Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Warning(s): M, graphic violence & gore

“Anything?”

It had been roughly five years since she’d gone to Rōran with Team Yamato, the ruins having barely changed since then. Within the domed structure that encircled them expansively, an open chasm with a narrow bridge and a single platform with a raised dais and kunai embedded in the stone occupied the space. Faded mosaics festooned the walls before disappearing into the inky pitch below, two figures alone in their investigation of the vicinity. 

“The seal seems to have held. I don’t think anyone has tampered with it in years, let alone an Ōtsutsuki,” Sakura stated over her shoulder at Sasuke, who stood cloaked in black despite the arid desert heat. 

“There could still be a genjutsu to disguise it if it was. May as well check for one,” Sasuke suggested as he canvassed the surrounding area with his Rinnegan. 

“You still have faith in my genjutsu abilities, huh, Sasuke-kun?” Sakura quipped with a crooked smile, the Uchiha barely inclining his head towards her, but the faint twitch of his cheek indicated a smirk beneath the high collar of his cloak. “Ladies first, I guess…”

Advancing upon the sealed area, Sakura couldn’t help but dwell on the Uchiha at her back. A lot had happened in the three years since the war’s end, like her promotion to Jōnin over a year ago, as well as Sasuke’s brief return from his redemptive journey. Naruto and Hinata were engaged since the affair on the moon when a treacherous Ōtsutsuki had stolen away Hanabi Hyūga they’d worked together to bring an end to. Meanwhile, she and Sasuke were on better terms than they’d ever been, but matters of romance were on the back burner while she worked alongside him in their aim to prevent another Kaguya from rising again. 

Sakura balked when the rusted kunai, which had been grounded in the smooth mound of stone, began rattling noisily, rising to an ominous vibrato. Just as she backed a few steps, the kunai suddenly dislodged with a clatter and shimmery tendrils of violet streamed upon her skin, shinobi sandals skidding as she was dragged involuntarily towards the glowing orifice the displaced kunai had made. Though Sakura tried to resist, concentrating chakra in her feet for purchase, she was immobilized and couldn’t move an inch. 

“Sakura!” The kunoichi jerked to see Sasuke attempt a fūinjutsu release on the destabilized seal. However, it only seemed to antagonize the strange Ryūmyaku chakra that had ensnared Sakura’s person and drew her inexorably closer to a blinding light that engulfed the space. 

“Sasuke!” she called out, flinging her hand afar as she strained for Sasuke’s, fingertips brushing before the violet strands yanked her back and rebuffed Sasuke away in recoil from the force of the concussive blast. “Shit!”

She tumbled into the portal, swallowed by a cloud of white that carried her toward an unknown fate.

Suspended in darkness, a sharp wave of pain jolted her awake. Her lungs burned with water, and she hacked out a heavy, choking cough that left her gasping. Sakura steadied herself on rough wooden planks, her vision still blurred as she struggled for breath.

Where the hell am I?

“Wow, she has so much stuff, onēsan!” 

Sakura’s eyebrows drew together in confusion as a young girl with black hair and blue eyes and a sackcloth dress rummaged through her belongings, shrieking when Sakura suddenly lunged for her back pouch, the contents strewn around the child on the deck of an apparent ship. 

“Hey, those are mine!” Sakura shouted as she snatched the pouch and swept the contents towards her, hauling herself to her haunches with a pained grunt. 

“Auntie, auntie!” the girl shrilly cried as she darted back, and a woman clad in leather pants, a heavy beige duster, and sandals entered her view and loomed over the kunoichi. 

Sakura glowered at the woman who squatted to her level, frowning severely. She seized Sakura by her jaw and forced her to look upwards, brushing aside a few errant bangs to display the Byakugō clearly. 

“Now, where the hell did you get this?” the woman murmured darkly, though an indignant fury rose in the kunoichi. 

Sakura sprang to her feet with a shout and swung a fierce right hook at her captor. The woman’s duster flared as she slipped past the wild strikes, moving with practiced ease. They clashed in a flurry of blows—Sakura attacking with raw fury, the stranger dodging and weaving, unshaken by the lack of chakra behind Sakura’s punches.

“Mina!” she called into the throng of women crowded about them, and a redhead with choppy locks and a maroon kimono shredded to her knees feinted to palm Sakura’s back as a juinjutsu instantly activated and arrested the kunoichi to the ship’s deck. 

The scarlet sails stretched and snapped in the ocean wind, the only sound breaking the silence as Sakura hit the weathered deck. She glared at her captors, unyielding, while the woman knelt again to study her face more closely.

The redhead called Mina flanked the woman in a coat and scowled at the sight of the purple rhombus. 

“Taichō, we should’ve left her at sea!” Mina hissed, folding her arms testily. “You do know what this is, don’t you, Izayoi-taichō?”

“I know what a fucking Byakugō looks like, Mina,” the woman with slicked back black hair retorted with a snort. 

“Can someone please tell me where the hell I am?!” Sakura hollered above their quibbling, surprised looks trained on her in unison. “I don’t even know how I got here!”

“You don’t—” Izayoi sputtered, brow drawn together. “The fuck do you mean? You were bobbing like a fucking cork at sea waiting for the sharks to gnash you to bone! How wouldn’t you remember that?”

“Yeah, well, I was in a desert before, not the middle of the damn ocean!” Huffing softly, she straightened to gaze at them, softening. “Look, if you can drop me off at the nearest Fire Country port, I’d really appreciate it. I really have to get back to Konohagakure.”

“Auntie, what’s a “Konohagakure’?” the same girl queried innocently as she took Izayoi’s hand. 

“Um… you don’t know what Konohagakure is?” She glanced over the ship’s railing at the sparkling blue ocean, then tried again. “Okay… what about Uzushiogakure? Kirigakure?”

“Hang on, do you mean Uzu as in Uzumaki?” Mina broached from behind, Sakura brightening hopefully. 

“Yes! Are you an Uzumaki?” 

Mina and Izayoi exchanged baffled looks before Mina spoke again. “I’m an Uzumaki from the Eddie Country. We have an Uzushio no Sato, but I’ve never heard of this ‘Uzushiogakure’.”

What the hell is going on? Though the possibility tugged uncomfortably at her psyche, Sakura tried another tangent: “Okay, so… in the Fire Country, do you know who the current Daimyō is?” 

“That’s easy!” Izayoi crowed cockily. “It’s Asao Madoka! Do we win this little trivia game of yours, girlie?”

At Izayoi’s answer, Sakura felt her heart climb into her throat. If Asao Madoka had been a Daimyō in the years leading to Konoha’s founding, it would mean she was almost a century in the past. 

What the hell, what the hell!

“Shit!” Sakura gasped aloud, pacing anxiously. “I’m in the past, which means I’m not home! How the hell did I end up here?!”

“In the past?” Izayoi echoed with an uncomfortable chuckle. “Hit your head pretty hard, didn’t you?”

Sakura wheeled on the women with a scowl. “I didn’t hit my head! I’m perfectly lucid, thanks!”

Mina’s lips pursed thinly. “We found you unconscious at sea, at death’s door. That’s not what happens to a lucid woman.”

“Are you saying I hit my head and don’t remember anything right?!” 

Izayoi clucked her tongue and came between the two women. “What she’s saying is that you have the Byakugō, which insinuates something pretty damn big. Are you a healer, girl? Taught by a Senju, by any chance?”

Sakura brightened guilelessly. “Um, yeah! My Shisō, Tsunade Senju, taught me everything I know. …Er, why do you ask?” 

Izayoi chuckled humorlessly. “Because, girl, the healing arts are the domain of the Senju. It’s their Hiden, and no one who knows medical ninjutsu isn’t connected with them somehow. That, and you have the Byakugō that only Mito Uzumaki, the Senju leader’s wife, possesses. Which smells an awful lot like you’re closely connected to them. An apprentice under the esteemed main branch, maybe?”

Sakura gaped soundlessly, at a genuine loss for words. “I mean, my teacher is Hashirama Senju’s granddaughter, so it’s not totally untrue?”

“Granddaughter?” a new voice interjected. A woman with the same onyx eyes and black hair as Izayoi pushed her way forwards, scrutinizing Sakura dubiously. “Hashirama is only in his 30s. How on earth would he have a granddaughter old enough to teach you anything?”

“Like I said, I’m from the future. That’s how,” Sakura rebutted defensively with closed fists. 

“Nice to see you, too, Yayoi,” Izayoi addressed with a cocky grin. The sterner woman glared at Izayoi, but otherwise didn’t interrupt. 

Yayoi cut the other woman a scoff before returning her attention to Sakura. “You’re a healer taught by a Senju who was at a tier high enough to learn Lady Mito’s hijutsu. Izayoi,” the woman summarized commandingly, “by all accounts, this woman might’ve been some traitor to her teachers who attempted to escape with valuable knowledge. This has all the hallmarks of Tōka’s handiwork, and then some. Only she’s capable of obliterating a mind so completely that they believe otherwise. This girl was probably her latest victim.”

“Well, that or the Uchiha, maybe the Chinoike if we’re reaching here. But, they don’t have much quarrel with the Senju compared to the Uchiha. So, it’s either Tōka, an Uchiha, a Chinoike, or a gifted genjutsu user on par with the likes of her or Hashirama,” Mina supplied with folded arms, leaning against the foremast with a scrutinizing look leveled on Sakura. “Regardless, someone planted a false reality in your head that’s making you think you’re from the future.”

“AAAARRRRGGHHH!” Sakura roared in exasperation, clutching her skull with a frustrated shake of her head. “I’m not crazy, and my head wasn’t messed with! Why won’t anyone believe me?!”

Though the three women exchanged odd looks with lofted brows, all aboard the deck were violently jarred when the ship suddenly came to a juddering halt that quaked the vessel and shook all those aboard. From the shrouds, a blonde adroitly dropped from the top yards aloft, her azure eyes ranging between them. 

“Taichō, we’ve run aground! I don’t think it’s a reef, either!”

“Fucking hell,” Izayoi breathed aloud as she visibly became chagrined and began shouting orders. “Crew, it’s Atkor Kamuy! Furl the sails and brace for impact. Anyone who can fight, get your asses above-deck!” 

“Hey!” Sakura called to the captain, who gestured signals and shouted orders for the crewmen to take their places while a squadron rushed from below-decks. “If you can get this juinjutsu off me, I can help fight!”

“Yeah, and what do ya specialize in?” 

“Melee combat. Really destructive melee combat,” Sakura informed with pursed lips. 

Cries rang out as another tremor shook the ship. Water poured over the deck as massive, twisted limbs rose from the sea, gripping the hull and looming above, each as thick around as several men standing shoulder to shoulder.

Sakura jumped when she felt a hand at her back and the juinjutsu was deactivated, the blonde from before tearing the strip free as Sakura shuddered with the release of her chakra. Glancing behind her, she smiled mirthlessly in gratitude. “Thanks. I’m Sakura, by the way.” 

“Megumi. I specialize in Explosion Release paired with taijutsu, so it’ll be you and me out there. Let’s go!”

Both women leapt from the bowsprit as the monster’s tentacles reached the ship, the ocean itself shaking with a low roar that rattled Sakura to her core. She dove into the waves to gauge its size, holding her breath against the muffled silence.

Atkor Kamuy—a foe Tsunade had once faced—was colossal, stretching nearly four hundred feet from mantle to tentacle tips. Beneath the surface, its massive head loomed near the starboard side, smaller arms churning the deep. One vast eye turned toward her, as tall as she was, unblinking in the dark water.

Surging from the water with a gasp, Sakura grinned cockily as excitement flooded her veins. “Man, I’ve always wanted to fight something this huge. Megumi-san!” she shouted, the blonde snapping her gaze towards her. “I’m going to get that thing away from the ship! Then we’ll kick its ass!”

Shouting above the maelstrom roiling the waves, Megumi flashed her a dubious look. “How?” she asked above the waterspouts beginning to manifest on the water’s surface. 

Sakura smirked and drew a deep breath before diving again, chakra propelling her toward the kraken’s massive form. She seized one of its vast limbs, her fingers sinking in until blood welled from the hide, then kicked upward with explosive force.

Megumi watched in stunned silence as Sakura burst from the surface, gasping, the tentacle locked in her grip as she stood balanced on the water itself.

“Stand back—this might get rough!” Sakura shouted over the beast’s roar as she sprinted clear. Atkor Kamuy thrashed against the ship, cannonfire bursting harmlessly against its armored hide. Megumi retreated to safety, giving Sakura the space she needed.

“SHANNARŌŌŌ!”

With a war cry, chakra surged through Sakura’s limbs as she pulled the tentacle taut, straining with effort. She heaved it from the ocean, lifting it over her head, and hurled it back into the sea. A nautilus-shaped shadow hovered above, its gaze locking with hers before she flung the massive form away, sending a towering splash into the water.

The ship pitched violently as Atkor Kamuy thrashed, the ocean exploding over a hundred meters away. A towering wave surged toward them, and Sakura’s triumph vanished as she vaulted and flipped to evade it, the wave crashing into the ship with enough force to capsize it nearly.

As smaller waves heaved the sea, Megumi’s jaw dropped and Sakura poked her tongue out with a thumbs-up gesture towards the blonde.

Their moment of triumph was short-lived as a forest of tentacles erupted around them, striking like geysers. Sakura sputtered from the spray, brushing wet hair from her eyes, but her excitement didn’t fade. She raised her fists, sizing up the writhing, almost sentient limbs.

“Let’s go!” she shouted, lunging at the nearest tentacle and severing it with chakra from her feet. Blood gushed as it sank back into the sea. Dozens more attacked at once, a dizzying flurry she met with fists and kicks that sent concussive shockwaves through the air. Still, she knew the true threat remained—the main body had to be taken down, or they’d be tied up fighting endlessly.

Atkor Kamuy’s massive mantle broke the surface, renewing its assault, but Sakura’s pause was brief. Megumi’s blazing fists struck with augmented taijutsu, waves of heat and force echoing Sakura’s own style.

Dodging and cleaving through the torrent of limbs, Sakura leapt high, focusing on the beast’s head—practically the size of a small island. She tucked into a backflip, channeling chakra into her soles, and descended with meteoric force upon the goliath.

The implosion buckled Atkor Kamuy’s carapace, sending a massive spray of gore over a dozen meters wide. Sakura crashed into the debris, the deluge knocking her to her knees.

Coughing and gasping, she wiped away the thick coating of blood and entrails that clung to her, gagging in the coppery stench. She shook herself free as the heavy, sticky mess pooled around her, then looked up at the clear, blue sky.

Any sense of victory vanished as the creature’s flesh began to regenerate, closing the chasm she had carved with her attack.

“What the hell?” Sakura leapt from the writhing mass, landing deftly on the ocean’s surface. She watched in disbelief as the wounded flesh stitched itself back together—something she had faced before.

“Sakura!” The kunoichi’s gaze switched to Megumi who raced to meet her, skidding to a halt before her. “We need to leave! Any more delays and that thing is going to regenerate and we’ll be at risk all over again."

As Sakura squinted at the megalithic kraken, Megumi nudged her again, and then she held a placating hand before the blonde. “Hey… you head back. Can you help get the ship going again? I’ll catch up.”

Megumi frowned and folded her arms as she stopped short of the kunoichi. “No! What the fuck are you even planning?!” the blonde demanded with a scowl, snagging Sakura by her bicep. “Let’s go. Now!”

Wrenching her arm away, she wheeled on Megumi, unyielding. “Megumi!” she flared hotly. “Just trust me, okay? It’ll be okay, promise.”

“Alright, but if you fuck up, it’s all on you.”

Sakura smiled tightly. “I getcha.”

Sakura fled as Atkor Kamuy thrummed the water with powerful vibrations, preparing to strike again. She had fought regenerating foes before, and though this kaijū dwarfed even a pseudo-jinchūriki, she knew she could overcome it with a focused combination of Yang Release and chakra-enhanced strength.

The monster’s tentacles churned the ocean into a tempest, but Sakura skated across the surface at lightning speed, dodging and weaving through the flailing limbs. She sprinted up a rising tentacle, using it to launch herself into the air. High above its regenerating head, she prepared for another devastating strike.

Chakra had two principles: a change in form and a change in nature. With her control, it could do far more than crack the earth or split tectonic plates.

Focusing the unique blend of chakra in her fist, Sakura launched a risky attack. A spire of energy shot from her strike, impaling Atkor Kamuy’s head with a deafening splash and blasting it beneath the waves in a lingering emerald glow. Another spray of gore hit her, but she leapt clear just in time, avoiding the carnage of her heavily wounded foe.

Sakura landed on her feet, grimacing as entrails and blood clung to her. She longed to dive into the ocean, despite the gore stretching hundreds of meters around them. A muffled roar from her sundered foe told her it wasn’t dead, only thoroughly incapacitated.

Skating back onto the deck, she was met with cheers from the crew and the women she had met. Megumi clapped with a quiet laugh, while Izayoi danced forward and grabbed her in a hearty bear hug.

“You crazy bitch! You fuckin’ did it!” the woman enthused with a manic grin as she spun the shorter kunoichi in a circle. “You’re batshit as they come, I swear to the fuckin’ gods!”

“Ah-ah, I’m really disgusting right now, so—” Sakura cautioned with a laugh, wheezing before Izayoi finally set her down to be met with Mina and Yayoi.

“You’re not half bad, newbie,” Yayoi conceded with a crooked smile. Clapping a sound hand on Sakura’s back that brought a sputter from the kunoichi. 

“Question is, will you be joinin’ us?” Mina asked as she came from behind Izayoi, whose front was coated in the blood and gore from the embrace despite her comical glee. Their leader pivoted on her with a cocksure grin. 

“Eh, why the fuck not? She’s got nowhere else to go and has some form of amnesia or some shit. We’d be a perfect fit!”

“Iza, she doesn’t even know what it is we do,” Megumi said in exasperation, shaking her head. 

“Um, I have an idea,” Sakura interjected meekly, unsure if her input would even be appreciated. “If I can clean up a little, maybe you can tell me what your deal is? If I don't like it, just drop me off at the nearest port and we’ll call ourselves even.”

“Eh, well, you did save our sorry asses,” Yayoi reasoned with a hand perched on her hip. She jerked her head towards an ingress that led belowdecks, where most of the crew were housed, and the steerage was present. “Come on, let’s get ya cleaned up. You, too, Iza!”

“Aw, come on, it’s just a little blood!”

“If you stink up the space because you won’t bathe and wash your clothes, I’ll lasso you to the tiller and tow you behind the ship until ya get fuckin’ clean, got me?” Yayoi seethed towards the older woman who threw open her arms in her own exasperation. Sakura winced sympathetically until Yayoi fixed her with a pointed look, too. “You, too, new girl. The same thing stands if you won’t wash.”

Chuckling nervously, Sakura jolted towards the entryway with a salute towards her. “Way ahead of you, trust me! I want to get this blood, guts, and demon slime off me as much as you do.”

“You’re smart for someone who doesn’t remember shit,” Yayoi enthused with a clap of her hand again on Sakura’s back, clopping down the stairway, eager to rid herself of the grime saturating her. 

“Fuckin’ traitors! Agh, wait a fucking second, will you?" Izayoi called behind them, almost tumbling down in after them.

Chapter Text

Warning(s): T, some gore

Instead of just the hollow steerage of the ship where cargo might’ve been held, Sakura was pleased to find a well-maintained corridor lined with lamplight illuminated in glass vessels, their sway influenced by the ship’s. Some people bypassed Sakura and her newfound acquaintances, leery of the gore that coated her like she’d been pulled bloody from Atkor Kamuy’s bowels instead of being responsible for the enormous swath of destruction the crew was currently navigating their way from. 

Yayoi shepherded Sakura towards a wooden door she slid open, revealing a toilet and basin for bathing, but naught else. A hand crank situated over the tub would likely be the means by which she’d be able to pump seawater through, something familiar in pre-modern vessels where freshwater stores meant for drinking were too precious to waste on washing. 

That, and it also seemed to be a dressing room, with clothing stored in shelving units set into the walls. Which gave her an idea…

“Right, soon as you’re done, come above deck in the cabin and we’ll talk. Izayoi will be waiting outside since she needs washing, too,” Yayoi instructed after flashing a glare towards Izayoi, who flipped her middle finger in petulant reply. 

“Eat shit, you prissy fucker,” Izayoi replied scathingly, grinning wolfishly at Yayoi, who glowered at her before she left them be. 

“Amnesiacs first,” Izayoi mockingly urged her, to which Sakura did without any form of reproach. After all, there was no point in snark when every minute spent marinating in her own filth made her cringe with revulsion. So, in she went. 

While pumping water into the basin, an odd sea creature plopped into the tub, leaving Sakura uncertain about what to do. When she asked Izayoi, she answered simply to flush them down the adjoining toilet that would wash them back into the sea, even though it felt rude. 

Regardless, once she was finished filling the tub, Sakura peeled off her soiled clothing and gave herself a scrubbing more thorough than she was sure she’d ever had before. Though she smelt and felt briny with ocean salt and the slight stench of the sea, it felt much better than before. 

After? Well, her clothes were stashed away due to how filthy they were, while she kept her leather girdle and pouch that only needed a good wipe down. Otherwise, the stores of clothing would be her new closet. 

Remembering their adverse reaction to her Byakugō, she decided a haircut was in order first. Utilizing a kunai, she gave herself a shaggy pixie cut with bangs that skimmed her eyebrows, long enough to keep the Yin Seal concealed. While she wasn’t used to her hair that short, she liked the tomboyish look. 

As for clothing, she rummaged through the stores to find a sarashi to bind her bosom, a loose kimono tunic of a maroon shade with floppy sleeves that came to her wrists, and baggy trousers worn with sandals. All hitched in place by her girdle and pouch, worn at her back, which was of too-good quality to replace. Retaining her gloves otherwise, she exited the bathing room much to Izayoi’s zeal. 

“Ya look like a fucking cocksmasher! I like it,” the woman said approvingly once she did, then pushing her aside. “Right, I’ll get all pretty for that pissant, so I’ll see ya soon.”

As she came above deck, she couldn’t help but fluster under the curious stares of the crewmen, which made her increasingly self-conscious until she elected to wait until Izayoi was finished. When she finally came above, she smirked at the sight of the kunoichi. 

“Come on, future girl. Might as well get on with it.”

Izayoi flung open the cabin door into what appeared to be a single-room study, the women from before sprawled on various pieces of furniture. There were a few bawdy cat-calls and wolf whistles at Sakura’s wardrobe change, the woman withering with a flush and sheepish smile at their appraisal. 

“From cock-sucker, to cocksmasher. Now then, time for the big, showy introduction, ey?” Izayoi began as she paced the room with aggrandized gesticulating, as if narrating a story. “We’re known as the Nadeshiko from the oh-so eponymously named Nadeshiko Village not far from here.”

“We’re criminals,” Yayoi stated bluntly, and Izayoi sputtered exaggeratedly. 

“Criminals! Why, my sister dearest, I am offended!” Izayoi exclaimed in a dramatic affront, a hand on her chest. 

“Look, we’ll be here all fuckin’ day if we let you narrate, so I’ll put it neatly: ninjas fuck up the world willy-nilly while the nobles benefit from whatever the fuck they’re paid to do. Ninjas answer to the highest bidder and no one else. Y’know what that means? Everyone else is cannon fodder if they’re lucky and trampled underfoot if they’re not. That’s what we’re here for; we’re equalizers to balance their shit out.” Yayoi’s expression remained deadpan.

“Well put! Y’see, future girl, we’re freedom fighters. We steal, cheat, scam, fight, beat, and occasionally fuck our way against those fuckers who think they’re gods,” Izayoi amended emphatically, grin manic. 

“You’re not wrong there,” Megumi said with a wave of her wrist. “Still, it’s true. Those fuckers are above the law. Most of us suffered because of them, and here we are. Because no one else will do it, not even the systems that protect the nobles.”

“Sheesh…” Sakura breathed with a genuine look of sympathy and shock. “I know, being a shinobi is this huge gray area. Hell, where I come from, most of what I did was heal from a hospital, or protection missions, or against genuinely bad people… Sometimes, it’s easy to forget what it really means.”

“And here you are, front and center. So, what do you say, future girl? You in?” Izayoi prompted with a hand thrust towards her. 

Although Sakura felt a bite of uncertainty, and while Yayoi bluntly referred to themselves as criminals, it didn’t sound as though they were cut from the same cloth as the S-rank criminals of her own time. 

“So… you just act out against bad shinobi and nobles, right?” she asked gingerly, gauging their reactions. “Not innocent people.”

“That’s right,” Mina confirmed from against a wall. “Someone needs to put those asswipes in their place, hence why we exist.”

So, anti-heroes, in a way. Of course, there was the obvious factor that she could be altering the future, but was she really in the past? After the war, it wasn’t lost on Sakura that, not only did alternate dimensions exist, but so did genjutsu powerful enough to create whole worlds from that were inescapable. From what Naruto had recounted from his own time-travel misadventures, part of Sakura wasn’t sure if it was the exact same past he’d traipsed into. 

After all, Naruto had met his father, who didn’t seem to recall the encounter when they’d reunited during the war. Who was to say where she’d wound up, let alone when?

“I just have one condition,” Sakura broached assertively, meeting their gazes firmly. 

“Yeah?” Yayoi quipped shortly. 

“Can we keep my whole… checkered past between us? If word gets out that I’m at large, whoever did this to me might seek me out. And I’m not interested in reuniting with them,” Sakura informed with a shudder. “I don’t even know myself what’s going on, so if anyone else does, they could exploit it… right?”

“Shit, yeah, good point,” Megumi replied with a sympathetic grimace. “We’re all people who’ve been fucked over in some way, so you don’t have anything to worry about, future girl.”

Sakura smiled gratefully, even as her mind wandered a little. Filing the theory they’d had towards her—of her being some high-ranking Senju apprentice whose relationship had gone sour—as her alibi, it would have to be her fabricated story. Even if there were holes that still had to be filled, she at least had a safer foothold to conduct it. 

“Alright, I’m in.”

Izayoi whooped and seized Sakura’s hand in a brusque shake, almost certain the other woman could’ve wrenched her arm from its socket with any more force.  

“Are you my new auntie now, too?” Tengu chirped as she flounced up to the kunoichi, hands folded behind her back. 

“I guess so,” Sakura conceded with a laugh. “So, what’s your story, huh?”

At that, Tengu brightened innocuously, rocking on her feet. “Oh, I’m from the Water Daimyō’s clan, the Aoi! I used to live with my older brother and his wife after our parents died, but he was really cruel and bad! He used to abuse both of us a lot… until me and my auntie did something about it. He used to take some nightshade tincture to help him sleep, so I switched it with nightshade root so he’d die really badly. We celebrated as he was dying, and he tried to kill us, but he died on the floor before he could. It was funny when he did.” Giggling girlishly, Sakura couldn’t help but gape in disbelief while Izayoi came and circled an arm around the diminutive girl’s shoulders. 

“Adorable little angel, ain’t she?” Izayoi beamed at Sakura, who only cracked a nervous chuckle. 

“Yeah… Angel…” 

Holy crap, I think this kid is an actual sadist!

“I don't really like poison, though. I’m really good at stealing things! See?” Opening her cusp to reveal some of the Military Rations Pills Sakura had in her back pouch, she took them back from the smiling girl who appeared to be the picture of innocence, zipping the opening shut firmly. 

“Well, that’s good,” Sakura enthused awkwardly, unsure of how she should praise a child committed to a life of crime, however gray. “What about you guys?” 

Yayoi shook her head with a sigh. “Not happening. Suppose we get shitfaced enough, maybe. I’m not about to be cracked open like a parrot going ape on some nuts.”

Though Sakura appeared disappointed by the lack of trust, she could understand it. They’d just met, after all. 

“Taichō!” A frantic knocking on the stateroom’s door was wrenched open by Izayoi, who met it with a scowl, opening to reveal a strange man menacing a dagger to their own sailor’s throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the metal keenly pressed to his flesh. 

A grizzled bear of a man with a heavy beard and thick, salt-stained robes grinned with missing, rotted teeth at the captain who sauntered to the door. 

“Shō, you motherfucker,” Izayoi greeted through clenched teeth, hefting what appeared to be a bludgeon over her shoulder cockily. “Why are you here, menacing my crew for?”

Just as the man opened his mouth, a fist slammed into his jaw with a sickening crack, collapsing the bone. The force sent him flying into the ocean with a loud splash. Sakura regained her stance behind Izayoi, who turned toward her, visibly agitated.

“Future girl, I had that handled,” Izayoi chided as she stepped from the cabin to their ensnared crew; many looked on in shock from Shō’s assault, an unmistakable indication that he’d been high-ranking. 

Otherwise, his hostage looked grateful as Sakura retreated from the interior to heal the scrape the kunai had left behind. 

“Oops?”

“Timing, girl, timing. You’ll get the hang on it,” Yayoi assured with firm pats to her shoulder as she exited the cabin with the other women who filed through and stood at Izayoi’s flank. 

“Thanks,” the sailor said, rushing below decks to safety, leaving the conflict with the invading pirates. 

From what Sakura could see at Izayoi’s side was a larger schooner where enemy pirates stood aboard, not flying any distinguishable colors… Though, to their credit, neither were the Nadeshiko. Considering the nature of her new endeavor, it made sense as they were likely on equal grounds in terms of morality. 

“Keep your bitch muzzled, Izayoi!” a thin rail of a man in baggy clothing shouted, jabbing a finger Sakura’s way. When the kunoichi took an irate step forth, Izayoi clutched her shoulder and shook her head tensely after capturing Sakura’s gaze. A few of the rival gang skittered back from her presence, but otherwise held their ground. 

“Gentlemen! Let’s speak civilly about this, ey? Can ya fish Shō out? So we can talk, captain to captain?” Izayoi beseeched with her arms spread wide theatrically, a lackadaisical smile. 

“He’s dead! He’s floating like a fucking fish!” a man from the opposite throng shouted as he practically draped over the balustrade. As if he were retching and not making a simple assessment. “Kami, I don’t think he has a face left.”

The chirruping of crickets could’ve filled the awkward silence that spanned between them, Izayoi’s grandiosity quashed as she sauntered towards them with a short chuckle. “Tell you what: life for a life. We’ll let you gents on your merry way if you kindly fuck off, and our girl won’t go into some berserker rage and off you all, saavy?” she proposed with a devilish grin, hands gripping the lapels of her duster smugly. 

As the rasp of drawn tantō was about to reply for them, it was Sakura who utilized an undetectable form of genjutsu after covertly scanning the crowd for any sensors, one found with mental fortitude weak enough to pilot like a meat puppet. 

“It’s true! Didn’t think it was right, since she’s so damn small an’ all, but she’s the one I sensed take out Atkor Kamuy! She’s a berserker!” the man jabbered with a shuddering finger at Sakura. 

Meanwhile, Sakura feigned shock. “Huh? You mean me?” her voice lilted sarcastically, index finger pointing to her own face. Izayoi smirked in dark amusement, chortling under her breath. 

“What’d I tell ya? Cocksmasher,” the captain observed satisfactorily while the rival crew scrambled to retreat, much to the Nadeshiko’s relief as their own crew returned to the deck to resume their duties. “Now then, as we were discussing.” Ushering them back into the stateroom, they returned to their previous positions and conversation. 

The pervasive scent of burning whale oil from the lanterns that filled the dusky cabin greeted her nose as Sakura was one of the last to enter after Izayoi, who shut the door soundly behind them. With a wily look, she enticed those gathered nearer, as if she was going to disclose some grand secret. 

“Now, how would you assholes like to nab us the seven swords the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist like wavin’ around so much? One for each, with a few to spare,” Izayoi proposed with her hands braced on the topographical map of the known world. 

“Hang on, we don’t really need them… do we?” Sakura broached, folding her arms as she leaned into the confidential circle. From what she knew, the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist had functioned almost precisely like the Twelve Guardian Ninja did for the Fire Daimyō, so their targeting those affiliated with the Water Country’s nobility made a lot of sense, but… was there any utility to be had beyond bragging rights?

“It’s to send a message, yeah. Future girl, you saying you don’t know how to wield a damn sword?” Yayoi pressed the kunoichi with an annoyed quirk of her eyebrow. 

At that, Sakura flared heatedly with her hands perched indignantly on her hips. “No, and for your information, my kenjutsu is just fine! My shurikenjutsu is a lot better, sure, and my experience mostly comes from wielding tantō— But, that’s besides the point! You can’t just start swinging any one of these around like it’s nothing!”

“So, ya sayin’ ya don’t want one?” Izayoi surmised for her, though it only amounted to Sakura huffing in frustration. 

“No, it’s just—!” Her thoughts drifted to her first real mission, the one that changed her. Memories rushed through her, sobering her as they pressed on her mind. Even the reunion during the war lingered heavily on her shoulders. She knew the choice she could make—if she had one at all.

“Actually… there is one blade I think I could use. The Kubikiribōchō,” she amended quietly with a significant look, a frown tugging on her lips. “I know, you guys don’t believe me; but, the wielder I remember and his partner made a really significant impact on me growing up, on my first real, serious mission. They destroyed every glorified notion I had of being a kunoichi and what the cost was. I watched someone who believed in being a shinobi—a tool—to his core. And then, I watched it be destroyed when he lost the one he loved and had those beliefs shattered.” Sakura couldn’t help the mistiness that brimmed in her eyes, wiping them away before tears could form. “If I’m in on this, that’s the sword I would utilize the best. Because I’ve known the wielder who came before, and I know the cost.”

Megumi whistled lowly, as though impressed, but somehow it didn’t feel that way. “Guess your brainwasher was thorough. Still, if you call dibs on that oversized meat cleaver, it’s fine by me.”

“Now, hold on a second,” Izayoi interjected to those gathered. “Maybe there’s a grain of truth ‘ere. I’ve been to thinkin’, and I’m startin’ to wonder if maybe they brainwashed ya around events that already happened. Can’t see why they’d build a whole damn life when that’s beyond a lotta people’s ability, yeah?”

“So, like—if I now remember owning a dog, it means I owned a cat, instead?” Sakura tried with a snap of Izayoi’s fingers.

“That’s exactly what I’m gettin’ at, future girl!” Izayoi clapped once emphatically, pumping a fist towards her that almost clocked Sakura, rearing back slightly to avoid it with a sheepish grin. 

“Well, cocksmasher has her sword, so I think it’s fair that I get Samehada,” Mina interjected as she produced a kiseru from the folds of her kimono. She then stuffed scented tobacco into it before it was lit. Smoke fumigated wispily, exhaled in a plume Sakura waved away. “I’ve got the most chakra by default, and that fucker is a real leech. Any objections?”

“Nah,” Yayoi replied lazily, prepared to uncork a bottle of saké that she chugged a few mouthfuls of. “I say we just have a free-for-all, otherwise. Iza?”

Izayoi grinned wolfishly, a wickedness in the sharpness of her ivory teeth. “None at fuckin’ all. So, when do you pricks wanna get started, then?” 

Though Sakura couldn’t shake off the nagging trepidation of committing what was essentially her first crime in an older era, well—she’d agreed to this. Might as well follow through, right?

Chapter Text

Warning(s): M, gore

“There, dontcha just look like a pretty little princess.”

Tengu primped her hair in a basin of water, lacking a mirror aboard their vessel. With a specific henge Sakura and Mina had devised, using a paper tag sewn inside the hemline of Tengu’s sleeve, the transformation remained active without the girl needing to constantly instill chakra. This was particularly handy since Tengu didn’t seem to have any known ability to mold chakra. 

“So, I guess that makes us her princess-guard, huh?” Sakura joshed as she ribbed Yayoi, who lifted an eyebrow at the puckish kunoichi. The older woman smirked and huffed a short chuckle. 

“Yeah, guess it does. ‘Specially with this convoluted idea of ours.”

“Convoluted! You’re always the first to doubt me, I swear.” Izayoi rose from her kneel, arms outstretched, her grin unwavering.“You don’t think this is just some grab an’ go sort of thing, do ya, future girl? Tengu here has more up her sleeve than that Henge ya made.”

“Alright, I’ll bite,” Sakura responded with a badly suppressed smile. They did seem like a cackle of hyenas on a good day, even if it was just her first time with them. “What other trump cards are we hiding, taichō?”

“What you’re looking at is the deadliest killer in the Aoi clan for generations.” Izayoi gestured towards Tengu, who curtseyed under the bizarre praise. When Sakura canted her head with a subtly disbelieving look, the leader only grew more smug and continued. “Y’see, after she offed that terrible brother of hers, she went after her two uncles, cruelest fucks ya’d ever met. See, they were the next in line since her brother died, but all that’s left is her brother’s widow’s kid, the one who helped her kill that bastard brother. Get it?” Though Izayoi raised her two index fingers to amend, “The sister-in-law helped kill the brother, not the kid. Crazy thing if it was, eh?”

“Yeah, no… I got that part,” Sakura replied wanly, feebly smiling while Tengu flounced around the room in delight.

“Oh, I have tons of blackmail, too! If papa tries anything, I’ll release it all and he’ll be forced to abdicate,” Tengu beamed as she stopped with a skip before Sakura, the kunoichi rearing back a little. 

Sheesh, remind me never to piss this kid off, ever.

“Hey, get your asses out! We’re here,” Megumi interrupted as she opened the door, flooding the stateroom with blazing hues of the coming sunset in the time it had taken to travel as far as they had across the seas.

As they filed through, Sakura noted that they had passed the Eddie Country’s archipelago only hours ago and were now nearing the Water Country. Ahead, an island rose on the horizon—its hills covered in dense forest, with scattered lights marking settlements. The warm, salty wind filled the sails as the sailing master held the tiller, guiding the junk on its steady course.

“Pretty sure their sensors have gotten a whiff of us by now,” Yayoi speculated with her gaze sharp and keen on the isle. “They sense Tengu. It’s the only reason we haven’t had cannons fired on us yet.”

“I’m guessing they’re probably in watchtowers on the shoreline, right?” Sakura added from the woman’s flank. “Since there’s no patrols at sea, I mean.”

“Astute thinkin’, future girl,” Yayoi praised without breaking her lookout ahead. “So, you’ll know what to take out when we’re makin’ our getaway and don’t want to give ‘em a heading.”

They soon rowed into the shallow waters of a crescent-shaped bay, where sandbars broke the calm surface of the sea. A small port stood to starboard, but the rest of the coastline was untouched except for the watchtowers Sakura had spotted earlier. Enemy shinobi lingered nearby, and a column of guards moved along a stone path through the jungle toward the beach.

“Alright, weigh anchor! And don’t start fleein’ until we do,” Izayoi commanded as a heavy metal object was tossed overboard with the clinking of a chain, leaping over the side of the ship.

The six of them touched down on the water’s surface, the captain carrying Tengu over her shoulder with her hands bound for show. She was thrilled by the act, laughing until they drew close enough for the guards to hear. Then she shifted to weak flailing and kicking, putting on the part of a struggling captive—though in truth, she was simply playing along and enjoying herself.

Even Sakura had to bite back a giggle to maintain the air of a ruthless group of thugs come to collect a bounty.

Palm fronds shifted in the easterly wind as they came ashore. A nervous man in the Aoi clan’s blue and white livery stood waiting, avoiding their eyes despite his larger frame. Around him, guardsmen leveled their tantō at the women, their faces blank while Izayoi smirked.

“Come on, you poncy fucker. Ya know what we’re here for. How about we cut the crap and you take us to old bluey, eh?”

Though the usher visibly bristled at the mocking name for the Water Daimyō, he gritted his teeth and forced through, “This way, then,” while the guardsmen remained rooted in place until their group passed through and were surrounded by the stoic men. 

As they proceeded upon the glossy flagstones that lined their way to what Sakura assumed was a vacation home instead of the actual seat of power, on the lush boulevard lined by swaying palms and the balmy heat of a summery jungle did she elect to assess their captors, glancing at their armor, the make of their clothes, their weapons, and the body language of them to gauge potential weaknesses. 

The setting sun bled with rich oranges and jades through the canopy, filtering like an unbound zipper on their march towards an approaching, high perimeter wall manned by sentinels that scrutinized them with glares and gossip among themselves. 

Emboldened by the company she now kept, Sakura flashed them a crude gesture Tengu struggled not to giggle at, stopping before the imposing gatehouse bedecked in the Aoi clan’s lavish regalia. Their escort shouted for admittance, and the gates swung open with a mighty groan, receiving passage into artfully maintained gardens that filled the outer court. Sakura peeked between their detail’s march, impressed by what she saw.

Hell, it was more sumptuous than any the Hokage Residence in Konoha kept, that was for sure. 

They approached the sprawling castle, its white walls catching the sunlight in shades of gold. A towering doorway loomed ahead, guarded in a clear show of power. The entryway was carved with yōkai, dominated by two oni locked in perpetual struggle. With a groan of hinges, the doors swung open, revealing the Daimyō waiting inside the vast throne room.

On a raised ivory dais, beneath a pavilion, the Daimyō sat in silks and a black kanmuri cap marked with the Aoi clan crest in gold. As the group crossed the red velvet carpet, he rose in anger. Izayoi set Tengu down, and the girl burst into tears the moment her slippered feet touched the marble floor.

“Papa!” she bleated as she motioned to dash away, only to be halted by Izayoi, who snagged her by the nape of her collar like a misbehaving kitten. Face flushed and sobbing, she cried out his name again.

“Izayoi, you’ve taken this too far!” the man sputtered as he rose from his polished chair to stand at the dais’ edge, jaw gritted in his anger. “Unhand my daughter and perhaps you’ll leave this island in one piece!”

“Alright, if you insist,” Izayoi conceded as she produced a dirk from her lapel pocket and genuflected at Tengu’s back, methodically cutting through the rope that bound the girl’s wrists which the guards could clearly see. What they didn’t, Sakura noticed, was the hand seal of the rat she formed in the cover. 

Grinning, Tengu let out a shout and hurled herself at the guards, knocking them aside despite her small size. “Auntie, now!” she called. The braziers cast her shadow long across the floor, thickening as it streaked toward the Daimyō. He stumbled back, tripping as the shadow caught and bound him.

Izayoi, still squatted to the ground, smirked in fiendish delight as the Aoi mimicked her, slowly rising to stand. “Future girl, if ya would.”

“Right!” Fishing into the kunai holster on her thigh, Sakura lobbed a kunai at the Daimyō, who caught it deftly on Izayoi’s behalf, snapping to hold the weapon’s razor edge to his neck. Izayoi pantomimed the motion, in complete control. Though the question of whether Izayoi was part Nara or not nagged at her mind, she let it pass when it clearly wasn’t the opportune time.

“Now then, ya motherfuckers, we’re in control. You even twitch funny and bluey gets his head lopped off, yeah? Sakura, Mina, Megumi—you know what needs to be done, so get goin’!”

“Taichō!” Sakura crowed in affirmation while Yayoi remained at her sister’s side, the plan they’d gone over earlier clear in her mind as they briskly exited the throne room to the exterior, where they would seek out the topmost floor where the Seven Swordsmen’s quarters were located. As the tanks of the Nadeshiko, all three women had their swords to fetch; two each, while Sakura had been relegated to three because of her prowess.

“Up here!” Mina shouted as they leapt to the perimeter wall, only for the sentinels patrolling it to utter shouts to dispatch them. Megumi and Sakura took the rear, holding their ground for a moment while a dozen of them sprinted towards the three.

“Hang on, let me try this,” Sakura said with a hand on Megumi’s shoulder, the woman nodding as she gave chase after Mina who was already close to ascending the castle’s several stories. 

As the guards rushed her, Sakura smirked and charged chakra into her fist. Her punch shattered a man’s face, the force hurling his body into his comrades and knocking them sprawling, though not dead. Knowing they wouldn’t stop until incapacitated, she flipped into the air and brought her heel down in a meteoric strike.

The ivory wall, dozens of feet high, buckled and collapsed with a deafening crash, dust billowing as Sakura drove through it. She struck the earth with crushing force, blasting a crater into the ground. Soil and stone erupted in a geyser of dust and rock, jagged slabs hurled skyward by the impact.

Sakura rose from the massive crater she’d carved into the once-pristine gardens, half of them reduced to rubble. Without sparing the damage a glance, she slipped into the shrouding dust to escape and rejoin Megumi and Mina.

“Not one for subtly, are ya?” Megumi teased as the quaking earth had yet to settle, thunderous rumbling like an erupting volcano. 

“Us, subtle? Yeah, that never sounded like us,” Sakura said with a grin as they reached the right level. This time Megumi stepped up, blasting through the wall with a punch of blazing chakra, smoke billowing through the new opening as alarmed shouts rose inside.

Amused by her enthusiasm, the trio entered the wide chamber, where several Swordsmen already stood with weapons drawn. Sakura’s focus wasn’t on the people—it was on the blades that would soon be theirs.

Kubikiribōchō, Hiramekirei, and Kabutowari were Sakura’s targets, while the other four swords were left to Megumi and Mina, who split off down separate corridors. As squads clashed across the castle, Sakura soon found herself facing the three blades she sought.

“Whoa!” she shouted, vaulting over a chakra whip from Hiramekirei that tore through the castle’s frame, sending the roof buckling in a storm of dust and rubble. Acting fast, Sakura thrust her fist upward, blasting the falling debris away in a concussive wave that scattered it into the castle grounds below. She repeated the motion in all directions, her strikes shattering the collapsing roof until it crashed harmlessly outside.

As the dust cleared in the updraft, Sakura lowered her fist. The swordsmen froze, jarred by the sight of her. Hiramekirei’s wielder snapped first, swinging down a massive chakra-forged mallet. Sakura caught the blow, her knees bending under the force—but her strength made it useless, like a knife striking stone.

She struck back instantly, her fist driving into his ribs with crushing force. The blow launched him through several floors like a cannonball, the echoing crashes of his fall startling those below.

Sakura snatched Hiramekirei’s hilt, unfurled a sealing scroll, and locked the blade inside, the kanji for sword filling the circle. With a deft roll, she stowed the scroll just as the remaining two charged, their heavy steps shaking the ruined tatami.

Kabutowari’s wielder roared, slamming his hammer down where Sakura had stood, but she slipped aside with ease. Channeling Lightning Release into her hand, she struck his back with Body Pathway Derangement, sending him sprawling, his nerves scrambled. As he cursed from the floor, Sakura claimed Kabutowari and sealed it away just as smoothly.

“Alright, one more,” Sakura muttered—just as Kubikiribōchō swung toward her in a deadly arc. She dropped flat, the blade whistling past to bury itself in the floor with a ringing crash. Flipping back to her feet, she grinned. “Thanks!” Wrenching the weapon free, she turned on the last swordsman, who clutched only a kunai in pitiful contrast.

With a broken shout, he lunged. Sakura swung the massive blade in a single arc, cleaving him cleanly in two. Blood sprayed across her as his body split at the waist, each half collapsing in spreading pools.

“Ew… oops.” Sakura winced as she wiped the blood from the blade onto the man’s robes, then noticed a holster she could use to carry it. Rather than seal it away, she slung the massive sword across her back—spares made sense in what had been the Swordsmen’s living quarters. Picking her way through the debris of the ruined top floor, she adjusted the weapon to sit securely.

Behind her came the familiar chitter of Samehada. Mina clucked her tongue as she unwrapped the sentient sword. “Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. Don’t worry, Sammy—we’ll get you free soon,” she soothed. The blade purred at her touch, feeding hungrily on the vast chakra her Uzumaki blood provided.

“Sammy?” Sakura greeted teasingly as she waited for the duo before they disembarked, Mina poking her tongue out at the kunoichi.

“What? He seems to like it, so I don’t need ya gettin’ all smug about it,” Mina grumbled sourly as she discarded the last of the bandages, Samehada chittering as it coiled around her delightedly. 

“Aw, you’re smitten already,” Megumi simpered with Shibuki holstered on her back, shit-eating grin implacable. 

“Eh, shut up, both of you.”

Their return to the throne room was unopposed—the guards were dead from Sakura’s earlier assault, and the Seven Swordsmen lay defeated. Yayoi straightened from the doorway as the women entered, rubble scattered across the courtyard from Sakura’s destruction. Inside, Tengu gleefully rifled through her father’s robes while Izayoi remained frozen where they had left her.

