it at Sakura’s head.

“Catch. Now tell me the fundamental physiology of the cardiac system—the conduction pathway, key anatomical structures, and how chakra flow interacts with myocardial contraction and circulation. If you get it wrong, I might just change my mind and hand you a mop after all.”

“Shishou—”

“Go on, brat. We don’t have all day. You’ve still got training later, and I’m not letting you off the hook until we deal with those noodle arms of yours.”

So Sakura did. For the rest of the afternoon, she rattled off cardiovascular theory and chakra flow mechanics, until her brain throbbed and her throat ached. Then, when her voice was nearly gone, Tsunade made good on her promise and dragged her to the training grounds—this time not just to break her down, but to teach her how to hit back.

She learned to concentrate chakra into her limbs. The start of Tsunade’s superhuman strength, in theory. In practice, it meant shaking muscles, aching skin, and raw will.

But the whole time, Tsunade watched her. Not like a sensei proud of progress. Not like a medic checking form.

Like a shinobi reading something buried under the surface.

And Sakura… kept going. Kept pretending there was nothing wrong. That she wasn’t planning anything. That she wasn’t preparing to die that night.

Then night came anyway.

~*~

Sakura shivered. The window of her room was wide open, and the wind came in like an uninvited guest—one that brought another along with it: cold.

She ignored it as best she could. Ignored Inner’s chuckles. Ignored the paper jellyfish swaying in the corner like it knew something she didn’t. And maybe she was losing it, because it almost felt like it was trying to warn her.

Don’t do this, child, it seemed to say. You’ll die.

You’ll die, echoed in her mind, all the way down her limbs. Her hands shook. She cursed and almost bit her tongue in frustration—but Sakura was nothing if not stubborn, so she kept going. Forced her fingers to still. Forced the fog in her mind to clear as she picked up the brush again.

The wind curled around her bare skin like it wanted her to fail. Goosebumps flared wherever it touched. But Sakura gritted her teeth. Kept her jaw clenched.

I will do this, she chanted, like it could make her brave. Like this was a guarantee, and not a gamble with her own life.

She ignored the weight in her gut. Ignored Inner’s voice, whispering like a blade at the back of her neck: You’re so stupid, aren’t you? Wouldn’t it be smarter to test on something else? That rat you shrieked at like a baby? Or a stray cat off the street? Anything but yourself. But no. You just have to prove you’re not a waste of breath. That you’re something.

You’re not Naruto, Sakura Haruno. You’re not that lucky.

Sakura inhaled deep and slow, steadying herself the way she was taught. Breathe. Center. Focus. Her grandmother’s voice in her head now, firm and grounding. Her people’s lessons stitched into her breath like thread into cloth.

She dipped the brush to her skin. It tickled. It always did. Still, she kept going.

And then—something shifted.

It felt like stepping outside herself. Like she was watching from somewhere just above, as her hand moved on its own, drawing seal after seal across her own body like a painter working on canvas. Each stroke careful. Measured.

And then the flow took her. The way it always did. Time folded. Slipped past. The world narrowed. The wind, the cold, the pain—they didn’t disappear, but they moved aside.

Her hands knew what to do.

This one is for steadiness.

This one is for the nerves.

This one is for the muscles.

She listed them without knowing she’d said it. Her body moved downward. The brush kept drawing. Still sealing.

By the end of it, she was a human painting—ink and desperation drawn over skin. And only then did she come back to herself, blinking, breath shaky, staring down at her hands.

It’s... time, she thought, flexing her fingers. But first—the check. Every line had to be right. No cracks. No smudges. This wasn’t the kind of thing you survived with mistakes.

(It still might fail, but she didn’t think about that. She couldn’t.)

So she checked. Again. Careful. Eyes sharp despite the trembling in her legs.

They’re perfect, she thought, or close enough. Steady. Not crooked.

There were modifications, too—improvements. Better than her original drafts. But maybe that was good. Mom always said a sealer’s best work comes in the flow. When you stop thinking and start listening.

Maybe that was all this was.

Or maybe it was the last mistake she’d ever make.

Sakura breathed in.

Then she activated it. Slow at first—drawing chakra from the recesses of her body, coaxing it forward like something half-wild and skittish. It moved hesitantly, weaving itself into the network of seals carved onto her skin. Seals made not just of ink, but of sleepless nights and clenched teeth. Of desperation. Of will.

They lit one by one, the patterns glowing faint and then bright, crawling down her limbs in spreading waves. Her body glowed like a paper lantern, like those old lights they used to send into the sky in the festivals of her childhood.

(Grandma had once looked at those lights with old, sad eyes and whispered that back then, in Uzushio, the offerings went to the sea. Sakura had been too young to understand the weight behind that. But now she did.)

(You won’t know that joy, her grandmother had said, and Sakura hadn’t understood. Now she mourned a thing she never got to live.)

The pain didn’t come suddenly.

It came like something waking up.

First, a soft throb under her skin. Familiar. Tolerable. The kind of pain she’d known from chakra overuse, from exhaustion, from training until she bled.

But then it kept going. It didn’t fade—it built. Layered. Swelled.

A wrongness began to bloom under her skin.

Her nerves began to twitch.

Then lock.

Then burn.

Her knees buckled. Her breath caught.

It kept going.

Something shifted.

She felt it—not like an idea, not like a thought, but like a snap behind her ribs, like something in her spine had turned too sharply and kept turning. Her chakra surged too fast, too much, all at once, and everything inside her flinched.