“Ah, there my girls are!” Tengu called over her shoulder, the Water Daimyō still straining against the kunai at his throat. “About time, too. This bastard pissed himself, and it’s startin’ to reek.”

Sakura’s morbid curiosity made her glance down at the puddle at his feet. She grimaced, sympathetic despite knowing he likely deserved it. Izayoi finally released her jutsu and sagged with a weary sigh. “Fuck, I need a massage. I’m stiff.”

“You and your bellyaching, I fucking swear,” Yayoi cursed as she came to her compatriot’s side and folded her arms impatiently. “Let’s go before reinforcements come.”

With a wild cry, the Water Daimyō charged them with the kunai he’d been left, but Mina extended her foot just enough to trip the man, who flopped dramatically on the hard tile, groaning as they collectively stepped on his back like a doormat to exit what remained of the palace. 

“Let’s head home. We’ve got some real celebratin’ to do!” Izayoi declared as she led them with an arrogant saunter, Sakura giggling into her hand as they departed into the twilight to board their ship and return to what would assuredly be her temporary new home. 

“How’s the new sword treatin’ you, future girl?”

Sakura jerked at the sound of Yayoi’s voice, admittedly caught unawares. Situated on the gently inclining bowsprit, back against the railing, she’d been meditatively polishing the legendary sword while deep in thought. Though needless due to its self-repairing properties, it was something to pass the time. That, and the lull of the sea provided a spectacular backdrop, the vault of stars above reflecting like a tapestry of diamonds on the water below. 

When Sakura smiled invitingly, Yayoi vaulted over the railing to settle next to her, the sword occupying the opposite side. 

“Pretty good, I think. It’s like reuniting with an old friend.” Glancing down at the burnished, reflective surface, she frowned. “An old friend who tried to kill me before, but I think it’s going well this time.”

Cracking a smile, Yayoi mirrored her with a glint of amusement in her onyx eyes. 

“First you, now Mina. You’re gonna end up marrying ‘em at this rate,” Yayoi jested with a smirk. Though it fell when her airs became thoughtful. “Ya made it seem like it was vital to you. What was that about?”

Ceasing in her needless polishing, her face fell on the broadsword with a sentimental expression reflected. “The person who wielded Kubikiribōchō in my memories taught me one of the most important lessons I’d ever learn: the truth about what it really means to be a shinobi. And the cost,” Sakura began, sure she was going to ramble at the rate she was. “I grew up pretty sheltered. Ordinary parents, decent house, friends… My village had this school that raised its ninja together, and we didn’t do missions until we graduated. I was part of this team, and we didn’t do anything special until we had this guard mission in the Land of Waves that escalated to a really dangerous level. It’s there that I met this swordsman and his partner. 

“It was probably the biggest wake-up call I’d ever had. We fought these ninja who were way more powerful than we were at that point. It started out with how ninjas are tools, that shinobi can’t show emotions, that there’s no real point to it except completing the mission and getting powerful. But… when his partner died, it shook him. This partner was like his son, but he kept insisting he was just a tool… And then he sacrificed himself to save his mentor. But that sham crumbled. He did love that kid like his own son, and it changed him forever.”

Sakura fell silent when she finished, the soft friction of her skin against the blade whispery with contact, as if it had something to say, too. Somehow, even though it would be decades later before it came to pass, it was as though the steel remembered it, too. 

“Shit, no wonder ya wanted it,” Yayoi quipped after a long moment. “Sammy is Mina’s puppy, while this is your teacher.” She indicated with a jerked thumb towards Kubikiribōchō, leaning back with a sigh. 

“I said I wouldn’t until I was shitfaced, but an eye for an eye, right?” Sakura glanced at Yayoi with interest, but didn’t press her. “Izayoi and I were born out of wedlock to our mom who was a traveling merchant. We never had a home, but it wasn’t bad, y’know? Until it went to shit.” Yayoi’s lips pursed briefly before she continued. “See, towns and villages have merchant guilds; the merchants of a town or region belong to who answer to some local lord, or whatever. She wasn’t part of that institution and made a few towns really mad by just existing so… they hired some Shimura fucker to put her down for taking their profits. Iza and I barely escaped with our lives.”

Sakura felt herself grow cold at the thought of losing her parents like that. She could only imagine how crushing it would’ve been, to be helpless in the face of it. But, the ninja who committed the deed had been hired out, and probably was impersonal. Still, who did that shinobi answer to besides his clan’s leadership that only cared about things that affected their own prosperity? 

The answer was no one. Before the times of villages, clans were too powerful and too hidden to retaliate against, except in the odd times when the downtrodden rose to seek vengeance. She thought of Haku’s clan that had met such a fate and felt chilled to the bone. 

“Thing is, it never stopped at us. Wandering the world looking for a home, we saw it everywhere: pillaged towns, ravaged fields that once grew crops before they became battlefields, lone homes with mummified corpses of the murdered tenants heaped in bloody pools long after their homes had been looted. Yet, as long as they didn’t fuck with the rich folk who hired ‘em out, they never faced punishment,” Yayoi continued with a bitter clench of her fists. 

“So, this is why you do this. Because no one else will,” Sakura surmised quietly, engulfed by the weight of what Izayoi had said earlier. It weighed profoundly more after she’d learned the sisters’ past. 

“Right,” Yayoi confirmed with a mirthless smile. “We hit back and show them what they’ve wrought on us.”

Although Sakura felt profoundly humbled and resolved by Yayoi’s story and their shared heart-to-heart, before she could think to speak further, she was interrupted by a shout from the shrouds. 

“Yayoi-sama, we’re home!” a sailor from the top yard hollered, Yayoi grinning. 

“Home sweet home,” she mused aloud as she stood and stretched, grunting. “One more thing, future girl.”

“Yeah?”

“If you tell anyone I told you this sob fucking story, I’ll break all yer damn fingers.”

Taken aback in surprise at first, Sakura guffawed as she struggled to keep her laughter in check. She took it as a sign of their dysfunctional camaraderie inherent in their dysfunctional group, more than anything. 

“Will do, Yayoi-san~!”

Chapter Text

Warning(s): E, explicit sexual content

They rounded a bend into a hidden cove, flanked by cliffs covered in tropical forest. The junk creaked as it moved into the river, and Sakura could hear crickets, birds of paradise, and other nocturnal sounds.

With the sails furled, the river carried them quickly forward. The sky opened to reveal three towering peaks topped by a fortified village, its sloping battlements guarding the town. Two bridges connected the mountains, rising above the forest that climbed their lower slopes.

The spires above the walls were dotted with lights, and if Sakura listened closely, she could hear the hum of nighttime activity. Silhouettes of sentinels patrolling the parapets caught her eye—brief, fascinating glimpses—until the sound of her fellow Nadeshiko boarding the deck pulled her from her reverie.

“Home sweet home, what’d I fuckin’ tell ya,” Izayoi mused aloud once Sakura came within earshot. Like the rest, they were bedecked with their weapons seized from the day’s heist, feeling oddly fulfilled. Like she had earned the honor of being allowed into their stronghold. 

“Taichō,” she broached once she came to the woman’s side, the captain quirking an eyebrow at her, “what comes after this? Are we going to stay here for awhile?”

“Mm, not as long as ya think. After all, you’re part of our little group. Still, the ship needs repairs after Atkor Kamuy’s attack did a number—so, maybe a little under a week at our shipyard. During that time, we sit and wait. For reactions, mostly. You gained quite a bit of attention, future girl. We need to let things calm a little and check to see who bites, so to speak.”

“Cooldown time, that makes sense,” Sakura replied agreeably, though her brow puckered. “I’m guessing this could be pretty big, right? I mean, we did just kill all of the Seven Swordsmen and steal their weapons, so…”

Izayoi chuckled and clapped her hand on Sakura’s shoulder. “You kidding? We’re gonna have all sorts of fuckers after us, least includin’ that Byakuren cunt. He eats all the shit that comes out of the Water Daimyō’s ass, so you bet he’ll throw everything he can at us the next time we bump uglies, hah!”

Sakura couldn’t help but chuckle nervously, turning away with a faint downward curl of her lip. From what she’d learned in her kunoichi classes in the Academy, the history they’d been imparted—scant as it was in respects to the other ninja villages—had included Byakuren and his efforts to build Kirigakure in the Founders’ Era. He’d been a conqueror, warring with the Water Country’s disparate clans by force to assimilate them, which had created a diabolical caste system that ruled the village until recently. In contrast to Konoha, which brought almost all of the clans into its fold via invitation.

“Sheesh… well, as long as we avoid the Land of Fire like the plague, I guess it shouldn’t be too bad…” Sakura replied uncertainly, only to be turned manfully by the taller woman, transiently surprised as Izayoi fixed her with a probing look. 

“Future girl, are ya really that worried? You spanked those asses today, so what the hell are ya chewin’ yer lip over, eh?” 

Sakura sighed, shifting between her feet awkwardly. “Well, it’s just—if we go into the Land of Fire, it’ll be a lot harder. The Senju and Uchiha literally create these two poles, with pretty much every clan polarized towards east and west of the Naka. If we start fucking around there, we’re bound to create a domino effect that’ll garner one of the big clan’s attention, and if that happens—”

“Future girl,” Izayoi interrupted brusquely, leaning in close with steel in her eyes, barely inches from Sakura’s face, “what the fuck did ya think you signed up for? We’re not ninja. What we do gets attention on purpose so we can scare those fuckers shitless, not the other way around! You really gonna puss out on me now? Is that what ye tellin’ me?” 

“No…” Sakura trailed off, willing herself not to quail from the older woman’s intimidation. Standing firm, she corrected, “No. I’m just new to this, Izayoi-taichō. And not really looking forward to encountering the Senju, especially.”

Reflecting on her harangued tale of being a Senju apprentice gone sour, Izayoi leaned back understandingly. “Ah, right. Thing is, you can’t really fall back on anonymity, future girl. You fucked over Atkor Kamuy, the damn guardian beast of Uzushio no Sato. You really think some Uzumaki fucker ain’t gonna notice their prize beastie out of commission for months, healin’ and not catch a whiff of some little pink girlie bein’ the cause? And the Uzumaki have been finger-fuckin’ the Senju for generations. Or how tale of that same pinkie helping a bunch of outlaws steal legendary weapons won’t spread? It’s inevitable, girlie, so ya might as well grow a pair and embrace it.” With another firm pat on her shoulder, Izayoi strode away after saying her fill. 

The sound of pleased, guttural purring entered her periphery as Mina came to the kunoichi’s side, shrugging with the slumped form of Samehada draped bonelessly across her shoulders. She winced sympathetically and Sakura’s lips twitched in a smile. 

“She has a crap way of saying it, but she does want you around, pinkie,” the Uzumaki told, having overheard their conversation. “You’ve got some real firepower, and a connection that could hit them where it hurts. Nothing to be scared of, I think.”

Though she kept it to herself, because her Shisō had faced an Edo Tensei Madara with unlimited chakra, an invincible body, the Rinnegan, and Hashirama cells, on top of surpassing the Senju—well, she should’ve been able to at least face Madara if it came down to it. Bolstered by that, she sighed in concession. 

“And I really do like you guys. I guess it’s just nerves,” Sakura dismissed with an airy wave of her hand. “Can I ask how you wound up with the Nadeshiko?”

Mina smirked a little, but didn’t seem as guarded as Yayoi. “I’m Uzumaki, no shit, right? Thing is, I’m not an Uzumaki from the main branches that make up most of Uzushio’s ninja. I’m just an outlier from one of the smaller islands, nothing special. Grew up poor, reliant on the sea. Little hamlet where us kids were schooled in basics by the seniors of the village until noon where we’d return home for chores—business, sustenance, you name it. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great, either; just so-so.” She adjusted Samehada, who murred softly before resuming its thunderous purring. “So, I left home after my parents died in a pirate raid for the Land of Hot Water. Went to the Valley of Hell to work in the Chinoike’s Blood Market where I met Iza and Yayoi. Joined them, and the rest is history.”

“Hang on, the Blood Market?” Sakura chirped, never having heard of such a thing. 

“Yeah. After the Uchiha in Tajima’s time accepted a mission to relocate the Chinoike to the Valley of Hell after some damned scandal, they needed some way to survive. So, with their Ketsuryūgan, they started a kind of black market in the underground. They collect bodies, steal Hiden, harvest organs with special properties to give the highest bidders their kekkei genkai or other mutations, you name it. I joined in my teens but left them for Izayoi a few years later.”

“Is that how she came into possession of Nara clan hijutsu?” 

Mina nodded. “Yup. Yayoi has the Yamanaka’s since they work pretty well together. That Ino-Shika-Chō shit.”

“I guess the Akimichi angle would be harder. That’s kind of a genetic thing, after all.”

Mina nodded vacantly as they finally came to a harbor well hidden within yet another cove, docks projecting into the river while banking towards it, the forest creeping upon the shoreline where it didn’t crown otherwise rocky bluffs, the tang of the sea mixing perfectly with the heady scents of the island’s native jungles. Sakura breathed a sigh of relief as the gangway was lowered and clattered to the waiting deck, their group the first to disembark while the crew tended to their duties after mooring the ship. 

“So, where to?” came Sakura’s chipper question at the harbor town secreted in the forest like a treasure, several establishments bleeding light beneath the thick canopy while a dusty street winnowed through the apparent hamlet. 

“To that tavern over yonder,” Izayoi indicated as she came close to Sakura’s side and pointed to one of the larger buildings protruding over the embankments, struts supporting it, rowdy silhouettes dancing in the tavern’s windows. A splash sounded as someone fell from the veranda and into the river, gregarious laughter spilling from the opening in his wake. 

“Time-honored tradition, y’see; after a successful mission or raid, we come here,” Izayoi explained as she led them towards it, slipping an arm around Sakura’s waist that elicited a blush as the older woman’s hand rested on her hip in a way she couldn’t help but interpret as a little possessive. 

Hang on, what’s going on? Craning over her shoulder, she was met with Yayoi’s shit-eating grin that caused her to blush even more darkly. 

What threw her for a loop was how close they were. Primarily, upon realizing how the captain had to at least be a good head taller than her, broader, with a well-muscled arm that currently circled her waist quite securely. Aside from walking, Sakura was too flustered even to speak. 

However, when Izayoi commandingly kicked in the tavern door, her sudden touchiness made sense as she felt as leery, hungry eyes snagged like hooks that were unblinking as Izayoi led them all towards a corner booth they had free rein of. However, the group's subsequent splintering made the reason for such a private selection much less clear. Hole in the wall though it was, it didn’t explain Izayoi’s subtle grabbiness as Sakura moved away with a relieved if forced sigh. 

“Thanks for that. Those creeps looked like they couldn’t have been up to anything good,” Sakura said with a grateful smile, though there was a thrum of tension one could slice through with the sword she’d unholstered and propped against the booth’s high backing. That, and her compatriots, seemed suspiciously gleeful about them parting. “So, are we breaking here for the night before we head to the village? Maybe I’ll get us some drinks—”

Before she could even think of standing, the older woman snared her wrist and anchored her in place. 

“Future girl, wait a second, will ya?” Izayoi beckoned with a strained expression that surprised Sakura, canting her head in bemusement. “There’s something I need to get off my chest, aye? Before I end up gettin’ real drunk and havin’ it slip out later.”

Sakura leaned in closely as Izayoi draped a muscular arm over the kunoichi’s shoulders, coaxing her to lean in a little more closely. Though still bemused, the closure between them made her swallow thickly. “Um… okay?” Smiling awkwardly, she realized it had fallen when it dawned on her how much more tense things had become. 

Rubbing her hand down her face with her free hand, Izayoi huffed in a breath. “Look, Sakura, I’ll put it really plain for ya, yeah? You’re a stunner and exactly my type, got it? Hell, if I was down another bottle, I’d probably be doin’ anything in my ability to get you to bed with me. Thing is, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, all that, assumin’ things. Why, you might not even be into women the way I am! So, I want to know how you feel instead of pushing you into an uncomfortable corner, right? Yeah, y’see it now.”

All at once, every word was like a busser had dropped a hundred glass cups in her mind, each one Izayoi spoke shattering one after the other as she felt an unbearable flush rise in her body that had nothing to do with mortification or disgust. It wasn’t like she hadn’t harbored crushes before on girls like Hinata and even Ino, and had experimented with a few women on missions while incognito, but… she’d never gone that far. This far. How far it could go.

But, considering how reckless she’d been to date, it wasn’t like she hadn’t signed up for it. Like now, Izayoi had asked. Sakura had given an alternative, and there hadn’t been any force. And now, Izayoi was being a gentlewoman by propositioning her directly instead of beating around the bush. 

And, well… she was handsome. It was undeniable how attractive the older woman was, how magnetizing her swagger and energy could be, how much Sakura wouldn’t mind being even closer to that muscular body. 

So, with her body working faster than her brain, Sakura answered with a kiss that left nothing undisclosed and Izayoi jerked in surprise of. Still, after a grin and sultry chuckle, the woman returned it passionately and pried open Sakura’s lips to entwine their tongues. At the same time, Izayoi lowered Sakura against the bench and smothered their bodies together, the kunoichi’s thighs opening to accommodate for her bulk. 

“I’ll take that as a yeah,” Izayoi purred as her arm slipped beneath the small of Sakura’s back, causing an arch while the older woman dove away to plant hungry kisses along her neck. “Thing is, I have a feeling you don’t wanna be shagged in public like this.”

Still reeling from the breathless kiss, Izayoi sprang upwards and took Sakura with her by the hand, landing against the captain’s chest who regarded the other Nadeshiko roguishly, smiling devilishly. “Now, if you ladies will excuse us,” Izayoi said conversationally as she scooped Sakura bridal-style in her arms, “I have someone that needs doin’.”

As Izayoi swept them away into a hallway where vacant rooms awaited, the gregarious whooping of the other Nadeshiko coated Sakura’s cheeks in a fierce blush before Izayoi kicked a door shut behind them and deposited the kunoichi gently as dim candlelight flickered over their bodies after the woman joined her on the fluffy bed. 

“You sure you don’t want to back out now, Sakura?” Izayoi asked as she began stripping off her clothing, duster pooling in a heap on the floor while Sakura stared, transfixed, the question jogging her foggy mind belatedly. 

Swallowing thickly, she finally managed, “Nuh-uh.”

Izayoi smirked at Sakura’s current state, perhaps made evident by how widely the kunoichi’s pupils dilated as the captain offered a striptease, candlelight playing over muscular contours Sakura salivated to see; if one thing was for sure, muscles looked good on anyone she found attractive. Once everything but her sarashi and pants had been removed, Izayoi crawled on the bed and took one of Sakura’s hands, eyes dark with lust that had Sakura’s heart pounding into her throat. 

“Gods, yer too damn cute,” Izayoi murmured as she removed Sakura’s kimono tunic, the girdle she wore long since shed after they’d passed the threshold. Completely entranced did Izayoi dive for Sakura’s neck, sucking the flesh that was sure to leave hickeys while she squirmed from Izayoi’s ministrations. 

Smartly, the older woman unbound Sakura’s sarashi and freed her ample bosom somewhat flattened by the strips, chest heaving as Izayoi fondled a breast Sakura felt arousal from. 

“F-Fuck,” Sakura shivered as she arched while Izayoi came between her thighs, spreading them wide as the heat between their groins shot liquid fire through her body. Izayoi’s lips descended to her breast and suckled the flesh, overwhelmed by the pleasure it riddled her mind with. Izayoi ground against her and Sakura clawed her nails on the woman’s back, panting through the hazy arousal. 

“Fuck, that’s nice,” Izayoi quipped after unlatching from Sakura’s slowly bruising breast, her hand stimulating the other in luxuriant squeezes that melted the kunoichi’s mind. She grinned when Sakura moaned her name, arching as Izayoi lavished attention on her navel before descending lower to remove her trousers that made Sakura roll beneath her. 

“Doll, what the hell—“ Izayoi chuckled sultrily as she removed Sakura’s pants to reveal none other than her thong. “You sexy little minx.”

It happened to be great for mobility, thanks!

“What? They’re practical, honest!” Sakura pleaded in whiney tone, face hopelessly flushed and eyes hazy with need. 

“Practical for what? Showing off that beautiful ass of yours? Damn…” Izayoi chuffed as she fully groped the kunoichi’s rear, sighing pleasurably. “That’s a really fuckin’ nice ass.”

Sakura could only moan her name in reply, feeling the muscles in her solar plexus coil tighter and tighter as she writhed beneath Izayoi, her weight a satisfying counter to the pleasure wracking her body. 

“H-Hang on, I’m gonna—” Sakura mewled as she felt her vision white out and body seize up as she felt an orgasm flood through her body, the coil of tension wound as tightly as it could until it released on a cry. It was cause for Izayoi to straighten with a grimace, lips puckered. 

“Did ya just—? Well, fuck me upside, that won’t do t’leave it like that!” Izayoi exclaimed as she hastily removed Sakura’s thong and pants, strewing them aside while she still rode the aftershocks of her climax in favor of being subjected to even greater amounts of pleasure, feeling as Izayoi’s tongue lapped at her sex that boxed the older woman’s ears in with her clenched thighs. 

“I-Izayoi!” Sakura squealed unrestrainedly as her oversensitive womanhood was being devoured hungrily by the Nadeshiko, gripping her thighs in an attempt to anchor her while her tongue worked the kunoichi sinfully, heat and wetness lapping at her own that pitched her hips in a wild succession of bucking, the floodboards beneath them creaking from their fervent dance on the bed. “F-Fuck!” 

While she didn’t think it was possible to orgasm again in such a short period of time, the moments between accumulated with the unbearably prickly sensation of magma pouring through every extremity, driving her madder with need until Sakura all but screamed Izayoi’s name and ejaculated with such force that she unintentionally slammed her chakra-flooded palm into the floor, causing the entire establishment to quake dangerously, threatening to buckle if it was done more than once. Those within the tavern proper shouted in surprise, as if along Sakura’s own release. 

Sakura fell bonelessly on the bed, Izayoi peeked humorously from Sakura’s sex as if she’d ducked for cover there, gazing about until her eyes landed on the kunoichi’s prone form and she grinned, licking her lips perversely of the essences that stained her mouth and chin, causing Sakura to avert her eyes shyly. 

Izayoi prowled with a luxuriant purr over Sakura, smothering their bodies together as she initiated a passionate kiss despite Sakura’s hazy, incoherent state. Her legs wound around the older woman’s body, Izayoi gripping the underside of her thigh as they ground together, Sakura groaning into the friction between their bodies.

“Hope you’ve got enough in ya to keep going, doll,” Izayoi murmured seductively, lacing kisses down to her bruised chest again, “because I ain’t gonna stop until you beg me.”

Somehow, Sakura didn’t doubt for a second that she’d keep true to that promise.

How many rounds of sex they’d had, Sakura honestly didn’t know. 

All she did was that her limbs felt like gelatin and she could barely walk, but the satisfying ache from being spent over and over again was worth it. Sakura had barely managed to change without Izayoi’s help, the woman teasingly peppering kisses while the shy kunoichi had attempted to shove her away. That didn’t work when giggles came so easily to her. 

Maybe an hour had passed since they’d vanished, Izayoi’s sturdy arm was around her waist while she staggered coltishly back to their tables, surprised to see new faces had joined them.

A well-built black man sat with Mina on his lap, cuddled into his chest while another, smaller one wrapped in bandages reclined with Megumi nestled into his side like a favored concubine, arm across his waist. In contrast, the two new men drank like smug kings pleased with their catches. Of course, one had to factor in both women who looked inordinately delighted with their selected company, too.

“At it again, Izayoi?” the larger man teased while Mina toyed with the ends of his sharpened goatee, smirking at their captain impishly. 

“Would you like to know, Ae? What else am I supposed to do with such lovely, unattached company?” Izayoi spread her legs, one propped on the low tables between them, overstuffed leather lounges with high backs their seating of choice. She leaned back with clear airs of cockiness, and where Sakura thought she’d find someplace else to sit, she was yanked down across Izayoi’s lap with a hand on her waist that brought her to slot perfectly against Izayoi’s chest and beneath her chin. “Yayoi, send me one, will ya?” 

Yayoi shook her head exasperatedly and slid a pint of beer her sister’s way, who eagerly guzzled hers after their rather rough lovemaking. “Did ya enjoy yourself, at least, future girl?” she asked with a quirked eyebrow. 

Sakura blanked at first, blush creeping until she felt uncomfortably hot, nodding quickly and avoiding any of their gazes. Izayoi took notice and set her beverage down, wrapping her arms tightly around Sakura’s waist and sloppily kissing her cheek from behind after lingering to nuzzle into her neck. “Pretty sure you all heard how much she was enjoyin’ herself.” Izayoi inhaled her scent and sighed contentedly. 

“Wasn’t asking you, you dumb lug,” Yayoi reproached as she leaned back into her easychair, slinging her arm over its backing. “Looks too shy to say so, anyways. Guess we’ll have to make do with all those love bites I can see everywhere.”

“Wait, you mean… they’re obvious?” Sakura squeaked with a look of comical anguish at the thought, glancing speculatively at her clavicle and nearly shrieking when she saw the incriminating marks trail much lower than her sarashi could hide. “H-Holy shit!”

“You usually this noisy, pinkie?” Mina prodded teasingly. “Sheesh, no wonder Iza likes ya so much; she’s always had a thing for the cute, girly types.”

“Cute as a fuckin’ button~” Izayoi agreed merrily, which elicited a burst of guffawing laughter from the group while Sakura hid her face in her hands, too embarrassed to even think of rebutting.

“Taichō,” the bandaged man directed, seaglass green eyes intense upon Izayoi, “Ae and I have finished planning. We should be ready to begin our next mission in the coming days.”

“Plan?” Sakura parroted, straightening in Izayoi’s hold as the woman leaned back, an arm around Sakura’s waist directing her back as well to nestle against her chest. 

“Yeah, plan. We’ve been workin’ it for weeks now and we’re almost ready to deploy. No thanks to Mū-Mū and Ae,” Yayoi explained through sips of her beer. “You boys wanna do the honors?”

Hang on… Mū… the bandages… Holy shit, this guy is Mū of the Dust Release! Sakura thought in astonishment. None other than the future Nīdaime Tsuchikage and one of the most powerful shinobi in the world.

“The Chinoike run something known as the Blood Market out of the Valley of Hell. However, they are also subject to regular raids by hand of the Uchiha who deliberately act to inflict terror on them to keep them in line. You see, the Blood Market is the heart of the underworld and vital to outfits like the Nadeshiko who depend on it for ninjutsu otherwise hoarded by the clans. We rely on it to defend ourselves against shinobi’s treachery and destruction, especially,” Ae began, rubbing a hand along Mina’s petite back, dwarfed by the fortress of a man. Hell, he reminded her of a specific other Ae… 

Wait, is this guy one of the future Raikage? she realized in another bout of shock. The Nadeshiko sure keep extraordinary company, that's for sure…

“That’s what our plan will hopefully deter. We’re going to hold one of the Uchiha for ransom: Madara Uchiha’s younger brother, Izuna,” Mū continued for the future Raikage, which caused Sakura’s eyes to open wide in dismay. 

“Are you guys fucking crazy?! That’ll seriously kick the hornet’s nest!” Sakura exclaimed in alarm, flying to her feet despite Izayoi’s sigh at her absence. “I-I mean, that guy has the Mangekyō Sharingan and is almost as powerful as his brother!”

“And?” Megumi challenged with a dry scoff. “My husband’s Dust Release is powerful enough to make any of those Uchiha bastards piss themselves. Not taking into account our collective abilities, like yours. You took out Atkor Kamuy and that was a legendary squid the Uzumaki moon over like it’s a god. Why should we run for the hills when we’re here to make them eat their own shit?”

“As my wife put it so poetically,” Mū quipped with a muffled chuckle, the insinuation of a smile visible through his bandages. He patted her back and she smirked slightly under his praise. 

“Besides, pinkie, you’ve probably faced some powerful enemies in that scrambled head of yours, right?” Mina chimed in, twining her fingers through one of Ae’s box braids. 

“Well… my teacher did face Madara and held her own, and I’ve surpassed her, so…” Sakura grumbled with folded arms, still visibly troubled. Even if she did understand the need; though she could care less for the Blood Market, it was the Chinoike themselves she was more concerned about. They sounded like… mostly innocent people, if the grisly details of the Blood Market were to be believed. 

“Right then,” Izayoi confirmed as she removed a shiv she lobbed into one of the tables, demanding their attention. Cracking her knuckles and neck loudly, she grinned wolfishly Sakura was starting to love seeing. “We’ll leave in a week, give us time to prepare with our new weapons. Any objections?” 

After a round of approval from those present, she bellowed towards the barkeeper. “Oi, you! Get us all the booze you have! We’re gonna get shitfaced!”

With louder cheers from their group and the patrons occupying the tavern, Sakura knew she’d be in for a rowdy night of carousing.

They had a diabolical plan to commence soon, after all.

Chapter Text

Warning(s): M, explicit medical gore, rape mention

Like a geisha tuning her shamisen, there was a peace in holing himself away in his lab with nothing but his cadavers for company. 

Tobirama used a chakra scalpel to remove the lungs as he wormed through the chest cavity towards the bronchial tubes that united in the trachea, carefully severing muscle tissues and arteries that webbed across the organs, shimmering in the low heat of candle flame he kept suspended directly above his head. The Senju flinched when one ruptured and spat cooling blood in his eyes, grimacing as he wiped it away with his sleeve already heavily stained from being buried within the cadaver for hours by then.

The man had died just an hour before he’d begun, after all. Some deviant servant that had attempted to rape one of the Shimura’s branch members. Now, his body was serving science as the cost for his transgressions, Tobirama reflected as he made several more incisions, the chakra scalding dead flesh as he gradually and delicately worked the lungs from its fleshy prison. 

Huffing satisfactorily once he was finished, as though the respiratory system was fine bone china did he transplant the lungs and bronchial tubes upon a human-sized scroll with the outline of a man was embossed. Within, individual sealing circles were scrawled in flowing grass script at the epicenters of major body organs. All from the same body, of course, as Tobirama genuflected on cold flagstone to place the lungs that shone in the warm plays of candlelight. 

As though laying flowers at a grave, the Senju deposited the organ on the empty circle where the lungs would be, bodily fluids and plasma bleeding into the parchment. Thankfully, it was red mulberry, one of the highest quality materials Uzushio no Sato for fūinjutsu parchment had on their market exclusively reserved for the main branch of their clan. 

His brother was married to one of those members and thus granted Tobirama priceless access to paraphernalia invaluable to his scientific research. 

Rising again, he returned to the desiccated corpse and the sealing formula it was positioned upon, weaving a few hand seals one-handed that caused the cadaver to disappear in a plume of smoke; it would be kept preserved until Tobirama had need of it later to continue his research on that particular specimen. 

Then, removing his soiled gloves and robes coated in blood splatters and viscera as though coming from a violent murder, he placed the garments in a wicker hamper his aides would collect for the servants to wash. 

Charging more chakra for the larger sealing scroll, the organs glistening in bloody pools vanished in clouds of smoke, then rolling the scroll shut to place it along the shelves that lined the wall of his laboratory, storing it meticulously in its own cubby like the rest were. 

Then came the arduous process of recording his findings for the day in ledger, some viscera still clinging to his flesh and skin, he lit a candle and prepared ink on an inkstone he'd transcribe with, poised to write until the impatient tap of soles on the flagstone alerted him, but it wasn’t out of alarm. 

“Aniki, Kawarama was being mean to me again!” Itama whined as he flung his arms around his elder brother’s neck while Tobirama pretended to ignore him, lower lip jutted in a pout and nuzzling into Tobirama’s cheek with glassy onyx eyes.

He’d grown to become accustomed to the black sclera until he barely noticed it anymore. 

“Was he?” Tobirama queried with a small, unseen smile as he leaned into his little brother’s affections, a warmth aflutter in his chest. This was often the highlight of a grueling day, after all. “What was he doing, exactly?”

‘Itama, you’re lying!” Kawarama rebutted as he stalked towards Tobirama and forcefully took the elder Senju’s arm, cheek puffed as the movement almost caused him to streak a messy line across his ledger’s page. “Tobi, don’t listen to him!”

Tobirama instead elected to feint on his brothers with a laugh as he scooped them beneath his arms, holding them to his sides while they shrieked in amusement. Itama giggled while Kawarama protested, clearly flustered as the elder Senju spun them dizzily in a circle until they all collapsed in a heap, dissolving into gut-wrenching laughter so forceful that Tobirama’s ribs ached keenly. 

Even though the happiness they submerged themselves in was genuine, Tobirama froze when he heard footsteps. A single hand seal was made as Kawarama and Itama ceased laughing, stood up, and bustled from the laboratory floor to the back room from whence they’d come. When the quiet tap of the wooden door sliding shut sounded, Tobirama straightened and hurried back to his desk to resume his work, bowed over his ledger and the writing he’d been interrupted from.

“Tobi-kun, was someone down here with you?” 

Mito stood at the last stair into his laboratory with a candle situated on a shallow dish, cupping the flame so the chilly drafts wouldn’t extinguish it. With her hair partially unbound, it shimmered like strands of copper in the flickering candlelight. Clad in her ivory kimono, she looked more haunting than his revived brothers. 

“No, Mito-san. I merely misstepped and tripped over some equipment,” Tobirama lied, though he was skilled enough to conceal it. 

The Uzumaki pursed her lips and nodded slowly, sighing at the emotional barricade her brother-in-law had erected, deep onyx gazing dejectedly into the wan light of her candle. “You know, if anything is troubling you—”

It was Tobirama’s turn to sigh, knowing he was being uncharacteristically brusque and flinty towards Mito, the woman who had turned his brother around. Though their marriage had been arranged, given the brothers’ pasts of abuse at the hands of their father, she had saved Hashirama as the arrangement gave way to genuine love. 

He envied Hashirama for it, but he couldn’t afford to focus on such trivial things. Not when the war with the monstrous Uchiha was raging rampantly and external forces were always waiting to batter down Sennan’s doors. Tobirama had to be one of those who supported Hashirama, the most powerful member of their clan and bulwark against the world’s ravages. If he encountered the slightest debilitation, it would mean the Senju’s demise. 

More than that, he just wanted to protect his beloved older brother’s light, more than anything. 

“Please, don’t worry about me, Mito. My brother and your son need more support. I’ll deal with anything wrong; I always have.” His smile was forced, but in the dimness of his dungeon, he hoped she wouldn’t notice. 

Mito frowned. She didn’t believe him, and he was foolish to think she couldn’t see through him. 

“Very well. Rest well, Tobi-kun,” she farewelled with a sisterly squeeze to his shoulder, turning away to ascend the stairwell and return above ground, the corona of the candle light accenting the shadows at her back ghoulishly. Leaving him to be mired in his lab like the confining recesses of an overthinking mind too troubled to think of sleep.

Working all-nighters wasn't out of character for him, at least. Yet, once his sister-in-law’s footsteps became faraway creaking on the floorboards above, he set his quill down and strode towards the room his brothers were in, the pair of them standing like vacant mannequins in the corner.

Though his lower lip trembled slightly, he pressed on with a hand seal to release the stasis, lighting a gas lantern suspended above their heads.

“Nī-san, can we camp under the stars tonight?” Itama begged hopefully, pointing to the ceiling where there were none. 

“Hey, look at this firefly I caught!” Kawarama gloated as he held empty air, the silence in his storage room utterly deafening. 

It was necessary, Tobirama told himself. It was the cost of having them back in his life, the cost of keeping them secret so monsters wouldn’t take them away again. So long as it didn’t interfere with his work, who was anyone to tell him otherwise? 

As if anyone else even knew.

“Why don’t we camp out under the stars?” Tobirama suggested with a sedated smile. In the suffocating dustiness and velvety gloom of the windowless room, a tarp he removed seemed about as inviting as a pile of dead bodies against such a cold, hard floor.

“Yeah, sleepover!” Itama cheered with a pumped fist. Kawarama huffed softly, but conceded. 

“Fine, I guess it’s an okay idea…” Kawarama grumbled softly, though his eyes betrayed his excitement. 

Laying upon the dusty tarp, Tobirama opened his arms for his brothers to snuggle into, exactly as it’d been when they were alive over twenty years ago. Before they had been so cruelly taken.

“Why don’t I tell a story?” Tobirama suggested against the soft respiration of his brothers swiftly losing the battle with the encroaching sleep soon to take them. Uttering soft, soporous sounds, he decided to do so while they were together exactly as they were meant to be.

“It was a cold winter day, a little before you were born, Kawarama…”

Sometimes, Izuna genuinely wondered if the vocation if the new generation was to rectify the mistakes of the past. 

It wasn’t even necessarily the fault of their father, either. Years before any of their brothers were conceived, the Uchiha had been tasked with a mission by the Lightning Daimyō’s jaded first wife to do something about the Chinoike kinswoman whose son had become the second in line, outlived her husband, and the wife had been blamed for it occurring at all. So, Tajima—the Uchiha Clan leader at the time—had accepted the mission to relocate the Chinoike from the Land of Lightning to the nigh uninhabitable Valley of Hell in the Land of Hot Water. This country shared an eastern border with the easternmost reaches of the Fire Country which was Senju country.

Easily bypassed on the sea, but that was besides the point. 

“Hikaku, it’s funny—have you heard the rumors about the Valley of Hell?” Izuna began conversationally, a reed mat unrolled with the supplies he’d intended to take with them on their little… expedition. The lazy strains of a phonograph played a muffled ragtime in the din of their conversation and preparation.

“Izuna-sama?” Hikaku said with a rhetorical question in his tone. “Is this about that so-called ‘Blood Market’?”

“Mind-reader,” Izuna accused playfully, badly suppressing huffing a chuckle. “You know, the Seven Swordsmen were debilitated recently. Had all their weapons stolen, to boot.”

“What’s this about stolen swords?” Izuna turned to see another compatriot barge into the room both were preparing within, donned in the dusty violet armor inherent to the Hyūga on his mother’s side. Daisuke was his maternal cousin, after all, so the intrusion made sense when borne of such high levels of familiarity. 

Daisuke’s pale violet eyes danced mischievously as he clapped a hand on Izuna’s back, rattling the conversely scarlet armor he wore. All of a uniform style among the higher-ranking ninja clans. 

“We don’t know much. Just that they were stolen at all. You know how the Water Country is,” Hikaku said with a gamey smile. “It’s sealed tighter than a priest’s backside.”

“Well, good thing the Water Country has its maladies while we have ours,” Daisuke quipped as he unsheathed his tantō and balanced the pommel in his open cusp, humming some odd circus tune while the blade wobbled in his hand. A smile quickened across his face when it pitched forth, and Daisuke rushed to save it before it fell to the tatami, but feinted by flipping it in the air and snatching the hilt, training the short blade towards Izuna, who lifted an eyebrow and was clearly unimpressed. “We’re the two most powerful dōjutsu clans in the damn world. The vanguard against the Senju and Uzumaki. What on earth are you trembling like some scared little boy for, eh, Izu?” 

“What on earth gave you that idea, jūtei?” Izuna asked with a sarcastic scoff as he pushed Daisuke’s sword aside exasperatedly, though he didn’t doubt for a second that the Hyūga—vapid idiot though he was—was right. Whatever happened to the Seven Swordsmen was likely some vengeance enacted by some clan wronged by Byakuren, the man a ruthless conqueror on a good day. Forcing others to submit to his power lest he retaliate with blood and violence in homage to the dragon gods he claimed his clan was divinely descended from. “It’s probably just enemies of Byakuren. You know how that tyrant is.”

“Izuna’s right, Daisuke. You’re looking for a conspiracy when there is none. At least that concerns us,” Hikaku amended, snatching Daisuke’s tantō away and teasingly keeping it from the Hyūga who attempted to fruitlessly snatch it from the older man. “We should focus on preparation to leave instead of goofing around, which you seem so insistent on doing. We still have to meet Naori-chan, after all.”

Naori, one of the Fire Daimyō’s onna-bugeisha as much as she was one of his concubines and member of the Uchiha clan, had been one of the only members to awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan alongside her brothers Rai, Naka, and Baru. As part of the Fire Daimyō’s inner court, her participation would elevate the Uchiha’s standing in the Kazoku’s kuge. As the higher-ranking ninja clans were part of the complementary Shizoku, it would serve them well no matter the reason behind it. 

“Well, once you idiots are ready to go, I say we head out before first light,” Izuna informed them with a teasing smirk as he stowed his sundries away in a sealing scroll that would in turn be stashed on his person on a utility pouch on his leather girdle he wore behind him. “The sooner, the better.”

The forested boulevards of Uchinada were devoid of activity as the trio first stopped at Naori and her brothers’ residence to meet with her brothers tasked with accompanying them. Normally, they didn’t like to take so many of the clan’s invaluable Mangekyō Sharingan users with them, but these were the Chinoike they were dealing with. The only clan they knew of possessed dōjutsu as dangerous as the Sharingan or Byakugan. 

As their troupe bounded through the branches of the forest their capital was secreted within, Izuna couldn’t help the sense of foreboding that lingered heavily on his shoulders. Somehow, he had reason to believe that this so-called Blood Market wasn’t a rumor. With the shinobi world being secretive and elusive save the times clans or shinobi families were hired out, their abilities were coveted among those who wished to exploit such powers. It boiled Izuna’s blood to think about, but considering the Chinoike had notoriously killed the previous generation of Ino-Shika-Chō for their clans’ hijutsu, it somehow didn’t come as a surprise.

If it were true, it would make already dangerous criminals who threatened civilians as much as they did less powerful shinobi families a greater threat. Nevermind how Izuna couldn’t help but think that the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist and their slaughter and subsequent theft of their legendary swords were connected. 

Like whoever was responsible was testing their limits and aiming higher and higher until he didn’t doubt clans like the Uchiha would be threatened. 

“I don’t think you’re wrong to be worried, Izuna-san.” Izuna turned to see Rai speak with him, wondering how the man had read his thoughts. 

“The Blood Market. You suspect the validity of it, too?” Rai nodded grimly, especially once they came to Uchinada’s main gates. Sentinels patrolling the high and thick perimeter wall were called to open by Hikaku, the importance of their coming mission stressed even before they’d even really left.

“These past few years we’ve been on these missions, the Chinoike have been getting more and more violent. Before the War of the Tides in the Eddie Country, they were resentful, sure, but after… They’ve been getting bolder. Even the Senju, their closest neighbors, have been struggling to deal with them conducting raids on their clansmen and allies. And they’re not raids for resources like they used to be,” Rai continued as the mighty gates of Uchinada swung slowly open, groaning loudly that disturbed the silent, early morning air. Moonlight glossed over its zenith before falling upon them like a midnight sun.

Izuna ruminated grimly on the War of the Tides, the largest war campaign the Uchiha had launched upon the Senju’s closest hereditary allies, the Uzumaki, that had forged legends as much as it had infamy. Ten years ago, Izuna had just been in his teens at the time and Madara in his early 20’s. Butsuma and Tajima had lost their lives in that war, elevating their heirs as the new clan leaders. He and Madara had awoken their Mangekyō in that war, and he’d never forget the assassin responsible for it.

Those eyes like dead algae in sclera red as blood still haunted him, especially the bizarre ninjutsu he’d wielded of a monstrousness Izuna had never witnessed before. 

If he never ran into that bastard ever again, he’d say it was too soon. 

Hours would pass as they advanced through the Uchiha’s sphere of influence west of the Naka and the roar of the river itself rose in volume, plumes of smoke rising from a sequestered, sleepy hamlet where several ships were moored at a harbor. They came to the edge of the clearing that bypassed the main road, shouts from the several quays of longshoremen and porters loading cargo ships with their burdens arose. Wooden cranes lofted the wares in crates above until they were lowered into their holds, the crewmen working with a languor that came with the early morn.

As their group proceeded through the main drag of the quiet village, crows perched on the thatched roofs cawed noisily at them, the Uchiha distantly wondering if it wasn’t some omen he should beware of. Even if it seemed a foolhardy tangent to dwell upon. 

“Ah, you must be Izuna-sama. You know, a telegram would’ve been faster,” the designated captain greeted with a wry smile, a barrel-chested man with a greasy topknot and frizzy, full beard. Although, Izuna couldn’t fault him for his dour presentation; they were the ones who’d agreed to ferry them to the Land of Hot Water, after all. It was a risky venture for any sailor, no matter how many purses of ryō slid their way. “There’s been a slight change of plans, though, sir.”

“Change of plans?” Izuna parroted with folded arms, a gesture his brother often did. “What changes?”

“Naori-sama has agreed to meet us further upriver. Instead of sailing along the coast, we’ve decided to take the tributary river—the Sumida—up north so we can avoid the Senju. I’m sorry, sir, but my trading company has lost three ships to their forces in attempting to halt the flow of goods to your sphere. They’ve created garrisons in all the towns and villages along the coast, including west of the Naka.”

“I’m sorry to hear that…” Izuna trailed off, visibly troubled. As spymaster of the Uchiha, he should’ve anticipated such a thing. Though, as all clans had the custom of accepting clanless—oftentimes civilian—members if they displayed enough ability, sometimes allowing marriages, this was news to him. Upper-ranking clans of the Shizoku adopted tradesmen and their families to carry out mundane occupations their clansmen were too invaluable to fill, they also made ideal spies because of their lack of affiliation. Enough to throw off even the best sensors due to their lack of biological affinity.

And, the Senju were vastly wealthier than the Uchiha. They undoubtedly had enough non-clan shinobi to spare for such ventures. A ploy likely devised by that Tobirama devil, he was certain. 

“It’s fine, taichō. So long as you can take us as far as Yuga no Sato, we’ll make due on our own.”

As the final preparations were made, their lot boarded and hid themselves in the steerage with sensory-retardant seals planted at its corners to prevent them from being detected. All composed by their resident fūinjutsu specialist, Sāra Uzumaki.

As shouts from above penetrated with muffled rapport through the confined space, the rocking of the ship swirling bilge water towards them, it seemed as though they would be due to embark within the minute. 

Izuna simply sighed, perching on some empty shelving they utilized as makeshift seating, stifling a yawn as sleepiness caught up with him and he made himself comfortable in the confined space. 

He might as well rest until they arrived at their destination and the literal hell they were in for. 

“Izu, wake up!”

Izuna’s onyx eyes cracked open blearily as he unfolded from his cramped position on the shelf to face Naori who shook him awake with a stricken expression. With her long, amethyst locks bound in a braid and donning the blue and gold-accented armor of the Madoka royal family, the Uchiha woman withdrew once Izuna straightened and recomposed himself. 

“What’s wrong…?” he asked groggily while Naori stood back, likely asleep when she’d boarded. The older woman flashed her onyx eyes to the slant of sunlight that poured from the surface through the egress belowdecks, the bewildered shouts of the crewmen too unintelligible for him to understand. The older woman dragged him from the velvety gloam he’d been asleep within and into the incisive sunlight that nearly blinded him. 

When the Uchiha finally adjusted to the noontime sun, he understood why the crewmen were driven into a frenzy. 

At least two- or three-hundred feet from the ground did the silhouette of a man hover, backed by the sun that made discerning his features impossible. Izuna seized Naka’s attention after briefly performing a Genjutsu Release; the man remained suspended high aloft, ruling out the possibility that it was an illusion. 

“Naka! Is that a man?” Izuna demanded, reliant on his sensory ability. 

“Yes. Earth Country by the makeup on his chakra aura, but— Wait! He’s doing something!”

Daisuke rushed to Izuna’s side, his Byakugan already activated, as he gritted his teeth to concentrate on surveying the unfolding scene, his veins bulging as the incalculable atmosphere of dread bore down on them heavily. 

“He’s forming something in his hands. It looks like some… shape,” the Hyūga observed haltingly, until his voice rose in alarm. “He’s doing something with it! It’s—!”

Daisuke didn’t get the opportunity to finish his statement as the man wreathed by the sun vanished as a white, translucent column speared through the water that vaporized it with a high whine. The luminous construct was guided in a semi-circle that clove through the bow and stern of the ship like it was air, Izuna freezing when he felt immeasurable energy gravitate towards the cuts, knowing something was coming. 

“Evacuate the ship! It’s going to—!”

An explosion of unimaginable power tore the ship apart. A corona of light erupted from the blast, sending a sonic boom rippling for miles and splitting the sky. Clouds scattered in a vast ring, and sound vanished in the violent fury of the white blaze, leaving the world around it consumed by chaos.

Chapter Text

Warning(s): T, some suggestiveness

Sakura clutched her ears, afraid any stronger force would crush her skull. Still, her ears rang with deafening vibrations, and white light consumed her vision as her senses faltered. Blearily, she cracked an eye open. The deck wavered before her, colors distorted as if her brain itself had miswired.

Gradually, Sakura let go of her skull and gripped the ship’s balustrade as titanic waves rocked the hull from the blast. She eased to her feet, mouth falling open at the sight before her.

The Uchiha’s chartered ship was gone, vaporized into a flickering corona of white where it had sailed minutes before. The stormed sky had cleared, sunlight pouring through the blast’s circumference like a visitation from a god. Smoke rose from the ocean as the wreckage burned, the sea seeming split by a rising volcano rather than a man’s act. Cinders and ash rained down, while Izayoi stood at the fore, fingers brought together as if framing the disaster for posterity.

“That, ladies and gents, was a fuckin’ masterpiece,” the woman gloated with unrestrained excitement in her voice, acrid wind caressing her black pompadour, billowing through the ends of her duster. 

“Hang on, how do we know the Uchiha made it?” Sakura demanded as she trotted towards the prow where Izayoi stood, concern in her features.

“Oh, they’re alive, alright,” Yayoi replied as she clapped her skull in an attempt to dispel the ringing. “I’m not the greatest sensor, but we’re close enough. All seven of them made it, and they’re pissed as hell. Especially the most powerful one, which I’d wager was that Izuna bastard.”

“Mū is a smart man. He’s a gifted sensor and strategist; think of what he did as being an extremely powerful flash bomb. If he wanted them dead, he wouldn't have revealed himself,” Megumi supplied as all five of them—with their chosen swords strapped on—primed themselves for the assault to come. “Talk about kicking the hornet’s nest, eh, future girl?”

Sakura unsheathed Kubikiribōchō with a thrum of anxiety in her chest, and she couldn’t help but feel intimidated. Next to Madara, Izuna was the most powerful member of the Uchiha armed to the teeth with at least four other Mangekyō Sharingan users of prolific ability themselves. She didn’t doubt for a second that it would be tantamount to challenging the Six Paths of Pein with the scope of their combined power. 

“Alright, let’s nail these fuckers into the ground!” came Izayoi’s clarion call as the five of them alighted from the ship with Ae in tow, racing alongside Mina, who Sakura belatedly learned was her husband. 

The Valley of Hell lay barely a mile inland from the Land of Hot Water’s coast. The roiling sea pounded the walls of the narrow cove where they had taken shelter, rushing down the cliffside before crashing into the waves below. They skated across the ocean as Sakura fell in step with Ae, the teammate she had agreed to pair with before setting out.

Before they gained too much speed, Sakura activated Edohigan: Lightning, a lightning-release chakra cloak—a diluted version of the Yondaime Raikage’s. Invisible to the eye, it pushed her nervous system to its limits, enhancing her reaction time, speed, and defenses—enough to match Mangekyō Sharingan users. It was a defensive jutsu she had developed after the war, designed to give her a fighting chance against dōjutsu-enhanced opponents.

“Hey, Ae!” Sakura shouted above the waves as they sped towards the shoreline the Uchiha squadron had recouped upon, a barren, flat peninsula of jagged stone that would likely become the stage of their battle. “You ready?”

Before Ae could answer, Izayoi shouted, “Alright, you lot all have your opponents to face, so let’s split and really bring hell to ‘em!”

“As we trained, Sakura-san. Let’s go!” the Lightning native answered belatedly as they came fast upon two figures at the spearpoint of the peninsula, being none other than Izuna and Naori. Even from afar, Sakura could keenly feel the glare from their invoked Sharingan. 

As the designated tanks of the team, they would fight with as much abandon as they could muster.

With the momentum from their headlong flight fueling her speed, Sakura leapt from on high as she curled her body into a forward flip while flooding chakra into the soles of her feet, and she then plummeted with the force of a meteor to the jagged ground her quarry braced for impact upon.

“SHANNARŌŌŌŌ!”

The strike triggered an implosion of stone and sand as the earth buckled over a hundred meters. Debris erupted in a dust cloud that scraped the sky, fissures spreading beyond the blast radius. Megaliths leapt into the air before crashing into the caldera Sakura had carved. A chasm sank dozens of meters deep, quickly flooded by the ocean, just as the creaking of a Susano’o’s limbs met her plunge—her sword caught by a massive, shimmering chakric hand.

Izuna glowered at her wrathfully atop the ocean he stood upon, his armored Susano’o in its third, armored phase. From the four arms sprouting from its broad back did the towering avatar manifest four enormous cleavers ablaze with a unique Fire Release chakra flow, smoking heatedly. 

As the hand that caught her flung her away like spent refuse, Sakura recovered with a flip and skidded somewhat atop the water, the pair of them brandishing their weapons in unison that Sakura bolstered with lightning release to enhance its cutting power. Holding hers with both hands, the kunoichi charged him again. Their swords clashed together in a forceful clangor, the attrition creating sparks as Izuna channeled the strength of his Susano’o entirely into their grapple. 

“Why are you doing this?!” Izuna shouted, the Susano’o groaning hauntingly from the strain Sakura caused. 

Though Sakura knew what the answer should be, the kunoichi became tongue-tied and found she didn’t know the answer. What should’ve sprang to mind was that the Uchiha terrorizing the Chinoike was wrong, of how what they did was despicable—but, nothing could be said as she instead reversed the grip she had on Kubikiribōchō. Utilizing the kinetic energy mounting between them, Sakura twisted her body, augmented her enhanced strength with her sword arm, and parried the four blades of Izuna’s upwards. In the window that was created, she switched the sword to one hand and lashed out with a flat-heeled blow into the Susano’o’s midsection with her enhanced strength which sent him flying for several feet back. 

Through the opening Sakura’s had created, Izayoi’s own melee battle with Hikaku Uchiha tore through. 

The man utilized Fire Release: Flame Bullet to force distance between them, Kiba having successfully severed the Uchiha’s katana in half. Izayoi lingered in the path of the flame jutsu while Sakura abandoned her fight with a cry as she barreled into Izayoi and wrenched her from the path of the scorching retort. 

Both women fell upon one of the few remaining remnants of intact land on the destroyed peninsula, quickly alighting back to their feet while Izayoi faced her with a tender cup to Sakura’s cheek. 

“Thanks, love,” Izayoi thanked softly, heart pounding in the kunoichi’s throat when the woman brought Sakura in for a quick kiss, then wheeling on their foes with a livid anger marring her face. “Come on, you spineless cocksuckers!” 

With Kiba’s Thunderswords Technique: Remote Control, lightning surged from both blades as they hovered independently, Izayoi revolving one with blistering speed as it became a dangerous shuriken-like projectile she hurled towards the one Uchiha known as Naka and severely grazed his shoulder, the man gasping aloud as he clutched his shoulder joint; the arm had gone limp, immobilized by the pain brought on by the aftershocks.

“That’s one fucker down,” Izayoi snarled through gritted teeth. At the same time, Sakura renewed her assault against Izuna, interrupting the flow of battle as he deliberately wheeled backwards to draw Sakura away, completely blindsided when his hand flew through unknown hand seals that erected walls of flame she recognized as the Uchiha Flame Formation that consumed the vicinity in a maelstrom of scorched steam from the water below as the walls licked the undersides of the clouds themselves in its towering height. 

Sakura was suddenly seized by Izuna, who gripped her tunic like an unbreakable vice. A vicious right hook followed, but Sakura felt as if moving through molasses, barely able to react. The world fell silent, flames licking the air with slow, deliberate rhythm.

Though she realized she was likely caught in a genjutsu, under the lurid glare of Izuna’s Mangekyō, her eyes sluggishly widened, frantic to reverse the flow of her chakra to release its snare on her. 

Yet, it never came as the world fell away into a blank, black space where only they remained. His hold on her released, and Izuna himself vanished the next time she blinked, a cold sweat erupting when she realized she could very well have been swept up in an illusion on par with the Tsukuyomi. What it would entail, she didn’t know. 

“So long as you’re trapped in my Kangiten,” Izuna’s disembodied voice spoke, coming from every and no direction, “you should be harmless. I’ll find out what you want, soon enough. Cease causing trouble…”

Though Sakura tried desperately to recirculate her chakra, she couldn’t feel the metaphysical energies needed to mold chakra. She tried and tried, but nothing happened. 

Then, she fell unconscious in a sea of everlasting blackness.

Sakura awoke with a choked gasp, bolting upright as she hacked and gagged, lungs flooding after shallow, unconscious breaths. A sharp, frigid chill bit her mostly bare skin. Stripped to a sackcloth, she struggled to stand, her hands shackled behind her back and ankle manacles restricting her movement. Footing was tricky, but she managed.

Lurching towards a barred window, Sakura gripped the bars in an attempt to at least discover where she was. Peering through, a corridor with half-sized doors and windows like hers set higher revealed that it was certainly a prison she was trapped within. Concrete lined the corridor while the plastered walls bore scorch marks from the ensconced torches that lined them. 

So, a prison. No shit there. One didn’t exactly launch an offensive against several prominent members of the Uchiha Clan and expected to escape unscathed. 

But, it still begged the question: where was she? 

Voices at the end of the corridor resonated through the confined space, bouncing from the high ceilings and plaster as though they stood inside a bell. Though Sakura had half a mind to try and play it subtly, a skeleton humorously dangled from a corner from manacles elicited a grimace as she attempted to furiously capture the wardens’ attention instead. 

“Hey! Lemme out of here, will you? There’s been some huge mistake!”

As the warden’s bulk shifted, Sakura jabbed a finger towards the Uchiha who accompanied the man. 

“You’re the one who captured me! Or—! Incapacitated me— WAIT, AM I GOING TO BE EXECUTED?!”

Izuna simply stood with a lofty, aristocratic sense of irritation that rubbed Sakura wrong, sighing dramatically. “No, you’re not going to be executed,” Izuna informed her as his eyes slid over with visible amusement. “I’ll admit, I haven’t been challenged like that before. Originally, the Nadeshiko were common nuisances like any ordinary brigand one can find on the road. Then all of a sudden, you join them and they walk away with the Seven Swordsmen’s blades and commandeer enough manpower to give us a run for our money. Might I have your name, Miss…?”

“Dekorīn,” Sakura replied tartly, leveling him with a flat stare. 

“Charmed,” Izuna responded dryly, lip twitching somewhere between a smirk and annoyance. 

As the two met the other in a silent contest of wills, it was Sakura who tore her gaze away with an irate huff before a realization hit her. “Wait, what the hell did you do with the rest of the Nadeshiko?!”

“Nothing. That Mū fellow used that strange jutsu and forced us into a retreat lest we be vaporized. We had to cut our losses with you and run.”

“Oh, thank gods,” Sakura exhaled as she sagged with her hands still gripping the bars in a vice, overcome with relief that her comrades were likely still alive. 

“There’s a reason why the shinobi world remains separate from the rest.” Sakura straightened when Izuna began speaking again, her interlocutor possessing a faraway look she couldn’t place. “They look at us and determine we’re evil simply because our way of life differs. And yet, many are still mercenaries or soldiers who are just as lawless and destructive as they claim we are. Or criminals like the Nadeshiko who claim to be judge and jury while utilizing ninjutsu, exacting selfish revenge with little regard to others.”

“What, like you’re suddenly the good guys?” Sakura exclaimed in disgust, glowering at him heatedly. 

“You’re a ninja, aren’t you? Why have you suddenly grown an arbitrary set of morals despite this lifestyle of ours?” Izuna challenged with a raised chin, looking down at the shorter woman. 

Scoffing dryly, Sakura folded her arms uncomfortably. “Because,” she began stonily, “once upon a time I believed in it so damn much. Of being a tool to serve your community, of prioritizing the mission, sealing your emotions away and serving whatever contract you were under perfectly. I believed in it more than anything! But, time after time, I kept meeting people who were reminded they were people. Fucked up, flawed people who couldn’t become perfect shinobi. The ones who did were literal monsters.” 

Izuna scoffed with a small shadow of a smile, dark browns darting to the kunoichi. “You say this, yet you call us all monsters?” His smile grew indulgent, canting his head towards Sakura. “That’s what people like your Nadeshiko call us indiscriminately. People who have nothing but a small chance of imitating us without understanding anything.”

“Last time I checked, your brother and his rival had a habit of literally redrawing map lines in the wake of their battles. And that’s just them.”

“So do the armies that serve the Kazoku. They’re not all ninja. Most are serfs who have a social contract with their lords, who send them to battle over petty rivalries with other lords. The daimyō allows it because it keeps them from growing too influential, too powerful. They’re not much more innocent than we are; we’re just better at covering our tracks.”

Sakura regarded Izuna drolly, unsure if he was being truly philosophical, obtuse, or some mutated cocktail of both she wasn’t wrapping her head around. Yet, none of it mattered when her stomach gnawed on her innards and she was too dizzy to stand, let alone debate semantics. 

“Ugh, I can barely even think. I feel so woozy, I think a nice execution might honestly help,” Sakura groused softly, and Izuna’s knowing smile grew. 

“We’ll just have to do something about that, won’t we?”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t poison people. I prefer something sharp between the ribs.”

Sakura couldn’t help but gawk at this strange woman whose house had been offered as a venue for her apparent house arrest. Not only did her mannerisms recall a more feminine Tsunade (if it even made sense), but her barely tethered yukata meant her breasts spilled dangerously close to popping from the dramatic, plunging opening; hell, they were almost too distracting. Swaying and bobbing with every movement, sometimes smothering when she craned across the table—

“Magnificent to look at, aren’t they?” the redhead teased boastfully, tilting her chin before her inordinately long nail impaled a grape and she nipped the fruit away. 

Sakura startled guiltily, realizing she’d been staring. “Yes… I mean, no! Shit, I mean—”

“Gods, you fluster so easily,” the woman simpered as she reached across the table to tap Sakura’s nose as the kunoichi reared back in surprise. “Maybe once the issue of your, er—past affiliation is sorted out, we can have a nice threesome with my husband.” Impaling another grape, her face screwed thoughtfully, “Are you into men? If not, we can shag while Shima watches—”

“OKAY!” Sakura exclaimed with a furious blush, wondering how the hell she’d made it that far. “Can we, uh—change the subject? Red hair, so… Uzumaki? Wind Country native, maybe?”

“Oh, you’re more boring than you look,” the woman scoffed sourly, waving a hand at her. “Here I was thinking we could raid the kitchen and pilfer something long and phallic to have fun with.”

Sakura blinked rapidly and cracked an awkward smile. “U-Uzumaki, then?” 

“Fuck, fine. Yes, yes, I’m an Uzumaki. Sāra is my name, so don’t wear it out.” Grinning ribaldly, Sāra stood and sashayed around the room, flashes of her pale legs glimpsed through the opening in her thin silk yukata. “I’m from the main branch, actually! Bastard daughter of Ashina Uzumaki and Mito’s half-sister! Wonderful, isn’t it?”

Sakura paused in consuming the bowl of rice she’d been nibbling on, a wave of sympathy washing over her. “There’s… a reason why you’re here and not back with your own clan, right?”

Sāra’s bravado fell and she slumped on the table, propping her cheek on her fist that squished it exaggeratedly. “Ten years ago during the War of the Tides when the Uchiha launched a major war campaign against us Uzumaki, well, I was living in exile in the Wave Country—an old Uzumaki colony—when they invaded. So, I betrayed them in exchange for being given asylum among the Uchiha. I even got my choice of a spouse. So, here I am, ten years and two children later.” Sāra grew quiet before she barked into the house, “Yūki, get us some saké, will you?”

“Isn’t it kind of early—”

“Ah-ah-ah!” Sāra interrupted with a wagged finger. “So long as Izuna says you’re on this—house arrest thing, we do as I say! Good? Good!”

“…Yes, ma’am.”

“We drink…” Sāra grinned with an impish look, “then we work!”

Chapter Text

Warning(s): T, none

“We’ve gotta get ‘er back. We just gotta!”

“‘We have to get her back’,” Yayoi repeated flatly, arms folded at her younger, if taller, sister. “And how d’ya reckon we’ll go about that?” Her slate-gray eyes fixed with undisguised agitation on Izayoi who gestured towards her sister supplicatingly. 

“I’ve gotta figure it out, but—”

Yayoi guffawed a mirthless, pitiless laugh, shaking her head. “Alright, pretending we knew how, why should we stick our necks out for someone we just met, eh? Who gave us an ego boost to win some flukes that would’ve otherwise gotten us hacked?” 

Izayoi jutted her jaw with an agitated huff, eyes darting away. “Sure, she’s gorgeous and my type and tastes like fuckin’ heaven, but—”

“You slept with her once.”

“Come on, Yayoi!”

“Of course that’s the fucking reason!” Yayoi flared angrily, snatching her younger sister by the lapels of her duster and wrenching her close with a snarl. “That’s how it’s always been with you ever since you took over! You’re shortsighted, sloppy, and rarely think things through! You think that as long as you have the biggest fuckin’ balls and charge headlong into danger, you make the biggest first move, and that it’ll be fine! And now, thanks to you, we rushed into battle completely unprepared, and for what?! We lost one of our best additions, and Mina an’ Megumi are injured as hell and we have no idea if they’ll pull through!”

Izayoi’s jaw clamped shut and she gritted her teeth stubbornly, Yayoi hurling the taller woman away with a frustrated sound, scoffing in disgust. 

“You really think I’m that awful, eh?” Izayoi muttered ruefully, folding her arms gruffly. “Remind me again of how well our retrieval of the Seven Swordsmen’s weapons went again? We nabbed ‘em and incapacitated the wielders in the process! And you’re saying that’s amounts t’fucking nothing?”

“In case you forgot, the only reason we pulled that off was because we had Sakura!” Yayoi retorted with a hand perched indignantly on her hip. “We’re not ninjas, Iza, for fuck’s sake! We were doin’ well enough before her, sure, but then you got cocky and decided we were due to face off against some of the Uchiha’s strongest to kidnap one of their best! How was that going to go after?! Did you have the slightest idea how those negotiations were going to go?”

“Sometimes, I’m reminded how much you two like to quibble,” Mū interrupted as he entered the ship’s stateroom, the late hour betraying the weariness in his stony violet eyes, bandaged save the hunter-green kimono tunic and pants he preferred to wear. “Megumi and Mina have stabilized. But, once we get back to Nadeshiko Village, we need to get them to the clinic immediately.”

Both sisters yielded in their anger momentarily, nodding at him. “Thanks for letting us know, Mū,” Yayoi thanked with an exhausted sigh; it was late and they’d remained awake specifically from their anxiety over their comrades’ conditions. 

“Hang on, Mū, ya mind telling us how you got those burns, again? I sorta forgot,” Izayoi asked pointedly, and Yayoi glared at her for her apparent insensitivity. Izayoi met it with a smirk, eyebrows bouncing in anticipation. 

The Iwa-nin slowed as his eyes seemed to glaze over in thought, exhaling stiffly at the memory. “When I was a boy, my father and I were caught in a Sarutobi raid. They were pillaging villages in the Land of Waterfalls during that long drought twenty years ago, which I’m sure you two remember. And the famines that came with it.”

“Fuck, yeah, got so bad that the real destitute were cannibalizing people,” Yayoi sympathized, falling silent so Mū could continue. “I almost starved to death myself.”

“They’re prolific Fire Release users, as you well know. Because of that drought, I was malnourished… unfocused. When we accidentally crossed paths, they incinerated us, thinking we were going to interfere with their ravages. They burned us alive. My father died, but I survived. Barely, but…” The man shook his head, sighing. “Almost every part of me was disfigured except for my eyes. It’s what motivated me to become strong; so that wouldn’t happen again.”

“See, Yayoi? It’s all about not given’ up and gettin’ back on your—”

“Izayoi, don’t use my story as justification for your bullshit,” Mū reproached, voice trembling with his own barely-restrained anger. “My wife almost died because of your stupidity. You charged into battle without the experience to wield the weapons you did, let alone with an understanding of the people we faced. If we’re to continue this, I want Yayoi as leader; not a reckless fool like you!”

It was Yayoi’s turn to flash a look that clearly displayed an ‘I told you so’ sentiment. She folded her arms smugly, but then became sympathetic towards the man. “Mū, first thing’s first, but we’re going to focus on Megumi an’ Mina healing back home. Anything else will come after, ‘kay?” Her voice was low but gentle, and he nodded blearily, exiting the stateroom. 

“Wha— Fuck’s sake, what was that maudlin shit about?” Izayoi sputtered with a hand outstretched towards the door. 

“It’s called being a good leader, you dumb bitch!” Yayoi snapped infuriatingly at her sister, shoving her brusquely aside. “Now move, or else I’ll keep my promise about tying you to the rudder!”

Exiting, Izayoi was left alone, mouth ajar at her sister’s defiance. Either way, she was unquestionably in the doghouse, with no doubts about it.

Even if she had no intention of staying put, either.

A kind of comfortable, chaotic lull came while working with the Uchiha’s apparent seal master. It reminded her of her own master, and given the fact that Sāra was technically Tsunade’s grandaunt, it wasn’t an odd sense of familiarity to have.

Tsunade had imparted innumerable valuable things to Sakura she’d always be grateful to know. Medical ninjutsu, chakra-enhanced strength, biomedical knowledge, peerless fūinjutsu knowledge, genjutsu immunity, and countless other skills. 

But, allowing an already dysfunctional group of teenagers to be taken under the wing of the most disastrous trio—riddled with vices—in shinobi history hadn’t been without its consequences. 

Sakura had learned the seedier aspects of Tsunade, too. Which included her skills, too, like countless ways to avoid loan sharks, count cards, gamble, forgeries, drug synthesis, access to the criminal underbelly, expertise with the Transformation Technique; the list went on. Regular trips to Shukuba Town to exercise those abilities as a teenager had made her frighteningly skilled at being underhanded. 

Well, that and being on the same team as Konoha’s number one knuckleheaded ninja didn’t hurt, either. Naruto was many things, but a prank master was topmost. 

She’d learned all that, and more, all for the low, low cost of an exacerbated eating disorder, body dysmorphia, and becoming a functioning alcoholic before she was fourteen. Typical for the Neo-Sannin to have vices to match the severity of their predecessors’, right?

Sakura tepidly nudged Sāra’s shoulder once the woman had passed out on her desk, in the airy study they’d been working on, where sensitive documents related to her house’s affairs necessitated Sakura stamping seals as her warden’s first task. She started when the Uzumaki woman stirred with a snore, prone over her desk with ink smudged into her cheek from a still-drying document. A slow breeze lifted the latticed blinds, the only stir otherwise, when Sakura knew it was the time to act. 

Grinning to herself, she picked her way over the tatami where Sāra’s handmaiden, Yūki, was passed out while a few other servants propped against each other snored softly after she’d spiked the saké with an anesthetic and dropped a few odorless pellets that had dispersed a similar sleeping agent throughout most of the house and had alarmed none. 

Sakura darted from the study to the engawa, then slipped into the cellar beneath the house. Delicate branches brushed her skin as she entered the damp stairwell, stone walls leading her into a room lined with shelves of preserves, dried herbs, and other necessities. In the center lay a wide space marked by two concentric circles—likely a fūinjutsu formula. She edged around it, heart hammering in her throat.

One thing was for sure, but given Sakura’s designation, she had no doubt that any sensors were part of the guard details—that patrolled Uchinada’s many streets between its nagaya rowhouses—would notice a disturbance soon. Otherwise, she estimated that she had one to several minutes to complete her harebrained plan, the stuff Naruto would’ve been immensely proud of. 

Removing one of the stones like it was a sewer lid, it was with her chakra-enhanced strength that she began boring through the earth like a mole, conducting her hits in such a way that only a little would be cleared as she deliberately shaped the contours to give her plenty of access in what would hopefully be a faster trek that might’ve been believed. Showers of dust and debris pelted her as she dredged, mentally keeping a heading lest she be lost on her strange mission to escape. 

Knowing that the larger estates tended to have cellars like the Uzumaki’s, Sakura utilized her Chakra Radar at points, minute pulses of undetectable chakra radiating from her fingertips into the rocky strata and returning to her with distinct shapes of the rooms beyond, knowing the largest had to be her prize. Huffing softly, the kunoichi forged ahead towards her destination. 

Lo and behold, once she dug through the plaster and rocky walls sealed with mortar, crumbling through as she made an exit for herself, Sakura sagged in relief when she stumbled upon Kubikiribōchō, the broadsword propped against a weapons’ rack alongside her clothing in what appeared to be an underground fighting ring. Disregarding the fact that she was plastered with the grime from her escape, she shook herself out like a dog, hellbent on getting her clothes back.

Somehow, the kunoichi managed to change in record time as she lastly holstered the broadsword to her back, almost sagging in relief before the bite of impetus reminded her that she had to make her escape. Feeling that digging her way out wouldn’t work a second time, Sakura decided on the most rudimentary and obtuse method that, again, Naruto would approve of.

She transformed herself into a small field mouse, of all things. 

Resolved in her course, Sakura—still in rodent form—bounded up the stairs in quick leaps and slipped through the crack in the storm cellar’s door. With a squeak of triumph, she squeezed free and scurried into the tall hedge lining the courtyard’s perimeter. Hunkering behind a stone, she watched as members of the Uchiha household crossed the gardens on their errands, unaware of her presence.

Emboldened by the absence of footsteps, Sakura scampered across the flagstones and sniffed the air, weighing her options. Should she risk weaving through the estate or try to burrow under the perimeter wall? Settling on her haunches, she paused to think, reassured that no one else was nearby.

That being a key issue, of course. 

A hawk’s cry split the air, and before Sakura could react, talons clamped around her. The massive bird lifted off with another shriek, panic flooding her mind.

Shit, shit, shit! Maybe it won’t try to maul me! Hey, that’s— it’s a letter holster. This thing is tame! Maybe it belongs to a hunter from outside— HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIT!

The falcon plunged into a swan dive, and Sakura clung desperately to its talons, as much as a mouse could manage. Her panic spiked when she saw who it was flying toward.

Izuna raised a gauntleted arm, addressing the children gathered around him. He spoke of the techniques needed to train a falcon for hunting or carrying messages, noting how the Sharingan could aid in directing the bird.

“In fact—” Izuna suddenly halted with a scandalized look as his Sharingan activated and he scowled when he could see Sakura’s recognizable chakra, lip curling in disgust as he allowed the falcon to fly off. In contrast, the children looked on with interest at their teacher’s intense scrutiny of the mouse he gripped in his hand.

“You!”

Deciding her ruse likely couldn’t last any longer, Sakura dispelled the transformation and sprang for Izuna, shouting, “Me!”

Izuna dodged as Sakura rolled forward, coming up with her broadsword already drawn. She swung, startling him into withdrawing his katana, and steel rang out as their blades met. The clash echoed across the training grounds on Uchinada’s outskirts. Children kept their distance, some cheering for Izuna, others—more daring—for Sakura, as the two fought with fierce intensity.

Sakura, less skilled in kenjutsu, sometimes drove her swings into the soft loam. Izuna used the openings, once landing on the flat of her broadsword and thrusting at her, though she slipped past his strikes with fluid evasions. She tore her blade free, but Izuna twisted the momentum into a nimble flip back to the ground. She could avoid his onslaught, but landing a hit was another matter.

Their blades clashed in a spray of sparks as Sakura’s caught on his crossguard, but by the devilish smirk spanning his lips, it seemed utterly intentional. 

“You’re overbalancing,” he informed her with a primly quirked eyebrow. 

“Huh?” 

Parrying her, sure enough, Sakura had to wheel a few steps back before she regained her balance, almost losing the grip on Kubikiribōchō. Izuna turned towards the wide-eyed Uchiha children who’d stopped cheering out of mortification, the clan head smugly regarding his audience before returning to Sakura.

“You’re overbalancing,” he coached with a mild cant of his head. “When you swing that cleaver of yours, you don’t do it from your center of gravity. You need to poise yourself better.”

Mollified but too proud to admit that Izuna was right, she refigured herself and was begrudgingly surprised to realize that he’d been right. It felt much more comfortable and less like she could keel over if she weren’t constantly in motion. Izuna circled her and nodded approvingly, then honed his sword on her.

“Try again.”

Though incredulous that she was listening to him, the strokes of her sword felt much more refined, Izuna smirking as they renewed their attrition and the Uchiha danced about her fluidly, weaving cockily through her slashes that decimated the ground, wild grasses shaved to the root with every missed hit.

“Your footwork still needs work. Think of your sword as an extension of yourself. It’s not some oversized kunai or shuriken. Even a tantō is much different,” Izuna instructed as he tapped the edge of his blade against Sakura’s. “Especially such a legendary sword as this. Perhaps you should’ve started smaller?”

Sakura’s lip curled, and she snorted, hocking a loogie where he stood as the Uchiha sidestepped it disdainfully. A terrible idea entered her mind as Izuna pivoted towards the children, who listened raptly, seemingly engrossed in his lecture. Meanwhile, Sakura discreetly holstered her broadsword, snuck behind him, and formed the hand seal of the tiger. It didn’t escape Izuna’s notice, who turned with mild interest. 

“What are you…?”

However, as he seemed to clearly underestimate her, Sakura then lunged for him with all four fingers pointed and necessary for the One Thousand Years of Death trained on his ass fueled with a harmless amount of chakra that launched the regal Uchiha dozens of meters in the air and sent him careening over some denizen’s perimeter wall where he audibly crashed with shouts and surprised yelps of those within. 

Snickering, Sakura poked her tongue out in his general direction. “Catch ya later, twinkle toes!” she crowed before making a run for it, the children bouncing elatedly and laughing delightedly at Izuna’s humiliation while Sakura retreated in a cloud of dust. 

No way were they going to catch her now!

Glad that she was able to clear Uchinada’s outer limits without much hassle, while the lack of guardsmen currently on her tail mystified her, Sakura decided that it wouldn’t do to look a gift horse in the mouth. Yet, when she saw a familiar figure streaking towards her through the flawlessly azure sky, Sakura stopped on grasslands she ran openly along and bounced to glean his attention. 

“Mū, over here!” Sakura shouted, waving her arms, adrenaline still rushing from her escape from the Uchiha stronghold. She could hardly believe she’d pulled it off.

The Iwa-nin landed beside her, placing his hands on her back. “Hang on, what’re you—”

Before she could finish, her heart jolted as weightlessness overtook her. She recognized the jutsu Ōnoki was famous for. “Whoa—thanks!”

The bandaged man seized her arm, and together they soared into the sky. Uchinada vanished beneath the canopy, hidden by dense woods and barrier ninjutsu. Sakura exhaled in relief as they broke through the clouds. The air thinned but didn’t weigh them down as much as she expected. Cool, damp wisps brushed her face—refreshing after her frantic escape.

“Please, don’t mention it, Sakura-san. Yayoi-taichō dispatched me to search for you since they can’t detect me, but… something arose. Something I think we could turn the tide of,” Mū said as they continued their journey, Sakura visibly troubled. “Madara, Hashirama, and their clans have been engaging in destructive warfare since this morning. They’re fighting on behalf of two lords within one of the provinces along the Naka, but the conflict is escalating into destruction. Two villages have already been destroyed, and more will be demolished at the rate this is going.”

Sakura felt her blood run cold, mouth falling open at the thought. The chaos of Madara’s front during the Fourth War struck her like a hammer, igniting righteous fury. “We have to do something! Mū-san, just the two of us have enough firepower. We can strike, draw them away from villages—what do you say?”

“That’s within reason. I always thought the two of us might make a good team,” Mū figured with a shadow of a smile beneath his bandages. “Do you have any ideas how we could make our entrance?”

Sakura’s heart hammered in her throat, running frantically through possibilities until one struck her. “Mū-san, your anti-gravity technique—what’s the greatest mass you can lift?”

Mū looked contemplative for only a second. “Genbu. Ae’s clan resides there, and he let me train on the island during my teenage years. Lifting Genbu was my greatest trial, but not my limits.”

Sakura broke out into a grin as she excitedly gripped Mū’s bicep. If her shisō could fight synergistically with the future Tsuchikage, why couldn’t she—as her successor—do the same with the very man who taught Ōnoki everything he knew? It was perfect!

“Gukōizan! We’re part of the Nadeshiko, right? And we have to hold our own against the two most powerful shinobi in the world, plus… most of the Naka’s territory is pretty mountainous. Even a fool can move a mountain if he’s persistent, but we’re way worse than that!” 

Plus, might as well return Madara the favor after he brought those two meteors down on the Allied Shinobi Forces! It still counts even if it’s almost a century in the past, right?

Mū smirked. “It’s little wonder you fit in so well. Come: let’s teach them the meaning of vengeance.”

Sakura chuckled elatedly, likely more excited than was appropriate. While she didn’t think she was all that impressive, she had faith in their plan. Even if Naruto wasn’t with her in the past, she could at least enact what he would do in spirit. 

Sakura wasn’t sure how long they’d been flying. With Mū’s Dustless Bewildering Technique shielding them, they approached the battlefield unnoticed. Below, forests had been reduced to ashes, thick smoke blackening the sky. They swooped through the inferno, dodging choking columns that threatened their air. Weapons glinted like shards of glass even from above. Battle cries and clarion calls roared across the field, and arrows whined past, narrowly missing them despite their invisibility.

Though the ensuing chaos below was devastating, it was nothing compared to what was waged further afield. 

Sakura yelped when a stray bead of Madara’s Yasaka Magatama strafed the air where she’d been suspended, though not before Mū yanked her aside to avoid being hit, the stench of scorched ozone lingering in its wake from the sheer intensity. 

Madara’s Complete Body Susano’o loomed over the mountainous battlefield, each footfall quaking the earth, each tremor reverberating through the air, while the maroon avatar lined with gold and black stood like a god of chaos above the carnage, each step toppling enormous swaths of forest with muffled, sonic booms.

Even Madara struggled against Hashirama’s construct, reminiscent of the All of Suffering technique Sakura remembered from the war. The serene deva unleashed torrents of all five elemental releases from its open maw. The storm clouds had cleared, replaced by choking smog, only broken by shockwaves that tore the air like an approaching cataclysm. At least, Sakura noted, their armies were fighting safely kilometers away from the titans.

“There,” Mū indicated towards a mountain at least two thousand feet tall and thousands more in circumference. Though it looked enormous, Sakura had to remind herself that Ōnoki, at thrice Mū’s ag,e could lift Genbu one-handed and fly with it across countries as the rumors had confirmed. A mountain was likely nothing to legendary Mujin, especially with her there for firepower. 

“Let’s do it!” Sakura rallied, and they sped toward the base, steering clear of any active fighting and far from Madara and Hashirama’s attention. Mū extended his Dustless Bewildering Cover as they floated beneath the towering pines climbing the mountainside. Sakura marveled at the sight, swallowing her nerves at the reckless plan—one any sensible person would have called utterly foolish. But she wasn’t a Neo-Sannin known for being realistic or level-headed.

The Sannin were three faces of uncontainable chaos, and like her Shisō, she was just as mad as the Senju. Awe became an elated smile, nervousness transformed into the thrill to come. 

Of course, that didn’t mean her plan lacked logic. As reckless as only a Neo-Sannin could be, her perfect chakra control gave her a knack for shape transformation. She wasn’t about to toss a Rasengan, but she could channel her enhanced strength in other ways—beyond fissures, earthquakes, or craters. Today’s trick: shaping her chakra into a blade massive enough to slice the mountain clean through its base.

Given how much more chakra she compared to the war when she’d opened the earth without even activating her Byakugō, she felt she could manage this. 

Bounding to the upper boughs of a fir tree, she perched on a high branch to line up her strike against the mountain. Channeling maximum chakra into her fist, she springboarded off the branch, reshaping it despite the total output remaining the same. Like squeezing a hose to turn a sloppy gush into a focused, cutting jetstream, her chakra became a precise, deadly edge.

Charging it with Lightning Release to drastically increase its cutting power, she unleashed a fusion of Kanzan: Lightning and Yamazakura: Blade, unleashing the full brunt of her elemental chakra through the seemingly unmovable and indomitable mountain. 

“SHANNARŌ!”

With her trademark war cry, Sakura’s strike connected, a thunderclap scattering birds from the treetops. Soil and debris erupted as fissures opened in bursts of static at the mountain’s base. She watched, slack-jawed, as mortar-fire rumbled through the stone and similar detonations echoed in intervals, her chakra coursing through the batholith and prying it from the earth. Explosions rocked the ground, the building energy culminating in a volcanic blast of deafening violence.

What startled her most was the fissure lifting. Sakura jolted from her reverie, scrambling up its face and pouring more chakra into her legs to accelerate her ascent, breathless from the massive outpouring she’d used to sunder the mountain. The wind rushed downward as Mū’s godlike strength carried the mountain into the air. Madara and Hashirama remained engrossed in their battle, unaware that an entire mountain had risen, the air thinning with each passing meter. Soon, it soared above the low cloud cover Mū used to conceal their movement.

While the two most powerful combatants were engrossed in their own melee, the battlefield below became hauntingly quiet as they seemed to have finally noticed the unorthodox new entrants into their war that no one had literally seen coming. 

Given the fact that Ōnoki had transported Genbu across whole countries in his advanced age, she didn’t think for a second that Mū was exerted in the least. 

At the summit, Sakura felt her stomach lurch as the batholith plummeted with meteoric force. She barely caught sight of Mū rising from below, heading toward her—likely to grab her before their final move was unleashed.

Sakura leapt, her fall slower than the mountain’s, and poured chakra into her fist once more. With a furious war cry, she struck the peak, rifts tearing apart under the wind’s drag. The mountain shattered into deadly spires, raining destruction on everything below.

The meteors scorched the air as they fell, blazing by the time they struck. Bombastic clashes rang out as Madara’s Susano’o raised its wings, shimmering under the relentless salvo. The bombardment shattered the mountainous avatar into millions of blinding crystalline fragments. Madara remained unharmed, descending toward the ground with a murderous glare, meeting Mū and Sakura as the Iwa-nin landed with his arm around her waist.

Hashirama’s own wooden deva had been destroyed in the onslaught—burning virulently at their back—but as Mū released the kunoichi, the pair weren’t foolish enough to think that it alone would be enough to come between the clash of literal gods. 

Hell, Sakura would consider it a miracle if they at least held their own. 

“You take Hashirama, and I’ll deal with Madara. Deal?” Sakura muttered as they stood, back to back, the man glancing back and nodding once. 

“Very well, Sakura-san.”

The moment they spoke, Hashirama unleashed a forest that unrolled like a tsunami and surged towards them, cresting hundreds of feet above their heads. At the same time, Mū rushed to create a Dust Release construct large enough to eviscerate the Senju’s deluge, the earth rumbling as it barreled closer to their positions. When it unfurled close enough to overshadow them, Mū unleashed the full brunt of his attack, creating an incinerating ray that sliced through Hashirama’s forests, vaporizing upon contact. This incineration was accompanied by strings of implosions, which would have otherwise destroyed them beyond ashes or dust. 

Madara bore no hesitation as Sakura could sense the wrath boiling in the air he touched, his chakra radiating furiously, teeth bared in a feral snarl with his Sharingan ablaze and killing intent barreling into her. 

Not that she was going to stand down to him. 

Winded from channeling her chakra to sever the mountain twice, Sakura released her Byakugō, exhaling in relief as the stored energy coursed through her in black rivulets, completing the circuit and striking Madara like a whip. She quickly activated Edohigan: Lightning, a chakra cloak that heightened her reaction time, speed, and offensive power enough to keep pace with the warlord.

Sakura charged, tucking into a flip and delivering a brutal axe kick that split the earth for hundreds of meters, rippling fluidly before the earth disintegrated into a collapsing bed that buckled into a chasm. Rock and debris launched upward, forming platforms they raced across as they closed in on each other. Their clash was a murderous exchange of blows, steel and fists glancing and grazing, drawing welts and blood. Madara’s tunic shredded under the impact—and Sakura’s clothing fared little better.

As they landed in the shower of debris from the ruptured earth, Madara viciously slashed at her with his kama, Sakura just unholstering the Kubikiribōchō that lurched towards the Uchiha’s wild bloodlust. The clangor of their swords as they feinted and whirled to strike at each other created cutting whiplashes, a sputter of sparks raining each time Madara’s kama glanced from Sakura’s broadsword. 

Parrying her sword to create distance between them, Madara rooted himself as he  formed the hand seal of the horse, inhaled a significant quantity of air in his lungs, all before Sakura realized what jutsu he would utilize. 

Adrenaline surged as Sakura slammed the ground, launching a massive slab of earth to shield herself. The Great Fire Annihilation struck it with enough force to incinerate an army, chipping away at the igneous veins until cracks formed and chunks blasted off. She barely evaded the assault, diving behind a raised stone for cover. When the flames finally subsided, she let out a brief sigh, feeling safe enough to emerge.

Yet, instead, she was faced with several globes of flame suspended in the brackish smoke, gasping from exertion as she hefted her sword over her shoulder and stared at it, the gears of her mind working. It wasn’t her first time faced with elemental jutsu, after all.

As the salvos hurtled toward her, Sakura infused her limbs with Fire Release chakra, meeting them head-on. She roundhouse kicked the first away, charred marks marring her skin, and punched the next with the same defiance, flames still scorching her. Healing chakra flowed into the burnt areas, easing the pain at the cost of more energy. She continued until the last jettison fell—only to face the full force of a Susano’o’s skeletal hand, aiming to crush her like an insect.

Sakura grunted, catching the blow on the flat of her broadsword, her other hand bracing against the immense force. Snarling, she avoided the avatar’s sword, jagged chakra scorching Kubikiribōchō. She feinted, then struck with a vicious, chakra-augmented right hook, snapping the chakra sword in two—even as more arms formed from the incomplete Susano’o. Madara watched her with the cold indifference of a god.

The kunoichi didn’t know how long she had endured the relentless assault by the Uchiha, her mind working on autopilot as she wove through the barrage of his swords, blurring together in her mind. Loam where she stood was blasted like cannonfire had struck a moment later as she dodged his unending attrition. 

She’d spent three days funneling her chakra into Naruto to keep him alive just a few years ago. Yet, there was something so fathomlessly different about actual battle, demanding a kind of stamina that even chakra-taxing medical ninjutsu didn’t wholly demand. It could be strenuous, sure, but she didn’t hail from some extraordinary lineage like her teammates had. Even the war had felt more like a fever dream, yet there she was. Facing the most powerful shinobi in the world. 

As Sakura caught Madara in a glare, she attempted to capture him with a weak genjutsu. He shrugged away with a faint narrowing of his eyes, as useless as stepping through shredded spider silks. 

“Why? Where the hell did you two even come from?” Madara demanded with a growl, chin tilted imperiously. “There aren’t many who can interrupt my battles with Hashirama, let alone interfere to the level you pests have. I’ll ask again: who are you?” 

Sakura huffed and swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, smudging the blood of her broken lower lip. Smiling cockily at him, she answered, “Say please and maybe I’ll say. Deal?”

With an irate curl of his lip, Madara charged her and renewed their battle with the same, fathomless passion as before. 

Chapter Text

Warning(s): T, some blood & gore, torture

Something gravely wrong was happening that night, he could feel it. Beyond the strange chakra signatures encroaching on Sennan’s borders, it was enough that he stilled in his vigil while his brother was away, hired out by some member of the Shizoku who was in the Daimyō’s immediate family. A matter of succession between himself and his brother, who’d hired out the Uchiha and Senju, respectively, to bolster their own armies, undoubtedly lay waste to whatever province they quibbled over like hens. Affairs that typically disgusted Tobirama and reminded him too much of his childhood when his father and Tajima Uchiha had been constantly at war, either hired out by clients or meeting on battlefields as destructively as possible. 

“Itama, Kawarama, stay close to me!” 

Most nights, the hour of his watch meant he had time to himself. A time when he could slip away with his brothers and they wouldn’t have to be pent up in his laboratories. Calm wind ruffled through the fur mantle he wore around his neck and shoulders, sapphire armor clanking with every movement through the treetops. 

They were still within Sennan’s unmarked borders, riddled with traps and barrier ninjutsu he and Mito had devised over the years that had rendered their capital a silent fortress. The moonlight shone over the high, slanted rooftops of the minka that lower-class denizens lived in, whilst the high eaves of the mansions and townhouses towered above them when they weren’t buried under foliage of the forests their clan was named for. 

It was at a watchtower nestled in the treetops that Tobirama made his stop, one of the semi-permanent outposts interspersed throughout their woodlands. Itama and Kawarama joined him quietly, seemingly as anxious as he was in the inky darkness.

“There’s people coming, aren’t there?” Itama queried anxiously as they hunkered within the barren space usually occupied by sentries, many except the most essential having gone off with Hashirama and his battalions. 

“Stop being such a baby, Itama!” Kawarama huffed, folding his arms in irritation at his younger brother’s pessimism. 

“It’s fine,” Tobirama informed them stoically despite the way he gathered Itama into his side. If it was pacifying more to him or his little brother, he didn’t know. “Father is gone. The place we’re in is safe. You’ll both be fine.” 

Father isn’t here to beat us for being anything less than tools, Tobirama amended with a grit of his jaw, the muscle feathering. He shuddered slightly at the memory, but willed it away. He needed to confront whatever ruffians had trespassed on their lands. That they’d bypassed the genjutsu barriers was bad enough, but they couldn’t proceed any further. With Mito gone with the war party, Sennan’s fate was in his hands. 

With a single hand seal, he conjured an identical Shadow Clone. It rose from its crouch and vanished in a blur, melting into the consuming silhouettes of the forest. Tobirama kept his sensory field wide, tracking its advance. Within moments, he knew, the intruders threatening Sennan would be nothing more than discarded corpses in the undergrowth.

But moments later, something went wrong. The Shadow Clone—which had already slain one foe with a Flying Thunder God Slash—was pinned to the forest floor as if weighed down by an immense force. Alarm surged as its chakra warped under a genjutsu. Who else could wield such elusive power, Tobirama wondered, besides a high-ranking Uchiha like his cousin, Tōka?

Yet, whatever questions he’d have would be answered when the clone’s chakra vanished and its experiences would eventually rush back into him, leaving his wondering brothers perplexed and quiet with interest and trepidation alike. 

White noise roared in his ears as the recoil of memories surged back, building to a deafening crescendo and bringing unimaginable pain. Tobirama clutched his skull, screaming until his throat went raw, doubled over as every nerve felt aflame. He knew nothing—not even the gentle touches of his brothers as they tried to steady him, crying in fear as their gaze shifted to demonic eyes filling the treehouse windows, hellfire barely perceptible before all lapsed into infernal blackness.

If there was one offense about launching offenses against one of the two largest clans, it was the fact that finding enemies was as simple as throwing a stone guaranteed to land somewhere in the river it’d been pitched over. 

Izayoi watched with grim satisfaction as the Chinoike who’d accompanied them arrested Tobirama Senju’s clone, even if it’d come at the cost of losing their compatriot from his legendary Flying Thunder God body of techniques. A deadly gambit, to be sure, but the Chinoike’s dōjutsu bent his blood against him and grounded him like a flightless bird. The Senju had strained, cursed, but when Genjutsu: Ketsuryūgan came after a second participant, he was silenced and his mind pillaged to extract any and all useful information they’d need. Especially to counter a specific ploy that would ultimately give them an edge over one of the most powerful Senju of all time. 

When their Exploding Human Technique came after, Izayoi jerked her head in the direction of Tobirama’s refuge like a pack of wolves descending. The sound of his piercing screams and his brothers’ frantic pleas came with too much satisfaction, like the karma from years of strife was finally coming as sweet vengeance. 

“We should be careful. While I commend how… debilitating that technique was, don’t doubt he couldn’t retaliate at any time,” the man named Eiji cautioned them, their double-agent Izayoi had hired out ages ago. As Tobirama’s lab assistant, he knew things not even the man’s immediate family seemed to know. Or Tobirama himself was aware of. “I’ll go first.”