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

Her nerves sparked like live wires under her skin. Her arms seized up, muscles pulling tight without command. Her fingers twitched. Her chest convulsed. Something flared in her back—burning, spiraling—and her heart kicked against her ribs in panicked rhythm.

This wasn’t reaction.

This wasn’t chakra moving through her.

This was her body trying to survive.

Her nerves clenched like they were rerouting mid-failure, like something in her brain had gone sideways and the rest of her was scrambling to catch up. She felt everything at once—her limbs locking, her blood rushing hot, her lungs too slow, her veins too full, her bones wrong.

She couldn’t process it. There was no room. No space.

Just sensation.

Her chakra wasn’t hers anymore. It was clawing at her from the inside out, trying to fix things that didn’t want to be fixed. Overloading. Flaring. Biting back.

It hurt.

Kami, it hurt.

Her skin burned. Not surface pain—deep, cellular. Like her bones were twisting. Like her nerves were melting down and fusing back together in the wrong order. Like her body was rearranging itself on instinct alone.

There was no strategy now. No seals. No thought. Just survival.

Her hands clawed at the floor. Her spine arched back. She was sobbing without sound, and even if she was screaming she couldn’t hear it. Her mouth tasted like metal. Her heart was a mess of beats.

What’s happening what’s happening what’s happening—

She couldn’t feel her hands. Couldn’t feel her feet. Her chakra thrashed harder, trying to create new channels, trying to save her by remaking her, and it didn’t care what it ruined in the process.

And then something tore open inside her.

No sound.

Only pressure.

Her body jerked. Her seals burned so bright she couldn’t see. Her skin felt like it was stretching too far, like she was glowing from the inside and cracking at the edges.

Her brain was noise. Her body was gone. But somewhere in that collapse, she knew—she knew—that something had changed.

Something she wouldn’t get back.

Her limbs stopped obeying.

Her chakra didn’t.

And as the dark closed in—her vision flooded, her head spinning—she caught one last flicker of the paper jellyfish.

Still swaying in the breeze.

Watching.

What did you do, child?

~*~

Sakura woke with a gasp.

Her body jerked upright before she meant it to, like someone had pulled a thread tight in her chest and let it go. Her head throbbed. Not just pain—noise. Pressure behind her eyes, deep in her skull, like something had been carved out and filled with lightning.

Instinct took over. Her hand rose, green chakra already flickering in her palm, rising without command. She brought it to her temple, trying to trace the ache—diagnose the damage, stabilize the spiral.

A hand came down, fast.

She moved before she knew what she was reacting to.

Too fast. Too smooth.

She blinked. Looked at her own hand like it belonged to someone else.

Tsunade was standing over her, arms crossed, face tight with something she wasn’t naming.

“Stop with your shenanigans, brat,” she said, voice low and clipped. “Don’t go pulling more stupid shit. Not after this.”

Sakura opened her mouth. Tried to speak. Her voice cracked, dry as paper. “Shi—shou—”

Tsunade didn’t answer. Just exhaled hard through her nose, turned, and walked away. She returned a moment later with a cup of water and pressed it into Sakura’s hands—gentle, but firm. No room for refusal.

Sakura blinked.

The weight of the cup landed too sharply in her palm. Her skin lit with sensation. Not pain, just too much. Like her hand was reading every detail of it: the texture of the ceramic, the uneven temperature, the faint tremble of her own grip.

She raised it to her lips and drank. Swallowed slow.

It felt mechanical. Like every muscle in her throat was suddenly under close supervision. She had to concentrate just to keep it natural.

Tsunade didn’t sit.

“…Your parents found you on the floor,” she said, voice gone clinical. “Naked. Covered in seals. In blood. In your own vomit. You were barely breathing. They thought you were dying.”

Sakura stared at the floor.

“They brought you to me.” Her tone didn’t shift, but her jaw flexed like she wanted to yell and couldn’t. “And Sakura—”

A pause.

Her voice dropped lower.

“You weren’t stable. And when I tried to treat you…” Her eyes narrowed. “Your chakra pathways resisted me. Like they were protecting something. Or rejecting contact altogether.”

She was still looking at her. Still dissecting.

“What,” Tsunade said, low and flat, “did you do to yourself?”

“I—” Sakura swallowed. Her throat felt scraped raw. “I didn’t want to be weak anymore.”

The words caught, rough and cracked, like something tearing loose on the way out.

Tsunade didn’t answer at first. Just looked at her. And something in her face shifted. She looked older than Sakura had ever seen her. Not tired. Just… carved down. Like the last Senju. Like the last sannin still standing in a world that kept asking for blood.

She turned to the window. The light outside was soft. Morning-clear. Unbothered.

“Let’s hope you haven’t destroyed yourself,” she murmured. “Or that nobody finds out what you did—the self-mutilation, the sealing, the way it reshaped your chakra system. Your entire internal network’s different now. And only me and Shizune touched you, so for now we control the information.”

She exhaled through her nose. Then looked back at Sakura, sharp again.

“If anyone else knew—” her voice dipped, serious in a way it rarely was, “—not even being the Hokage’s apprentice would save you. Not fully.”

Sakura didn’t flinch.

“Then I’ll be strong,” she said. “Strong enough that my voice will be enough.”

Tsunade stared at her. For a second longer than she should have.

“…Let’s hope you get there fast, brat.”