As Eiji scurried up the rope ladder, Izayoi turned to the Chinoike woman at her side whose eyes glowed with demonic chill. “Keep him grounded. Can’t have that bastard flyin’ off and squealin’ on us,” she commanded to the woman who nodded grimly, a louder scream from Tobirama sounding torturous as her order was heeded.

“Eiji-san, what’s going on?” Itama sobbed as he and his brother descended first, the man having convinced them to leave their elder brother.

“What do you mean big brother’s been lying to us?” Kawarama added, voice pitched fearfully. 

“Boys, boys, you’re probably wonderin’ this is all about, eh?” Izayoi greeted with a ribald smirk, the two Senju brothers glaring at her despite their visible fear. “See, as Eiji-san told ya, your big brother’s been lyin’ to ya. And we’re going to set ya free.”

Eiji genuflected before the two of them, gripping their shoulders with a strained but placating smile. “Alright, you two can trust me. Just form the same hand seals I do. Then, you’ll see the truth.”

Though the look they exchanged was dubious, they guilelessly repeated the hand seals Eiji coached them through, though slowly and without the finesse he had. Izayoi’s smirk only grew; what they performed was the converse of the Edo Tensei’s hand seals, a reversal that would set them free as long as the summoned performed it. 

Upon finishing, they jerked and fell to their knees like their strings had been cut, exchanging disbelieving looks as what might’ve been tears formed from the crushing truth only Eiji knew. Izayoi didn’t doubt it was monumental, though. 

“None of that was real…?” Itama whimpered, hugging himself. 

“He kept us in that storage room, he— Why didn’t Nīsan ever know?” Kawarama demanded as he took Itama into his side, doubtlessly referring to Hashirama. 

“Alright, go get Tobirama. We’re goin’ to head out,” Izayoi ordered the burly man at her left as he alighted into the treehouse, both boys cowering into Eiji’s sides, the only one they trusted, while the elder brother was fetched and draped like a sack of potatoes over the burly man’s shoulder, utterly prone and able to resist. “We’ll set up the juinjutsu once we clear this shithole.”

“Lady, what are you gonna do with us and big brother?” Kawarama demanded with a frown, arms folded as he nestled close to Eiji. 

Smirking behind their backs, Izayoi turned and genuflected with a much gentler expression. Nefarious as she could be, she’d never have a harsh word for children; especially ones who’d been dead as long as the two Senju boys. “You two look like good kids. You’d be a lot happier in the world without war, aye?”

Itama nodded reluctantly. “Well… yeah. Papa always scolded us for how childish that would be, though.”

Izayoi propped her arm on her raised knee, a paternal but kind consideration. “Is that what your old man thought? Really,” she replied indulgently, tepidly earning some trust. “Well, yer papa was right—to an extent. Now, peace across the bat? Not so much. See, ya have to earn it bit by bit. Now, you boys probably weren’t around for the War of the Tides, but your clan and the Uchiha used my friend’s homeland as the war ground. You know your neighbor, the Land of Hot Water, yeah? Well, they’re from there and suffered a lot. So, hence why we’re gonna take you and your big brother to help hammer something out so it won’t happen again.”

“You mean… like a treaty?” Kawarama ventured innocuously. 

“Exactly like a treaty! Smart kid,” Izayoi simpered as she ruffled the Senju’s hair, the boy glowing under her praise. Though it would be unusual for a shinobi child to trust her so instantaneously, given the crushing betrayal on Tobirama’s part, it wasn’t lost on Izayoi as to why. “In fact, I have a friend around your age. You boys would like someone t'play with, aye?”

Itama brightened while Kawarama seemed more reluctant despite his interest. “Papa never really let us have friends growing up… Are they nice?”

Izayoi smirked with a chuckle. “A real barrelful of fun, promise. Why don’t we get going? Us adults will do all the boring nonsense and you two can have fun, aye?”

“Okay, let’s go!” Itama chirped while Kawarama nodded despite his caution. Boyhood had been denied to them while they were alive, so why not experience it despite their undead states? 

“Good boys. Now, let’s get goin’.”

Nodding her head towards her compatriots, the body of their dead comrade left behind on purpose, the seven of them alighted to the treetops and sped towards their unstoppable getaway.

Through the twilight and into the early stages of the moon casting its gentle glow upon the earth, their battles waged. 

Hellfire ravaged the earth, while feminine battle cries echoed the discordant rumblings beneath their feet, which the battalions from afar could feel; tremors vibrated beneath their feet, but a single question remained. 

Who in the name of every kami known were these two hellions fighting both Hashirama and Madara? 

“I don’t think they’re from any clans. Their chakra signatures are foreign; the man seems to come from the Earth Country, while the woman’s primarily stems from the Crescent Moon Kingdom, but not of their ruling Tsuki Clan,” Mito observed from the pavilion, her father, Ashina Uzumaki, and uncle-in-law, Sasuke Sarutobi, both occupied. 

At low tables and fur pelts providing a divide between the trodden ground and presence, braziers flickered in the late night. 

Though the pattern of Madara and Hashirama’s fighting followed equally, the new contenders seemed to respond to one another; where the blinding rays and explosions cut through Hashirama’s wood constructs, the woman answered by imploding the earth to create quakes that could be felt from over a mile away, Mito noted. 

“Like lightning and thunder,” Ashina quipped dryly into his saké, gazing at the bottom of his ochoko as if demanding to know why it’d drained so swiftly. 

“What is the world fucking coming to?” Sasuke muttered as he shifted heavily in his seat, slate armor clanking with its Sarutobi livery flashing in the moonlight. “Once, you never had to worry about this. Once, shinobi and ordinary people were kept far apart. We brought them in to fill posts too mundane for our clansmen, and it worked fine! They answered to us, knew their place. Now we have these fuckers challenging royalty.”

“The Uchiha may be warmongers, but at least we’re equals. That is disgraceful!” Ashina seethed towards the interrupted battle that had formerly been between Madara and Hashirama alone. 

“Shinobi have had all the power for centuries. Are you so surprised it’s come to this!?” Mito retorted heatedly, dark eyes flashing. She jerked a sweeping arm towards the battle, hands balled into fists. “What have we also done for centuries, hm? Destroyed towns and villages, decimated land, killed the innocent, and—so much more. Too much more! Simply because we belong to illustrious clans doesn’t separate us from even the lowest shinobi!”

Ashina’s face flushed wrathfully as he stalked towards his daughter, a vicious backhand sending Mito reeling while she touched a hand to her welted cheek, blinking reflexively as her mind sped to process what had occurred. Dark eyes filled with betrayal and shock strayed towards her enraged father. 

“I’ve had enough of that bullshit, Mito, do you fucking hear me? Don’t you ever compare us to goddamn sheep again. We are not them! We are ruled by honor and tradition! Whatever consequences befall their world are not our concern, dammit!” Ashina jabbed his pointed finger towards the still-ensuing battle, sputtering through his thick mustache. “The best those louts could hope for is to marry into one of our clans and do something useful with the pestilence they’ve created.”

Just as Mito primed a sharp retort on her tongue, a monstrous roar pierced through the chaos and rent it in twain. The earth quaked as fissures broke through the mountain Mū and Sakura had demolished, the skies darkening a malevolent scarlet that dyed the surrounding area in shades of blood as Ashina, Sasuke, and Mito all exchanged shock amongst themselves.

The earth shook as igneous fissures tore through the caldera, the center collapsing into a yawning chasm that belched towers of black smoke. Through the infernal pillar, a single scarlet orb glowed with hellish brilliance, casting a dread that froze every heart and brought all battles to a halt—everyone knew what was coming.

“BAKEGITSUNE!” tore through the air, answered by a deafening roar as the beast wrenched itself from the earth, towering hundreds of feet above them. The armies, once locked in war, fled in a chaotic stampede past the pavilion, colors and banners blending into streaks. The trio watched in stunned silence as their people scattered in sheer, primal terror.

Mito’s gaze snapped to Sakura and Mū as they broke from their fights, racing toward the emerging bijū, likely intent on helping. Kurama’s massive form pivoted toward the fleeing armies, ignoring Hashirama and Madara. Planting its paws firmly in the rocky ground, it opened its gaping, fanged maw, gathering dark, nefarious chakra for a devastating Bijū Bomb—one that would annihilate thousands if left unchecked.

Abandoning her father and uncle-in-law, Mito raced through the treetops and avoided the stampeding of shinobi racing to escape their death, stopping short of the opened abyss that Sakura and Mū stood before, knowing that their chakras were weak from the day-long battle with her husband and his childhood friend. 

“I’m here to help,” the Uzumaki informed the pair as she activated her own Byakugō that swathed her body in its blackened bands, taking them both by the shoulders as she flooded their bodies with the Uzumaki’s naturally regenerative chakra until they were fully restored within moments, Mito having barely dented her own reservoirs. 

“Okay, let’s do this,” Sakura said to Mū while glancing gratefully behind after gawking at Mito’s inclusion. “Thank you, Lady Mito.”

Mito watched from afar as Mū remained on the basin’s lip while the kunoichi hopped in, her own Byakugō newly restored due to how vastly Mito had replenished both it and her chakra. 

The Uzumaki watched in awe as the bandaged man shaped a luminous globe larger than himself. Contained within a shimmering prism, he amplified it to maximum power before releasing a vaporizing beam that tore through the bloodied sky, striking the Bijū Bomb. The impact detonated with tremendous force, staggering the Kyūbi, stunned at seeing its devastating attack undone in a way Mito had never witnessed.

Deep within the caldera, Sakura drew back her fist with a cry and struck the upheaved earth. A new fissure tore open, widening the wound the Kyūbi had carved, swallowing the beast whole. Dust billowed from the violent purging of the ground, and the Kyūbi’s resonant cry echoed as it tumbled back into the chasm it had created in its explosive entrance.

Yet, even as the steaming and smoking fissure didn’t promise any more of a threat, Mito’s eyes widened slightly as roots wove over the opening in an impregnable lattice while Madara’s Susano’o impaled a blade that sealed the ingress totally; a rare show of teamwork between the pair who normally wouldn’t. 

Yet, when it seemed as though the maelstrom had cleared and their mutual enemy defeated, the Uzumaki’s mouth fell open in shock as Hashirama utilized those same roots to coil inescapably about Sakura and Mū, the pair thrashing uselessly as they tried and failed to extricate themselves. 

Mito wheeled on her husband while Madara maintained a wide berth between them, aghast by his action. “Hashirama, what are you doing?!” she railed on him, nostrils flaring. “They helped us! They aren’t the enemy!”

“Mito, love, please listen to me,” Hashirama implored softly, cupping his wife’s cheek. “I don’t doubt you, but we were supposed to have resolved the conflict between the feuding lords, you know that. This battle was supposed to have been it. Now, with it ending in a draw, we won’t receive payment and… many people died. I don’t know what these consequences will be, but they will be catastrophic.”

“Is that all you care about?! Hashirama, their appearance wasn’t from nowhere! This is a symptom of the battles between you and Madara that have only gotten more destructive and it’s forcing people who can’t defend themselves to find a means to retaliate!” 

“Tobirama is missing!” Hashirama snapped back with a frustrated curl of his lip, forcing himself to calm down. He never raised his hand or voice against his beloved wife. 

Mito blinked with a disbelieving expression. “What, no— He’s in Sennan, he can’t…”

“I sensed it when I was in Sage Mode. I don’t know why, or how, but I think I know the ones responsible. These two were present in the Land of Hot Water when they intercepted Izuna and his troupe in their annual inspection of the Valley of Hell. They fought and lost, and this woman was taken into the Uchiha’s custody before she escaped and came here. And here they are. I think they were a diversion, Mito, to abduct Tobirama where they failed with Madara’s brother,” Hashirama explained grimly as he ranged his gaze to the captured pair, but became aghast as Mū split himself, the other half vanishing while he flew away.

Though Hashirama attempted to give chase with his roots, it was in vain as the man disappeared into thin air, an undetectable presence despite his Sage Mode lingering long enough to have some sensory ability. Perhaps, more damning was the fact that Sakura had ceased struggling; a coordinated agreement, Mito was sure. 

Clamping her mouth shut, Mito’s gaze fell to the decimated battlefield. By her senses, Madara and his people were already engaged in a full retreat, leaving the Senju, Uzumaki, and their allies among the rolling landscape with nothing to show for the thwarted battle. 

Hashirama formed another hand seal of the snake as the roots that entrapped Sakura clove through the solid earth and brought her towards them, lowering her within reach, but not without a tranquilizing pollen being inhaled after her capture that rendered the kunoichi prone against Hashirama’s bulk. Hefting the younger woman over his shoulder, they returned to the main body of their forces. 

Mito could only imagine the disastrous consequences to come and the news that would spread after what had occurred that day.

Of how the shinobi world was now at war with people it had underestimated before. Now, they were no longer secure in their power as their way of life was under attack in a way it never had been in history.

Mutely following behind her husband, Mito’s brow pinched sympathetically for the woman slumped over her husband’s shoulder and the fate that was in store for her. 

Chapter Text

Warning(s): G, none

As consciousness slowly returned, Sakura blinked owlishly when she realized she was in an unfamiliar place, asleep on a futon while a bustle of activity flourished about her. Squinting from the sudden influx of light, she sat bolt upright and accidentally headbutted a brunette whose face hovered over hers curiously. 

The woman reeled back with a cry, favoring her forehead with a hiss as she planted on her rump while a few other women ran for her, asking after her while she moaned softly. Sakura winced, but shot to her feet in a defensive stance while a few other girls held their hands outward placatingly. 

“Sorry, but— Can anyone tell me where the hell I am?” 

“The servant’s dormitories in Sennan. Weren’t you informed—” a black-haired girl in plain mint green yukata spoke up, then drawing her eyebrows together in confusion. “Wait, you’re that woman from the battle in the southern province…”

The brunette from before seemed to have recovered as she strode towards Sakura, as if the kunoichi were a fox in a henhouse. “Sakura, right?” When Sakura regarded her with bemusement, she continued, “My name is Miku. I’m one of the handmaids here, and you were brought in just last night. The stewardess informed us that you’re meant to be Lady Mito’s lady-in-waiting.”

“Lady-in-waiting?” Sakura echoed, serving only to mystify her. The last thing she remembered was pleading for Mū to leave her behind and return to the Nadeshiko while offering herself up as a decoy in doing so, but that was it. While she was fairly certain that Hashirama had tranquilized her, everything else had been spent in an unconscious state. Glancing down at her war-ruined outfit devoid of her girdle and its pouch—for obvious reasons—it was clear she stood apart from her apparent… contemporaries. 

This was their great idea? To make her a servant? 

“Yes. You must have many questions, but I’m afraid you have to change and be debriefed by Lady Rokujō in the next half hour. We shouldn’t have let you oversleep, but you seemed so exhausted…” Miku said sympathetically, all before she dismissed her friends who shuffled away to their posts. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Utterly mollified, Sakura simply decided to roll through the motions, following Miku like a thrall despite how anxious she felt. She was in Sennan, the Senju’s capital. Though she’d given the Uchiha the slip due to so many being deployed in their war campaign, she didn’t think she’d be able to repeat her escape. Mito had managed to restore her chakra and Byakugō fully, and the rest had regained the last that had been lost, Hashirama was there. So was Mito who was a powerhouse by all accounts. And this didn’t even factor the other high-level shinobi that comprised the Senju’s closest allies since returned from that selfsame campaign. 

Sakura was well and truly in the lion’s den.

As she padded behind Miku on the pristinely kept tatami mats of the rooms that transitioned to balsa wood floors, she couldn’t help but think how immaculate the residence was. Women and men worked to stow their futons and quilts within cupboards in the walls, the din of conversation passing through plain white fusuma panels and ranma near the ceiling. Otherwise constructed of light woods, windows were set into white plaster walls and ushered in blinding sunniness. Even the air carried a clean, light fragrance she couldn’t place.

Glancing down at her soiled clothing and grimy hands, she felt like a rogue sootball in comparison. 

“Follow me. I actually have to bathe myself, so we can speak a little more there,” Miku informed her with a small smile as she opened a set of shōji and glass double doors, sliding them open to the engawa where uniformed servants milled on their way to their morning duties, crossing a plain courtyard that joined all the wings of the smaller estate with some late-night staff returning from their shifts. A modest, gender-segregated sentō stationed at one corner was manned by smiling staff in clean white kimono tunics and ¾ pants, smiling at Miku while gossip followed Sakura when they thought she was far from earshot.

The large, airy atrium was divided into two sections, coming first to a changing room where a few women were carefully disrobing, Sakura flushing from their nude forms and willing herself not to stare. Women of all ages occupied the space, and Miku guided Sakura to an empty pair of cubbies and began removing her yukata. 

Taking a corner for herself, Sakura began changing with her back to the other patrons, feeling their eyes skim over her filthy person but say nothing except small talk to the friends that had accompanied them. 

“Shy?” Miku quipped teasingly behind her back as Sakura startled once she’d carefully stripped off her tattered garment, even her sarashi threadbare and barely holding together, which was a shame because she’d genuinely loved the outfit. 

“Um, a little bit,” Sakura replied with an awkward quirk of her lips once she’d finished, wondering if her clothing could even be salvaged. Spying a full-body mirror in a corner, the kunoichi stood before it and availed herself. Otherwise bearing her well-muscled, curvaceous, hourglass figure, she winced at the grime, scabbed wounds, and patches of discolored skin she’d hastily healed from the burns her fight with Madara had wrought. Her hair grew in choppy, unkempt tufts, some charred at the ends. Though still as short as she’d first cut it, her bangs grew jaggedly and no longer hid her Byakugō. “Oh boy, I look terrible.”

“But not ugly,” Miku supplied with a puckish smile. When Sakura flinched at the compliment, the woman chuckled teasingly. “Unfortunately, your clothes are beyond salvaging. Not that you’d be able to wear them, anyways.”

“Awww,” Sakura said in disappointment as the pair plodded into the open-air bathing room after receiving towels from the bandai wherein an attendant sat, coming within the tiled space divided a high wall wherein over a dozen washing stations were positioned with each bearing two karan faucets, a bucket, stool and washing instruments. A few women occupied them while three elderly women soaked in the hot baths at the very end. The high ceiling made the conversations between both sections echo cavernously, gossiping and ranting among themselves.

Sakura and Miku perched on the low stools and filled the bucket between their ankles with warm water. Having been provided with small phials of shampoo and bars of soap each, the kunoichi roughly scrubbed her hair and face first, determined to cleanse herself of every speck of dirt before she left the sentō that morning.

“What was it like, facing Madara?” Miku broached as she wrung her long brown hair out, water dribbling back into her basin. 

Sakura had just finished washing her own and appeared thoughtful, warm water sluicing down her form in rivulets. As she deliberated on what to say, she slowly craned for a scrub brush to use on the rest of her body. Her brow furrowed once. “Intimidating,” she replied succinctly, teal eyes meeting Miku’s browns. “Sheesh, you’d think I’d be a little wordier after fighting him for—what? Half a day or more?”

“How strange it is to be speaking with you. I don’t think this sort of thing has happened in, hm— A very long time,” Miku continued with a faraway look, washing her arms. “You know how it is, don’t you? Our world is very… stratified. Shinobi occupy their own world, as do we ordinary people. Both have hierarchies. Nobles receive the most benefits of the ninja they hire out, and they live very charmed lives. It’s the same for the high-ranking ninja clans like the Senju or Uchiha. The rest tend to gravitate around them. The rest of us have to find our place, though it’s seldom safe.”

“It really is. It kind of threw me in for a loop how much it’s true,” Sakura admitted with a wry quirk of her lips, though allowed Miku to continue. 

“I’m sure,” Miku replied with a sigh. “The rest of us are mice to them. People to farm their land, fill their coffers with our commerce, populate their armies and fiefdoms. Even those under the wing of shinobi aren’t exempt. Every person you’ve seen today, including me, are civilians. We do the jobs the clansmen are too exalted to perform. All disposable in the end.” She chuffed dryly, shaking her head. “Well, except for those who excel enough in ninjutsu, but they marry into the clans, so it’s like they were never civilians at all.”

“Really? I thought the clans tended to, um… keep to themselves with marriage prospects.”

Miku snorted at that, and Sakura smiled. “That is true. Cousins marrying cousins is the law when they don’t occasionally marry out for the sake of alliances,” the handmaid responded with a childish expression, tongue poking out. “They do bring in ordinary people sometimes. My brother was one, though… he may as well have never been. But, it’s an honor, you know? Having enough talent means you can marry a low-ranking clansman, but it’s essentially like marrying into royalty for us. His skills are passed on to his children, they marry back in…”

Sakura’s lips pursed; though their conversation was eye-opening, she couldn’t help but feel as though she were revisiting her past on a scale unprecedented. Back in the Academy, she’d been picked on for being the only non-clan student in her grade, belittled as a nobody with trash for parents who had no history in the shinobi world. Hell, one of her greatest insecurities had been that all her skills gleaned from Tsunade were thanks to the Senju and Uzumaki she hailed from; she didn’t have talent outside of it. Being considered Tsunade no. 2 had been the greatest blow, and she was still swamped by the insecurity she was sure she’d never really escape. 

Talking to Miku crystallized her insecurities in a way she never thought possible. 

“We're a plague to them,” Miku murmured desolately, paused in her washing. “Insects either have use for or are exterminated without care. Oh, but if we’re lucky, anything that made us talented as ninja is snapped up, their Hiden absorbed into a clan they marry into, their blood filtered out as they marry their clansmen again and again until it’s as if they never existed. But, it’s an honor for filth like us.” Miku rolled her shoulder bitterly, sniffing as she straightened. 

“I guess that explains my fate, huh?” Sakura replied softly, shoulders sagging. 

“I think you’re a symbol of hope for people like us. You and people like you. Sakura-san… no one has ever done this before. Then, you and that man showed up and changed everything. It’s shaken the shinobi world, and they feel threatened. You might be able to exact real change if this keeps up.”

“Hey, I’m just happy to help,” Sakura replied bashfully, huffing a small laugh. “Besides, some really incredible people made this happen. I’m just helping it along. Being a part of something bigger, together… That's what it’s all about, isn’t it? Thanks to them, I bet we’ll see some real changes.”

She couldn’t help but feel nostalgic towards the war where that exact same zeitgeist had spread in the army uniting as one to face a threat. Remembering how much Naruto had sacrificed and how it was their turn to fight together, they realized that changing the world couldn’t be done alone. It was a lesson Naruto had to learn, to ease up on his martyrdom tendencies when he was surrounded by people who wanted to help. Hell, it had been one of her dominant thoughts throughout, of how much he was sacrificing because he wanted everyone to be happy, and how it was their turn to stand by his side as he led the way.

Fighting alongside Team 7 for the first time again as equals, as Neo-Sannin, had been beyond elating. Sakura still remembered that giddiness, and Miku’s faith in her made her feel it towards the Nadeshiko and everyone she was proud to call her nakama.

“Oh, shoot, we have to get ready! Come on, Sakura-chan, I’ll make sure you aren’t late!”

Minutes later, Sakura had changed into a beige and hunter green-accented kimono tunic with white ¾ pants and slippers that could be worn inside and out. Though the kunoichi was admittedly irked by being reduced to a mere servant, the conversation with Miku only reinforced her conviction that she could be an instrument of change if she played her cards right, befriended the right people, and made her escape back to the Nadeshiko.

The way she saw it, she wasn’t a hostage of the Senju; she was a woman with a mission, allowing herself to appear contained on purpose. Not some miscreant they had by the scruff, and she didn’t doubt that was how they viewed it.

But, who were they? The haughty old guard who viewed people like her as the shit they’d stepped on that morning? Who saw her as a wildfire blazing dangerously close to their fiefdoms? Whatever it was, Sakura refused to allow herself to be beaten down and subjugated. If she did that, what point would there have been in becoming Tsunade’s disciple? That fighting spirit would’ve meant nothing at all if she’d just rolled over, belly up, like a dead fish waiting to be washed ashore to dry in the sun.

With Miku’s guidance, finding the district where the Shimura lived wasn’t impossible. Still, Sakura knew any encounter would be grim—foiled in ways that might include having her fingernails torn out without anesthetic. She hadn’t liked Danzō, and she doubted she’d take kindly to his predecessors either.

Like many of the primary echelons of the larger clans, the Shimura’s seat was contained behind a high, alabaster perimeter wall and fronted by an enormous omote-mon, the gatehouse that guardsmen in Shimura standards patrolled and did so rigidly. Spruces and other fir trees spanned the estate, the ivory plaster of its interior, liver chestnut framework, and slate gray roof tiles seemed to be among the standard of the Senju while promising something distinctly wicked compared to the forward-facing rowhouses their civilians resided in. A district all its own; a heart of darkness where it otherwise bathed in dappled sunlight and the love the Senju claimed to embody most.

Sakura’s strides fell slightly short as she proceeded through the gatehouse, myriad pairs of eyes boring through her judgmentally as if she were the dirt beneath their feet and nothing more. A boast of power was being made, the kunoichi was sure. Earlier, she’d likely been right that the reason they hadn’t restricted her chakra with juinjutsu (that she knew of) was because of Hashirama’s presence, but under the eye of the Shimura, it felt condescending. Daring her to retaliate lest she suffer some great consequence for disturbing the status quo.

After crossing the outer court where the stables and outermost facilities to the estate were located, a dispassionate guard regarded her loftily and gestured for her to follow, a courtesy only given because of her newness and the threat she’d previously posed by sabotaging their war campaign with Mū. Shepherded along through a moon gate into the inner gardens encompassed by the estate, Sakura felt unease at the lack of birdsong or activity of insects.

As if she were prying open the ribcage of a mummified corpse, the guardsman ushered her through a glass and shōji set of doors, deadpanning as she was allowed through for a woman servant to nod her head and gesture for the kunoichi to follow through. 

Since removing her flats on the engawa before entering, washi screen fusuma lined the corridor that encompassed the visible perimeter, the woman sunk to her knees to beckon the occupant of Sakura’s arrival. When a lustrous, feminine voice answered, Sakura felt her hackles raise as the shōji doorway slid open and she stepped through.

Rokujō Shimura was seated at a low, black lacquered and gold-accented desk that a scroll was unfurled upon, writing with scribing, elegant grass script on the documents she penned. She dipped it upon the inkstone at points, ignoring Sakura until the doorway was firmly shut and the servant had padded away. Garbed in a silk jūnihitoe of burdensome layers of the Shimura’s colors, simple but jeweled kanzashi glanced light as she wrote. Like a scene from an ukiyo-e print, she finally raised her head as her rouged lips smiled, but Sakura could sense the sarcasm that bled from it.

“So, you’re this mystery ‘freedom fighter’ I’ve heard so much about.” She spoke indulgently, as if Sakura were a stranger’s child she was coaxing from behind their parent’s leg. “Sakura Haruno, was it? Please, sit.”

Wariness colored Sakura’s movements as she sank into a cushion gingerly, as if it were a trapdoor primed to drop her into some spike-studded pit at a moment’s notice. “Shimura-sama,” she greeted simply, bowing from the waist after kicking herself for not doing it upon entering. Well, it wasn’t as if she was out to befriend them, right?

“Haruno-san, were you born into a shinobi family? A clan? Or, were your relatives the servants of another clan?” Rokujō continued while scrawling things down, lifting her onyx eyes again. Her silence was expectant, but remarkably patient despite the superiority that rolled in waves. Of Sakura being somewhere far, far beneath her.

“None of those… Just a civilian family, ma’am.”

Rokujō nodded comprehendingly, interlacing her manicured hands together to prop her chin on them. “And it’s safe to assume that you haven’t encountered many shinobi or clans before this… incident? Our way of life must seem very strange.”

In all technicality? “No, ma’am. This is all pretty, uh—new to me.” Which wasn’t a lie. Though there were some congruences with the shinobi of her time, it was worlds apart. The truth fell somewhere between omission and exaggeration, especially given Sakura’s true origins. 

Rokujō began chuckling despite herself, covering her mouth politely, but Sakura didn’t let her guard down for a second. “Tell me: who taught you Senju and Uzumaki hijutsu? It’s alright, I won’t tattle.”

“A descendant of the Senju and Uzumaki. But—you wouldn’t have heard of her,” Sakura replied truthfully, as they really hadn’t. And wouldn’t for generations. “She’s a descendant of both, but didn’t have some illustrious mother, so… That, and she’s gone. It’s just me these days.”

“Bastards are always so much trouble. Seeing as you escaped from Uchinada recently, I’m certain you’ve met that whore of a half-sister of Mito’s. But, we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about the nuisance you’ve become. You must think you’re some kind of revolutionary, don’t you? You’re trying to dismantle centuries of tradition—that has kept the world in balance—for what? Vanity, ego?” Rokujō pushed, canting her head in feigned interest. “You have no notable clan name, you’re not nobility—yet you think being meddlesome is noble? You’re only going to unleash chaos.”

Though Sakura thought she could’ve gone into this conversation as a level-headed party, something about the matriarch’s nonchalance rankled her endlessly. Of the casual dismissal, like she and the Nadeshiko were termites who were too brainless to comprehend what they were doing. As if the people she worked with exaggerated the things they’d seen or suffered through. It was almost a mirror of her bonds with Naruto and Sasuke; just because she hadn’t gone through a fraction of what they had didn’t exclude her from wanting to protect them, to help them through their turmoil. 

Sakura had staked her life and future for their sakes, to help people like them; as if it were any different. As if she’d never become enraged in the face of those who had the gall to dismiss the plight of victims who were trying to do something about it, as her teammates had. 

“What, like you haven’t? Open your fucking eyes! People are suffering because of your shit! While nobles sit around and let all this bullshit go on, clans are terrorizing everyone who can’t defend themselves! So yeah, I’m going to fucking meddle! And I’m not going to stop until I’m dead or it ends for good!” Sakura raged as she straightened and smashed her fist into the ornate writing desk, Rokujō moving with surprising alacrity to clear away from the destructive impact as the tatami mats shredded and splinters flew jaggedly as it pulverized beneath her knuckles. 

Rokujō barked a highfalutin laugh at Sakura’s rage, shedding several layers in a flourish as she unsheathed two kunai from holsters on her bare thighs, onyx eyes mad with excitement as the kunoichi lunged for her and feinted away as Sakura punched out the fusuma from their frames through the hallway, taking the doors with them as fearful shouts and shrieks sounded from the courtyard they were blasted into. Clarion calls for the guardsmen echoed throughout the household stirred into a frenzy as they scattered from the women’s altercation. 

The two exchanged a melee of blows Sakura refrained from charging with her chakra, the Shimura matriarch a skilled combatant despite appearances. Remembering what Miku had said about how civilians were relegated to mundane roles, it made sense that she could. 

“You really can’t help yourself, can you? You—” Before she could finish her provocation, Sakura clocked her hard enough to send her careening into the courtyard as she startled onlookers, before the woman righted herself and sprang back to her feet, a trickle of blood dribbling from the corner of her lips. The kunoichi followed in pursuit, driven into a frenzy that wouldn’t be satisfied until there was some bloodshed. 

Brandishing her kunai anew, Rokujō smirked devilishly until blindsided by a blur of pure speed as Sakura was seized by the throat in a vice and slammed into the perimeter wall so hard it created a recessed imprint of her back, gasping for air as she leveraged her legs to retaliate with a triangle hold around Hashirama’s neck, the Senju’s face contorted in an expression of pure wrath.

Rokujō shouted when Mito landed in the courtyard after her husband and twisted the Shimura matriarch’s arm painfully behind her back, crying out as she was driven to her knees and dropped her weapons to the turf. “Rokujō, what the hell are you doing?! That woman was supposed to report to me first, not you!” Mito snapped at the Shimura who glowered resentfully over her shoulder, bloodied teeth clenched until her jaw creaked. “You had no right to provoke her like this!”

“And you have no right to bring in that wretch after all she’s done! She lost us a valuable contract and tarnished the Senju’s reputation in the process, but your bright idea was to let her roam free as if she won’t unleash more mayhem here?!” Rokujō shot back, grunting when the Uzumaki tightened her hold. 

Mito scowled as she threw Rokujō to the ground who stood in a huff, stoically bearing the excruciating pain as she swept aside her disheveled hair and strode proudly back to her abode. Glaring at a gaping servant, she barked, “What the hell are you gaping at?! Summon the carpenters and repairmen! I want this mess resolved tonight, is that understood?!” 

Rushing to acquiesce to her demands, once the Shimura stormed back inside, Sakura was released, her own attempted headlock loosened as Mito rushed towards her once she dropped to the ground and gasped to regain her breath.

When Mito crouched in an attempt to help her stand, Sakura snatched her arm away. “Don’t touch me!” Sakura snarled at the Uzumaki who frowned, but reeled when the matriarch’s hand delivered a savage backhand that struck Sakura hard enough to make her nose bleed. 

Gripping Sakura painfully by the chin, the Senju matriarch forced her to match eyes. “I don't think you realize the severity of what you’ve done, do you? First the Uchiha, then us, then both of us. I understand you’re frustrated and angry, but if you keep defying us, things will only be harder for you. There’s a juinjutsu on you; if you keep testing my patience or generosity, there will be consequences, am I understood?” 

For the first time since going into the past, Sakura felt a real sense of terror. This was Mito and Hashirama, two of the most powerful shinobi in history. Sakura knew she was far from weak, but compared to her, they were in a class all their own. She felt the same kind of primal fear an animal caught in a trap did, knowing it was going to die. Mito’s gaze was hard and icy before she stood regally, the silent expectation there to follow. 

It was like witnessing Pein after emerging from Katsuyu’s protective cocoon. Or when she was twelve and riveted in terror as Orochimaru caught her and Sasuke in an abyssal horror from their killing intent alone.

More than that, it was being this small, useless girl on the Academy grounds being taunted for her lack of noteworthy heritage, of being told she was better off dropping out and becoming a shopkeeper, or maybe a maid for their own households. It was the time spent unconscious in Sasuke’s genjutsu where she was suspended in a black space as she was taunted by her past, in the present. Of the fantastic legacies Sasuke and Naruto had hailed from, of parents from clans with storied histories and untold, unattainable power. That the world was saved at all because they were descended from demigods as players in a galvanizing prophecy. 

And her? Well, even Kakashi hailed from an illustrious clan. Maybe it was why Obito had been able to grant him the power of both his Sharingan, why he’d become the Rokudaime. 

Mito passed a look over those congregated who dispersed like her eyes were a bullwhip, undoubtedly impressed by the Uzumaki’s show of power. Her eyes met Hashirama’s, the Senju’s lingering on Sakura for a beat longer than they might’ve otherwise. 

“This way,” Mito ordered as Sakura plodded listlessly behind her, following after the woman with a hung head and largely broken spirit.

At least, not broken enough.

“For what it’s worth, I do understand your grievances, Sakura.”

Mito sat upon a small stool before a modest vanity table, pinning her bangs aside after the confrontation between her new lady-in-waiting and Rokujō had interrupted her morning routine. Though, part of her couldn’t blame the younger woman; the Shimura matriarch was a polarizing woman, largely for negative reasons. As the Shimura served as the intelligence and shadow of the Senju—there to conduct in the night what the Senju couldn’t risk in daylight—security of such a position made she and Genji Shimura (their clan head) arrogant. 

Black eyes flitted to Sakura dimly brushing her long, scarlet locks in the oval mirror situated above her varnished vanity, but the foreign kunoichi didn’t have the look of a defeated woman she thought she’d witnessed before. 

If anything, Sakura looked more like someone quietly waiting in a corner, biding her time instead of being beaten into a submissive state. 

“You have experience healing, don’t you?”

That garnered Sakura’s attention from her dispassionate attempt at brushing the Uzumaki’s coppery locks. Though Mito did regret striking her, she’d already healed. Given the younger woman’s lack of regenerative ability like she or her husband, she hadn’t even seen Sakura heal the welt. Though utilizing the Mystical Palm Technique without hand seals was possible, she hadn’t known of anyone who could circulate that chakra through other tenketsu than the hands. 

“I do, Mito-sama,” Sakura replied succinctly, without the hesitance of a moment before. The spirited glimmer in the kunoichi’s eyes wasn’t lost on her. 

Mito breathed a soundless chuckle through her nostrils at the discovery. “I’m not nearly as proficient as my husband or brother-in-law, but we Uzumaki have our ways.”

“With fūinjutsu, right?” When Mito nodded affirmatively, Sakura avidly continued. “I know the Uzumaki channel your chakra through fūinjutsu to regulate it, since it could overwhelm the process, because it’s so delicate. But… I know of another way.” The Uzumaki swiveled on her seat with clear interest, canting her head receptively. “You can convert chakra to Yang Release since you need it to heal, um… You probably already know this.”

Mito chuffed softly and took the hairbrush Sakura forgot she’d been holding, no longer focused on brushing Mito’s hair. Especially since neither of them was remotely engrossed in it any longer. “We do, but our chakra contains enough vitality on its own. That’s not exactly a well-known mechanic.”

Sakura nodded mutely, and Mito smiled. 

“Come with me to our clinic, Sakura. Your talents are wasted here attempting to brush my hair.”

“Sorry,” Sakura apologized with a sheepish smile, and Mito mirrored it conspiratorially. 

“Make it up to me by showing me this. Shall we?”

Chapter Text

Warning(s): M, graphic body horror

When consciousness returned, Tobirama was certain he was submerged—adrift in water thinned with blood, his vision swimming in crimson that owed nothing to wounds or illusion. He sat up to find his hands unbound, no fetters on his ankles nor manacles on his wrists. But, when he attempted to knead chakra to activate his sensory technique to gain some sense of his surroundings, he found he couldn’t. Juinjutsu, then; there was no other explanation as to why he could feel his spiritual and physical energies circulate throughout, but not mold them into chakra. 

Tobirama let his eyes adjust to the underground bazaar he’d found himself within, vaulted ceilings running above the main thoroughfare, whilst colonnades lined its flanks that were recessed with venues largely dominated by vendors, food stands, and the odd forum for people to gather with their purchases. The entire vicinity was made from the bowels of a cavern, piping from above, filtering latticed rays of sunlight that shed intricate patterns on the dusty streets below. 

The Senju startled when the market stall he’d been unconscious near had an apparent butcher swiping viscera into a waiting, wooden pail that slopped gruesomely within, a few blood spatters landing on his face. What was more horrific was that it came from a body hacked on the tabletop, limbs stacked whilst organs were pillaged from the cadaver. Not much different from his own work, but it lacked the finesse he had shown, and even more so, the hygiene. 

“There ya are! Thought you might be wakin’ up soon,” a distinct voice addressed, though Tobirama visibly bristled.

“Took you long enough, Izayoi-san. At least he kept my subjects company,” another familiar voice replied, Tobirama recognizing it as the hulking man who had hefted him after his capture and all had faded to black. 

Though Tobirama couldn’t knead chakra, they’d made the foolish mistake of leaving him untethered.

In a blistering flourish of movement did Tobirama leap to his feet and seize one of the unused butcher’s knives on the stand and brandish it, feinting again behind the butcher’s back to painfully seize his arm behind his back and train the cleaver to his throat. 

“Tell me where the hell I am, and perhaps you’ll keep your head!” Tobirama snarled, scarlet eyes ablaze with wrath as they flickered between his hostage and the strange woman known as Izayoi, who held two trays of food with a bland rise of her eyebrow, chewing on a grain stalk. 

His tirade was interrupted when three children barreled past, instantly recognizing Kawarama and Itama, the girl unknown to him. “Get down, Daimyō-sama!” she screeched, Itama turning belatedly as Kawarama and the girl tackled him into the dirt, shrieking with laughter as Itama was stunned, but unharmed. Tobirama stared at them mutely while Izayoi smirked pointedly at him. 

They were… having fun, completely unharmed. 

Though Eiji lodged protests after them, they sprang to their feet and darted away again, likely in good hands, as loath as he was to admit it. 

Tobirama felt his anger recede and the vice on his former hostage wane, gaze returning to Izayoi who found a serviceable barrel to use as a tabletop and two crates, one of which she claimed. 

“Now that’s all over with, why don’t we have some lunch, eh, twinkle toes? You must be famished.”

“Twinkle— Why on earth would I—” Tobirama was cut short by his rumbling stomach, flushing in embarrassment while Izayoi barked a laugh and gestured to the seat parallel hers. “I imagine it’s poisoned,” he quipped sourly after releasing the man, the sensation of a glare boring into his skull ignored in favor of the food that steamed enticingly. Gods knew he was starving. 

Using her chopsticks, she plucked a morsel of karaage chicken from what was allotted as his tray and popped it in her mouth, shrugging visibly. “There. Now, if it is, we’ll both die a slow, painful death,” Izayoi responded brightly, focusing on her own meal while Tobirama, mollified, followed suit and proceeded to dig into the karaage chicken, fried rice, and vegetables heavily glazed with sauce that likely buried the flavor. It was undoubtedly unhealthy, but the Senju was too ravenous to truly care. 

“Guessin’ you thought you’d be in a cell or some shit,” Izayoi commented as she bit into a meat bun, speaking indecorously with her mouth full. It reminded Tobirama painfully of his elder brother. “Now, why don’t we hash out some business? Bet you’re wonderin’ why we took ya out on this little outing.”

“Ransom. Some other petty, low-life reason you can think of,” Tobirama replied tartly, unable to help himself from devouring the foodstuffs. He hadn’t eaten in what he assumed was well over a day, after all. “I suppose I should just be grateful you haven’t started sending select body parts back to Sennan.”

“Mate, we’re not fuckin’ animals. Yeah, the Nadeshiko are reckless and downright brainless when it comes down to it, but we need ya alive. ‘Specially for this deal I want to come to fruition.” 

Tobirama paused for a moment, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What deal?” he demanded flatly, glower boring through her. 

“We need protection, mate. Specifically, the Chinoike need protection from the Uchiha who like terrorizing them for sport. That’d be right up your alley, wouldn’t it? Since they’re your ancient rivals, an’ all,” Izayoi continued as she bit into a riceball. 

Tobirama glanced about him, at the vendors peddling scrolls, jars of body parts suspended in formaldehyde, weapons, armor, and all manner of things undoubtedly robbed from the owners who’d once used them in life. Hell, Tobirama didn’t doubt that one of those owners was being butchered next to him as they spoke.  

“In exchange for what, exactly? For you to keep running this literal flesh market without interruption?”

Izayoi grinned laconically. “That’s for damn sure. People like me need this place, mate. While your sort causes all sorts of mayhem and destruction, this place lets us get a little just desserts now and then. ‘Sides, I bet this could be lucrative to you, too.” At Izayoi’s titillation, Tobirama didn’t interrupt, but his silence was expectant and impatient. “You’re the ‘clan of a thousand skills’, right? Well, while your own buddies have their Mirror-Wheel Eyes to copy whatever the hell they please, you have to come up with shit on your own, right? You protect these guys, and they’ll let you in on the action, savvy?”

Tobirama lowered the bowl of miso soup he’d been sipping decorously from, glancing behind him again. In all begrudging respect, the criminal had a point. As seedy as the Blood Market ultimately was, the shinobi in him could recognize the practicality. With next to no reports of their people being killed deliberately, he had a feeling that most of the swag left behind came from the aftermath of decimated battlefields instead of outright pillaging as most clans were wont to do in times of scarcity. That, and geographically speaking, the Land of Hot Water shared borders with the Senju’s sphere of influence over the Land of Fire. Eliminating a threat at their backs would greatly mitigate the risks their clansmen and allies faced. 

Aside from the material and security gains, the Chinoike themselves were outspoken enemies of the Uchiha. With a dōjutsu that rivals the Sharingan’s prowess and blood manipulation abilities, they could be useful if trained in ninjutsu. 

In agreeing to broker such a deal, the Senju would possess a competitive edge over the Uchiha and their allies west of the Naka.

“On whose authority are you able to act on this arrangement instead of the Chinoike clan leader? Moreover, why would you broker this deal when you’ve made your aggression against the shinobi world very plain? This could come at a disadvantage to you while it would bolster us,” Tobirama informed her officiously, gaze probing but lacking the hostility from before. 

“Mate, our struggle is against the whole damn shinobi world, not just you tree-fuckers. We need this market protected and active, yeah? As for that, I’m just the mediator here. Once I’m gone and you’re back all swaddled in your big fluffy bed back home, this truce is off. Next I see ya, I’ll do more than just chop off bits and pieces of ya,” Izayoi replied with a bawdy smirk as she then amended with a full mouth: “We drummed this all up before nabbing your watery ass. She’ll finalize it with ya once we’re finished here, then we’ll send you and your brothers back home without a hair out of place.”

Glancing down at his mostly finished food, Tobirama almost couldn’t believe how fortuitous this had all been. Though he’d never thought of allying the Senju with such a savage people, anyone who was an enemy of the Uchiha could be an ally of Sennan. 

That, and if they could keep the Nadeshiko focused on the Uchiha instead of themselves, it would be more of a nuisance for those demons to deal with. Emblematic of the ordinary people’s suffering, or whatever nonsense the Nadeshiko used to justify their thoughtless mayhem. 

“We finish, then I want to be brought to her. The sooner I can leave this cesspool with my brothers, the better.”

“At least say please and thank you,” Izayoi replied with a sarcastic smirk, downing her tea in a gulp. 

Tobirama responded with a cutting glare; the only politeness her ilk would receive from him, that much was certain. Yet, when he spied Eiji catching his breath across from them in the other direction the three children ran, Tobirama placed his chopsticks on the rim of one of the bowls and strode over towards the man with malice radiating from him in fain waves. 

The man froze when he saw Tobirama, opening his mouth to say something. Still, the Senju instead loomed over him like a shinigami’s shadow, took his perspiring face between his hands, and wrenched his head brusquely to the side, completely snapping the man’s neck. Letting the newly-made corpse crumple in a heap, Tobirama strode back to their table and let the depraved passersby loot his corpse, strip it bare, and drag away the body into some slaughterhouse where it could be dismembered and ultimately harvested for valuable organs. Like a voracious mob of piranhas, they finished their visceral work in a matter of seconds. 

That man was a traitor and deserved it. When his scarlet eyes slid over to Izayoi who had watched on in silent horror, the meaning was clear: The same will happen to you if you cross my path after this, you wretch.

Of all the places in Uchinada, the bird sanctuary was the most secluded, the quietest. In dense foliage and thick underbrush, species of avians from across the land had made their home after being domesticated for generations by Uchiha keepers who’d come before him. Though such a duty fell to one of the civilian families that were housed on the sanctuary’s border, they never barred Uchiha from entering, let alone the clan head who stood above all in the clan.

A few scarlet macaws from the south flew past in colorful streaks, beating their wings above his head while birds of paradise saturated the space in birdsong. The gentle creak of swaying branches and the rustling of the leaves with a sweet, summer-warm breeze had lulled him to sleep long ago. Thankfully, he’d rushed through the more mundane duties, many of which were dumped on his brother as punishment for a certain incident, while the administrative branches that worked out of the main estate concerned themselves with the rest.

After all, their clansmen weren’t made for the trivial when those they afforded protection to paid their dues thusly. 

Yet, that’s what bothered him the most.

After the disastrous war campaign that had shamefully ended in a draw, both sides limped home to lick their wounds after unprecedented interference. In the life he’d been raised in, shinobi were like ukiyo-e—glimpses from a floating world that barely interacted with the ordinary, kami who kept to themselves and left the farmers, the craftsmen, the merchants and guildsmen alone. Though it wasn’t always the case, even the rampant destruction and casualties shinobi caused were understood as an evil as inevitable as a natural disaster or a shock flood. Of course, they never purposefully got out of hand, except in battlefronts like the recent embarrassment. 

Aside from the civilians who lived in clan compounds to carry out what warriors rightfully shouldn’t, who were paid with protection and respect, their worlds didn’t intentionally intersect. Yes, there were unscrupulous clans who terrorized those who couldn’t dream of defending themselves, but war was a disaster no matter who fought it, and one couldn’t hope to control the heart of every man as changing as the seasons. 

“Ah, I thought I might find you here,” a familiar voice intruded, though it was one Madara didn’t mind.

“Uncle,” he greeted with a faint incline of his head, Akira Hyūga’s violet eyes radiant with an opalescent warmth only family could ever hope of truly understanding. The older man perched on a further end of the branch, his nephew claiming the junction of it that sprouted from the massive oak they roosted within like the birds that lived in their lands. 

“Izu-kun said I might find you here,” Akira mused aloud as he slouched comfortably, pulling part of his dusty blue hakama, which he tended to wear with his shimmery white kimono, as the leader of the Hyūga’s main house rightfully did. “Still brooding over that failed campaign from a week ago?” 

Had anyone else spoken to him so casually, he would’ve scolded them for it, or worse. As his maternal uncle, Akira had that luxury and more. 

“I’m not brooding,” Madara began indignantly, boyishly pouting, “I’m thinking. There’s a difference.” He folded his arms and Akira only grinned, brushing aside a strand of wavy brown hair from his face; a trait he and Izuna’s mother had shared.

“Alright, thinking. What are you thinking of that's driven you to hole yourself away, hm?”

A rare look of vulnerability and insecurity crossed his features, lips downturned and eyes averted. “We lost the 25 million ryō to a fucking draw. Uncle, people died in the battle, and for what?! That money would’ve made it worthwhile, would’ve—” The Uchiha caught himself. “If father were still alive, I feel as though it wouldn’t have happened. That no casualties would be incurred, but rather the deaths of noble warriors dying for their clan. This was just a senseless bloodbath I couldn’t even stop.”

He still remembered how that strange duo had transported and destroyed a fucking mountain, and Madara knew his kith and kin had died in the onslaught. It happened whenever there was a battle, but that had been a disaster beyond his control. Madara still remembered when the comforting flames of his clansmen’s chakra signatures had extinguished, one by one, and the coldness to follow that he hadn’t even protected them from. It would’ve been one thing to die in combat, but this hadn’t been that. 

The ones responsible would pay, Madara resolved, a vengeful blaze ignited in his heart since then. He would avenge their deaths if it were the last thing he did. 

Madara flinched when he felt Akira’s index and pointer fingers poke his forehead, a concerned expression on his countenance, lips drawn somberly. “I wonder where your mind goes when you look like that.” It was a gesture Tajima had done with his own brothers and sons, one that Akira adopted with his nephews after their father’s death. A silent promise he’d taken to help center and guide them after the loss of his brother-in-law. 

“One of those responsible was here, briefly. I do know something about the one known as Mū,” Madara continued, which caused Akira to straighten with interest. “He was one of those rare civilian shinobi adopted into the Kamizuru clan and was Ishikawa’s disciple. The rest is largely unclear, but I do know that he became inordinately powerful. That technique he used, Dust Release—did you know it’s something known as a kekkei tōta? The first and only one of its kind. Ishikawa’s grandson, Ōnoki, is his disciple in kind. That’s all Izuna’s spies were able to gather on him.”

“A kekkei tōta, huh? I don’t think it needs saying that it’s more powerful than most kekkei genkai. No wonder he was able to hold his own against Hashirama; the Kamizuru must value him inordinately,” Akira speculated as he leaned against a higher branch that intersected with the one the two men were perched upon. “I suppose all that remains is the woman. Anything on her? Allegiances, identity?”

Madara grit his teeth at the thought of that madwoman in particular. “Only what I was able to deduce myself. She has the chakra signature of a Crescent Moon Kingdom native, but not of any of their clans. She has Mito’s Byakugō and the Senju’s medical hijutsu, but none of the Senju or Uzumaki recognized her from what they could gather. The likeliest case is that she stole both clan’s Hiden or a bastard from those clans taught her. Otherwise, we have little else.”

Akira snorted with a barked laugh. “Those tree-fuckers never were very prudent when it came to who they bedded, bunch of fucking animals that they are. Still, some woman with no remarkable lineage managed to fight you for half a day before the demon fox showed up. It’s odd that Mito helped them; maybe they’re not as disconnected as we think.”

Madara lifted his brow with interest. “You think Ashina might have some other relative closely connected with Mito? Enough that they could’ve taught this berserker?”

“We have Mito’s half-sister in our midst, do we not?” Madara scowled thoughtfully; the Hyūga clan head had a damn good point, that much he could admit. 

“Perhaps she could’ve learned Senju and Uzumaki hijutsu, but that doesn’t explain her fighting style. It’s reminiscent of an Earth Release user, but I never sensed it being used. Just chakra alone and some elemental releases interspersed,” Madara thought aloud, only finding himself growing more frustrated. Not because it was so enigmatic, but because his clansmen and their compatriots had lost their lives to a complete cipher, like some demon from Yomi. At least with Mū they knew something about him. Aside from being part of a band of criminals hellbent on overturning the shinobi way of life, there was nothing. 

Just some renegade without a real cause. 

“Regardless, the two of them made us lose that contract. Money that would’ve made it worth it!” Madara railed with a growl, sitting bolt upright and too tense to dream of relaxing. 

“It might not be a lost cause, Mada-kun. Lords Matsuda and Yoshida never called a draw. In fact, they’ll see it more as a recess thanks to the interruption. I’m guessing you weren’t there with us back at camp, hm? General Arai received a messenger hawk from the southern province that the appearance of the Kyūbi had them declare a state of attrition until a new battleground is chosen far away from that monster.”

Madara’s shoulders sagged with relief, exhaling a tense breath he was almost unaware he held. “So, there’s still hope… I know the Senju took the woman hostage. Unless they convince her to fight for them—which is totally improbable given their cause—that’s those louts out of the way.”

More than words could express, he couldn’t be more grateful for his Uncle Akira and Aunt Hina who’d filled the void as both invaluable consul and as parental figures who’d been there for him and his brother after they’d lost their parents, providing wise advice on their imperative duties as clan heads and emotional support in the unglamorous times when the world became too crushing and immense for them to handle alone. 

Akira’s pale violets became distant, steeped in nostalgia, while his lips thinned into a severe line. “I’ll never forget the day we lost Hisako,” the Hyūga murmured so softly Madara barely heard him above the rustle of leaves; he remembered because he was there, barely a preteen and before he’d met Hashirama. “It was a day like this one, wasn’t it? A little cooler, perhaps, but it should’ve been so routine. We were taking you with us to our garrison along the Naka, so simple, and yet— We were ambushed by the Hatake clan and their wolves, and we barely escaped. But… Hisako sacrificed herself to protect you and Izu-kun. Gods, not a day goes by that I don’t despise myself for being so useless.”

That day, it had only been Akira, Hisako, and Madara with Izuna that should’ve been enough. Yet, with the unique kind of chakra the Hatake clan possessed that was capable of transforming their chakra signatures, they’d been impossible to detect. It had haunted him for years, the snarling and sickening gnashing of teeth until both brothers had mustered the strength to incinerate the wolves and force them into a retreat, but by then it had been too late. 

Their mother had died, and there had been nothing they could’ve done about it. Not when shock had stunned both boys until they had been compelled to fight back. The same uselessness that had driven them both to become as powerful as they were, so such a thing wouldn’t happen again so needlessly. Strong enough so that they would never be immobilized like that again, asking, Why wasn’t I strong enough?

“No one could’ve seen them coming, Uncle,” Madara replied somberly after a long pause, Akira nodding mutely. Even then, over twenty years later, the elder Hyūga was still haunted by the ambush that had taken one of the most important people in their lives. “We know their power, and they’re nothing compared to what we’ve become.”

Akira smiled mirthlessly at his nephew, patting his shoulder soundly. “So were these two, weren’t they? And yet, look what happened. We both lost kinsmen, Mada-kun. This is a lesson we’ve both been taught, no?” Shaking his head, he dropped gracefully to the leaf litter below, glancing upwards. “Come, we’re too sober for this. Let’s drink for the fallen and pray for our victories to come. I’m sure Izu-kun would appreciate the break.”

Following after, Madara descended as soundlessly as they left the bird sanctuary, a warmth bubbling in him full of love and gratitude for the father figure his uncle still was, even to that day.

Chapter Text

Warning(s): M, sexual suggestiveness

As Mito strode with Sakura in tow from the isolated confines of her heavily-guarded apartments, the sunniness of the morning was soured when they saw a rushing of waitstaff breeze past with clipped strains of gossip, the Uzumaki and Sakura exchanging bemused looks before Mito picked up the trailing skirts of her kimono to dart forth as Sakura followed suit, hot on her trail. 

They and the servants spilled out into one of the courtyards where none other than Tobirama was, rising from a genuflection from what seemed to be a Flying Thunder God transportation that had manifested him from thin air. On the cobbled lawns (a plain, open space Sakura belatedly assumed was some training yard), the scorched odor of burning ozone trailed in the wake of his sudden appearance. 

“Someone fetch Lord Hashirama!” a man from the throng shouted, and as Tobirama stood to his full height, Sakura flinched when she felt his placid look sharpen like a dagger as he glowered at the kunoichi upon catching sight of her. “He’s back, thank the gods—!”

Shouts erupted from the crowd as Tobirama lunged for Sakura, the kunoichi knowing there was no stopping the enraged Senju, especially as he likely knew who she was by then and what she’d done on one of their warfronts. “Mito-sama, please evacuate these people!” Sakura shouted before his hit could connect, knowing that Tobirama would probably be unrelenting even with people around.

Well, at least, she didn’t think he’d purposefully endanger innocent bystanders. Thankfully, most had fled from the expansive training yard, having lingered only on the fringes instead of pooling in too much. Though she doubted Mito would be pleased, then and there, she didn’t have the luxury of talking down someone as incisive and efficient as Tobirama. 

Edohigan: Lightning

Channeling Lightning Release throughout her body, though it was by no means the level of the Third or Fourth Raikage who practically became superhuman with their chakra cloaks, it augmented her speed and reaction times to levels far above her usual. It would be ideal in combating a speedster like the future Nīdaime. Just because the rest of Team 7 had mastered unique nature transformations didn’t mean she’d have been left out, either! Even if she was self-taught—

“Whoa!” Sakura shouted as she leapt away in time of Tobirama’s signature sword that trained towards her, at first cleaving the air without Lightning Release, but static soon crackled along its length as a chakra flow streamed deadly electricity. As he clove the air where she’d stood, each strike whining with air itself being severed, Sakura instead caught the weapon with chakra-coated hands and canted her head with a goading smirk. 

Was it a good idea to provoke him? Absolutely not. Was she going to try in the hopes of rendering him reckless in his wrath? Totally!

Snarling, Tobirama’s cheeks ballooned as he primed a salvo of Heavenly Weeping’s water senbon, only a few of which were expectorated as Sakura manipulated the blade and wheeled with her own weight to fling him away and literally throw the future Hokage off-balance. He careened towards the perimeter wall, but righted himself midair, landed on his feet, and utilized it as a springboard to launch himself back towards her. 

Just as he was closing in upon her, Sakura met him with a chakra-enhanced punch. But not just any; with Kanzan: Fire, a superheated sonic wave sounded with the clap of thunder, unfurling plumes of flame licking the air as Tobirama’s eyes widened in alarm, likely not something he’d have anticipated. But, his reaction time was just fast enough to utilize the Flying Thunder God Technique to avoid the inferno that threatened to do much more than swat him away like a fly against heavy wind resistance. Reappearing in the courtyard’s epicenter like before, he lowered his sword and, with a single hand seal, puffed his chest in preparation to likely drown the immediate space in water as Sakura had heard he was capable of.

Knowing it could be fatal for any noncombatants, Sakura utilized yet another gambit she’d yet to execute.

As a Genjutsu-type, her ilk had the unique ability to manipulate another’s chakra from afar to cast genjutsu, but Sakura had devised a technique to circumvent this process. Extending her control, she grasped Tobirama’s psyche and impeded the flow of chakra, much like squeezing a hose to stymie the water's flow. Although it wasn’t a technique she could utilize in the middle of a fight like any genjutsu, it did the trick.

Tobirama’s eyes widened comically like saucers as the Jutsu Cancellation took hold, bowing over and sputtering as he coughed up the water that had accumulated in his chest like he’d been underwater for too long. Heaving an enraged sigh, his teeth clenched into a snarl as liquid dribbled from his lips. “What the hell did you do?!” 

“Oh, nothing special—” Sakura began cheekily before cracks webbed beneath the pair’s feet and girthy roots suddenly sprang from the flagstone, entwining around Sakura’s figure. At the same time, Tobirama was arrested with natural fetters around his ankles, feet swept from under him as he dangled with a shout upside-down, the pair elevated humiliatingly above the ground by several feet.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!”

Hashirama stood with a malevolence in his eyes, hands clasped together in the Snake hand seal as the air seemed to drop, chilling it in a primal fear all living things did instinctively before a superior predator. The elder Senju stormed towards his younger brother, berating him while Sakura was temporarily ignored… which was fine.

Mostly.

The roots had sprawled over her form like a harness to coil about her waist, entwine her arms, and wind salaciously up her legs that crept about her thighs. Sakura writhed in some pathetic attempt to extricate herself, mentally cursing as she could swear it was gradually siphoning her chakra, which… It made sense, sure, but it was itchy as hell.

“Tobirama, what the hell are you doing?!”

“Me? Remind me again who allowed a fucking terrorist in our midst, Anija!” Tobirama hissed venomously, spitting out what was normally an epithet of honor between them.

“You go missing for a week, and this is what concerns you first?!” Hashirama barked back, the younger flinching slightly despite himself. 

“ME?! She’s the one you should—!” Tobirama’s retort trailed off when his brow raised at whatever Sakura was doing, though the kunoichi continued her dogged efforts. Of writhing, at least. “…Focus on.” His eyes fixated on her, and as he did, Hashirama followed suit. 

Chakra scalpel? Sakura dexterously formed the requisite hand seals one-handed, another trick she’d learned after the war. When she couldn’t knead the needed chakra, she cursed under her breath. Shit!  

Yet, it took several moments for her to realize that both brothers had fallen silent, self-consciousness rearing its head as she flushed at their scandalized stares that bored through her. “W-What?” she barely managed to squeak, but glanced down at herself to fluster at just how salaciously the roots had reflexively coiled about her. They squeezed around the shape of her generous breasts that exposed ample cleavage through the broken seam of her tunic, her thighs, and effectively arrested her in a damningly erotic shibari. 

Gawking at both, it was with further mortification that she realized that the pair of them both sported obvious semis in their pants made obvious in the rising glare of the sunlight as the morning wore on.

WHAT THE HELL?!

“Hashirama, Tobirama, what’s the meaning of this?” Mito demanded as she strode authoritatively into the courtyard, waitstaff and other gawkers filtering into the wings as they waited expectantly with the Uzumaki for an answer. 

“Mito, you have more sense than this! Why on earth is that cretin here?” Tobirama snapped as Hashirama’s roots dumped the younger Senju unceremoniously to the ground before retreating into the earth, the ones ensnaring Sakura more or less doing the same despite her gentler landing. 

Miku gestured quickly from the flanks for Sakura. She heeded the brunette, retreating into the dispersing crowd with the other servant girl, just barely hearing a thread of Mito’s own retort about how it was handled, and that wasn’t when the issue when Tobirama’s absence was far more pressing; something like that. Fleeing through a moon gate in the perimeter wall largely ignored, they came upon a tree-lined boulevard with a dusty road that was flanked by perimeter walls that comprised the Main Estate’s expansive grounds. 

Sakura breathed a sigh of relief as they slowed to a placid walk beneath the dappled sunlight, sagging slightly as she matched strides in the refreshingly pleasant morning. “Thanks, Miku. I owe you… more than one. Sheesh, I’m going to go into debt at this rate,” she said with a grateful smile, glad she no longer felt like she’d downed a pot of coffee in one go. Her Edohigan techniques were great for a boost, but she felt a little drowsy after. Probably because she hadn’t eaten yet…

“Hm, well, there’s something you can do,” Miku insinuated with a secretive smile, and as Sakura meant to ask further, the maid instead ducked towards a high gate in the wall and led the kunoichi down it. Racing down a dusty trail secluded in the woods, banked by high meadow grasses, through the deepening woodland, they linger until coming to what appeared to be an abandoned cottage in shambles. With how flowering vines crawled over it charmingly, it looked more like the kind of retreat a small child would love. 

“Miku, not so loud!” a female voice hissed as they entered the shady space, the roof having collapsed despite the sturdy walls that were all that remained of a shell of a home. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Miku murmured back as the pair shuffled in, finding two women with their lower faces concealed by rags as a temporary disguise. Otherwise, they wore simple cotton, white yukata with the kanji for ‘iryō’ stitched at the right breast. With their black hair tied back in ponytails, it felt reminiscent of the uniforms the Medic Corps wore. 

Sakura offered a shy smile and a small wave in greeting. “Um, hello.”

The two women exchanged dubious looks, eyes stating plenty that needn’t be spoken. “Miku says you have a talent for medical ninjutsu. Is this true?” 

“Sure, but… don’t you?” Sakura lilted as she mimed to her own right breast; they glanced down at theirs where the emblem was. 

The woman on the right squinted slightly. “You don’t understand how this works, do you?” The one on the left touched her shoulder to get her attention. 

“Sadako, I’ll explain,” the one on the left indicated, the one now identified as Sadako nodded in acquiescence. “I’m Kaede, by the way. We’re technically healers, but we don’t know medical ninjutsu, let alone how to mold chakra. We’re just aides in the clinics, nothing more. But… we want to learn to help our villages. Especially with all this destruction this stupid war has caused.”

“The only ones allowed to learn medical ninjutsu are the Senju’s clannish allies within Sennan. Those, along with the clans and noblemen rich enough to afford the commission prices to train them. They’re too exorbitant for the likes of our communities to afford!” Sadako interjected heatedly, though stilled when Kaede shook her head. “I know, it must take so much investment, but… You saw that battle along the Naka. People suffered a-and we’re just here, sheltered and unable to help.”

Sakura’s eyes widened at the realization. “Oh my gods… You two are from that area, aren’t you?” 

Kaede sighed bitterly. “They’re not going to stop. You and your people caused a hiccup, but the majority know that they’re going to resume hostilities soon. Once they heal their bruised egos, they’ll be back at it again. And we might not see our families again if they do.”

Sakura felt a lump form in their throat at that realization, of how they were working on borrowed time. Though how they wound up in Sennan at all was a mystery, Sakura had no doubt it was to escape a wretched life constantly crushed underfoot by endless warfare. Though they’d be prohibited from learning ninjutsu—or, at least not taught further without a preexisting ability or affiliation with an existing clan—she had a feeling they were like the med-nin in her own time. Though many had expertise in medical matters and could perform duties as broad as synthesizing medications to performing surgeries, only a fraction had the chakra control necessary for medical ninjutsu, so… the selectiveness of the Senju made a little sense, even if it didn’t justify their possessiveness. Not when it was being kept from the people who could benefit from it the most.

More than that, this was almost the same conundrum Tsunade would face decades later. How the hell could she turn them down?

“I’ll do it. I’ll help you.”

The women straightened in surprise, but inclined their heads respectfully. “Thank you, Sakura-san. We’re in your debt,” Kaede thanked solemnly, and Sakura smiled grimly.

“See, what did I tell you both? Sakura is just like us, but can face the likes of them. She’s someone who can help, unlike those bastards who don’t give a shit about us,” Miku hissed vehemently, hands clenched into fists so tightly her knuckles blanched. 

“You’ll have my thanks if this crazy scheme actually works. Now, we have to go! We’ve been gone too long, and if they notice, you know what’ll happen,” Sadako urged as she pulled Kaede to her feet and the two women raced headlong from the forest without a second look back, but the kunoichi honestly couldn’t blame them. 

Miku stood and gestured for Sakura to follow, who did. “Crazy scheme, sure, but not as crazy as the shit you’ve pulled,” the woman simpered at Sakura, who shook her head with a laugh.

“I try to get into trouble at least once a day. I think I filled my quota this morning,” Sakura returned with a puckish shrug of her shoulders. “I have a reputation, you know!”

“But, of course. Now, why don’t we get some breakfast? I’m starved!”

“Ugh, I thought you’d never ask!” Sakura exclaimed in exasperation, eliciting bubbly laughter from Miku that followed them through their trek in the forest.

“Tobirama, what do you mean you agreed to protect this fucking… Blood Market?!” 

Sasuke Sarutobi’s face had become hopelessly ruddy in his indignation, the ink pen he’d been holding in his writing snapped cleanly in half from the mounting anger that had risen to volcanic heights, as was typical with the stout, stocky firecracker of a man who could intimidate almost anyone despite being several inches shorter than either of his nephews. 

“I wasn’t given a choice… at first. But that Nadeshiko felon made good points. Ones that could benefit the Senju immensely,” Tobirama replied with a stern deadpan. 

“LIKE HELL THEY MADE GOOD POINTS!” Sasuke bellowed as he hurled over the low table he’d been seated at, scattering papers and strewing the instruments with a violence that befitted his legendary, uncontrollable temper. Standing so suddenly, he seethed and snarled, Genji Shimura raising an unimpressed eyebrow at the violent outburst.

“Lord Sarutobi, if I may—” Genji began as he sidestepped a draining ink well dribbling oily in a growing pool on the tatami, “your nephew does raise a fine point. The Land of Hot Water has always been a dagger held at our backs ever since the Uchiha elected to move the Chinoike there at our peril. Leashing them to Sennan’s will is just the thing we need to guarantee our security.”

“Byakuren has been threatening our coastlands, as well. If he gained a foothold in their country, it would create an open point of entry to the Land of Fire, diverting our attention away from the Uchiha and Hyūga’s front and potentially exposing vulnerabilities we cannot afford to have. Were it not for my Lord Father, he would’ve conquered Uzushio by now,” Mito added with a grave look, hands tucked within the voluminous sleeves of her ivory kimono. 

“That’s the fucking trouble with the sea,” Sasuke groused as he punted aside a vase that had rolled in his direct path towards them. “You can’t protect it like a territory or a province. Too many fucking shitsuckers like pirates, and these… Nadeshiko cunts. Hashirama, what do you think?” 

Hashirama had been deep in thought, leaning against a bookcase with his muscular arms folded. In his sage green kimono, gray hakama, and white haori with the Senju crest, he looked much less threatening than he had an hour ago. Even Tobirama had been cleaned and dressed similarly to a polish, purified of a hellish week spent as a hostage in an unknown land. 

“I think we were wrong to underestimate the Chinoike, let alone the Nadeshiko. But I’m bothered by the intention; they want us to protect this criminal epicenter for their benefit. Why? We’re their enemies. Even if not now, they will cause problems down the line. Their ploys against the Uchiha almost worked, and they took you, Tobi-kun, and then the battle over a week ago. They're far too capable for us to brush them aside,” Hashirama said with a pucker in his brow, mouth tugged into a frown. 

“I think you missed the part where I explicitly mentioned that the Blood Market would solely sell their ‘wares’ to us as far as clans go. Let alone the fact that we have one of their most powerful members held hostage, Anija,” Tobirama responded dryly, unamused and still resentful of the morning’s earlier humiliation. Frankly, Tobirama had been highly tempted to summon a Shadow Clone before the meeting to use a self-inflicted genjutsu to erase his memory of that incident, scarred by how easily his body had betrayed him. All because of some wench squirming in an unintentionally lewd shibari. 

(Even if Tobirama somehow felt that it had been intentional on his brother’s part. The man had always been a closeted pervert when it came to an attractive face, let alone a voluptuous body.)

Tobirama blinked at the intrusive addition to his thoughts, grimacing slightly. No, that was far from what he needed to focus on. 

“You also said that neither of you came to a truce. That as far as you and the Nadeshiko are concerned, it’s open season for them to antagonize us at their leisure,” Hashirama replied evenly, eyebrows rising as his deep browns imploringly met Tobirama’s. The younger brother crumpled with a gruff scowl, but Hashirama knew better than to think he hadn’t reached his brother, somehow. 

“And what would you suggest, Tobirama-sama? That we marry her into one of our clans to win her loyalty?” Genji interjected with a sharp laugh. “As if I’m going to taint my bloodline with common blood.”

“She’d fit in with those Hatake dogs. They seem beastly enough for a brute woman like that,” Sasuke rejoined with a hearty chuckle, smirking crudely. “Or, maybe we can give her to our soldiers on long campaigns! By the show she gave this morning, I’m sure she’d keep them entertained, hah!”

“That’s enough, both of you!” Mito snapped with rage in her eyes, glowering at the two clan patriarchs. “Where on earth do you think you are? A fucking brothel?!” Her very energies seemed to flare with her, as though a human pyre ignited to life. 

“My sister is right. You two ought to watch your tongues, especially in our presence,” Tobirama warned with narrowed eyes, folding his arms. 

“No, you watch your tongue, you fucking brat! I’m your uncle, fuck’s sake,” Sasuke spat as he swiped a hand over his thick beard, as if wiping the vitriol from his lips. 

While Hashirama watched on darkly, especially chagrined by the men’s crude language around his wife, the Senju held his tongue in check and refrained from retaliating despite how his chakric aura radiated malicious energy that lesser men would’ve quailed fearfully from. The Sarutobi and Shimura were the Senju’s oldest allies, after all, and their leaders were abundantly accustomed to his intensity.

That didn’t mean Hashirama’s fingers didn’t twitch with the urge to throttle them until they were blue, either.

“That’s enough,” Hashirama commanded commandingly, the gravity in his voice crushing the two men and daring them to talk back at him. “Uncle, if you speak that way to my wife again, I’ll make you clean this mess myself. Am I clear?”

Tobirama glanced at his brother from the corner of his eye, forcing the shiver down into his hands until his fingers dug into his biceps. At times, it was impossible to reconcile the man his brother appeared to be with the gentle soul he truly was—especially when a darkness wrapped around him, so like the one that had consumed Butsuma. Their father’s wrath, unleashed upon all his sons, was the stuff of nightmares Tobirama could never forget. Too many times, he had thrown himself between his brothers and their father’s blows, haunted by the knowledge that, as the perfectionist middle child, he had been spared the worst. He would always protect Hashirama—especially that soft, idealistic heart he carried so stubbornly at his core.

That didn’t mean Tobirama wasn’t honestly terrified of him, though. 

“If you two can cease squabbling like hens, I’d like us to address the formal contract Māya Chinoike delivered to me. I negotiated the terms in our favor, so you should cease questioning my judgment,” Tobirama said after the tense, pregnant pause. Toeing the unsettled desktop back to its feet, though he was glad that his uncle’s earlier outburst hadn’t broken it, he did somewhat pity the mess the maids would be left with. Even if it wasn’t his concern, he thought while unrolling the parchment on the low table’s surface. 

“Tobirama’s right. He’s the last person to allow exploitation, and I think we’ll benefit immensely from this deal,” Mito reasoned as she joined Tobirama to sit, then Sasuke and Genji.

The Shimura leaned with unadulterated interest over the manuscript, stroking his long, tapered and perfumed beard contemplatively. “If we find this agreeable, I volunteer my clansmen to man a garrison in the Blood Market. And to thoroughly inspect the premises… Perhaps categorize and test the authenticity of any contraband that passes into our borders.”

“Of course you’d love the idea of a black market, you creepy fucker,” Sasuke carped with a disdainful curl of his lip, scoffing to the side before he leaned over to survey it. “Fuck’s sake, even their parchment smells like something died on it.”

Genji met it with a sour look, but didn’t bother rebutting venomously. “We deal in the shadows, Sasuke. Black markets are a Shimura’s natural habitat,” he replied loftily, dusting away some unseen speck of dust from his shoulder. “If you wrenched that fat head of yours from your ass and ceased gorging on your own shit, you might see the invaluable opportunity your nephew has ushered for us.”

Tobirama simply scowled, especially since the circumstances around it were those he had refused to allow to happen again. “Anija, don’t start daydreaming,” the younger Senju chastised toothlessly as Hashirama’s onyx eyes bored into the script, knowing he’d likely finished reading by now.

“Yes. Now, let’s discuss the particulars,” Hashirama replied with a mirthless smile, their probing exchange at this new, unusual opportunity set to begin.

Chapter Text

Warning(s): T, some medical gore

Uneasiness followed Sakura after she and Miku had their breakfasts, even if Sakura hadn’t eaten a substantial amount… But, that wasn’t important. 

What really commanded her attention was the wing the Senju devoted to a hospital of a kind. The property was a longhouse three stories tall with a utilitarian, alabaster exterior with sparse windows and a simple, reclining susuki thatched roof. A large gateway inset at the entrance was fully open as patients and healers alike rushed to and from it, the influx greater than those who left. 

Sakura swallowed guiltily, knowing why: the majority seemed to be soldiers just arriving from the war front, likely those injured from her and Mū’s assault left behind to clean up their mess. Never mind those likely in some intensive care for the past several days. 

Her just waltzing couldn’t be anything less than a smack to the face, except…

She was a Nadeshiko! That was the point! That some nameless nobody had kicked their haughty asses and was there like a block of salt on a massive wound. 

She didn’t feel proud of making people suffer; it was besides the point. 

Sakura strode the short incline just as two aides with a groaning man on a gurney clutching his side was rushed through and past a receiving area where two masked secretaries hunched over their ledgers while watching all who entered and exited hawkishly, which halted Sakura’s determined march when they caught sight of her and gossiped among themselves. 

The kunoichi balked, but when she saw them straighten rigidly, snapping back, she saw Mito's approach with a regality all her own—a presence that overrode the scandal she caused.  

“Heading somewhere?” Mito asked coyly, delaying Sakura’s reaction until she came to the kunoichi’s side. 

“I, uh— No… Not particularly, no.”

Mito smiled indulgently and nodded towards the entrance. Mollified, Sakura followed suit as if straying too far would see her electrocuted, seeing as her husband had become something of a bogeyman to Sakura, much as she wished it wasn’t the case. That, more than anything, unsettled her—the thought that the place where she had done the most good might have felt more like a cage to those within. 

Stone floors echoed with the steady rhythm of footsteps in the main hall, where the wounded lay on low-framed futons in varying states of discomfort. The place buzzed with activity—plainly dressed aides moving in step with med-nin, who bent over patients as the glow of healing jutsu mingled with the quieter tasks of tending and care.

While Sakura’s intrusion didn’t garner much more than a few offhanded looks (as word of her specific infamy likely hadn’t reached the general populace yet), she glanced between a few who met her presence curiously despite how most of their attention was directed on Mito whom elicited a bow or two from those unoccupied with serious matters. 

At the far end of the hall, the fusuma panels opened onto a vast space without futons or dividers. Instead, eight gravely wounded soldiers lay on bloodstained reed mats, arranged along glowing script that formed a ring around a single man seated at its center. The formula lines pulsed with healing chakra, flowing through the lines to mend each patient with a precision even the finest med-nin would envy.

While it dawned on Sakura that it had to be some rendition of the Wide Healing technique paired with fūinjutsu she could tell regulated chakra, it wasn’t what the original method was meant for. While Wide Healing was a technique all medical ninjas could perform, it was only for minor, superficial wounds like cuts, scrapes, burns, bruises, and the like. It took all of a med-nin’s concentration to heal one patient with the Mystical Palm Technique, but this was leagues above that. 

When it occurred to her that the one healing them was none other than Hashirama himself, a chill ran down her spine; hearing about his legendary feats as a healer was one thing, but seeing them in action was shell-shocking. 

Not that it didn’t make sense, as the Senju boasted more chakra than Kurama and Naruto combined, and that in itself was an extraordinary feat when Naruto descended from a powerful set of parents, one who was an Uzumaki who possessed a rare, remarkable level of chakra herself. 

(And she’d know: she’d restored that chakra when he’d been drained near death on the Moon, which had taken her three whole days to do!)

As if he’d been privy to her thoughts, Hashirama cracked open his eyes as the bulk of his work was paused, aides rushing in to set bones, inspect the healing progress, and take other necessary measures while Hashirama had halted the most fatal, knowing he’d likely continue.

Yet, when his onyx eyes locked onto hers, he flashed her a saucy wink that immediately raised her hackles before the aides informed him of their completed statuses and he resumed the course of healing as if it’d never happened at all. Sakura blushed feverishly, completely blindsided by the wink. 

What the hell does it even mean? Is he going to tear my throat out with his teeth later?! 

She knew what killer smiles of all sizes and moods looked like, and that wasn’t it. It was… Fuck, she didn’t have the heart to name it in the deepest recesses of her thoughts.

(Flirty?)

Sakura shivered as though someone had walked on her grave, like an icy finger had trailed tauntingly down her spine. But, it couldn’t have been meant for her! Mito was right there—

Except, she wasn’t. 

Mito Uzumaki, Matriarch of the Senju Clan and Hashirama’s wife, was several feet away, pleasantly conversing with a small throng of gathered med-nin Sakura assumed were trainees. Mito Uzumaki, who hadn’t been the target of the wink. Mito Uzumaki, who had been utterly oblivious to what had just transpired. 

Sakura felt weak-kneed for all the wrong reasons, especially when that morning had been so wholly and utterly disastrous. The morning in which she’d made an absolute buffoon of herself by unintentionally putting on a very erotic display that hadn’t gone unnoticed by two very antagonistic but unconsciously aroused parties. If it had gone on for much longer, if it had been even more apparent—

What the wink meant after that encounter, she didn’t want to begin guessing.

“Sakura?” 

The kunoichi in question flinched exaggeratedly when Mito addressed her as if she’d been jabbed in her back with an electric cattle prod, smiling awkwardly and mortified when she realized just how conspicuous she must’ve looked. And it wasn’t like she could let Mito know, either! If she got pissed at anyone for her husband’s wandering eye, it sure as hell wasn’t Sakura who’d be spared!

“Oh, um, sorry! I wasn’t paying attention,” Sakura flustered sheepishly, praying that how she’d been zoning out could be chalked up to intimidation or bedazzlement, not because the Senju clan leader had just winked flirtatiously at her. 

“We’re going to be starting the class. Why don’t you join us?” Mito beckoned invitingly, her smile sincere but sweet, which made her feel all the more rotten for the day’s previous indiscretions. 

Huffing a soft, defeated sigh, Sakura mustered a half-hearted smile. “Um… okay, Mito-sama.” At her acceptance, the redhead turned to lead them from the main body of the hospital into adjoining corridors that flanked the chamber and towards a staircase that directed them towards a second floor, the Uzumaki chattering animatedly as they went. 

Just as Sakura was about to mount the first stair, she was rudely pushed aside by a woman she recognized as bearing the emblem for the Nara Clan, who scowled at the kunoichi and hissed, “Terrorist.”

Sakura regarded her blandly, electing instead to discreetly charge her hand with Lightning Release once her back was turned and she advanced up the steps, smirking to herself as she touched the Nara’s back in a quick tap to have the Body Pathway Derangement scramble her nervous signals and send her sprawling helplessly on the stairs. Sakura stepped aside and feigned shock while the Nara slid haplessly, face bumping into every rung on the way down until she was a twitching mess at the bottom. 

“Mito-sama!” another informed the Uzumaki shrilly, someone Sakura recognized as a Yamanaka. At the same time, a rotund Akimichi man leapt to the lowest stair to help his friend to her feet, the Nara as gangly and useless as a limp fish, shrieking in confusion. She was just barely able to lift her head to see Sakura move to the side, the others oblivious as she smiled sunnily at the Nara, no none else noticing her vindication. 

Gods knew she wasn’t above being petty as hell. 

“Oh goodness…” Mito breathed with a hand covering her mouth, gaze switching to the Akimichi. “Chōei-kun, could you take Eri-chan to one of the lower-level clinics? I’ll give you two a private lecture later to make up for this.” 

As the Akimichi nodded tensely in affirmation, he scooped up Eri in his arms bridal-style and dashed from the stairwell to do as Mito asked. With a gesture, they resumed their trek to the upper floors.

Unlike those below, the atmosphere was much calmer; the din of medics frantically working to salvage the lives of wounded soldiers was removed altogether, and transitioned to a placid corridor of classrooms with sliding doors and other instructors orating within them. It reminded Sakura of the Academy, and part of her wondered if its model wasn’t based on what she had seen there in Sennan. 

Mito led them into a mostly barren classroom, except for the sixteen or so cushions seated parallel to each other, and shelves filled with unused parchment, likely meant for instruction. Latticed windows allowed in vernal breezes, Sakura sagging in relaxation from its fragrance. 

“Alright, everyone, get in position,” Mito began as the students did as told, though the number was disproportionate due to the two that were left empty due to Eri and Chōei’s absences. Yet, as if by command, the Akimichi returned with a neat bow to Mito who smiled invitingly, though when he took one of the last unoccupied cushions, he found himself without a partner while all eyes fell on Sakura, who felt herself instinctively tense under the scrutiny. 

It was like the Academy all over again, and not for any good reasons, that much was sure…

“Sakura-chan, would you take your place across from Chōei-kun?” Mito prompted charmingly, and Sakura winced slightly, but ultimately acquiesced. 

As Sakura padded towards the Akimichi and sat on her haunches as the rest did, Mito clapped her hands for their attention. “Alright, you know what has to be done. Begin casting your genjutsu on your partners.”

Though Sakura was mystified as to why they were doing that, a thought occurred to her: before Tsunade’s time, honing chakra control was difficult. The Senju had given her a scroll that wasn’t unlike the one she used to train her ability with channeling Yang Release, and hell, from her growing aptitude with fūinjutsu thanks to the Senju, she’d been able to refine the formula. Hence, it barely needed a paper tag. 

And by the way the Akimichi pretended to ignore her existence obliviously, it wasn’t like she’d be welcome enough to be included in instruction she didn’t need to begin with. 

With a sigh, she strode towards one of the shelves with paper tags, selecting a stack of at least fourteen. She then found an ink set she had prepared, earning mystified and scandalized looks as if she’d begun skinning a dead rat on the floor. Scrawling the formula circle she’d helped devise with Tsunade, she copied it on the rest and selected one to demonstrate with. 

“Um… this is something I used to help hone my chakra control. The concentric circles fill according to how much chakra you pour into them, the larger circle being the easiest, while the smallest is the hardest.” 

Demonstrably, Sakura placed her hands on either side of the seal where two ley lines connected to two formula circles she’d scrawled, Chōei and another nameless woman craning over to watch. As they did, she altered the flow of her chakra between the three, sustaining an equilibrium with the smallest; they canted their heads curiously to study. Lifting her head after several moments, she grinned.

“Try it!”

Even Mito looked on with interest as the paper tags were distributed, but most of the students regarded them as if they were explosive tags that would ignite the moment they channeled their chakra into them. Chuffing softly, Mito received one and did as Sakura had done, surprised when her circle went far out of bounds before she tightened her output, able to concentrate it in the third circle for a start. 

“It’s alright, everyone. They’re quite harmless,” Mito reassured with a laugh as the students uncertainly repeated the process. Soon enough, the moments trickled away, and trepidation gave way to consternation as they put forth a genuine effort to regulate their chakra, a few soft oaths uttered while others simply swore outright. 

Regardless, Mito couldn’t help but be impressed. She directed a smile Sakura’s way, the kunoichi avoiding it coyly as she pretended to concentrate on her own seal despite how adept her chakra control was by then. 

It didn’t stave away the little twitch that tugged at her lips, however.

“Okay, just try to keep holding it.”

A takayuki-shiki storehouse straddled the shallows over one of Sennan’s many reservoirs, clay lamps warming the wooden interior as both Kaede and Sadako scowled while glaring at the leaves they balanced on their brows in an effort to concentrate their chakra in a Leaf Concentration Practice that had come after two nights of teaching them to mold chakra.

For two civilian women who had no idea how chakra molding worked, they had made rapid progress. Thanks to the venue Kaede had scouted, not only was the warehouse far enough away from the main patrol routes of the Senju guardsmen, but being surrounded by trees over a natural body of water would be ideal once the following stages came.

As the women’s faces creased in concentration, candlelight playing over the grooves their efforts formed, Sakura couldn’t help the bite of insecurity she felt at the prospect of being responsible for their education in ninjutsu. Not that she hadn’t taught people before (as she’d taken to teaching medical ninjutsu and taijutsu at the Academy multiple times), but the pressure was immense when they wanted to be able to provide the help their communities needed that Sennan was too covetous to allow. 

That, and they were quick studies. Thanks to already having a solid background in medicine and being moderately active, Sakura was pleased to discover that their chakra levels were high enough that they could knead chakra above a novice’s level; had they been trained before, Sakura had no doubt they could’ve been Chūnin-level. So, most of her work was already done, as learning chakra control and medical ninjutsu were the most significant hurdles to surmount.

Because Sakura was undoubtedly the fūinjutsu expert of the Neo-Sannin, she created unique seals to help with instruction: one to determine the output of their chakra to measure how much they could mold at once, and the same one from earlier to help them with chakra control. Though she felt a little guilty at pilfering extra seal tags for them from Mito’s classroom, watching Kaede and Sadako put so much hard work and gumption into their learning made it worth it.

Still… quiet moments such as these made her realize she was starting to get homesick.

While she was immensely grateful that she had a means to return home and knew how to use it properly, she felt that she’d entwined herself too deeply into the past to withdraw just yet. If it even was her past, if her experiences were anything to go by. Genjutsu, another dimension or timeline like the one the Yondaime and Naruto had embarked on instead of their own… she didn’t know. She just missed her home and comrades, even if she tried not to let it bother her much.

How could she abandon them when her presence seemed actually to have some benefit in this oppressive, classist past?

“Ah, I’m going to… go outside for a minute,” Kaede said as she set her leaf aside, likely meaning that the older woman needed a latrine break. 

“Oh—sure! The leaf will be here when you get back,” Sakura replied with a teasing smile before Kaede left to do as intended, leaving them in silence for a few minutes before they both startled when Kaede shouted from outside. 

“Sensei, get out here! We need to leave!” Kaede shouted as Sakura and Sadako rushed outside, casting their gazes to see the commotion. “It’s some… war party, or something. We need to greet them or else there will be penalties!”

Sakura squinted to see a tapestry of people moving through the hinterlands that crowned the rolling hilltops throughout Sennan, the bald face of the reservoir providing just enough of a vantage point to see flashes of almost indistinguishable movement in the treetops that indicated a massive regiment returning to the Senju capital. Her heart climbed into her throat, wondering what the arrival would bring. 

“Hang on, how come we need to be there? Do all of the civilian servants have to attend?” Sakura queried as they began their sprint back to the backstreets they’d come from initially. 

“Just the nurses. We have to be ready in case there are any injuries, so we can begin treatment before they arrive at the hospital,” Sadako explained hastily. “I don’t think you have to, Sakura-sensei, but it would look a lot more inconspicuous if you did.”

Given the limited choice, curiosity won out. She raced with the two healers back to Sennan’s backstreets, the shadows and vault of stars in the night sky concealing them and their return to the ward where most of the medical staff’s dormitories were, blending seamlessly into a small throng of people dashing in the direction they headed. Thankfully, no one noticed the alleyways from whence they’d come, the air electric with anticipation. 

In all, maybe twenty aides, including Sakura, continued to Sennan’s main drag that was consumed in a pall of sleep sans the guardsmen and other sentinels active at their posts. Paper lanterns festooned between both parallel sides of the rowhouses provided mellow illumination as Sakura followed her friends near the massive gates that had swung open to filter through the new arrivals. 

Though Sakura couldn’t reasonably ascertain who the people were, they had hair in varying shades of blond with violet eyes. What stood out was Tōka Senju herself leading the band with other faceless Senju shepherding the new ones through. 

Sakura couldn’t help but feel herself quail a little at the sight of the woman, who was distinguished by the white waistcloth beneath her gunmetal green armor, which featured the kanji for ‘fire’ that made her stand out as one of the Twelve Guardian Ninja. Still, as a high-ranking Senju in the service of the Fire Daimyō, Sakura didn’t doubt that the clan’s genjutsu prodigy was one to avoid. 

What Sakura didn’t expect was being recognized herself. 

Gossip began as they passed Sakura, Kaede, and Sadako, who didn’t stand apart from the rest of the aides who trickled through to address soldiers who emerged from the envoy in need of medical treatment. Still, the gossip wasn’t as localized as Sakura had hoped, knowing that turning away would make her too suspicious when she wanted to avoid even more scandal. 

“That’s enough gossip, all of you!” Tōka barked, lips drawn into a scowl. “Eyes forward!”

Yet, just when Sakura thought she could breathe a sigh of relief at attention being deflected from her, the Senju unholstered the naginata strapped to her back and trained the point barely an inch from the kunoichi’s face. 

“You, come with me. You’re not supposed to be here,” Tōka growled at her, though Sakura knocked the spearpoint away from her nose with a defiant scowl. 

“No one said I couldn’t be here! Besides, I know medical ninjutsu! I could help, you know!”

“Just because you know it doesn’t mean you’re allowed to use it! Now shut up, and get here!” Tōka ordered with a snarl, Sakura complying with a sour look of her own. “You’re not one of ours, so your type isn’t allowed to use ninjutsu in Sennan’s borders.”

“Who the hell made up that rule?” Sakura sniped begrudgingly from the Senju’s side, the woman towering over her. 

“Someone who had a fucking head on his shoulders. Now, move!” 

It was towards the Main Estate the entire troupe was destined, but while the newcomers were corralled into what Sakura assumed was a guest ward with the injured to the hospital and the rest forking away to return home, it eventually left Tōka who herded her through the moon gates of several courtyards and towards the sumptuously appointed main house where the main branch resided, marching them on the engawa flanked by luxuriant gardens and towards glass and shōji doors that bled with opaque golden glows from what Sakura surmised had to be someone’s private study. 

Tōka slid the doors open so roughly they clattered soundly and, in her impatience, didn’t bother closing them shut while prodding Sakura through like she was some misbehaving child. Through a corridor that flanked the room, the woman barged into Hashirama’s study, the man poring over innumerable texts and scrolls while wearing reading glasses at a low desk—soft, jazzy music from a phonograph played with fuzzy strains that bolstered the sleepy, nighttime atmosphere. 

“Tōka-chan, you’re back!” Hashirama greeted brightly while the woman rolled her eyes. 

“Hashi, for the love of the gods, watch this one, will you? It’s bad enough I played babysitter for the Chinoike recruits, but I need to get them settled. I can’t have them and my men being demoralized out the gate by your pet terrorist.”

“Hey, I’m not a terrorist, or a pet!” Sakura shot back indignantly. 

“Keep her here. Use your Wood Release if you have to, but just—keep her out of sight, okay? Okay!” Tōka turned on her heel to stalk from the library, still wearing her sandals, which Sakura belatedly removed, sheepishly.  

“Um… I’ll just—go.” Intending to retreat out the way they’d come, she was interrupted by Hashirama moving with surprising alacrity to overtake her stride and loom over her, Sakura balking so sharply she almost fell flat on her rump. “H-Hey, what gives? I’m doing you a favor!”

“A favor?” Hashirama echoed with a shameless smirk. 

“Yes, a favor! I’m not exactly the most popular person here, so…” Averting her eyes sidelong, she made to leave again, only to be impeded by the Senju. “What?!”

Hashirama simply laughed as he gestured for her back within the warm confines, high shelves lining the walls, while the odd centerpiece ornamented a spot on the floor. As much as Sakura wanted to turn tail, she doubted she could. Not when this man was the most powerful being in the world. 

Who wasn’t sealed in the moon or living on it, but that was besides the point. 

“Really, I insist,” Hashirama ordered, though the saccharine tone his voice took on a dark quality that felt as though she were being held very close to a scorching brand menaced to a vulnerable patch of skin. There was no real way to describe the way it made her skin crawl. 

“Um… okay,” Sakura acquiesced feebly, gulping audibly. 

She wasn’t weak. Dammit, she knew that! But, no matter how much she improved, there would always be someone stronger. If it wasn’t because they were part of an old, gifted clan, then it was because they were some freaky, godly alien species who wanted to farm the earth of its chakra until everyone was dead. In her age, power was wielded by clan heads, specifically the four main clans, which were the most powerful and polarized in the land. 

Hell, she’d faced Madara for over half a day! No way she was going to cow before this bastard. 

Sakura reoriented herself with a sharpened glower that dug back into the Senju’s own eyes, hers hard and flinty. As if responding to the noticeable paradigm change, Hashirama backed off and removed his sweltering aura that made it difficult to breathe. 

“Why don’t we play with some Hanafuda? Maybe Higobana? Some other one?” Hashirama ventured as he led Sakura to an unused table with an ikebana arrangement as its centerpiece, inviting her to sit parallel to him. He produced a deck from a drawer on his side, placing the stack between them. 

“Alright… I’m game,” Sakura conceded despite the hardness in her eyes, sitting ramrod straight despite herself. “What about Hachi-hachi?”

“You are my guest. You get the first choice,” Hashirama acceded with a genuine smile. 

Silence fell between them, broken only by the occasionally garbled strains of an operatic Kagekidan, likely a musical adaptation of a Nō play, even if it didn’t interest Sakura greatly. Any more somber and Sakura wouldn’t have been surprised if it started raining to increase the melodrama. 

“So, you’re part of the Nadeshiko?” Hashirama began once he finished dealing the cards, and Sakura was engrossed with the gold-embossed designs after she picked up hers. 

“More or less,” Sakura replied unhelpfully, unwilling to give him a straight answer as she placed her first card down. 

Hashirama smiled placidly as he followed after, Sakura tsking as his play culminated in a winning suit, collecting the cards to add to his new pile. “For what it’s worth… I don’t exactly disagree with what you’re doing. But, you can’t possibly think the way you’re doing it is just.”

“And going to war through the villages and towns of defenseless people is the brilliant way you think it should be done?” Sakura retorted with a snort as Hashirama’s next played card lost to her own, making them tie. 

“Sakura, you and your group killed the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, who functioned like our own Twelve Guardian Ninja. You destabilized them, leaving the Water Daimyō vulnerable enough that Byakuren has been terrorizing his territories and targeting the clans once protected by him. They were a capstone keeping that chaos at bay,” Hashirama chastised with a hardness in his eyes, but it wasn’t as dark and intimidating as before. It was the look of someone justified in his anger. “Byakuren might revere the Water Daimyō, but now the Water Country’s clans are under siege. Not to mention, Uzushio is in danger, and if it weren’t for the deal we brokered with the Chinoike, that tyranny would’ve come to the Fire Country, too. Never mind what devastation would’ve come to the Hot Water Country.”

Sakura felt a well of nausea bubble like a cauldron in her gut, realizing just how foolish and short-sighted they’d been. Never mind how Izayoi had bluntly stated they’d have bullseyes on their backs from then on, but she never realized how grim the ramifications really were. 

Under Tsunade’s wing, she’d learned a bevy of things specific to the Hokage role: how to run a city-state, administration, taxes, politics, warfare, maintaining a delicate tapestry of proud clans, public welfare, and so much more. But, that’s where it began and ended. She could be given an organization’s reins and run it smoothly, but like the clans before, hidden villages were largely autonomous and only answered to their Daimyō and individual clients. Outside, it was shortsighted. Outside, it was the weak versus the strong, even in a time of unprecedented peace. 

Let alone in a time when everyone was at war. 

Sakura froze in the middle of her turn, feeling a brittle coldness climb her spine. Something creeping and cold that froze her veins and chipped away at her in slivers. Of confidence and faith in the self. 

“You’re the God of Shinobi, and your aim hasn’t worked, so why is ours any worse?!” came her vitriolic outburst, glaring at him. “This whole thing, it just—it should be wrapped up by now, right?”

It could be understood why they clashed. Sakura and Hashirama’s ideals of peace created friction because a man of the warring era saw wars that whittled unpredictable chaos into smaller and smaller skirmishes as good. Like redirecting the course of a river bit by bit, allowing the silt left behind to become arable land, despite the people who drowned in the river’s movement. 

“The reason it hasn’t worked yet is exactly as I said,” Hashirama replied loftily, gaze becoming steely. “I gave one example of a ripple effect. Now, multiply that infinitely and you’ll understand why peace hasn’t come in a single day and night.”

Loath as she was to admit it, he was right. Sakura hadn’t joined the Nadeshiko on the idea that they would be lawful vigilantes, but just powerful enough to terrorize ninja clans into acknowledging a third player in their endless games of power: the little people they thought they could trample on. 

“You’re wrong. I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong you are,” Sakura shot back stonily, reflecting on the end of the Fourth War and the inalienable foundation of peace it’d wrought and the stability they were able to begin ushering across the world. 

Hashirama just wouldn’t be around to see it, was all, but why should she keep up their literal game when it likely wouldn’t go anywhere?

“I’m done,” Sakura stated bluntly, folding her cards face-up on the table as she rose, unwilling to stand the Senju a moment longer. They all hated her guts, so why play nice? It wouldn’t make a difference, anyway. “Say you won, I don’t care. I’m tired and I’m going to bed.”

Though Hashirama didn’t stop her, his words briefly did. 

“I still have a dream of peace, Sakura-san. My friend and I, we… want to bring about the same kind of change you do.”

Sakura narrowed her eyes at the library’s perimeter, not turning to face him as she said, “Your dream of peace isn’t the same as everyone else’s. Maybe you should ask more people you’re not used to talking to and really understand what it should mean,” before she stepped through and into the night, eager to be anywhere but where he was. 

Even if it meant she’d be left to dwell on how alone and stigmatized she’d made herself since stumbling into a strange, alien past. 

Chapter Text

Warning(s): T, some sexual insinuation

Sakura was groggily jarred awake by a woman who appeared to be an Uzumaki attendant, a brunette in a white yukata pronounced by the Uzumaki whorl on her breast pocket. In the matchbox room that connected hers with Mito’s sprawling apartments, no light had been lit except for the small, clay lamp the woman held, which flickered in Sakura’s sleep-addled face.

“Haruno-san, you’re being summoned! Please, get changed, quickly!” the woman urged before darting off as there was a flurry of activity just outside, Sakura perplexed but deciding it was too important to wage resistance against.

Even if she was eternally annoyed that her apparent superiors were far too comfortable summoning her like a well-heeled dog whenever the urge struck them.

Sighing, she padded into a shared washroom that would’ve been rotated in use by other ladies-in-waiting of Mito’s, but it seemed as though Sakura was the only one who held the position at the moment. Forgoing bathing, she washed her face and ran a fine-tooth comb through her hair, among other necessities. Then, once finished, she changed into a plain, sage-green kimono tunic bound by a sash and white, baggy trousers that came to her knees, under which she wore a fundoshi and sarashi since the undergarments she’d come with had been pitched with her other soiled clothing after she’d first come. 

Once that had all been squared away, though, Sakura undoubtedly stood out with her pixie cut and androgynous clothing, following a few servants who kindly pointed where she needed to go in the labyrinthine corridors of the Main Estate.

Admittedly, she was much sleepier than she’d usually be, having spent the past several weeks taking on even more students than just Sadako and Kaede. From two to ten, Sakura had been forced to accommodate, spending longer nights teaching five at a time, even if it was rewarding to go behind the Senju’s backs. Like hell she’d just take it lying down!

“This way,” a burly guardsman ordered the kunoichi as he roughly seized Sakura by her bicep and dragged her along, willing or not, marched her toward the manse crowning the hill where the Main Branch lived and worked, the sky still steeped in night with only the faintest hint of dawn.

“Um—hey, I can walk just fine!” Sakura protested as she had to canter to keep pace with his ground-eating strides, not stopping until they came to the perimeter wall that flanked the estate’s gardens where Sakura sourly recalled that Tōka Senju had herded her towards, citing some nonsensical reason of her being a potentially harmful influence on the Chinoike recruits she hadn’t even met yet. “Oi, leggo!”

Once Sakura wrenched her arm free and fixed the guardsman with a glare, she attempted to regain her composure while weaving through the many ornamental plants that scattered artfully through the space, padding upon the flagstones as she advanced upon the engawa and the light that bled through the glass and shōji doors that wrapped the study’s perimeter, slowing when she could hear a muffled but heated row from within that became clearer as she stepped through.

“I shouldn’t even be here! I belong in the capital, protecting the Daimyō! What the hell do you think the waistcloth even means if I’m not there?!” 

“We brought you back because of the news I heard, Tōka! An Uchiha paramour?! Madoka-sama’s own concubine, no less?! How do I know you aren’t slipping the Uchiha information to spite us? Gods know you can’t forgive me for making you become a kunoichi!”

“You’re full of shit! Why on earth would I do that?!”

“Because, Tōka, you made that abundantly clear when you had your half-brother help you escape to Saikyō a decade ago!”

Silence reigned for a moment as Sakura’s footsteps creaked slightly on the floorboards inside, coming upon Tobirama who waited outside the study proper with a scowl. Crimson eyes flickered to her at first, but then trained stubbornly ahead at the study where father and daughter argued, albeit in hushed, hissed tones once it was clear there were potential eavesdroppers outside. 

The kunoichi resigned to standing a reasonable distance away from the Senju so as not to outrage his sensibilities. Still, she couldn’t help the wistful feeling that came from hearing their argument. Mainly, it harkened back to the time when she was much smaller, listening to Suzume-sensei give lectures about kunoichi greats of yesteryear like Mito Uzumaki, Naori Uchiha, or Tōka Senju, among others. Hearing something so human, getting a glimpse into the history the annals never described was… humbling, somehow. Not to her, but the overinflated histories generations after were taught. 

Anything less than propaganda, basically. 

“So, it’s true. You do have Mito’s Byakugō.” Sakura inclined her head toward Tobirama who spoke, though he didn’t so much as glance at her. “It’s a difficult jutsu to learn.” Glancing at her stringy, still-drying bangs from her quick wash, of course he could see it.

“Guess that just makes me an extra-special thief,” Sakura replied monotonously, evaporating any humor when he seemed like the type that was easily provoked, at best. 

“The Byakugō is a tremendously difficult fūinjutsu to learn. Merely stealing it won’t get one very far if there's no aptitude in the first place.” When Sakura simply met his observation with stubborn silence, he continued. “Mito says you have a talent with seals. Based on how you’ve been teaching the civilian aides medical ninjutsu, you must be quite skilled in our hijutsu, too.”

Sakura wheeled on Tobirama with her heart hammering in her throat, fists clenched at her sides. “Look, I don’t know what you saw or sensed, but you’ve got the wrong idea. Okay, so maybe we go out after curfew! It’s nothing like that, seriously,” she deflected as she found another wall to lean against, sagging somewhat into the plaster. The last thing she needed was one of the world’s best sensors ratting her out. 

“I’ve known about it for weeks. If I felt some need to tattle, I would’ve done it a long time ago.”

“Okay, why haven’t you? Sheesh, you’re not making any sense! I thought all you Senju were supposed to be freakishly territorial with your jutsu,” Sakura shot back with a cross look, finding herself more annoyed by his stoicism as the moments passed, or… what she’d interpreted as stoicism.

“Don’t assume that we’re all the same, and that we don’t have our secrets,” Tobirama replied sagely, arms long since folded. 

“Well, okay then,” Sakura replied with a huff, mimicking him spitefully. If he was supposed to take the bait, it was more like he ignored it altogether. 

A long, pregnant pause spanned between them, and Sakura couldn’t shake the ineffable feeling that he was watching her from the corner of his eye. Chancing a look, she was befuddled to see his dart back ahead towards the fusuma panels that lined the exterior of the study, as if studying the artful uikyo-e subjects playing in the varnished grains. 

“You know Senju and Uzumaki Hiden, held your own against Madara for half a day without faltering, among other… things. You’re unaffiliated,” Tobirama listed as Sakura felt a prickle raise her hackles at whatever the Senju was implying, even if she didn’t have the foggiest idea in hell. “You’re unattached.”

The look Tobirama cast at her was openly pensive, like a child who’d asked their parent for some big favor and they waited with bated breath for the answer. Sakura’s mind went blank as the gears began turning, connecting dots that, by all rights, should never have been arranged in such a formation to start with. 

“H-Hang on, where are— What are you—?” Sakura fumbled as the Senju scowled incrementally, and the thoughtfulness of his folded arms became impatient and tense. 

“Peer for peer, Haruno! We’re the Shizoku, or have you forgotten? We don’t limit prospects to blood alone! Besides, there aren’t an abundance of unaffiliated women of your caliber in the world, let alone outside this family,” Tobirama informed her with a snarl curling his lip, and Sakura’s face became one of comical anguish. 

“That’s not the point! You can’t just freaking—propose! You don’t even like me!” she volleyed back with her brain distinctly feeling like it was frying in her skull. 

“What does ‘like’ have to do with it? It’s a sensible arrangement that would rid you of your infamy… in time.”

Just as Sakura scrambled to fire back a response, Tōka angrily stormed from the study with a storm cloud hanging over her, bangs shading her brilliant golds as she bit her lower lip from the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes, bounding away before any lingering servants could question her broken state. 

“Tobi-kun, please, bring her in,” an oaky, baritone voice beckoned as Tobirama jerked his head in the direction of the speaker, Sakura surprised to see who it was. 

Ryūshū Senju was a broad, muscular wall of a man taller than even Hashirama. Like their leader, he wore his liver chestnut hair long but slightly wavy to his tailbone while a thick beard cascaded to his chest, leonine regality in his straight-backed posture, and in the olive green and gold robes he donned. Curiously, red markings from his tear troughs extended to his nostrils, a sight Sakura had seen once before. Bright, intelligently gold eyes scanned over her, and he inclined his head and compelled her to greet with a lower bow. 

Ryūshū Senju was the Elder of the Senju Clan, after all, and not someone Sakura was keen to piss off in their own territory. 

“Eh, yer tellin’ me this cute little bug was responsible fer all the commotion?”

“Looks can be deceivin’, Ma.”

Sakura’s heart pounded in her chest at the sight of Fukasaku and Shima seated atop their own tabletop, on specially made cushions to accommodate their dwarfish statures. Though she was ecstatic to see a pair of familiar faces, it came with the numbing realization that they didn’t know her at that time. Still, it was better than nothing. 

That, and it confirmed Sakura’s suspicions: the man before her was a Toad Sage. 

“So, I take it that my nephew has already made mention of our… proposal?” Ryūshū began without preamble, Sakura feeling herself warm uncomfortably like she’d been raked over a bed of hot coals. 

“I— Hey, who came up with that idea, anyway? No one came to me about it, so the answer is a big, fat ‘no way’!” Sakura retorted, her anger flaring up again. Like lighting a match in darkness, it made her feel stronger than the little girl who’d been bullied for not belonging to a clan, who came alive in a time and place where the clan name was all that mattered.

“You don’t get such a say,” Ryūshū answered grimly, folding his hands behind his back and straightening his spine, an obelisk that towered over them both. “You’re our prisoner, Haruno-san. You forfeited the right to have such a say when you decided it would be a fucking brilliant idea to kill or maim countless numbers of our men. I don’t know what libertine background you come from, and I don’t care. We’re offering you something extremely generous, and you’d do well to accept it and be fucking grateful.” 

Fukasaku and Shima stared with apprehensive looks exchanged, Shima’s concern met with Fukasaku’s quiet exasperation. 

“Ryū-chan, we taught you better,” the toad said with a heavy sigh, Ryūshū scoffing until he was suddenly clubbed on the head with a large staff defined by the massive bulb at its head. 

“Apologize!” Shima shrieked as Ryūshū crumpled with a soft groan, clutching his skull before he gazed imploringly at Shima, who merely responded with a swift smack to the head like before. “Raised ya better is more like it! You came to us, a little boy who didn’t know his place in his own clan, and we gave you toad power, and fer what?! Fer ya ta treat this poor girl like CRAP!” 

“Fukasaku and Shima-sama, it was my idea!” Tobirama interrupted as all eyes switched to him, Shima poised to strike Ryūshū again while the Senju in question was prostrated on the ground, daring a look to his nephew. “So please, stop… beating my uncle over the head.” If only because it would be humiliating if anyone else walked in on them to see the Clan Elder in such a state. 

Not that Sakura wasn’t getting a satisfying amount of schadenfreude from it, or anything. 

“You want my idea? How about someone telling me why I was dragged out of bed before sunup, or else I go back? Sounds good to you all?” Sakura interjected sharply, seething, cutting glares cast especially at Tobirama and Ryūshū, who had since recomposed himself after Shima’s stern assault seeing as the toads largely seemed to be on her side. 

Tobirama scoffed softly and removed a slip of paper from his haori’s lapel, tossing it to land cleanly at the desk that Hashirama typically dominated. Clearly, it was a telegram, one that Ryūshū snapped up since having recomposed himself as his regal image belied… and as if he hadn’t the daylights smacked from him by an irate, matronly toad minutes ago. 

“It’s a message from one of the villages detailing Byakuren’s movements on the coast. He’s predicted to make landfall in the next day or two, maybe three if we’re so fortunate,” the toad sage relayed with a thoughtful stroke through his perfumed beard. “He must be intercepted and turned away, which is why I’ve deigned you, my nephew, and daughter for the task. Shima- and Fukasaku-sama as well, if they feel so inclined.”

“Uncle, are you sure…?” Tobirama queried gingerly, though the elder smiled enigmatically in reply. 

“Come, Tobi-kun, if you mean to go through with this plan of yours, you’ll want to acquaint yourself with your prospect, no?” Ryūshū teased gloatingly, and Sakura felt her hackles raise ramrod straight all over again. 

“Screw that! If I do this stupid mission, will you please shut up about marriage? Ugh!” Sakura retorted frustratingly, the ineffable feeling of eyes boring into her making her prickle. When she dared a look at Tobirama, he stoically looked away, upper lip curled in a way that felt galaxies away from disdain at the chosen company. 

Okay, as soon as I get the chance, I need to sit this guy down! I have to be imagining this, right? Why the hell would he be interested in some no-clan outlaw? It just doesn’t make sense! 

“Cease complaining and being insubordinate, and I’ll let you have your supply pack and broadsword back—for the mission.” Ryūshū’s piercing golds scrutinized her for an answer, the resemblance to his daughter almost uncanny. 

“Deal!” Sakura declared with a zealous smack of her palm on the table. 

“Very well. Prepare yourself and be back within the next two hours. Bring whatever sundries you have and whatnot,” Ryūshū dismissed with an airy wave of his wrist. “Come, Tobi-kun, we have a strategy to discuss regarding this bastard.”

Flitting away without so much as a backwards look, Sakura retreated into the night for the sentō she’d take a bath in before they departed.

“Ya can’t be so hard on yerself, Tōka-chan! You’ll see Naori again, I know it!”

“I’m trapped here, Shima-san. It’ll be over my dead body before that happens.”

In the early din of the bathhouse, the facility was nearly derelict sans the two voices she heard echoing cavernously beneath high ceilings, almost as if their voices projected within an enormous fishbowl. Sakura entered with a towel wrapped about her, padding shyly towards the older Senju and amphibian who shared one of the baths at the far end together. 

“Eh, Sakura-chan? Don’t mind us! We were just gossipin’,” the toad assured while Sakura claimed a showering station for herself, feeling their eyes unobtrusively on her. 

“Oh, sorry! Um… I’ll be out of your hair soon,” Sakura assured while she pretended to be ambivalent to their conversation, mindfully beginning the process to scrub herself down. If one thing was for certain, she was hellbent on claiming the other, unused tub filled to the brim with steaming water. 

For the most part, Tōka and Shima switched to largely inoffensive topics. Sakura caught word of Tōka’s happy childhood in Sennan, how Shima and Fukasaku had been like grandparents to her. Mention of her half-brother—named Taito Sho—flitted through, but rarely. As if he were a taboo subject. Sakura finished by the time Shima hopped into the third, cooling bath while muttering about how little it compared to Myōbokuzan’s mineral-rich waters. 

After Sakura had eased herself in with a soft sigh, Tōka regarded her with a frown. 

“You overheard all that, right?”

“Sorry,” Sakura admitted with a sheepish smile, “but I was kind of just… taken there. I didn’t really have much of a choice.”

Tōka nodded distantly; the swishing of water was elicited from a slight movement. “Figured as much. Guess we’re both like that.” When Sakura held her silence receptively, the Senju sighed tensely. “I’ve been a kunoichi since I was a kid, but after the War of the Tides I just… couldn’t anymore. My bastard half-brother helped me escape to Saikyō where the Daimyō, Asao, gave me asylum in exchange for becoming one of the Guardian Ninja. Father threatened to disown me, but Lord Madoka’s good word saved my ass. Hell, when I met and fell in love with Naori, he let that slide as long as I swore never to be public about it.” Tōka swallowed thickly, her throat bobbing. “They made me feel more like a family member than the Senju ever were.”

“Gods… I’m so sorry,” Sakura said sympathetically, brow furrowed. “But, now you’re back here, in Sennan, which means…”

“I’m back in the saddle, yeah,” Tōka replied with a bitter laugh and a mirthless smile. “Just a faithless libertine they need to show the world is still loyal to the clan she was lucky enough to be born into.”

“You… kind of remind me of someone I knew,” Sakura admitted quietly, even if it was past tense; better to play it safe than sorry. “I mean, a lot of things aside, she was in a similar boat. Her clan disowned her for not conforming to its standards, and while she returned for a while, I think her heart wasn’t really there, you know? She found someone to love, and he loved her back, and they created a happy life together. She retired from being a kunoichi.”

Tōka chuckled softly. “Well, biggest difference off the bat is I’d never get with a man in my right mind,” the Senju said wryly. “Secondly… I think my own happy ending is in limbo. If they don’t put me on some vanguard to die nobly so I don’t shit on the family name on the way out.”

“Would they… really do it?”

“They tried with my little brother for helping me, but he weaseled his way out. The fact that he’s a Toad Sage like our old man is keeping him from being offed, too. Shima- and Fukasaku-sama would exile our father if he tried, I’ll tell you that much,” Tōka responded dryly, slinging her arms on the bath’s tiled perimeter. 

“I mean, I knew they could get bad, but—killing your own family? That’s worse than bad.” Sakura blanched at the memories of Neji’s battle with Hinata and the subsequent one with Naruto and the box of tightly-lidded secrets it had begotten. It was then that she’d stopped idealizing clan life so childishly, recognizing the monumental burdens it placed on every member’s shoulders. Even if the fact that it put them in an untouchable place all their own was inescapable. 

Tōka shook her head and leaned back. “You’re one to talk. If what my father keeps pushing for happens, you’ll be part of our family, too.”

Sakura wheeled on the brunette with a scowl, folding her arms across her chest. “Get real! I’m literally a nobody, and no way am I interested in getting married! We’re enemies, remember?”

“Yeah, definitely. Want me to start screaming so they’ll think you’re trying to kidnap and hold me for ransom?” Tōka goaded tauntingly, turning to Sakura with a smirk, who returned it with a flat stare. “Besides, this is the first time I’ve ever heard him actually propose the idea. You probably don’t have the faintest idea where this came from, do you?”

“He’s your cousin. You probably know better than any reasons I could think of.” Sakura chanced a look towards the Senju, lip twitching at the corner in concession. She wasn’t interested in inventing claims, that was for sure. 

Tōka leaned her head back, gold eyes lost amid the motes of steam. “He doesn’t look it, but he’s lonely. Living in Hashirama’s shadow ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially since most of what he does is to bring up the rear, so to speak. He loves that big lug, but he’s also exhausting to deal with, let alone clean up after. Spends most of his time in his lab, doesn’t really have friends outside the family… you know.”

Sure she did. Or, it had less to do with being able to relate so much as having enough empathy to imagine. Tobirama wasn’t someone who could afford to wear his heart on his sleeve when he was busier protecting Hashirama’s as his right-hand on top of everything else. A lone genius who innovated for his clan as much as he strove to protect it, without letting the world see his vulnerabilities, which he couldn’t afford to show. 

Maybe it was just the therapist in her stringing so many assumptions together, but they didn’t feel wrong, at least. 

“I’m still not sure what proposing to an outlaw would do. I thought clan marriages were supposed to bring in political alliances, or—new blood, I guess? I thought civilians were at the bottom of the barrel. Let alone, you know, criminal ones.”

“You really can’t stomach the idea of being anything more than ordinary, can you?” Tōka observed incisively, and Sakura outright squirmed. 

“What’s so wrong with ordinary? I like being ordinary,” Sakura rebutted with a huff, pouting sourly. 

“Since when did ordinary fight Madara fucking Uchiha for half a day and then some?” Tōka demanded with a cocky smirk while Sakura faltered. “Look, I don’t really get it, either, but maybe you’re a way out. Someone outside the clannish drama who is powerful enough to stand on par with him, while smart enough to work with him. Your teaching the aides and Mito’s students didn’t exactly go unnoticed.”

“Doesn’t ‘teaching the aides’ tend to translate as ‘stealing valuable clan hijutsu’?” Sakura returned dubiously, making a face. “He looks like way too much of a stickler!”

“Or, from what I heard, maybe you’re the first one in a while to get his cock hard. Seems you put on quite the show a while back,” Tōka rejoined with a laugh as Sakura burned so hotly she withered to her chin in the bath. 

She wished she could forget the shibari incident, thanks! 

“You know about that?” Sakura asked meekly, face scarlet by that time; Tōka patted her head condescendingly. 

“Word travels fast when you’re not polite enough to keep it to yourself,” Tōka said with a laugh that boomed enough to startle her. 

“Ugh, you’re awful! Let’s just get ready! I’m so done,” Sakura huffed as she snagged her towel and trotted away, too mortified to dream of facing the other kunoichi. Not today, thanks!

Chapter Text

Warning(s): E, explicit sexual content

Somehow, Tobirama taking the lead by almost half a mile ahead of them didn’t make the pervasive, awkward atmosphere any less tense. If Sakura could dispel it like a genjutsu, gods knew she would. Because the conversation she’d had with Tōka almost an hour ago since they’d left weighed uncomfortably on her mind. 

Topically, she understood it. From a practical angle, it was easy to see how everything Tōka had told her weighed against what Tobirama had begun to do, with bringing a hostile, unaffiliated party into their fold to answer to them and recycle her abilities back into the lexicon of their clan’s knowledge. From Sakura’s, though, it was a biting crop that compelled her to get the hell out of dodge. 

What they didn’t understand was that she was terrified of losing herself. 

From birth, Sakura had been born with a handicap in the form of being one of the dregs of ninja society, a civilian with ‘no particular talent’ as Shikamaru had once astutely put it. She’d almost been dragged beneath Ino's shadow, then in Tsunade’s by being an empty mold filled with the Senju’s abilities. For years after, Sakura worked to the edge of insanity to foster her own spin on those techniques and advance a unique medical field like Tsunade had. Fighting and fighting until she’d won against her own inferiority complex. 

Being promoted to Jōnin had felt like a trophy—a victory against living in someone’s shadow, even if it was one she knew she’d never fully escape. But being dragged into the past tore that wound open. Now she was beneath the weight of an entire society’s gaze, desperate for some way to slip free.

How the hell would she escape something she was born into? The only way out was to cut loose and run this time around. 

“Huh, maybe it’s just me, but Tobi’s acting an awful lot like he got jilted. Like, in a romantic way,” Tōka observed dryly at the speck of white from Tobirama’s stole bounced like a dust bunny in the velvety distance, the morning just barely beginning to emerge in their sojourn towards Yuga no Sato. 

“I know you told me the probable reason, but I still don’t get it,” Sakura bristled as she willed herself to psychically remove herself from all context. She felt a light-headed kind of stress slowly zap whatever energy she might’ve had left in the early morning, which had been slowly draining since the fiasco had begun. “Okay, so maybe the other clans have too much drama—what about the Kazoku? Aren’t some doctors who serve nobility considered part of the warrior class? In the Iron Country they’re called Samurai, so maybe he should look north.” 

Tōka scoffed softly, smirking as they bounded between branches. As far as the Senju was concerned, playing with Sakura’s chronic deflection was her new favorite game. “Noble women aren’t taught the warrior arts. Even Onne-bugeisha in some of the Daimyō’s courts come from ninja clans. The Kazoku look down on martial combat outside of showmanship.”

Sakura wracked her brain, sifting deeper for an answer. “Okay, um… what about a clan outside of the Fire Country? Besides, does he have to get married to a woman? What if he swings both ways?”

Tōka hummed a conceding, intrigued sound. “You’re right, he could. All he’d be required to do is adopt an orphan from ours or his potential spouse’s clan, and it’d have the same legitimacy as the usual marriages. Political alliances, all that crap.”

“Yeah!” Sakura brightened as it felt as though a weight was gradually being lifted. “He should try someone from the Yuki Clan. They’re pretty, they like snow and water, and they seem really gentle. At least… the boy I met was like that.” Hell, even to that day, Sakura still remembered the little crush she’d developed on Haku from years ago. Her cheeks flushed as she remembered how sweet and kind he’d been, even if it’d been on opposing sides. With Kubikiribōchō securely fastened to her back, its weight felt a little more tangible, too. “Maybe I’ll find someone like that. I… kinda had a crush on a boy from their clan a while ago. So, he’d totally fit!”

“Pretty, likes snow and water… Well, well, it looks like my cousin has checked off two of those. He can be gentle, too, depending on the context,” Tōka teased with a shit-eating grin and a waggle in her brow.

“Uh—he’s not really the pretty-pretty type, but… Not helping! Come on, we’re supposed to brainstorm away from an unwanted arranged marriage! Get him away from thinking about doing it with a no-one criminal nobody.” 

Silence lapsed between them as Sakura earnestly stewed on the answer, though Tōka’s grim chuckling drew her from her rapture. Teal eyes flitted towards gold, the Senju gazing at her, plumbing through hidden depths. “You really have real beef with yourself, don’t you? It’s almost like you can’t stand yourself.” 

The blunt question hit Sakura like a blow, tearing through her defenses before she could recover. Her eyes widened, then dropped as tears stung. She snapped her head away, fixing her gaze forward with stubborn focus on their imminent arrival.

Years later and Sakura hadn’t really outgrown the sad, pathetic little girl who’d hidden behind bangs and bushes to hide the scrapes she got from angry girls and some boys who were disgusted that they had to share classrooms with some civilian nobody. Sakura had always told her parents it was just rough-housing, that she’d gotten clumsy and had fallen in the woods looking for flowers during Suzume-sensei’s class. Sometimes she tried to reassure them it was just her forehead being targeted, nothing more. Hell, even Ino had believed it. 

But it had been failure after failure, folly after folly. Little things that stacked higher and higher until Sakura forgot what the world looked like outside of them. Addled by her body dysmorphia and a host of other issues, it had produced someone who didn’t have much self-esteem to speak of… anywhere. Even her past and present deeds seemed insignificant compared to her looming issues. 

Recovering with a laugh, Sakura scrubbed her eyes and the tears away. “Heh, must be allergies,” she deflected obtusely, Tōka lofting an eyebrow at the kunoichi. “Come on, let’s leave the sob stuff at home. We’re supposed to be focusing on the mission, remember?”

“That’s fair. Sooner we can hit a tavern, the better.”

“Um… there is something I wanted to ask. You still want to return to Saikyō, right? Well… I want to leave Sennan, so why don’t we help each other? Not now, but down the road,” Sakura ventured with a hopeful glimmer in her eyes. “I was thinking of going east, anyway, to the Naka River or some other civilian town. I want to reunite with the Nadeshiko, so…”

“Say no more. We both want out, so we help each other,” Tōka answered with a slight smirk, though it faltered when Tobirama’s presence vanished. The scent of woodsmoke wafted through the forest, and Sakura knew intuitively that he’d likely found a different heading. 

“Ugh, thank gods,” Sakura exhaled in relief as the Senju banked and their new course was determined, antsy to finally get away from whatever fate she’d found herself in. 

Yuga no Sato was a rustic, largely pastoral town split in twain by a deep gorge with steep cliffsides that plunged into a ravine. The starry façades of several bathhouses of varying classes punctuated the din of roaring waterfalls emptying into the river. However, it was at a modest inn that they would hole themselves away for the night that drew Sakura’s eye. More surprising was the fact that they were staying there at all, though the kunoichi chalked it up more to the fact that Tobirama likely didn’t want to sully himself by sleeping on the forest floor, else she imagined they’d be roughing it. Not that Sakura would’ve minded if they had, but something about a busy, well-lit inn did something right to soothe her frazzled nerves. 

That, and not being in such close proximity to the Senju brother she had significantly scrambled feelings about could help clear her head and, she hoped, his too.

In the wing that flanked the inn, she expected an izakaya with sleepy occupants in the early evening hour, while instead it came as a pure delight. 

Sakura could only think of it as a ritzy dance hall—couples in glossy kimono gliding and spinning across the polished floor while a band onstage blasted big-band music that drove the crowd into a whirl of wild, unchecked revelry. Shakō dansu was something she’d only learned in the Academy’s cotillion classes, a nearly extinct practice she never expected to see in use.

Considering the stuffy social mores the Senju were known for, it came as a refreshing break from their monotony, and she didn’t doubt for a second that Tōka would agree.

“Hey, wanna give it a go?” Sakura goaded the Senju woman whose bright golds had been closely scrutinizing the dancers avidly, knowing there was interest there. 

“We’ll have to leave our weapons at the door, but why not? Even if a ninja in full regalia will look really weird to these types,” Tōka replied with a jocund glint in her eyes. As there was an usher at the door, he warily eyed the wicked naginata and massive broadsword the two women divested themselves of, respectively, before Tōka took Sakura by the hand. The pair found an opening on the dancefloor, the kunoichi’s heart racing excitedly as Tōka took her by the hands and joined the madly dancing revelers swirling and twirling, jumping and jiving their way through the upbeat numbers. 

Though Sakura wasn’t a prolific dancer by any means, Tōka was a steady lead despite the many times she sputtered with laughter at the clangor of the woman’s armor that received smiles and laughter. After all, how often did shinobi mingle with the ordinary world? Let alone a Senju a few of them seemed to recognize.

Several songs later, and Sakura felt pleasantly winded, the big band performing slow dances while Tōka seemed barely affected, her heritage likely to blame. Though Sakura was eager for more, she pouted when Tōka indicated she was ready for bed.

“Sorry, but considering what’s coming tomorrow, I need to get some shut-eye. Have fun, alright? Just tell the receptionist you’re with the Senju party and she’ll point you in the right direction.”

“Aw, thanks for dancing with me. It was a lot of fun,” Sakura beamed with a smile, glad to feel as though she was making at least one friend among the Senju. 

“Hey, don’t mention it,” Tōka said with a crooked smile, patting her shoulder. “G’night.” As the Senju turned to leave, Sakura found herself at a small table in the wings of the dance hall, simply people-watching and enjoying the atmosphere of the energetic company she was sure would keep her up a little bit later than normal. 

Though Sakura had half a mind to buy a drink, she instead abstained when at the realization that she didn’t have a ryō to her name, being indentured to the Senju and all, she thought broodingly. That, and she was admittedly a little hungry from all the dancing they’d done.

“Um… excuse me, miss?” Sakura jerked to see a shy, average-looking brunet man in a costly kimono and hakama address her awkwardly, dark browns unable to meet hers directly. “I hope this isn’t too forward, b-but—” He gulped upon looking up from his introductory bow, cheeks blazing like a tomato. “You’re very beautiful and I was wondering if you wanted to dance with me? Please,” he blurted out, Sakura turning to the sounds of encouraging whispers.

A few tables to her right, a handsome party of bachelors sat, conversing with their acquired dates Sakura assumed made her a last-ditch effort for a seeming holdout. Strains of gossip remarking on her overall coloration did cause her to squint, but from what she caught wind of, it sounded largely positive, if a little objectifying. Well, as long as he wasn’t regarding her like a piece of meat, she supposed she could let it slide. 

Upon realizing she was staring, the women waved with conspiratorial giggles at being caught, while the men smirked and bawdily cheered their friend on.

“Hm, why not?” Sakura agreed with a pleasant smile as the man blanked for a moment, an opening in which she flashed a quick wink towards the group, who burst into uproarious laughter that earned some scowls from the other patrons trying to enjoy the jazzier sets. She offered her hand with a smile, the brunet taking it shyly while his friends cheered him on. 

“My name’s Sakura Haruno. Mind if I have yours?” Sakura kindly asked the starstruck man, who gawked for a moment before answering as he led her to the dancefloor. 

“Oh! Um… it’s Kentaro,” he answered in a fluster as he politely positioned his hands on Sakura’s waist. At the same time, she reciprocated on his shoulders, beginning to sway in time with the slow, jazzy strains and the crooning vocals of the songstress. “So, um… are you with the Senju Clan, or…? My father hires them out occasionally, and I couldn’t help but notice the woman you were with.”

“Hm? Oh, no way! I’m no one. Just a run-of-the-mill civilian,” Sakura answered a little forcefully, glancing over his shoulder at Kubikiribōchō, which was commandingly leaning against the wall near the threshold, “who happens to have a pretty big sword. Otherwise, I’m nobody special.” Alright, maybe her ploy to accept her ordinary status was a little bit hamfisted, but it was better than people thinking she was a Senju!

Yet, she internally amended with a brief shiver. 

“Well, the Tale of Genji always went on about finding unexpected beauty in remote places…” Kentaro said slyly, smile still shy but more confident than before.

“Oh, you like that book, too? My favorite passage was always, um…” Sakura stalled as she tried to recall, gazing sidelong for a moment. “Right! ‘There is much to be said for cherry blossoms, but they seem so flighty. They are so quick to run off and leave you.’ Okay, maybe it’s not the most appropriate, but it’s kind of relevant to my situation, honestly.”

“Your situation?” the brunet echoed with a raised brow. 

“Yeeeeah— To put it simply, aside from that one woman, the Senju are no friends of mine. They’re a bunch of dicks,” Sakura prattled bluntly, feeling as though a cold hand ran down her spine as their gradual sway turned her towards the door, furtively glancing to see a very pissed off albino folding his arms and boring his glower into her with a scowl. Pettily, Sakura circled her arms around Kentaro’s neck in feigned amorousness. “Speak of the devil…”

As they swung back like a pendulum, Kentaro jolted away from her like he’d been stung when he sighted Tobirama moodily glaring from the threshold with testily folded arms, practically tearing into the fabric of his arm, armor and happuri since removed but doing nothing to diminish his intimidating presence. 

“I, um—it was nice meeting you, Sakura-san! I have to go now, ah…” Kentaro shuffled awkwardly away before briskly striding back to his table, even his boisterous friends cowed into near silence as if Tobirama was a cruel viper and they were hapless mice at his mercy. 

“Ugh, great,” Sakura sighed frustratedly as she turned to trudge towards the irate Senju, avoiding direct eye contact. “Okay, for the record, I didn’t spend a single ryō or amass a tab, so… I’m just gonna sleep.” As she collected her sword and motioned towards the long hallway where the rooms were located, Tobirama captured her bicep in a vice. “Hey, I said I’m going!”

“What the hell do you think this is? A goddamn retreat?” the man hissed, but instead of indignation, she faced him with a slightly ajar mouth and comically squinty eyes. 

With flushed cheeks stark on his pale complexion, and slightly hazy eyes, the smell on his breath cemented her assumption absolutely. “I… You’re drunk,” she stated without lilting, canting her head at him. 

“I am not drunk! Yes, I did partake in some spirits, but not nearly as much as you’re exaggerating that I have!” the Senju bristled defensively, releasing Sakura’s arm as if it were a hot coal. “In any case, you’re sleeping in my room tonight since you clearly cannot be trusted on your own, let alone dragging my cousin into your degrading pastimes.” 

“Dancing is degrading, but forcing marriage is a-ok? Gods, you have your priorities fucked,” Sakura sniped at him as she was begrudgingly shepherded towards his room, the only open one she was flabbergasted to see a fair number of spent tokkuri bottles scattered upon the low table with some rolling messily on the tatami. “You’re actually trying to tell me you’re not drunk? Seriously?”

As Tobirama slid the doorway shut with an angry clack, he turned to glare at her again, and by that Sakura was honestly tired of seeing it. “Considering how active my sensory ability is, watching you carouse with perfect strangers is reason enough to drink.”

“I’m sorry? Since when is that drink-inducing? It’s not like he was bending me over one of the tables for his friends to watch, or something!”

At that, Tobirama’s face flushed in shades that went deeper than just anger, which only served to confuse Sakura more. Why on earth would he care? Even with all the reasons Tōka had furnished, it still boiled down to Tobirama wanting someone at his side, not her specifically. So, it made no sense for him to react in such a way if decorum was the problem he had. 

Vividly aware of how uncomfortable she felt, in the pregnant pause that loomed, Sakura claimed a wall near the entryway that was further away from the futon that had just been unrolled, because of course there was only one bed. Yet, her debilitating sense of compassion compelled her to stride towards the bathroom where a few wooden mugs were located, coming to the rustic sink unit where she manually pumped the water pump as clear water splashed into the basin. She filled a cup enough, returning to the room where she genuflected before the Senju and placed the cup gingerly within this reach. 

“Look… why don’t you just drink this? Get hydrated and then sleep,” Sakura suggested as she motioned to pull away, his silence somewhere between concerning and utterly mystifying. As she was about to stand, Tobirama snagged her kimono tunic’s sleeve, eyes unable to meet hers. 

“Is the idea of being with me truly so… abhorrent?” he asked forlornly in a tone that surprised her. Mollified, she sat on her haunches. “Mito and Hashirama were arranged to be wed, and their partnership is enviable.” His gaze finally found hers, making her squirm slightly. “Their partnership is everything I wish I had.” 

Sakura sighed as she allowed herself to slouch slightly, lips pursed. “You’re leaving out some pretty major components,” she began somberly, the weight of the moment bearing down on her shoulders. “Mito’s also a gentlewoman from an old, respected clan on par with the Senju. Sure, she values the Uzumaki, but she loves the Senju and wants to see them prosper—exactly like a good spouse does. That’s why it’s a partnership. She understands and empathizes with Hashirama's expectations as a clan head, and they likely have a lot of trust for each other because they share similar values and goals. Me?” Sakura smiled mirthlessly, gazing sidelong at Tobirama. “I get it. I can fight and have similar interests as you, but… you have to understand that I don’t understand what it means to come from a clan, to have those expectations placed on you. And I never will. I could honestly care less about the Senju beyond not wanting to see innocent people get hurt. You’re like your brother; you love and value your family. I’m just an outsider looking in, and I don’t really like what I see.”

Despite her words, it would be a lie to say she didn’t feel an empathetic stab of pain at seeing the hope drain from Tobirama’s eyes and sink like a block of lead, knowing he probably had borne similar hopes she’d once had for Sasuke. But, with the dreamy idealism and objectification of what he could bring for her crushed fiercely once she’d gotten to truly understand his darkness and pain, her reasons for rejecting Tobirama weren’t much different than Sasuke leaving Konoha; because it and everyone in it couldn’t understand what he wanted or needed. He couldn’t become a true member of Team 7 or a citizen of the village, let alone the subconscious projections of a bullied little girl who’d dreamed of becoming ‘Sakura Uchiha’ as though it were an escape from her ordinary background that had felt like a curse in a tapestry of clans with storied histories and Hiden.

It had been a harsh lesson to learn, but it was like how Team Taka had become the team Sasuke had needed in his darkest time, exactly what he needed that Team 7 could never give… let alone herself who wanted to save him despite her profound ignorance over his pain. 

Maybe these circumstances were different, and much less treacherous, but it still bore a painfully similar core. 

“Civilians marry into clans all the time, you could learn and—”

“Because they want to,” Sakura interrupted gently, the corner of her mouth twitching in a semblance of a conciliatory if sad smile. “I don’t.”

Tobirama nodded his head dimly, and Sakura was certain it was the end of it despite the broadness of remorse that spanned between them. Because it hurt Tobirama to hear, even if he had to understand the truth sooner rather than later. Just as she was about to claim her own corner, the hem of her sleeve was taken again, this time with much more shyness than before. 

“Just for tonight,” Tobirama implored stirringly, Sakura’s heart clenching at the timbre. “Can we just pretend… for tonight?” 

No matter how sensible their minds could be, there was always that deeper core that overrode logic and rationale. The centers that craved human contact and intimacy were those that could rarely be reasoned with, even in stalwart pillars of noble clans like Tobirama, who couldn’t afford to harbor such deep vulnerabilities, or display them, without fear of them being exploited. But, she was safe, wasn’t she? Because she wanted nothing from him or the Senju. 

Whether that would be reassuring or threatening to him once he was sober, she didn’t know. 

Of course, if he were well and truly drunk, she wouldn’t have taken advantage of him if he couldn’t consent. But, he was just buzzed; maybe with a freer mind and looser tongue, but not so lost that anything more would be criminal for all the worst reasons. 

With a soft sigh, she cupped his face. “You sure?” she asked softly, and shivered slightly as Tobirama sagged into the contact, nuzzling into her palm with a weary sigh. “I won’t push this. If it’s too much, we stop no matter what, ‘kay?”

Barely pulled from the rapture of such warm contact, he nodded blearily. “Very well,” he consented with a small kiss into her palm, lips lingering where the contact was moist. 

Just for the night. No harm would come from a single night where he could feel vulnerable and human without having to fear. 

With another hand cupping his cheek, Sakura guided him into an experimental kiss, her elbows folding as he gathered his arms around her waist to deepen the kiss, sincere and warm despite the disparity between them. Maybe it was a source of comfort in a way she couldn’t truly begin to quantify. 

They parted abruptly once Tobirama pivoted her body to land with a soft thump on the floor, flat on the tatami with a heated blush as Tobirama crawled over her, stopping momentarily as he kept their gazes locked together, which served to fluster her further. Slowly, he stripped off his shirt and even his pants, but it lacked the seductiveness despite the undeniable hunger in his eyes that straddled the line between carnal and achingly human. 

Sakura couldn’t help but be entranced by the red vortex tattooed on his belly, four arms looping from its epicenter and coiling his arms, legs, and neck. Other whorls marked organs in black on his back, which she glimpsed once he turned away to discard the clothing, down to his fundoshi. The Senju let the kunoichi stare, puffing his chest not in some display of machismo, but like an artist stepping away from a canvas to let a purveyor appreciate his work. 

“Hang on, these are…?” 

“Yang seals. Much like your Yin Seal, but they do more than store chakra. They’re not as advanced as the Byakugō, but they’re of the Uzumaki’s,” Tobirama explained as he took one of her hands to glide over lean muscle strapped over his broad frame, sighing pleasurably from the contact. “They siphon increments of my spiritual and physical energies that come from being a Senju to give me power, to use Sahasrāra and the Eight Gates. So that I can’t fall behind my brother.”

“…They’re beautiful,” Sakura murmured as she fanned her fingers on his muscular abdominal wall, the flesh warming from contact. “It’s warm, like… another body, if that makes sense.”

Tobirama smirked slightly, gazing sidelong before returning to her. Just as he poised to lean in for another kiss and shift to top her, she placed a halting hand on his sternum. “Hang on, we have to check in. Do you still feel okay, or…?” 

“I’m not some slovenly drunk like my uncle. I’m quite aware of my limits, Haruno,” he informed her primly, the kunoichi exhaling a soft sigh of relief. 

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Sakura quipped back cheekily, squeaking when he pinned her back down and crawled over her. 

“Hush,” he chastised softly as the Senju spread her thighs to slot between her legs, breath stolen from her lungs as he gripped the underside of her thigh and pressed flush against her. Sakura spread her legs to accommodate him, his bulk weighty in the way a heavy blanket was on a cold night. 

Nothing more needed to be said as he kissed her soundly, exhaling between kisses as he ground against her womanhood alive with arousal the more she became acclimated to his presence. Her hands perched on his shoulder and spine while he dragged his clothed manhood against her and moaned softly from the hardness just begining. 

Tobirama lifted away enough to sit on his haunches, her legs sloping over his while he ran a hand up her abdomen and found the sash girdling her tunic in place, cleverly undoing the ribbon of fabric he set aside before parting the overlapped folds of her tunic, revealing her tanned abdomen scored with discolored scar tissue. With a kind of reverence, he began unwrapping the sarashi that bound her chest, gradually freeing it until fleshy mounds and dusky, pert nipples pebbled in the cool air. 

Compared to his pale complexion and pink nubs, they couldn’t look any more different as the Senju’s manhood throbbed in his fundoshi at the sight of her unbound breasts, swallowing thickly as he craned to grope them and made Sakura squirm. 

“Better than me being in Wood Release bondage?” she quipped on a gasp as he continued to fondle her breasts, as if fascinated by the flesh that fit the shape of his large hands almost exactly. 

Tobirama scowled and blushed, chuffing at the memory. “I’d rather not imagine you in my brother’s clutches.”

“Oh… sorry.”

Tobirama chanced a quick smirk as he parted Sakura’s legs enough to work their way out of her pants and her own fundoshi, planting a kiss on her kneecap before trailing into the inner thigh that caused the flesh there to quiver. “I think a rewrite is in order,” he informed her huskily, skin twitching as he descended lower. 

“F-Fuck!” Sakura squealed as he buried his face into her sex without hesitation, belying the persnickety germaphobe part of her had internally characterized him as. 

Her ribcage heaved as his tongue and lips devoured her, spine arching from the floor as intoxicating waves of pleasure bowled her over, and her breath became tinged with whimpers. “Tobi!” she keened as his hands circled her thighs to brace them, preventing her from lifting her pelvis too high. Her fingers dug into his hair and pulled, an aroused growl sounding from her grip. 

The vibrato of it could be felt even before he introduced a finger to stimulate her maidenhead mercilessly, hips bucking despite the vice he had on her thigh. Sakura cried out his name as heat practically blinded her while Tobirama ate her out. Still, as if sensing she was set to climax soon, he manfully hauled her figure beneath him again and untied his fundoshi fervently. 

Carefully, Tobirama began to ease his cock inside of her, thrusting slowly to acclimate to his larger size that had Sakura panting beneath him. “S-Shit,” she exhaled hotly as he gradually entered her, groaning into her clavicle and shuddering richly with every agonizingly sensuous inch inside of her. 

Though Sakura belatedly panicked when she realized that he wasn’t wearing a condom, she mentally kicked herself after remembering that they didn’t have them in that day and age. And it wasn’t like she wasn’t a med-nin who’d been taught clever solutions for sticky situations. 

And boy, was it about to get sticky. 

“Gods,” Tobirama groaned with a rich shudder, and Sakura had to bite back a snort as he gripped the underside of her thigh for better and deeper angling. 

“Polite even when, hoo—“ Sakura panted as he thrust hard into her, seeing stars, “doing the deed, huh?”

“S-Shut up, Haruno,” he bit back sourly, spoiled by a moan as her crossed ankles at the small of his back inadvertently yanked his manhood in deeper, regal features screwed with pleasure. Punishingly did his rutting come at a harder pace than before, the slapping of sweat-slicked skin like a carnal metronome that rocked Sakura intensely with every wave of sweet pleasure-pain that came from their intense lovemaking—

No, it’s just fucking. Sheesh, we’re almost out of the woods, so quit it! she harshly reprimanded her unconscious thoughts despite how difficult it was to even think, the coiling sensation in her belly winding tighter and tighter the more his thrusts came. 

“Fuck!” she cried out as she orgasmed beneath him, intense waves of pleasure soaring through her body as Tobirama’s own pursuit of that high came almost desperately, beads of sweat building on his brow that dripped on Sakura. 

The Senju thrust wildly inside of her until his teeth clenched and released with a choked groan as his seed spilled inside of her, rutting to milk his climax until he was spent and collapsed atop her, breaths heaving in the afterglow while Sakura became vividly aware of the sticky adhesion between their bodies that felt more uncomfortable than anything. Tobirama’s eyes had fluttered shut, his breathing boneless, as his weight began to feel more crushing than comfortable. 

Tapping his back with her pointer finger, Tobirama grunted and cracked a hazy red eye open, content to sprawl atop her. 

“Um… maybe I should, y’know—head back to my room?”

Tobirama lazily glanced at the futon they’d found themselves upon and instead rolled off of the kunoichi to lie on his side, then dragged her to become a little spoon while offering his cushy, large bicep as a pillow. 

“The night. That’s how long I asked you to stay with me,” Tobirama huffed as he brought the quilt over them both, an arm wrapping around her waist to keep Sakura molded against his stomach and cradled by his thighs. Nuzzling into the nape of her neck, Sakura flushed. “Then you’ll be… free, I suppose.”

Sakura shivered as his hand caressed her toned stomach absently, perhaps more pacifying for him than anything. Something to break the monotony of his loneliness. Sighing, she allowed herself a moment of quiet to relax in his arms, nestling close. 

“Morning, then. Good night.”

“Mm,” he hummed as he gathered her closer, Sakura allowing herself to slip into a deep and dreamless sleep. 

Chapter Text

Warning(s): M, some suggestiveness, blood & gore

From a deep, dreamless sleep, Sakura slowly surfaced, sunlight filtering in as Shima’s humming drifted from outside. She nestled into the warmth at her back, still unaware of who lay beside her.

“Tobi-kun, Tōka-chan wanted to know if—”

Sakura sat bolt upright at the mention of the Senju, a flush darkening her tanned skin with enough force that the blanket fell away from her scandalously bare bosom, eyes furtively glancing downwards as her hackles raised at the sight of how many hickeys had been branded into her skin. 

From the space beside her, Tobirama cracked one red eye lazily open, sighting Sakura’s mortification, a faint smirk tugging on his lips at the revelation of his handiwork. The kunoichi just stared at him dumbly before bolting away with the Body Flicker Technique in a cloud of her own embarrassment as she ducked inside the bathroom, found a yukata to don, and practically leapt over Shima as she raced down the hall.

Yeah, no way did she want to process that with an audience!

“Sakura? What’re you—”

“Ack, ack!” Sakura sputtered incoherently, marching towards Tōka in her bizarre attempt at silencing the woman from pursuing small talk in the inn’s corridor. “Can we go to the onsen, please?”

“Alright, not sure why you’re being so secretive,” Tōka chuffed until she spied a strand of hair away from Sakura’s neck and the damning evidence that speckled her flesh. “Oh my gods. Oh my fucking gods, you didn’t.” Her smile was wickedly gleeful, and Sakura wanted nothing less than for the roof to cave in on them right now.

“Tōkaaaaaa!” Sakura wailed pitifully as she looped their arms together and sped towards the promised onsen, puppy eyes the size of saucers. “Not now, please!”

“I’ve got my hooks in you yet, Haruno, just you wait!” Tōka cackled devilishly as they came to the onsen’s entrance and held her tongue for the sake of propriety. Still, the gleam in her eyes promised the grilling of a lifetime that Sakura would likely be unable to ignore. As they waited in the queue to book a private, women-only pool for themselves, Sakura felt as though she were on pins and needles the entire time.

The onsen’s charm eased the nerves that had followed her since fleeing Tobirama’s quarters. She glimpsed springs nestled in stone beds carved from the foothills, shaded by trees swaying in the warm morning breeze. Rocky cliffs framed the village, while a flawless blue sky stretched overhead. Beyond the bamboo palisades, the murmur of other patrons drifted from their pools.

Closing the shōji door behind her, she and Tōka claimed opposite sides of a porcelain divider where they could strip off their clothing and wash themselves before entering the invitingly steaming onsen. Sakura just hoped the steam might go to her head enough to forget some of the morning’s mortification. Sighing as she sank to the stool and washing station, she twisted the handle as warm water gushed from the faucet, lathered the given soaps, and doused her hair before she began washing it.

“So, ya have anything ya want to say?” Tōka coaxed from over the divider, voice resonating like she was next to Sakura. The kunoichi flustered with a sigh, but succumbed to the Senju’s prodding with a grumble.

“Well, it wasn’t entirely weird. We were able to have a heart-to-heart about the whole… marriage thing, and I think I got him to understand that I’m not interested,” Sakura began, unwilling to budge with more risqué details unless Tōka asked. Or rather, held a kunai to her throat and forced the truth from her.

“Huh, well, I suppose that makes sense. Clears some things up, too.” At Sakura’s receptive silence, the Senju continued, “See, last night I cooked up a plan with Shima-sama, and I think we could use your little, er, dilemma to our advantage.”

Admittedly, Sakura’s stomach flopped. Though she could only speculate what Tōka’s conspiracy would ultimately be, her washing with the loofah she used to cleanse herself slowed, pulse pounding in her head and causing her heart rate to accelerate. “Alright, mark me down as interested,” she chuckled nervously, feeling like she could freeze in place from nerves alone. 

“Ya might not like it, but I think my dear cousin feels something for ya. However strong it is, if ya move to seduce Hashirama, instead, it’d really drive a wedge between ‘em and cause trouble. The kind that makes openings,” Tōka explained, every word striking Sakura like she was a nail being hammered down. “Maybe you’ve caught on by now, but Tobirama sorta… envies Hashi. Maybe more than either of us knows, but if you were lookin’ like some sterling companion to have at his side, then you hookin’ up with him would crush him. And Hashi ain’t exactly a stranger to extra company, if ya get my drift…”

If Tōka thought Sakura wouldn’t like her idea, then she was right. But, when it came down to it, kunoichi using their bodies as another tool in their arsenal was just part of the trade. If she hadn’t gotten so uncomfortably close with Tobirama, maybe she’d have some reservations, but she knew it couldn’t be that simple. Whatever strangeness had occurred between them, of the empathetic bond she’d come to share, Sakura knew better than to think it wouldn’t complicate things. But that was the point, wasn’t it?

There was another angle to consider, too: Mito. Though she wouldn’t exactly call herself close friends with the Uzumaki, they weren’t strangers, either. A bond existed, and if Sakura would sleep with Hashirama and Tobirama was aware, she did not doubt that Mito would be on the receiving end of such crushing news, too.

But, they needed a smokescreen, and she needed to prove to them that she wasn’t some complacent little thing starting to eke a place for herself among the Senju. Sakura was one of the Nadeshiko, and she wasn’t their friend. She needed to drive that truth home—no matter how much it hurt them—and she couldn’t chicken out just because she was starting to like them a little.

“Do you think he’d take the bait? Hashirama, I mean,” Sakura said after a beat, though her expression was conflicted as she continued to wash herself. 

“Hashi? I’ve heard gossip among the servants, and some think ya already are. But, I don’t see why he wouldn’t be; yer a pretty face with the right assets. And if the shibari snafu is anything to go by…”

“Ugh, don’t remind me!” Sakura groaned as she almost dunked her head into the wooden basin of water between her knees. “This is going to get ugly, isn’t it?”

Tōka sighed from behind the divider. “I don’t doubt it for a second. It’s going to be a real hard blow when they learn that Tobi’s prospective wife slept with his own brother. Shatter their good impressions of you in an instant.”

“Alright, so we know what I have to do. I’m just curious about the setting and how it’s gonna pan out,” Sakura concluded as she finished rinsing off the sudsy soaps and shampoo before rising to ease herself in the onsen proper. 

“Thought you’d never ask,” Tōka replied with a grin as she followed suit; the other kunoichi turned away until the Senju was fully submerged in the opaque water. “See, there’s a city near Sennan: Renpu, the old capital before it was moved to Saikyō. Nowadays, it’s more of a pleasure mecca for rich noblemen and clans. Hashirama likes going there pretty often to, er—unwind. Gambling, hedonistic crap like that. Tobirama usually goes with him, and sometimes other members, clan heads… and dates. Mito usually doesn’t go since Hashirama usually becomes someone she doesn’t like there. Which means, it’d be the perfect opportunity for you to join him.”

Sakura rubbed the back of her nape, an embarrassed blush coating her cheeks. “This means I’ll have to seduce him into it, won’t I?” 

Tōka winced sympathetically, extending an arm to pat Sakura’s shoulder. “Well… you’re a girl who likes guys, right? And he’s considered to be a big, handsome man, so that’s right up your alley, isn’t it? He seems interested in you anyway, ain’t he?”

“Eh, yeah… I mean, when I went to the clinic one day, he was healing people, and he winked when I was there with Mito, even though I thought it was for his wife—” Sakura halted when she realized she was rambling, staring down into the swirling whorls of water. “Alright, seduce and destroy, got it.”

“There’s more to it,” Tōka continued grimly, slinging her arms on the onsen’s rim. “There’s a lodge in Renpu that our clan owns, and we’re gonna pack it with bombs in its cellar. Thing is, he needs to be inside and distracted for it to work.”

Sakura whirled on the Senju, visibly blanching at what she was insinuating. “H-Hang on, you want to assassinate him?!”

Tōka barked a laugh, devoid of warmth or amusement. “Kill him? Nah, most it’ll do is slow him down.” She met Sakura’s gaze speculatively, an undercurrent of dread present. “You’ve never seen his regeneration in action before, have you?”

If she were technically honest, she would say she had—through others that had augmented his cells, and through Creation Rebirth that mimicked it. 

“I’ve heard… rumors.”

Tōka stared ahead as if she recalled a nightmarish memory. “About a decade ago, during the War of the Tides, we faced a battalion of Uchiha headed by Tajima Uchiha back before Madara became clan head. We faced each other on this barren plain, and of course, the Uchiha utilized their fire jutsu. Well, they created a wall of fire, and Butsuma sent Hashirama alone. He just… walked into the inferno. I saw it, Sakura. I saw his skin peel off, his flesh melt and scorch from his bones, to this charred skeleton on the other side. Then, when the Uchiha were rendered speechless, he just started to… regenerate like nothing had happened. Sure, he was buck naked, but it scared them shitless,” Tōka continued with a wavering voice as if she’d stared into the heart of a nightmare. “I’ve never been more terrified in my life. It was a big push for me to retire early, to put it nicely.”

Sakura nodded grimly and shuddered, ripples emanating from her body. “And I have to seduce him. Great.”

Tōka patted her shoulder patronizingly, mustering a smirk. “For what it’s worth, I’ve heard he has a big tree and knows how to use it,” she insinuated with a bawdy grin, which caused Sakura to tense before withering with a heated blush. 

Remembering her experience with Tobirama did nothing to help with the comparisons that came. Tōka seemed to catch on to Sakura’s preceding thoughts and snickered wickedly. 

They lingered for several minutes in companionable silence, enjoying the twittering of the birds and gentle sway of the trees and quiet zephyrs that flowed through the open space. Despite the diabolical plan that brewed in their minds, Sakura felt surprisingly detached from the chaos she would be party to, even if something caught her notice. 

Thick mists spilled over the border fences, and both women instantly reacted, knowing something was wrong. An exchanged look communicated more than words could, springing from the steaming waters as they barreled for their clothing, hastily dried, and finished affixing all their personal effects on their persons soon enough. Sakura felt much better once Kubikiribōchō was fastened across her back, the mists gliding over the onsen waters as the din of conversation fell utterly silent. 

“Genjutsu?” Sakura guessed as the tendrils skittered hauntingly to their heels, the odd thump of prone bodies collapsing from the pools nearest theirs and in the corridors themselves. 

“Seems like it,” Tōka affirmed as the pair preemptively dispelled any genjutsu before it could take hold, reducing the onslaught to mere mists suffusing through the space, guards absolutely up and riveted for any potential activity. 

“Sakura, Tōka!” Both women craned to the sound of Tobirama’s voice and the clangor of his armor donned in full regalia, Shima bounding after him over the fence. He alighted to Sakura and touched her face tenderly, causing her heart to climb into her throat. “You’re alright?” he queried too intimately, almost inaudible as Sakura glanced away to break whatever spell he had upon her.

“Yeah, we’re fine, cousin,” Tōka replied archly, an eyebrow quirked in amusement. She folded her arms, unable to help her smirk while Sakura modestly glanced away. Tobirama sneered at her, but trained his gaze then on the mists cascading thickly. “Looks like Heiman’s handiwork. I’m guessing it’s going to be a real bloodbath in the streets.”

“Wait, a bloodbath?” Sakura’s stricken expression compelled her to leap atop the roof of the bathhouse, soles clicking on the roof tiles as horror crossed her features at the sight of genjutsu-addled people striking each other down in the streets, blood and viscera flying to pelt walls and dusty roads in equal measure from afar. “Tōka, Tobirama, what the hell are you doing? Get in there and help me release their genjutsu!”

“Oh, I can do more than just that,” Tōka assured as she grinned cockily, alighting on the rooftop after Sakura and honing her focus, the kunoichi awestruck as she waited for the Senju to enact whatever gambit she meant to.

The history books spoke of what a peerless genjutsu-user Tōka was, but Sakura would’ve never imagined it was as superb as she was. Tōka—a genjutsu-type like Sakura—was able to reach from afar to grab the psyches of multitudes of people at once and release their deadly genjutsu. People who’d once run with abandon for each other, wielding all manner of makeshift weapons, lowered them in surprise and horror when they realized what they’d been in the midst of doing. Though many shrieked and caterwauled in horror in the wake of their actions, at least they’d been halted in their tracks. 

Yet, Sakura perked to the sound of a rising tsunami, the frothy onslaught of approaching water racing atop the sea Yuga no Sato straddled, did the next gambit rush to meet them much faster than she'd anticipated. 

Without even asking did Sakura leap into action, sprinting towards the perimeter of the sleepy village as she reared back and smote her fist on the ground, a deafening entry against the coming flood as the townsfolk shrieked when cacophonous shattering of the tectonic plates beneath their feet separated parts of the village and elicited seismic shifting that noisily clashed, but not before her Kanzan: Earth followed suit of her chakra-enhanced strength to artificially raise the elevation of the entire village by several feet and additionally create levies that would protect it from the seaboard’s offensive. 

Sakura exhaled in exertion as the tsunami smashed into the rock walls she’d erected, beating against the barriers and eroding some of them that otherwise dispelled the tsunami and interrupted the impact it otherwise would’ve had. The roaring waters surged past the newly raised village, the townspeople watching in utter bewilderment as the waves passed harmlessly around what would’ve otherwise swept them away. 

“He’s coming,” Tobirama informed the two women who turned towards the man who kept his eyes trained on the horizon, more tsunamis succeeding the first as Sakura removed Kubikiribōchō from her back. At the same time, Tōka did the same with her naginata and Tobirama with his own sword, the sky visibly darkening as thunderclouds quickly accumulated and charged the air with the oncoming, deadly assault. 

“They, you mean,” Tōka corrected as the trio bounded from the rooftop of the bathhouse and raced towards the seashore where their opponents would soon be making landfall, bracing for what was to come. 

Sakura guiltily remembered Hashirama’s words about how the Nadeshiko’s actions had provoked them, and how she’d soon be engrossed in a battle royale with the future three Mizukage of Kirigakure. 

Gods knew what awaited them, and she prayed they’d make it through alive.

“Right, I’m going to hang back and protect the village. You two advance ahead and face ‘em head-on. Gotta feeling Heiman is going to splinter off and target the civilians anyhow…”

Tōka, Tobirama, and Sakura stood atop one of the artificial breakwalls where swells of the rising tide continued to beat against, foamy while the choppy ocean further ahead was dyed a stormy gray with storm clouds gathering low on the horizon. Tōka sailed back towards the village, likely to look for any stragglers she might have missed in her genjutsu release, Sakura watching her withdraw with a grim expression. 

Yet, she was snapped from her reverie when Tobirama perched a reassuring hand on her shoulder that moved towards the junction of her neck and shoulder, then sifted past her longer fringe to cup around her ear, thumb stroking her cheek while Sakura felt the world melt away, utterly transfixed on the Senju. He flashed her the slightest shadow of a smile, and she swore her heart skipped a beat. 

But, when he craned down to plant a tender kiss on her brow, over her Byakugō, she thought she might go weak-kneed from the warmth and gentleness in the gesture. “For luck,” he explained before moving away, and the kunoichi remembered to breathe. 

And to think, she was going to shatter his heart further down the road. 

“Gengetsu and Byakuren, right? I actually have heard a thing or two about Gengetsu’s fighting style, especially as a Hōzuki. I also know how Sanmei clansmen do battle, but I’m assuming it’s safe to think that Byakuren is a rung above that? Sheesh, never mind his entire clan if he decides to bring more in…” Sakura mused as she forced herself to dispel the aura of tenderness that lingered between the two, eye hard on the horizon. 

“If you know how to do battle with them, then I’ll assume we don’t need to deliberate significantly. Besides that, they’re almost—”

Tobirama was cut off when, a quarter-mile off the coastline, an ivory sea serpent Sakura swore was larger than even Atkor Kamuy surged from the depths, followed by several smaller ones that rose from the sea like an almighty hydra. The kunoichi bristled as adrenaline surged through her veins, her breathing short and clipped as her heart rate quickened at the sound of the larger beast’s roar, and she noted the figures seated atop their crowns. Of their discolored complexions she saw through squinting that had to mean they had their Sage Modes invoked. 

“Here’s the strategy: give me space, and let’s kick these bastards’ asses!” Sakura crowed, admittedly more excited than was probably appropriate. Tobirama’s composure fell for a moment, and he sighed gustily, likely reminded of his own brother who derived similar elation from battle.

Racing to a part of the shoreline further away from the village, Sakura found an isthmus that projected into the sea, which she utilized her chakra-enhanced strength to shatter completely; the plates beneath broke apart, ejecting loam and dust from the disturbance. She stamped a foot down to dislodge a particularly massive boulder, and with a smirk, she punched it with a battle cry as the salvo was launched towards the largest sea serpent that struck its face, the stone obliterated in a cloud of dust that buffeted it with enough force to knock it from its trajectory. 

“Hey, ugly! Pick on someone your own size!” Sakura taunted as she cupped her hands around her mouth to project her voice, noting a clam that emerged from the ocean that Tobirama engaged. The crackle of his sword was heard as he dove into combat with Gengetsu, leaving Byakuren and the rest of the Sanmai clan to her, which suited her just fine. 

Sakura continued her barrage of boulders and other batholiths, some striking so harshly that a few of the Sanmai’s serpents were felled and bobbed on the ocean and were left behind in their advance, jettisons of water coming as retorts that Sakura mostly averted with her evasive skills, on the verge of blowing a raspberry at them before she realized that she couldn’t rely on her makeshift trebuchet to continue the onslaught. 

Kubikiribōchō in hand, Sakura invoked Edohigan: Lightning and skated with blistering speeds upon the ocean, soon coming upon a sea serpent that honed upon her with an open maw with every intention of swallowing her whole. With her broadsword in hand, she blindsided it by skirting left, using a burst of chakra in her feet to soar upwards as she readied the Executioner’s Blade and brought it down in a vicious slash, channeling lightning through the steel as it almost superfluously beheaded the beast in a flourish. A torrent of blood gushed from the neck as both severed halves withered into the ocean, a growing pool of blood swathing the area where the multitude of heads splintered away to escape the reach of the vicious kunoichi.

Sakura barely saw a streak of movement as one of the Sanmai—an ogre-looking woman with blue skin and thrice her size—blindsided her with a Piston Fist, the mortar fire of the strike connecting with her side, sending the kunoichi barreling into the ocean below with a loud splash. Blood trailed from her lips beneath the waves. Still, as Sakura nimbly flooded her fractured ribs with healing chakra and affected organs, she then replaced Lightning Release with Edohigan: Earth, which reinforced her flesh so that such a brutal hit wouldn’t damage her so much next time.

The watery silhouette of her opponent landed squarely on the water, its distorted and monstrous form highlighted by the gray sky. Sakura scowled, twisting her body as she struck out with her foot beneath the waves and sent the terrific force of a geyser that sent the woman flying. Doggedly, the kunoichi returned to the surface to be met with the same woman who fought with a renewed fury, she and another man with an equally monstrous appearance, timing the blow of their Piston Fists in unison. 

Just as Sakura regained her footing, she flooded Earth Release chakra into her palms and caught the twin blows that rippled through her body. Their faces twisted in rage as Sakura manipulated the inertia of one to gain control of their momentum to slam the man into the woman, which sent them flying for dozens of feet. 

However, an enormous shadow loomed over her and dyed the ocean’s surface in a darkened hue as the largest sea serpent roared thunderously where she stood, Sakura chancing a look up before she instead unleashed an inferno as Kanzan: Fire that strafed the serpent in its gaping maw, the lethal volley deadly enough to char its flesh and send it sailing from the ocean and several feet into the air. Its massive bulk crashed into the sea with a wide splash that doused all near, but Sakura took advantage of its stunned state to take a flying leap and then make a meteoric descent. 

Utilizing the Heavenly Foot of Pain, a violent spout of chakra expelled from her heel and impaled the sea serpent in a raucous blast that eviscerated the point of contact, and Sakura was buffeted by the blood that followed. She narrowly avoided the onslaught but otherwise ensured a clean, swift kill so the summon wouldn’t have to suffer. When she landed on the roiling surface marked by pieces of viscera, a sense of foreboding told her something massive was coming. 

From the belly of the serpent, Sakura was appalled to see a lone figure burst in an explosion of gore, raising an arm defensively as a Sanmai emerged—far larger than the ones she’d faced thus far—his hulking frame dribbling with entrails, blood, and salty sea brine that mingled together sickeningly. But what mortified her the most was how this great, Oni-looking being drew the parts of the serpent as bone and flesh amassed on him to collect on his frame in bone and scales, shining through his long mane and great beard as he bore his fangs.

So, this was the legendary Byakuren. 

Glad that previous splashes of ocean water had done away with the worst of the gore that had pelted her, Sakura shifted with the Kubikiribcōhō in hand and pivoted herself to face the future Mizukage. Still, she found herself speaking despite the deadliness of the battle.

“Why this innocent village? You should’ve just come after me, instead! I’m the one you’re after, aren’t you?” 

The grotesque squelching of flesh and bone still being grafted to Byakuren’s form continued through the exchange, a banal light shining in the slits of his eyes, the blackened sclera and vivid reds that reminded her almost acutely of Sasuke when his own Curse Mark had overtaken him. But, faced with the unadulterated version long before Orochimaru’s time was something far different. 

“Because, how else would I have gotten your attention, woman? You killed my Swordsmen and stole our weapons! I know what the Nadeshiko means to do!” Byakuren snarled at her, which Sakura met with a scowl. 

“Yeah, well, congratulations! You got the attention of the Senju in the process! Though… I guess it panned out for the better.” Gods, she hated how it made her sound, like she just used Tōka and Tobirama as pawns to deflect the worst of the consequences of her actions. Tōka was in league with her, so it didn’t seem so bad, but it was Tobirama putting his life on the line to resolve her catastrophic mistake while Tōka had been dragged into it because of her. Regardless of the outcome, Sakura knew understanding this and knowing what more she’d dump upon Tobirama wasn’t easy for her to come to terms with, even if she knew what she had to do.

Byakuren’s lip curled wickedly, and she frowned. “So, they’re both just cannon fodder to you, eh? Gods, you’re despicable. Ah, but—” Sharpening one of his arms into a wicked scythe, he aimed the makeshift weapon at her, “might as well make it look convincing, hm?” 

Weaving through hand signs, an enormous deluge of water gushed from his mouth and threatened to drown her, though Sakura utilized her enhanced strength to blast away the onslaught and reduce it to a spray that parted haphazardly around her. Her broadsword caught and glanced from his mutated arm, the harrowing clangor of metal resounded where they clashed with sparks flying with every hit. 

Yet, a realization dawned on her: though the Sanmai like Jūgo could naturally absorb natural energy to create the sage chakra needed to perform senjutsu, on some level, they had to knead chakra to do so, even if it was subconscious. Naruto had figured that out years ahead when he'd terminated one of the Paths of Pein similarly.

As Byakuren brought his weaponized arm down with a fearsome shout, it parried from the Kubikiribōchō’s edge, and the recoil caused Byakuren to lose his footing. At the same time, Sakura quickly performed the necessary half-step of wrangling his chakra, as if about to perform a genjutsu, but then interrupted it with her Jutsu Cancellation, preventing him from kneading chakra. 

The future Mizukage sputtered as he suddenly lost control of his ability to manipulate chakra, gasping raggedly as he watched on in horror as one of his legs began calcifying with a stony texture. Seeing the window of opportunity, in the split second she released the jutsu, Sakura thrust her broadsword to viciously sever his leg from his body, the Sanmai uttering a strangled caterwaul as he toppled into the water to bleed out slowly. 

In the moment of false security, Sakura failed to notice as the water rippled and began to churn around her feet, the beginnings of a whirlpool cast by Gengetsu as the Hōzuki had since moved away from his melee with Tobirama and found the kunoichi instead. Her mind scrambled to move away, but in the flash second between hefting her sword on her shoulder to clear the radius of the whirlpool, Gengetsu manifested between her and the felled Byakuren.

One of his surviving clansmen was already upon the bleeding man and utilized their Cellular Regeneration Ejection to staunch the bleeding, even if they couldn’t regenerate the lost limb he’d sustained. 

“Sakura!”

Before the kunoichi could even react to her name, Tobirama appeared like a wraith and—in his low sprint—shouldered Sakura and held tightly around her thighs like she was a sack of potatoes. With lightning speed, he hurled another one of his marked kunai with perfect precision, and the pair vanished before either Byakuren or Gengetsu could retaliate. Carrying them dozens of meters away, they cleared the radius of the yawning whirlpool, their foes on its opposite rim. 

Though his reaction was delayed, Tobirama lowered Sakura to her feet and hovered protectively close, glowering at the two Kiri-nin contemptuously. It might’ve elicited a blush from Sakura in any other situation, but then and there, she was so focused on their contest of wills that the kunoichi joined Tobirama and stared down the two men together. 

“That illusionist, she—” Byakuren gasped between ragged lungfuls of air, “has Heiman!” At that, Sakura snapped her gaze towards the village, noticing that all the mist had evaporated, which seemed a sure sign of victory. He blanched from his wound, and though the Sanmai had a high healing factor, she wondered how much Byakuren could take. His transformation seemed to fade away, and Gengetsu was the only one who mainly seemed unscathed. 

“We’re done here. Come, we have to withdraw,” Gengetsu informed them as he wove the hand seals for a summoning, the giant mollusk she’d only heard about through history and the war rising from the depths and amid the carnage of the Sanmai’s felled summonings, alighting to its shell while Byakuren hobbled aboard. It skied over the waves, water churning in its wake as they were the only ones left. 

“Huh, so I guess we—”

Whatever Sakura had to say was muffled by Tobirama angling his head and capturing the kunoichi’s lips in a sweet kiss; her eyes remained open, utterly shocked by the time he pulled away. 

“…Won,” she finished once the shock wore off, a blush involuntarily coating her cheeks. “Um, we should probably get back with Tōka.”

What is he doing? she thought as her heart climbed into her throat. Turning to return to the sandy beach, a sweltering heat overtook her body. We had a one-night stand, and I talked him out of the whole marriage plot. So why is he…

Shame and guilt mingled sickly, especially since such a significant obstacle had been surmounted. All that remained was to return to Sennan and process the hostages they had. Then, once that was done, it was trying to get on board with Hashirama’s hedonistic escapade and seducing him along the way so she and Tōka could escape. She’d use Hashirama as much as she knew she was technically using the younger brother, despite malicious intent not being behind her actions. 

The wind that breezed past helped cool her heated skin, the exertion from the battle slamming into her despite knowing her work was far from done. Finding her way into the heart of the village, Sakura found some people to coordinate a rescue effort so she could begin healing the afflicted townspeople. 

Chapter Text

Warning(s): T, some suggestiveness

Whether it was a concern or a boon, Sakura didn’t see Tobirama once during her time spent commandeering the village clinic and healing everyone who needed serious attention. Through their thanks and other forms of gratitude, she felt slightly better despite how many people pegged her for a Senju given her clothing, however soiled. 

Dismissing the last patient, Sakura sagged against the door of the examination room she’d been lent, hands trembling from exhaustion and too sore to stand. A quiet rapping on the doorframe startled her from her weariness, scrambling to protesting feet to find Tōka in a similarly bedraggled state. 

“You look like shit,” she quipped with a smirk as she slid the door shut with a sound clack. Sinking to the ground against the rudimentary examination table, Sakura sank back down with her. “Tobs poofed back to Sennan with Heiman. Said he’d take care of the interrogation, all that. Guess we’re off the hook—informally. I’m still your babysitter and shit.”

“Oh, he’s…?” Sakura felt the tension she didn’t know she’d been holding finally released after hours. “Thank gods.”

Tōka canted her head curiously, but a question didn’t linger in her gold eyes so much as an answer. “You think he might be getting in too deep?”

Sakura groaned in exasperation and raked her hands through her shaggy, sweat-mottled hair. “I mean, you saw some of it, right? Tōka, at the end when Gengetsu and Byakuren left, he kissed me. I just— I don’t get him. I thought we had this all sorted.”

Tōka’s lip curled mirthlessly. “Ya can’t just stick feelings in boxes and expect ‘em to stay there, Haruno.”

“I know, it’s just— Considering what I have to do once we get back…” Sakura lowered her chin to her kneecaps, legs hugged into her chest. “I’d hoped maybe I could do this with fewer complications.”

“You making your big escape, accomplice or not, would’ve been complicated no matter how you would’ve gone about it, Sakura. This way is just… messier and has a bit of a more personal fallout,” Tōka replied with a shrug, grimacing slightly. “Sheesh, am I glad I’ll be leaving with you. Tobi and Mito are gonna be a mess; my cousin aside, I could tell Mito was really starting to like you. Hell, maybe in a sister-in-law sorta way—”

Sakura waved her hands erratically as if dispelling a swarm of flies. “Agh, don’t remind me! We need to talk about strategy, like really think about this!”

Tōka looked thoughtful for a moment before she brightened sarcastically. “Sex positions? Shibari? I bet there’s a bookstore that sells the Kama Sutra around here somewhere—” At Sakura’s deep flush and mortified expression, she burst into hearty laughter. “Kidding, kidding! You’re too much fun to work up, I swear.”

Sakura covered her face with her hands, groaning. “No, not like that!” Recouping with a huff, she continued, “I was thinking of approaching this as honestly as possible. I mean, if I put him on the spot and demanded to know why he got an erection and then winked at me, that could get heated pretty quickly, right?”

“It could,” Tōka conceded thoughtfully. “It’d be harder to spot the lie, too. Maybe play it up with some crocodile tears about how hard it’s been for you, which ain’t untrue. Civilian warrior girl tossed in a den of lions as their hostage, with no one to trust? That could really tug at his heartstrings. Throw in some suggestions to gamble regularly in the study, and he’ll bend ya over something in no time.”

“We— Er, I need to make sure rumors will start to fly, too. Not anything too damning, but enough to make them suspicious. Sow the seeds of discord, kinda.”

“Can’t be hard when a certain unrequited bachelor is the world’s best sensor,” Tōka chimed in, canting her head, “who also happens to have a bit of a strained relationship with his big brother. Why not the girl he thought could bring a little light into his life?”

“Ugh, it sounds so evil when you say it like that,” Sakura sighed regretfully. “…Does Hashirama tend to fall for people?”

Tōka grinned approvingly, eyes shining at the potential for future drama. “Downtrodden pretty faces who appeal to his manly, protective side? I don’t see why not. He’s already attracted to you on some level, so may as well up the ante.”

Sakura smiled uncertainly. “Whoo, whoo,” came her dispirited rejoinder that Tōka scratched her nape at the sight of. 

“I hate t’say it, kid, but you’ve really got to own what’s bad about this. Have your doubts now, but you won’t be able to do a lick of good like you mean to if you’re stuck here, grounded by your own attachments. Between now and when we return to Sennan, ya have to be committed.”

As much as Sakura hated to admit it, Tōka was absolutely right. However much it would hurt Mito and Tobirama and cause discord between them and Hashirama, letting it hold her back would mean she couldn’t do half the good the Nadeshiko was capable of. Of the direction they could take themselves once they really entered the shinobi world as a threat to be taken seriously. The Senju would become some of their first real enemies, and maybe this would be the push they needed. 

“I’m not backing out. Still…” Sakura picked at a tattered and bloodstained segment of clothing, wrinkling her nose. “Can we get away with staying here for another night? I mean, we did save the town, even if it was my fault in the first place.”

“As long as it’s on the Senju’s coin, like hell I’d say no to that,” Tōka replied with a roguish grin, rising to stand and offering her hand to Sakura, hauling the younger kunoichi to her feet. 

They had a hot date with another onsen and a night to sleep away, after all. 

Then, all hell would break loose. 

Taking the evening to cleanse and unwind, followed by a whole night of sleep, had done wonders to refresh Sakura for the day ahead, but therein lay the problem: the day of their leaving had come and, with it, the inevitable and headlong rush into oblivion. With several hours between them and their arrival in Sennan, Tōka was at least charitable enough to give her a quiet enough window to think. 

Truthfully, Sakura had no idea in hell how this entire ordeal was supposed to pan out, or how she was supposed to actively begin seducing the Senju clan head when his younger brother would catch wind of it soon enough. And when he did, and inevitably told Mito as her technical lady-in-waiting (or whatever farce she was to the Uzumaki), it would begin a domino effect that would have to result in Sakura likely having to assert herself as Hashirama’s plaything. 

She almost wished she could have Ino’s natural charisma and charm when it came to the art of… hooking up? Seduction? Ugh, just thinking about it made her stomach churn. As far as Sakura was concerned, she was about as intentionally seductive as a moldy piece of bread. 

Tōka had been right about needing to buckle down and commit to their little scheme, but it didn’t make her feel any less guilty. It was for that reason Sakura was glad they weren’t in a rush to return to Sennan, because at least she could mull over her thoughts before the first stage would begin. 

The starry tapestry that crowned the forested hill Sennan straddled atop sprawled over the horizon, well into the night by the time they finally arrived. One of the outposts situated on the capital’s outskirts stopped them and ensured their identities before allowing continued passage, but aside from that, there were few other impediments barring their return. Tōka had even been thoughtful enough to show her the most discreet routes back to the main estate, assuring her they would allow her to slip in without raising any alarms… or make her too easy to find by certain younger brothers. 

Because that was the last thing she needed. 

Her sandals rustled the grassy turf as a guardsman ushered her towards the same engawa he’d affirmed the study was located; more than that, her request to speak to the Senju leader was honored, and while her weapon and sundries had long since been confiscated, she made it to the study without much trouble. 

Closing the sliding glass doors soundly, she knocked on one of the latticed frames of the shōji screen doors, wordlessly asking for admittance, as she was sure he’d already been informed about it. 

“Come in.”

At the sound of Hashirama’s gently spoken invitation, Sakura sucked in a shaky breath before entering. It was virtually unchanged from the last time she’d been there, still swathed in a dusky gloam with the scent of worn parchment pervading the shelves and the grainy but dulcet tunes from the phonograph suffusing dreamily. 

What was different was that Hashirama looked less conservative than the last time she’d seen him, reclining against a table with a casual yukata unbound to his navel that left nothing of his herculean musculature to the imagination. Blushing slightly, she prayed the golden dim would be enough to disguise it. 

The Senju greeted her warmly after she shut the doorway behind her, but what might’ve disarmed anyone else only made her hackles rise. He sipped quietly from a tokkuri of saké, forgoing an ochoko altogether. Hell, she could smell the odor of alcohol on his breath and prayed it boded well. 

“Anything I can do for you, Sakura-san? Would you like a drink?”

Sakura politely refused with a gesture, sinking tensely into a cushion perpendicular to him. “Um, Senju-sama—I wanted to ask if you could recant the marriage proposal your uncle imposed on me to marry your brother!” Sakura blurted, shocked it had been the first thing to spring to her tongue, but glad that such a foot-in-mouth moment yielded well enough. 

Hashirama blinked in surprise, straightening. “Marriage…” he echoed distantly before his visage became serious. “I never was informed of this. And I never took my brother for the type to ask someone so unexpectedly.”

“Well, apparently, it was his idea, but I’m not interested or even qualified! I mean, you care a lot for your brother, right? And you, in your right mind, wouldn’t let him get hitched to a problematic, clanless nobody! I mean, if I were you, I definitely wouldn’t!” Sakura prattled nervously, unable to hide the way her cheeks flushed and a feverish heat sweltered her skin uncomfortably. 

“You’re right, normally I wouldn’t,” Hashirama confirmed, and Sakura felt her spirits lift a little. “However, it has been brought to my attention that you’re not exactly a nobody. Far from it, even. I can understand why my brother thought this would’ve been a practical solution, at least.”

“For who? I’ve been going behind your back and teaching medical ninjutsu to the civilian nurses! That’s not very practical if you ask me.” Of course, it was then that Sakura belatedly realized she’d essentially tattled on herself. 

“With medical ninjutsu we have no records of losing. Sennan protects its secrets and students very closely, yet you’re at a much higher level than you should reasonably be. And that’s not even touching your proficiency with nintaijutsu or your other abilities,” Hashirama informed her with a bit of a smile, but it didn’t feel chummy through her eyes. “Not many people can hold their own against my childhood friend except me. And from what I’ve heard from Yuga about how you saved their town, well— I’d say you’re looking more like a quality candidate for his hand day by day. A Senju in all but lineage, wouldn’t you agree?”

If he said what he did to derail Sakura completely, she stared at him in bewilderment, feeling like her offense had been swept from under her and carelessly brushed aside. 

With an irate huff, Sakura leaned in to demand his attention. “Look, I talked about this with him, okay? Your wife cares for the Senju, right? For their welfare, for Sennan, all of it. Me? I’ve been working against it, and I won’t stop. Not in marriage, not if you kept me here forever, none of it! I’m a Nadeshiko through and through,” Sakura harrumphed with more bravado than she felt, folding her arms resolutely as a bitter retort sprang to her tongue. 

“Besides, it’d be pretty awkward at dinner considering how salacious you’ve been towards me lately.”

Whatever sense of superiority Hashirama might’ve wielded was completely dethroned by Sakura’s snipe, lifting his eyes to glare darkly at her. Though her skin crawled, she kept digging in. 

“Excuse me?”

Despite the tremble in her frame, she met his stare with a glower. “Sorry, did I miss the memo that you bind people in erotic shibari on the daily, or what? Or that time you winked at me in the hospital?” 

Hashirama sighed, dragging a hand through his unbound hair, gaze drifting away from Sakura’s scowl. 

“Those were mistakes. But, if I must be honest… my shibari tends to look much different,” Hashirama informed her with a faint lilt, smirking her way. 

This was it. If she were to play to win, she had to take the bait. To indulge that curiosity, but she couldn’t be too obvious about the specifics. To make it seem like she was realistically interested and not contradict the walls she’d raised thus far. 

“You’re married,” Sakura quarreled, folding her arms tighter. 

“We both have our lovers,” Hashirama returned nonchalantly, shrugging lackadaisically. 

In an unexpected move, Sakura surged forth and captured his lips in hers, met with a noise of surprise before it mellowed into a low, pleasurable hum. The Senju tugged her close by the wrist while she responded with her leg swung over his lap to straddle it, Hashirama grinning into the kiss. He returned it enthusiastically, a boyishness in his hand as he groped her ass and elicited a hot gasp. 

Hashirama diverted to trail feverish kisses along her pulse, but instead of letting him reach her collar, she snagged a handful of his hair by the roots and wrenched him away. He uttered strained but pleased laughter, grinning bawdily. 

“L-Later,” Sakura stammered out breathily, panting softly to regain her breath while dismounting the brunet. Evidence of the impasse existed in rumples where she’d fisted his yukata, exhaling shakily through her nose. “I should head back, or else there will be talk, Senju-sama. I’ll see you later.”

A visibly smug Hashirama leaned back with kingly satisfaction, eyes raking shamelessly over the kunoichi’s curvaceousness, and he chuckled softly.

“Tomorrow. Sleep well, hm?”

With her back to him, her lips thinned into a conflicted line; she’d consider it a blessing if she could sleep at all. 

When he had thought it a prudent idea to inform his brother of the state of the interrogation already a day and a half strong that he’d been supervising, the drain on his energy and ability to knead chakra to maintain his Sensory Ability seemed frivolous when all it was would be an update and nothing more. His brother was here, so perhaps he could let down his defenses as a sensor. 

What he hadn’t expected was a shock great enough to jolt him from the weary languor that had brought him to the main estate’s study. Barely motioning to knock on the frame of one of the shōji doors cracked open, a flash of pink drew his eyes, and his heart fell into a harsh, heavy patter. 

He could hear their conversation, but wished he couldn’t. He could see as Sakura kissed his brother passionately and mounted his lap, but wished he were too blind to see. He could hear those short and hot breaths that still haunted his dreams, but he wished he could block them out. 

On his flight away from the study, he almost collided with Mito, who had returned from the nightly stroll she often liked to take before bed. 

“Tobi-kun? Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Darting his eyes to the side, he released a shaken, irate sigh as the cold stab of betrayal began to fester sickly in his breast. “Not here,” came his clipped request, and Mito acceded with a concerned frown before shepherding him towards one of the secluded tsubo-niwa. 

If it weren’t for their proximity to his brother, he wished he could have roared his frustration and vented his anger to the heavens then and there. 

“Mito, were you aware of my brother’s tendency of taking—”

“—Lovers?” the Uzumaki finished for him unsurprisingly, eyebrows raised. “Yes, because I do, too. It’s something we agreed on quite some time ago.”

Tobirama’s mouth fell ajar in shock, expression scandalized, while Mito regarded him wistfully. “Why? You’re husband and wife, and our reputation… Surely they must mean something to you both!”

Mito sighed, gazing at her younger brother-in-law imploringly. “Tobi-kun, it’s been more than a decade. The fact that you, of all people, are just finding out now seems to indicate to me how well it’s worked out. How well it’s continued and will for as long as we agree to it.”

Tobirama’s jaw clenched as his mouth shut, pinching the bridge of his nose irritably. “Then perhaps the identity of tonight’s illicit affair will concern you more.” With Mito’s bated breath, he hissed out, “He was with Sakura.”

“Sakura?” she repeated desolately, matched gaze breaking away as she found a support upon which to lean, covering her mouth as if concerned for the words that could spill out. 

Tobirama sighed, able to likely predict what Mito was feeling, or something close to it. Though Sakura had been a thorn in their side since the failed campaign in the south, he didn’t see a malicious saboteur when she’d come to Sennan. Save for the occasional hiccups, her going behind their backs to teach their civilian aides ninjutsu seemed like the farthest thing from it; her first instinct was to help the downtrodden instead of battering the weak. What’s more, the subject matter seemed to be techniques she’d already known, not stolen. 

By her esteemed ability and altruistic instincts, she seemed more wayward than malevolent. Someone in whom Tobirama saw a spark of hope that had just been validated in Yuga no Sato as their melee with the Kiri wretches was proven, let alone how she stayed behind to heal the villagers single-handedly. Someone who, with the proper guidance, fit uncannily well into the Senju (as her first choice to fight Madara had shown). 

When Sakura was left to her own devices, her first choice was to help people indiscriminately. That compounded with everything else had given Tobirama the hope that maybe—just maybe—she could be the person for him that Mito was for Hashirama. Two pillars that stood firm, but leaned against each other. 

From her fastidious desire to thwart any idea of betrothal with him, and tonight’s dalliance with his brother, everything had been thrown entirely out of alignment. 

For the two of them, the betrayal was deeply personal. 

“Why? I thought— I thought she was…” Mito’s words failed her, and she sank to the engawa, Tobirama doing so a moment later as he noticed the hot sting of tears in the Uzumaki’s eyes. “I thought she was different.”

Tobirama circled an arm around Mito’s shoulders, bringing her to his side, and she leaned in close to her brother-in-law. “I know. I thought the Nadeshiko had misguided her, that she could be set upon a correct path. It seems I thought wrong,” the Senju replied grimly, brow furrowed as it seemed his misery indeed had company. 

“I thought similarly. She’s not a villain, and I know Hashi would never… Sakura had to have started it,” Mito speculated with a thick swallow, glancing at Tobirama. His lips pursed grimly. “I’m sorry, Tobi-kun. I know you had hopes for her. With her.”

“Something will have to be done,” Tobirama resolved firmly, matching eyes with Mito incisively. 

“Tobi-kun, what can we do? It’s not exactly unheard of for noblemen to have liaisons with their servants. No crime is being committed; not yet, at least. There’s nothing we can do about this.”

As much as he wished it weren’t so, the Uzumaki was right. Unless some grievous crime were being committed, both parties would go unpunished. As much as he wished he could do something, both of their hands were tied. 

Time would tell, but Tobirama knew that the admitted heartbreak would hurt far more in the morning once the shock wore off.

Gods, what would happen after this? And more importantly, why had things changed? By Mito’s own conflicted look, he doubted his sister-in-law knew any more than he did. 

Both of them stood after each other, but Mito gently snared his wrist and smiled wanly, a feeble attempt at reassurance. “Have faith, Tobi-kun. We’ll find our way out, somehow.”

The uncertain look in his eyes suggested he hoped she was right more than anything.

Chapter Text

Warning(s): E, explicit sexual content, some dub-con, body horror

“Hashirama-dōno, I’m—” 

The seconds between the sliding door clicking shut and Sakura being snatched by a certain brunet were infinitesimal as hunger and heat colored his actions, smothered in a deep, passionate kiss. Lithe arms coiled inexorably around the Senju’s neck, the clack of the wooden doorframe signaling their near-total privacy. His large hand caressed the sweeping contours of her back, fondling her pert rear, which elicited a small moan into his waiting, smirking mouth. 

Roughly two weeks had passed since her ordeal in Yuga no Sato, and many things had changed the moment she’d returned. Sakura had been released from Mito’s service under the pretense of trust from the main family, despite no such thing being true. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Tobirama or the clan matriarch, only snippets of gossip as she tried to piece together how they’d reacted to the newly arranged affair, but nothing. 

What she had been doing was cozying up to Hashirama, who was none the wiser. Days had been spent in the hospital volunteering between rotations and tutoring students. Still, her contraband classes had more or less been frozen while this last leg of her conspiracy against her captors was in full swing. As much as she regretted not being able to teach them more, they understood. Something was on the horizon, but it wouldn’t come from midnight classes, burning away a few hours of the night. 

Sakura and Tōka had narrowed the window of their meetings to a few times a week in the sentō late at night when most of the staff was asleep and only Shima was among the lonely souls that bothered to occupy the still-steaming baths. They went over all their contingencies, outliers, the details in the margins—all of it. It overwhelmed her, with the risk that would accompany it, not feeling this edgy since her teen years when she’d tried a hare-brained assault on Sasuke in a misguided attempt to ease Naruto’s suffering. Foolish and short-sighted in retrospect, but the patter of nerves even in the throes of passion compelled her to act sooner rather than later.

“You’re what?” Hashirama breathed a boyish chuckle as he loomed over Sakura on all fours, chestnut locks cascading over his shoulders as his deep browns glinted with mirth and desire. With his yukata devilishly disheveled, she could feel his radiant body heat and the powerful aura of his vitality when he descended on her, but quelling hands on his chest had the Senju retract his advances in surprise.

“I’m…” Sakura trailed off nervously. Tonight was the night. Between now and the next few days, she had to be decisive. “I want to do something different.”

Puzzled but still interested, Hashirama pushed off of Sakura and sat on his haunches. “What did you have in mind?” he prompted with a quirk of his lips. 

Sakura gathered herself on her feet, mirroring how the Senju sat, gaze flickering sidelong. “Well… you know I used to roll with a rougher crowd, right? Don’t get me wrong, our thing has been fun, but there isn’t a whole lot to do around here. Everything is so strict, you know? You know I wouldn’t do anything reckless in Sennan, but I heard some gossip about that city called Renpu, the old capital. It’s supposed to be a lot of fun. What if we went there for the night?” Sakura suggested coyly, shyly tucking a few strands of hair behind her ears. Her hair had been growing out a little, but to her, it felt like a disarming gesture of conformity among the Senju.

She’d cut it once she was back among the Nadeshiko, for sure. For now, she needed to wield every weapon in her arsenal to get Hashirama to take the bait. 

“Really? You want to go there?” Hashirama questioned with a lilt, eyebrows bouncing. “You never struck me as the type.” 

Sakura folded her arms with a huff, leveling him with a toothless glare. “Of course I didn’t. Don’t forget, I’m still your hostage. How are you supposed to know me as anything except the docile little prisoner keeping her head down? I’m not exactly here on friendly terms.”

Hashirama nodded and stroked his chin thoughtfully, leaning back to sprawl casually like someone had shoved him back. “Help me understand, Haruno-san. First, you make it very clear that you have very little willingness to keep your head down. You tutored the civilian aides behind my back, jilted my younger brother, and made it very clear that you have no intention of stopping—your words, not mine. And now, you’re playing at being a seductress while wanting to leave Sennan’s borders. Do I have all that?”

Sakura shot him a scowl, but she shouldn’t have been surprised. For all the airs of the extroverted, goofy fool he sometimes displayed, Hashirama was infuriatingly intelligent and awesomely strategic. How else would he have been able to stand on equal ground with Madara all his life? 

“Okay, so you knew all this, but why play along? You could’ve shut this down the second I made a pass at you. Never mind how you’re hurting your wife by doing this. The rumors aren’t exactly well-kept secrets by this point.”

The Senju smiled mirthlessly, gazing at Sakura with flippant airs that concealed the silk hiding steel. “We’re shinobi, don’t forget. You may have been using me, but did it never occur to you that I was using you, too? My wife is a kunoichi, even if she doesn’t seem like it. Our bodies are weapons on more than just the battlefield, and I’m sure you understand this, too. It’s why I don’t particularly begrudge you for leading my younger brother on, because I know you never had any intention of being loyal. It’s why I could sleep with you despite his feelings. He understands this, too.”

Leaning back, he considered her with solemn airs befitting an interrogator instead of the salacious tryst they’d almost begun minutes ago. “So then, why don’t you tell me what your intentions really are instead of this tomfoolery, hm?” His smile appeared warm and inviting, but it was deceptive. 

Sakura’s glower lost some of its edge, but little did he know, Tōka and she had planned for this. That he didn’t suspect Tōka at all was a miracle. She unfolded her arms, resting them on her lap. 

“The whole point of us interrupting your battle in the East a few months ago was because, after our botched plan to abduct Izuna Uchiha failed, and I was imprisoned in Uchinada; the lives of the other Nadeshiko were at risk. So, I made a deal with him: in exchange for my freedom and their lives after what we’d attempted, I’d let myself become a prisoner of you Senju, and gather reconnaissance. This week was supposed to be the time when I’d meet with a Uchiha agent in Renpu and participate in this exchange. It’s the only reason why I was able to escape when Izuna was there, let alone why my comrade was able to find me before we faced off against you and Madara.”

Hashirama nodded along through her story, carefully watching her for any signs of fabrication that could be conveyed through her body language. If one thing remained true about Sakura, it was the fact that she was a terrible liar. Of course, this meant lying in the sense that she told a tall tale that was complete hogwash. Piecing together coincidentally believable circumstances and stitching them with sincerity was something the kunoichi excelled at, though. It was why she’d been able to catch Sai off-guard with a punch when they’d first met, the ANBU none the wiser.  

Though her hands trembled from the adrenaline pumping through her body, that could easily be the blame for revealing to the Senju the ‘truth’ behind her willingness to remain in Sennan when juxtaposed with her unwavering loyalty to the Nadeshiko. By the quiet comprehension from the brunette, he likely got that impression, too.

“Thank you for your sincerity, Sakura-san,” Hashirama thanked with a genuine upturn of his eyes. “You’re a very loyal, genuine person. If it weren’t for your questionable allegiances, this might be grounds for your release. I’d say this is a good opportunity to play along since this involves the Uchiha, and we didn’t exactly gain any losses or rewards from our last conflict. Since it seems they gained a bit of a foothold over us, I’d say it’s time to return the favor. The pieces are already set, so why don’t we play along? I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Let me guess: my freedom isn’t in the stars?” Sakura scoffed laconically. 

“No… but if this pans out, we’ll let you have a position suitable to your talents. Why don’t you teach the Chinoike to become good shinobi? They’re a downtrodden people who deserve recognition in the shinobi world, especially after what Tajima consigned them to decades ago. After all, the Nadeshiko is the reason they’re our allies now, so in a way, you’d be continuing their work.”

He wasn’t wrong about that, but Sakura had no intention of following through. The man canted his head at the way Sakura had been wringing the hem of her sleeves, and she sighed when an explanation was expected. 

“Sorry, it’s just… I’ve been really on edge since then. I keep feeling like a pair of Sharingan will pop out of the shadows if I mess up. But, now that we have this new gambit, I just… I’m not sure what to think. Other than the fact that no one but the Uchiha brothers would be brazen enough to square off with you.”

“And you,” Hashirama returned with a slight chuckle. “It’s relieving to have a burden like that lifted from your shoulders. You do this, and you’ll mostly be in the clear.”

“What about Tobirama and Mito?”

Hashirama raised his pointer finger at her. “Since we have chartered a clearer course, you’re going to refer to my brother and wife with suitable honorifics going forward. Secondly,” he continued after lowering it, “that all depends on you. We weren’t aware of your situation before, and how you were coerced into it, but you still disrespected them and wronged them. You have a lot to make up for, Sakura. I hope after this mission you’ll have time to reflect and atone for your mistakes.” 

Sakura dropped her gaze to her lap, reflecting on the fact that, if she hadn’t lied, she’d be consigned to becoming the Senju’s lapdog for the rest of her life. Never mind that she’d been knocked down several rungs and had infuriated very important people within the clan because of her machinations; the personal toll stood out among them. It was why she prayed her plan with Tōka would work because she wasn’t sure what she’d do if that future panned out for her, or if Hashirama discovered it was all a lie. 

Really, the last resort she could think of was making a run for it and duking her way out of Sennan. What other choice did she have? Her usefulness as a kunoichi and med-nin only compensated so much against the host of troubles she’d imposed on them. 

And this wasn’t even considering how she needed a clean break for when she was ready to return home to the future. She had a means, but if she were trapped in Sennan, she’d be doomed. No way did she want to remain in the past forever! 

“…I should probably get ready,” Sakura murmured resignedly, averting her gaze from the Senju. 

“You should. I’ll get everything in motion, so you just worry about getting dolled up,” Hashirama simpered gladly. “Shall we?”

Pursing her lips, Sakura sped from the study, wanting nothing less than to put as much distance as possible between her and the clan head. 

By the time she had finished changing and had found herself on Hashirama’s arm, the carriage they took from Sennan felt so absurdly ostentatious that it was borderline uncomfortable to ride within. Sakura tugged the hem of her form-fitting qípáo dress, the silk barely skimming past her crotch and likely riding up in the back. It was an uncomfortable nightmare, but given the look she was going for, it had to do the trick. 

With her locks barely long enough to pin up with kanzashi, the side bangs that framed her face were the only barrier she had from the Senju. 

“It’s going to be at least a few hours before we get to Renpu… and you’re looking like that.”

Sakura blinked in confusion when she realized that Hashirama was practically burning holes in her figure with her legs exposed as much as they were, the knife-like stilettos only accentuating them. Which was the point, for though she’d been ratted out halfway, Tōka had been utterly right about committing to their false narrative no matter what. 

“Yeah? What about it?” Sakura retorted with a roll of her shoulder. Given the anxiety coiling tightly in her gut, though, his lead was one she wasn’t totally against following. 

“One last hurrah before we set ourselves straight; what do you think?” he egged with a crooked smile, a blush heating over her skin. 

If there was one outlet available, well… Sakura forsook speaking further as she instead flung herself to Hashirama’s lap, straddling his muscular thighs while crashing their lips together, the man eagerly rounding her ass as he encouraged her into grinding against his already burgeoning arousal. 

Hashirama was truly different from his brother, which made Sakura feel rotten for thinking that. He was bigger, more muscular, and the cock straining against his fundoshi was girthier. Before then, the furthest they’d gotten was heavy petting. Now, though, she didn’t care about foreplay or dragging it out longer than necessary. 

Sliding her thong aside, she hurriedly swatted his hand aside and freed his cock. Though he wasn’t fully erect yet, she began grinding it between her labia to stoke his excitement and exacerbate his arousal. Hashirama groaned softly from the sensation, huffing a breathless laugh at how fierce Sakura looked throughout, nothing like the shy and guarded young woman she’d been before her true colors had been revealed. 

“Don’t you want to,” he gasped out with a grunt, “slow down a little?”

“No,” Sakura snapped at him, grinding on him pointedly. “Either get serious about this, or we can make the rest of this trip really awkward.” 

Hashirama hummed before he flipped their positions and pinned Sakura to the seat, her soaked womanhood and legs spread indecently, the cool air causing her to shiver. Hastily did he unbutton the frog clasps closing her qípáo and wrenched it apart to reveal Sakura’s flushed bosom that bounced with the buoyancy of the carriage. 

“Better,” the Senju said as he captured Sakura’s lips in a sloppy kiss and hooked her knees over his elbows to keep her spread enough to plow her roughly, training his cock while she grabbed it so he wouldn’t miss her waiting, dripping sex. 

The carriage creaked and rocked as he thrust into her with such force that it made the kunoichi dizzy. It was fortunate she had the means of creating spermicides and other contraceptives, as the filthiness behind this particular encounter made her shiver in revulsion at the idea of accidentally becoming pregnant. Hashirama broke the kiss as he fucked her roughly, partly kneeling or genuflecting just to angle himself comfortably enough in the cramped confines of the carriage. She did not doubt that the cab driver was utterly mortified at what he could deduce was occurring within, but she didn’t care. 

This was the web Sakura had spun, so she just had to brace herself for whoever got caught up in it. 

The way Hashirama held her was completely loveless, and if she was honest, she preferred it that way. Sakura wasn’t egotistical enough to think that she’d be likable by many people, let alone be capable of loving or being loved… but this felt like a precaution—a final insult with one less person she’d have to worry about breaking the heart of. 

Frankly, Sakura couldn’t put into words just how uncomfortable she was with people like Tobirama or Mito developing a fondness for her. It wasn’t that she was ruthless and preferred being that way, but because she didn’t like being the cause of other people’s pain. Sure, some were inevitable, but it was one thing for it to be clumsy and thoughtless. Actually being aware of the repercussions, having them stare her in the face, was excruciating. 

Because she was the preventable cause. Because she was fully capable of stopping, but didn’t. Couldn’t, wouldn’t… whatever.

“Harder!” Sakura cried out as her melancholy thoughts were interrupted by the rattling thrusts of the Senju, her thighs burning from exertion as she could feel herself slipping from the narrow seat that certainly wasn’t built for comfort. Wealthy as the Senju clan was, it made sense that a needless vehicle was spartan to its core when they spared the Ryō for their martial needs. 

The younger woman gripped the edge of the seat so hard that her knuckles blanched and the wood cracked under the force of her strength, gritting her teeth until her jaw creaked. Frankly, this was by no means pleasurable, but sex was sex. If it helped her forget, so be it. So long as it was consensual, the body would react of its own accord, with or without her active participation. 

Sakura’s vision whited out as inner walls spasmed around the Senju’s cock from the force of her orgasm, rising to a feverish pitch until the drop was sharp and abrupt, uncoiling like a dandelion seed spiraling lazily to the ground. It wasn’t a rough and turbulent descent, but Sakura almost instantly became boneless and thoughtless, her trunk sagging while Hashirama released her and let her legs collapse to the floor of the carriage without ceremony.

Though he moved to help her clean up, she held out her hand as a gesture for him to stop. 

“Don’t you want me to…?” he trailed off awkwardly, rubbing the nape of his neck, pupils still dilated with desire. 

“No,” Sakura ground out, pressing a hand to her abdomen as she utilized her healing chakra as a counterfeit spermicide. “I just want to get this over with, and I want things to stop being so damn awkward. Just—be faithful to your wife, will you? I’m tired of being a homewrecker.”

“Sakura… you do realize that she and I both take lovers, don’t you?”

Sakura’s shocked expression bloomed frankly on her visage, gaping at him incredulously. “Wait, are you being serious?!” she demanded; the jutsu utilized as a spermicide was briefly interrupted before it resumed again. She scoffed in disgust. “Thanks for mentioning that at the last minute.”

Hashirama only chuffed in amusement. “You’re welcome,” he replied merrily, though his nonchalance caused her to bristle. “Not that I’m out to change your mind. Still, it’ll be another hour until we reach Renpu, and I can only imagine how uncomfortable you must feel. Let me take care of the rest.”

“Hang on, what do you—” Before Sakura could say anything more, the Senju dauntlessly knelt on the cramped floor of the carriage and spread her thighs wide, methodically hooking her knees over his broad shoulders before diving in.

Sakura gasped sharply as the hot, wet shape of his tongue probed her labia and went to work cleaning the pearly mess he’d left behind. Her back arched from the intensity of her sensitive womanhood, of how every sensation was dialed to its highest degree. He hungrily lapped at her slickness, laving between folds and stimulating her already overstimulated clitoris. 

Though their encounter had mainly been consensual thus far, as Sakura’s hands fisted his chestnut locks for purchase, she couldn’t help the pit of anxiety in her gut nor the way her stomach flopped nauseatingly with each passing second. From the very beginning, a feeling of wrongness pervaded their tryst. Though Hashirama was undoubtedly an attractive man, it didn’t feel as natural as it had with Tobirama, considering what had bloomed between her and the younger Senju had been accidental but natural from the very start.

As much as Sakura had forced herself into the role of seductress, nothing about this affair had sat right with her. As a kunoichi, she’d forced herself to do things at odds with her moral code since she was a preteen, but this was different. Toying with people’s feelings and inserting herself into one of Konoha’s most storied marriages, while also intruding on the Nidaime Hokage’s life, sickened her. Nothing about it was right, let alone this moment. 

Sakura’s thighs clenched around Hashirama’s head, snuffing out his ability to hear her; with one hand still in his hair, she mussed it in such a way that it became a ratty bouffant that would be difficult to see through. 

Her whole frame shook with a gut-wrenching sob as she brought her trembling free hand to her mouth in a vain attempt to muffle herself, body trembling as she uttered another pathetic whimper as tears flooded from her eyes in trails so scalding that the stinging was practically blinding. Sakura’s eyes squeezed shut from how the open air made them burn, body conflicted with the pleasure that radiated below her navel as Hashirama stimulated his tongue as deeply as it would go. Fueled by her growing sense of hopelessness and frustration, she clenched her thighs and heard a muffled groan from the man oblivious to her misery. Fucking his face as hard as she could, the Senju encouragingly goaded her with a bruising grip around her thighs, riding and bucking her hips as he dragged her nearer. Sakura’s back bent uncomfortably, and her body jostled with the beat of the carriage, but she didn’t care. 

As long as Hashirama remained in the throes of lust, none of it even mattered. 

Sakura felt the metaphorical spring in her solar plexus wound tighter and tighter as her crying subsided into a genuinely pleasured haze, mouth ajar, gasping for air until she coiled as tightly as she could, and it released on a climax more intense than the first. 

Hashirama’s frame vibrated with a deep rumble as he voraciously devoured her essences like a ravenous lion, imbibing deeply as though her vagina was a font of life he drank with abandon from. It wasn’t until he lurched back with an inebriated laugh—Sakura’s thighs too gelatinous to keep him caged there—that she hastily cast the Transformation Technique she’d learned from her master, which she could do without casting a single hand seal. 

“Gods,” he chuckled breathlessly, hakama pants tented from the achingly hard erection in them, raking his disheveled hair back. “I’ll admit, I’m really going to miss this when we get back.”

His words took her out of the afterglow, the man seeing nothing but an average, flushed aftermath, and none of the redness or puffiness in her eyes. Sakura remained stubbornly quiet as she found some napkins in a storage compartment and doubled down on her efforts to clean herself as comfortably as possible. Hashirama seemed ambivalent to her frostiness and extracted his throbbing member with a sigh, lazily concentrating on jerking himself off, the only thing his lust-addled brain could think of doing. 

Feeling as clean and dry as she could be, she slid her threadbare panties back up her hips and pulled her rustled qípáo dress back in place despite how immodest it was to begin with. Though she was still disturbed at how violating it’d felt, the orgasm helped her calm down if nothing else. 

Gazing stoically out the window, Sakura’s heart fluttered anxiously yet hopefully in her breast when a starry tapestry of a cityscape unveiled itself as the carriage rounded a bend terraced into the plunging cliffside. Like stars encrusted in the night, she had half a mind to escape from the carriage and make a break for it, to forgo the conspiracy and locate Tōka as quickly as possible. But, in doing so, she’d jeopardize everything they’d worked so hard to achieve. Tōka wouldn’t be able to reunite with her Uchiha lover, and she could only imagine the severity of punishment if her clan discovered the truth of this scheme. 

As for her? Well, she didn’t doubt that if the Senju didn’t hand her off to the Shimura for branding or worse, they’d simply execute her. Considering how she had every intention of returning home, Sakura couldn’t allow that to happen, no matter the cost. 

Hashirama groaned as he continued to pump himself, her irritation mounting hotter and higher. She satiated herself by imagining Inner Sakura comically kicking him into the stratosphere (as she wasn’t deluded enough to think she’d survive a battle with him) and clenched her jaw, knowing it would be hypocritical beyond belief if she were to get puritanical after leading him into temptation and enabling him. 

Even so, as the high faded and clarity returned, Sakura felt a growing sense of disgust in herself. Nausea, dread, filthiness—a kind of uncleanliness she doubted any amount of bathing would rid her of. She wanted to shrink into herself more than anything, to tear off her skin as she felt feverish and grimy despite how her exterior belied her inner turmoil. 

Stonily, she resolved to ignore the outside world… and Hashirama most of all. Until they finally arrived, at least. 

“And, here we are! Nice place, isn’t it?”

Sakura’s stiletto heels sank into the spongy soil that comprised the street, Hashirama’s large hand engulfing her own as he assisted her from the carriage and into the waiting establishment. A lone, Tōrō paper lantern fronted the establishment, gauzy red light shining on their faces. Glancing left and right, dozens of establishments just like it were visible, with the Kanji denoting shamelessly that they were in a red light district. 

Prostitutes gamboled in the streets with their patrons, the rowdiness coming from several casinos and smaller gambling dens that seemed to go after every other building that was either a sleazy izakaya or brothel. Izakaya, casino, or brothel. A chauvinist’s paradise, Sakura thought with disdain.

“Um… you don’t actually expect me to…” 

The brunet hastily shook his head and winked. “Convincing, isn’t it? I made this place with Mokuton ages ago. I just had some agents spiff it up for tonight’s escapade. You might have to act a little to get your friend off-guard, but I promise it’s a hands-off experience,” Hashirama reassured as Sakura’s wariness bled through obviously. When her shoulders relaxed a little, he grinned at her.

Though the Senju likely figured she neither wanted to commit more debauchery with him nor play a part, it was what he didn’t know that made her nervous. Little did Hashirama know that his ‘agents’ had all been dispatched by Tōka hours ago, with her doing their dirty work. Though the signs were telltale to an experienced shinobi, most wouldn’t notice all the minute signs of the entire joint being disguised by a Henge that would dissipate at the soonest possible moment. 

While Hashirama led her inside, for a split second, Sakura swore she saw a snowy head of hair and the masked man it belonged to, heart climbing into her throat with the realization that it was one of the contingencies Tōka had mentioned: a proxy agent to add weight to Sakura’s fib in case they couldn’t execute their deadly gambit right away.

Sliding the door shut behind them, within the spartan but clean room, Hashirama plopped down on the rich scarlet cushions that ringed the low, darkly lacquered table with spirits aplenty waiting. Knowing that she had to at least play her part they both knew was farcile for entirely different reasons, she fetched him an ochoko and a waiting, warmed bottle of saké there when they’d arrived. The sound of her pouring the rice wine was almost painfully loud, the Senju glancing at her bemusedly. 

“Whoa, easy there!” he exclaimed with a jolly laugh as the liquid began to spill over the sides, Sakura having forgotten herself in her rapture.

“Oh… sorry.” Hashirama smiled indulgently as she sank stiffly beside him, both straightening when soft rapping could be heard just a second later. The Senju’s gaze sharpened hawkishly, and Sakura gulped, not even exchanging looks as she ambled towards the door with her heart climbing into her throat. Stepping into the genkan to replace her heels on her feet, she opened it to greet whoever was there with feigned obliviousness, when it was empty, an explosion unleashed at her back.

Sakura didn’t have time to look back at the virulent inferno that detonated at her back, the night sky brightening like a beacon as the force from the explosion rocketed her forwards and slammed her into the façade of the izakaya cleanly across the street, scrambling to watch as flaming clouds unfurled and were absorbed by the clouds, a column of brackish smoke billowing into the sky. Flames crackled angrily as shouts of surprise came from onlookers who poured into the street with pure shock. Her back seared with pain from the sudden blast that burnt off the back of her dress, skin undoubtedly marred, until she flooded healing chakra through her skin to heal the superficial wounds.

Renpu’s Hikeshi—a group of fire-fighting shinobi—rushed onto the scene and began using Water-style ninjutsu to douse the flames, but cries of horror erupted when a human-shaped silhouette filled the entryway like the gates of hell, a charred cadaver of a person still aflame as he staggered towards Sakura.

The kunoichi pressed her back rigidly against the izakaya’s exterior as terror froze her limbs, eyes wide as people parted the way frightfully as he extended a hand towards her, gossip and shock proliferating among the horrified onlookers who backed away when his trajectory became clear. Sakura’s eyes darted between his charred flesh and the glimpses of bone within his face, healing factor reproducing eyes that locked onto her with what she swore was killing intent. 

“Sakura, come on!”

The staccato of a galloping horse blitzing towards her snapped her from her fugue, and Tōka’s hand extended towards her. The younger kunoichi snagged it manfully and vaulted aboard the horse Tōka rode, coiling her arms tightly around the Senju’s waist as she rode hard and away. 

As they raced through the city streets, the commotion falling away, Sakura chanced a look over her shoulder as the hoofbeats sounded like her sprinting heart. The blaze flickered like a beacon in the receding distance, but Tōka’s shouting jarred her away.

“Don’t you fucking dare look back! We’re never going back to Sennan, do you hear me? We’re free, Sakura; we’re fucking free!”

Sakura wanted to ask what would come after, but speaking felt like she’d shatter some unbreakable spell on her. Though Hashirama would heal like new, their gambit was fatal enough that it would take hours, maybe days; enough time to put leagues of distance between them and the Senju’s territory. 

Burying her face between Tōka’s shoulder blades, Sakura shut her eyes and let the rhythm of the galloping steed lull her mind.

It’s over. It’s finally over—

Chapter Text

Warning(s): M, graphic body horror

“Let me see him, now.”

“Lady Mito, I don’t think—”

The aide’s protestations fell on deaf ears as the Uzumaki assertively pushed her way into the private recovery room on the Senju main estate, the reedy breaths of her husband the loudest noise in the suffocating room. She blanched in horror at the sight of Hashirama, of his glazed skin oozing between patches of charred flesh that revealed red, raw skin beneath that was struggling to rejuvenate; all exposed to the open air. The sheets were stained with putrefaction, and he was utterly unrecognizable, practically struggling to stay alive. 

The Healing Resuscitation Rejuvenation Technique spanned with an alchemical array beneath the futon, no less than six Uzumaki and Senju healers working in tandem to pour their healing chakra with a small wad of intact flesh as the medium, a rotation present as they switched out every few hours with the monumental chore of mending the clan leader’s flesh, making bare increments of progress like candleflame trying to sear the edges of wet parchment. Mito had half a mind to assist, but she wasn’t sure it would succeed since she lacked Yang Release required for healing ninjutsu. 

“It’s been five hours since they started. It could be days until he’s healed,” Tobirama said with a stricken expression as the pair had since retreated into the fringes of the room so the healers wouldn’t be inhibited by their presence. “He normally doesn’t take this long, so—”

“There was a chakra retardant in those explosives, wasn’t there?” Mito observed with a steely look in her eyes, hands trembling with anger. Though the more stoic of the two, Tobirama felt as much emotional turmoil, even if it wasn’t apparent. “He’s walked head-on into Uchiha fire barrages before and healed in seconds. This… They knew what they were doing.”

“Sakura is missing,” Tobirama muttered under his breath, the young woman’s name stinging Mito so viscerally that she flinched upon its utterance. “But, so is Tōka.”

“Tōka is…?” Mito bit the inner flesh of her lip as she pretended to watch the healing in progress. “No one else could’ve known how to exploit her cousin’s weakness so ingeniously. And Sakura…”

“—Wouldn’t have done it in the first place,” Tobirama conceded bitterly, folding his arms ruefully across his broad chest. “They likely conspired this together. From what my agents have surmised, Haruno lied about being a pawn of the Uchiha, and Tōka took care of the rest.”

“She’s connected and always resented being brought back to Sennan. I just never thought she’d go this far,” Mito replied with a shuddery breath, recomposing herself despite how badly she wanted her emotions to run rampant seeing her beloved in such a state. “I know she had her struggles with Ryūshū, but if the rumors are true, we had the wrong agent.”

As much as Tobirama wished he didn’t, he understood Tōka’s extreme measures taken to escape. His cousin had always hated being a kunoichi, but a certain campaign in Uzushio no Sato had sealed her hatred of the profession. Hashirama had been the catalyst towards that end, and he more than anyone understood the fear of the one person who came close to resembling Butsuma, another person she’d grown to resent. He still remembered how, over a decade ago, her bastard half-brother had aided in that great escape to the capital that had caused an immense scandal in their clan. Tobirama begrudged her for what she did to his brother, but, in his heart of hearts… he understood. He wished he didn’t, and he shouldn’t have, but he did.

“Sakura was a means to an end for her. That doesn’t absolve her of her role as an accomplice,” Tobirama said with a weariness to his gaze, a look of hurt few would be able to recognize. “I should’ve taken her promise to keep antagonizing us to heart. For her to—!”

Tobirama hastily interrupted himself when he realized he was getting far too emotional at an inappropriate time. Regardless of Sakura’s involvement, what was undeniable was that she was bait and the lure that entrapped his brother as much as Tōka had designed the whole booby trap in the first place. She was complicit in this as much as his cousin, and both would have to be brought to justice at the soonest opportune moment. 

Granted, it would have to be after Hashirama made a full recovery, he thought with a tightness in his chest.

“Tobirama, I think you should come with me,” Mito requested solemnly, a plea in her dark eyes. “If what was used was a chakra retardant, then we’re wasting valuable time by remaining here. We need to find a solution to this problem.”

As guilty as it made him feel to leave his brother’s side, he knew his sister-in-law was right. The healers were wasting valuable chakra because half of the recovery effort required access to a patient’s life force, which they couldn’t provide due to the complexity of the blockage. An idea struck him within a moment.

“Mito, let us convene with the Chinoike. They might have answers we seek.”

Wordlessly, the pair left the room with heavy hearts, knowing the woman they had once trusted to a fledgling degree was likely beyond saving. 

They couldn’t afford to be merciful anymore.

“You sure you don’t wanna lay over here until you find your girls?”

Sakura smiled gratefully as she and Tōka withdrew from their tight embrace, squeezed tight into a bear hug that she couldn’t have been more thankful for. Clad in another sleeveless yukata tunic, ¾ pants, and reedy thongs, she felt ready to face the next leg of her journey. 

She and Tōka had abandoned their horse outside of Renpu’s borders, changed into nondescript clothes, and sojourned for two whole days without sleep via the treetops to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the inevitable retaliation the Senju would someday fling their way.

Tōka had assured the younger kunoichi that Lord Aoi Madoka, the current reigning Daimyo, understood the woman’s situation explicitly and why she’d resorted to such drastic measures to return to her lord’s side. Once she’d begun flashing her Twelve Guardian Ninja waistband, people in Saikyō’s outer limits began treating them with utter deference and respect. The way Tōka explained it was that the Senju had unlawfully absconded her away from her service and that using such means to extricate herself would be fully pardoned. Any consequences on her clan’s part would be dealt with ruthlessly. 

Sakura couldn’t imagine having such a powerful ally, especially one that could waive their crimes that still ate at her guiltily, but she was relieved. At no point did Sakura want anyone caught in the undertow of any of her plans, and if it meant Tōka got away with it scot-free, then she could rest a little easier at night. 

“I think I can appreciate the thought, but… I don’t want to put it off any longer. Even if I’m closer to more enemy territory than before.” Sakura pulled the straw kasa she’d been holding on her head. Although she knew it would be better to conceal her recognizable hair, she needed at least one indication to spread afar so the other Nadeshiko could find her. 

Both women stopped atop a grassy outcropping within the vast forests that encompassed the Land of Fire’s capital, the shimmering line of the Naka River scintillating like diamonds as it meandered along the horizon that ultimately was the kunoichi’s heading. A cool breeze rustled through the canopy, a sense of foreboding thrilling the length of her spine. 

Though she had a chakra-suppressing seal tucked away in her tunic to prevent any Sensors from detecting her (like a certain white-haired Senju she was hellbent on avoiding), she couldn’t help but feel like she was truly waltzing into the lion’s den. The lands west of the Naka were Uchiha territory, and if she was honest, given the spectacular quantity of enemies she’d been making those past few months, she knew she couldn’t trust any shinobi. 

In the time before Konoha’s formation, the Senju and Uchiha controlled two spheres of influence in the Shinobi World, west and east of the Naka. Most other clans—that would comprise the village’s make-up in the future—were loyal bannermen to either, which made it incredibly dangerous because there were dozens on each side, and she didn’t know which were loyalists and which were on their own. In Sennan, it was clear that the Sarutobi, Shimura, and Uzumaki had sworn allegiance to the Senju, and she was reasonably sure the Akimichi, Yamanaka, and Nara were under the same umbrella. 

As for the Uchiha… she had no idea. Back at the Academy, the information they received about Konoha’s co-founders was sparse and largely favorable, set against a Senju backdrop. Regardless, she knew that remaining in the civilian world would be safest until she found her team. 

She’d been born into the civilian lifestyle, after all. How hard could it be to assimilate almost a century in the past?

“I think I’ve overstayed my welcome here. You look antsy,” Tōka noticed with a hearty laugh that Sakura dispelled with an embarrassed fluster.

“Wha—No, you’re fine! It’s just…” Sakura trailed off as she adjusted the lanyard more securely under her chin, an unconscious sign of anxiety if she were honest. “For the first time in a long time, I’ll be going it alone. Sheesh, you’d think I’d be okay with it, but I just… really miss them.” In Sennan, she had Tōka; before arriving, she had Sasuke. Once they said their farewells, that would be it. It would be her against the unknown in a strange time. 

“I getcha. If I hadn’t arrived with ya, I’d be off to Naori like a shot. You have anyone waitin’ fer ya in your tree?”

Sakura’s gaze lowered with a sigh, thinking. She definitely couldn’t count the Senju brothers after screwing them royally, but Izayoi… did she even count? They’d slept together, and while she genuinely missed the Nadeshiko’s leader, it felt too abrupt to say that deeper feelings had formed so soon. She hadn’t seen any of them in weeks and had no idea how they regarded her. 

Would they even care if she returned?

Ugh, suck it up, will you? We’re in the past trying to make things better! Don't act like a lovestruck teenager! Inner Sakura rallied her, and the kunoichi couldn’t help the self-deprecating laugh she barked out. 

“Honestly, Tōka? I’ll worry about my love life later. Trust me, I’ve got bigger fish to fry!” Sakura mustered a smile and pumped her fist in the fashion that was so familiar to her. “You, on the other hand, have someone waiting for you. Pretty rude to keep her in the dark, if you ask me!”

Tōka’s gold eyes honed in on her dubiously, shaking her head. “Pinkie, look, I’m not gonna claim that I know ya in an’ out, but… ya gotta quit lyin’ to yourself. Can ya at least promise me that much?”

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the vote of confidence, but once I go out there, I can’t let all that drag me down. Can you try to have a little faith in me?” she wagered in turn, feeling herself grow uncomfortable from the Senju’s scrutiny. 

Tōka clapped a hand on Sakura’s shoulder, jostling enough that her kasa almost slid off her head. “Alright, alright… Stubborn, aren’t ya?” Grinning as she removed her hand, Tōka shuffled sheepishly. “Look, if you ever find yourself in over your head, come right back here. I know it ain’t a home, but I’m here for ya.”

“Thanks, Tōka. I’ll see you around, okay?” Sakura farewelled, the pair waving to each other before the Senju disappeared among the crowds of people vying to enter the capital city, hand lowering limply. 

She was alone this time.

From the summit the city roosted atop, it was a short descent to the forest floor below where the main road crossed, a route that Sakura chose to take. Rocks skittered as she navigated her way down, not needing to utilize chakra but making it appear as ordinary as possible. 

Within the crowd of people departing the city, it struck Sakura just how divorced the Shinobi World was from the rest. In a sea of ordinary faces, doing absolutely nothing with her chakra staunched, Sakura was nobody. Whether it brought security or not, she didn’t know. As a child in a shinobi village, she’d felt insecure and mediocre. On the outside, where her ilk were more populous? It was a disguise that those from clans had to work harder to afford. 

“Did you hear about the neighborhood fire in Renpu?” a grizzled farmer in the entourage ahead gossiped. “It took a lot of lives.”

“Hang on, Renpu? Which district?!” a younger brunette anxiously demanded. 

“The red light district, yeah? You don’t mean…”

“Oh gods, my friends—! I hope they weren’t…”

Sakura’s chest tightened wretchedly as she overheard the anxious group of travelers ahead of her, trekking a fork of the main road that led away from Saikyō. She’d known that their plan carried risks, but hearing of the fruits it’d borne made her wish it could’ve panned out differently. 

More than that, she wished she could’ve reversed the hands of time and prevented the loss of so much life. 

Sakura subconsciously pulled the rim of her kasa lower as if it could hide her from her guilt. 

What the hell am I even doing? she thought hopelessly. I’ve probably hurt more people than I’ve helped. Am I doing the right thing?

Since first arriving, she thought of how alike she and Naruto were in the respect that they were both headstrong, tenacious, and reckless when it came to indiscriminately helping people. Like him, they also tried to shoulder too much alone, despite how much better they did with help. 

But the biggest denominator was that Naruto really had been doing the right thing. Her? So far, it had been causing chaos for its own sake, shaking the Shinobi World before there were even villages to its core. She reflected on the resolve that had bound the Nadeshiko, to give a voice and power to the people normally crushed underfoot in the innumerable wars between clans. But were they doing it in the right way?

“Hey, are you traveling alone?”

Sakura was startled when she realized she was being addressed, blinking obtusely before it occurred to her. 

“Oh, me? Well, yeah, I suppose you could say I am. I’m looking for some friends of mine,” she replied kindly to the woman who’d asked. 

The woman in question appeared to be a middle-aged merchant, traveling ahead of a small fleet of carts blanketed with tarps, among several others and their guardsmen who looked to be samurai, not shinobi. They were dressed finely, and Sakura hazarded a guess that they were workers for one of Saikyō’s wealthy merchant families. 

“I know it’s no business of mine, but a young woman traveling alone in times like these is quite dangerous. Would you like to travel with us in the meantime? The river country especially has been rather problematic lately.”

Sakura canted her head with interest. “By river country, do you mean along the Naka?”

The woman laughed richly. “Yes, yes! I keep forgetting there’s an actual Land of Rivers. By the way, my name is Kimiko.”

“Just Sakura. It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.” 

“Were you two talking about the attacks?” 

Both women turned to see one of the samurai, a young man roughly her age with his black hair tied into a well-oiled topknot, face tanned from the sun. He wore the full regalia of his lord, the crest of a lotus emblazoned on his armor’s chest plate. 

“Do you want to get her up to speed, Shōtaro-kun? You can explain it better than I can,” Kimiko coaxed the man whom Sakura noticed was visibly troubled. 

“I’m not sure what this person is. Some survivors say it’s one man, but others claim it’s like a small clan. Whoever they are, they’re powerful. A clanless renegade who has been striking against trade posts and important roadways along the Naka, mainly on the Senju side. It’s said that over a hundred people have died, and the numbers climb higher every day,” the samurai explained, nervously clutching the hilt of his katana. 

“Did the Uchiha hire him?” Sakura speculated, a tremor of anticipation rendering her hands clammy. 

“I’m not sure. All I know is that our squad captain, Lord Musō, survived an encounter with him. He didn’t escape unscathed, but—“

“Would you have the stomach to hear what I’m about to tell you, girl?” 

Shōtaro sidestepped hastily when the mountain of a man in question towered over him like he’d been summoned, Sakura estimating that he had to be at least the size of one of the future Raikages, if not bigger. The roughshod old man donned an eyepatch over his left eye, a mop of gray hair spilling over his craggy features. He was missing his right arm, too. 

“It’s fine if you don’t want to say what happened, Musō—“ Kimiko began before a pointed look silenced her. 

“That man was not human. He wielded black threads and was like a patchwork of flesh. In fact,” Musō continued as his left hand touched the missing appendage, “he stole my arm after I managed to sever his. He attached it to himself like sewing the joints of a doll together.”

Sakura felt whiplash as if she were a teenager again, transported back to the time in her teenage years when she’d first encountered the centurion, then an Akatsuki member, and their eyes had met. 

“Kakuzu.”

Musō glared at Sakura when she uttered his name, stepping in front of her. “Where did you hear that?”

Remembering herself, jarred back into the present, she met his gaze fearlessly. “It wasn’t that long ago, but he attacked my friends and me. I didn’t think it was the same man, but your description sounds identical to him.” Unblinkingly, she added, “You’re lucky to be alive. Usually, he steals the hearts of his victims. It’s part of his Kinjutsu.” 

“How did you know?” Musō demanded incredulously, peering down at the petite kunoichi. 

“I heard the rumors of him killing Taki no Sato’s elders and making off with it after failing to kill the Senju clan head. Am I wrong?”

Musō’s jaw set, and he grunted in concession. “No. That’s not widely known. I suppose I’m just surprised since you’re just an ordinary woman, aren’t you?” 

Sakura wanted to sigh in relief because she was right, but it made her wonder: she’d been taught that Kakuzu had been exiled from his village well after the hidden villages had been established. She’d suspected it for a while, but this seemed to confirm what she’d been theorizing: that this wasn’t her timeline.

If it had been, she would’ve turned tail for Rōran at the soonest possible time. Or else she would’ve feared that altering the past too much would’ve destroyed her future. When Naruto had fallen through the portal years ago, nothing had seemingly happened despite knowing better. He wasn’t the sort to just lie low and twiddle his thumbs for a solution to come. And since he was the type to play the hero no matter what, combing through the Archives and public library turned up nothing about Konoha ever being involved with the desert kingdom. Let alone of a mysterious blond traveler. 

It was why she could do as much as she had and not fear the consequences nearly as much. Just because she wouldn’t alter the past in her own time didn’t mean she couldn’t try to fix the future’s fatal errors. Even if the future to come wasn’t her own. 

“I’m a medic,” she lied, though it was still the truth by omission. She didn’t need the world to know her story, though. “A traveling medic. That’s why I was able to survive, and some of my patients have been shinobi. They have a lot of stories to tell.”

“You can treat shinobi?” Kimiko marveled with an appreciative whistle. “Shinobi are difficult patients. They often require special healing, and except in some cases, most healers who can tend to them exclusively train in Sennan. And by the gods, the Senju are very jealous of their secrets and who knows them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a clan healer, but I’ve heard they’re like miracle workers.”

“They can stitch and repair wounds without ever touching their patients! It’s pretty incredible, isn’t it?”

Sakura glanced up to see the brunette from the group plodding ahead of them, ignoring the pang in her chest. “Sorry, I can’t say I’ve seen it,” she lied sheepishly, but the woman smiled kindly and advanced close. 

“That’s alright. I don’t think anyone really has. I have a sister who tried applying to the Hatake Clan for sponsorship to become their healer, but she didn’t get in. They only allow other shinobi into the program, even if my family has served the Hatake Clan since my grandmother’s time.” The woman brightened. “I’m Nana, by the way!”

“Sakura,” she replied, though she couldn’t help but feel awkward in lieu of what had happened. 

“I’m not sure why you’d want to serve a clan willingly. Shinobi are selfish thugs who only care for themselves and their own interests,” Shōtaro interjected bitterly. “There’s a reason why ordinary people shouldn’t enter their world without a good reason.”

“I… It’s not that I don’t doubt you, but people who serve clans are protected in those compounds. Some can even become shinobi, too,” Nana rebutted defensively, folding her arms irately. “Take the Senju, for example; they’re a proud and noble clan and the only ones who can stand against the West’s treachery!”

“Proud and noble, my ass,” Musō rebutted sourly. “They’re just as bad as the Uchiha, if not worse. Buncha treefuckers who caused rampant destruction in the river lands to the south just a few months ago.”

“Musō-sama,” Kimiko gentled as she shook her head at the proud samurai, “can you please check up on the boss? We have a long road ahead of us, and I don’t want him to suffer in case he cannot make it.” 

Although Musō regarded her oddly, the silent insinuation was clear, and the samurai pivoted with a huff, stalking away toward the rear of their troupe and leaving them be. 

“They can’t all be bad, can they?” Nana asked in a small voice, hands hanging at her sides. 

“There are too many to really say,” Sakura placated as she came alongside Nana, the young woman’s gaze snapping to her. “Even the good ones make bad decisions, though. Sometimes, the bad ones can be good people. They’re like us; it’s just that when they make a choice, it affects a lot of people. Like that campaign to the south. It’s hard to argue who’s good and who’s bad when both sides caused so much devastation.”

That included herself. So much of what she’d done had caused irreparable harm, she knew that. There was a lot she regretted, but she knew it would ultimately amount to something good. 

At least, she hoped it did.

“So, where are you headed, Sakura? Are you looking for work in one of the cities?” Nana prompted with a canted head, her smile friendly. 

She didn’t need long to answer. “Actually… if I’m frank, I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing. The only thing I know is that I want to reunite with my friends. We were separated during one of the Uchiha-Senju conflicts, and I want to make sure they’re okay.”

That part wasn’t wrong. After their botched attempt to kidnap Izuna, they were forced in opposite directions: Sakura with the Uchiha in Uchinada, and after her brief pairing up with Mū, she was spirited away to Sennan with no way of knowing how they were or if they were even okay. The last she’d heard was that Megumi and Mina were in rough shape, but beyond that, she had no way of contacting them. Given the mobile nature of her comrades, she wasn’t convinced that sending a hawk to Nadeshiko Village would help much, either. 

“Hm, well, a good healer is always wanted somewhere. ‘M sure you’ll be fine,” Nana assured with a broad smile that elicited one from Sakura in turn. 

“I wouldn’t mind traveling with you all, though. You’re right, it is better than traveling alone.”

“I’ll make sure you’re protected as well, Haruno-san,” Shōtaro resolved firmly, though Sakura secretly knew she didn’t need it, much as the thought was appreciated. 

“Thank you, all of you.”

Chapter Text

Warning(s): G, some vore 

“I think I miss sleeping at an inn. I’d give anything for an onsen!”

Sakura giggled at Nana’s dramatics as they shared an estuary pool that forked from the Naka, the babbling of the brook that fed it a merry sound over the din of their conversation. The kunoichi politely looked away as Kimiko unwrapped the towel preserving her modesty, slowly submerging in the chilly pool. 

“The cool water is good for you, Nana-chan. You should learn to appreciate nature’s splendors,” Kimiko remarked as she languidly sank to her chin, sighing contentedly. 

It was hard to believe that two weeks had already passed since she’d joined the Guren clan’s merchant troupe, which consisted of herself, Kimiko, Nana, Shotarō, and Captain Musō. They’d branched from the main column days ago, which was part of the clan’s strategy to distance themselves instead of traveling together and becoming an attractive target for highwaymen or opportunistic shinobi. Incredibly, they’d yet to run into any shinobi or their innumerable feuds, but Sakura had an inkling of suspicion it was because she spent her nights on watch with Musō and Shotarō and secretly made barrier seals that concealed them at all hours of the day and night. 

Simply because she kept her skills and status as a kunoichi secret didn’t mean she’d neglect the fact that they were still in exceedingly dangerous times. The way she saw it, Sakura had to utilize every skill in her repertoire to keep her newfound friends and traveling partners safe. 

“In all fairness, with how cold it’s getting, an onsen doesn’t sound like such a bad idea,” Sakura conceded after dunking her hair in the pool, smoothing her hand over her scalp to rinse away any excess shampoo. Though she sparsely used her toiletries, she was glad she’d stocked up in Saikyō before she’d departed from Tōka’s company. 

“Oh, I’ve never liked the cold,” Kimiko groused with an emphatic shiver. “I’m getting far too old for it. Gods, am I glad we’re moving south more and more.”

Sakura grew quiet at the revelation. Though their pace had been languid, it was a stark reminder that the time in which she’d have to part ways was fast approaching; in a few days, if she was honest. She couldn’t help but feel a bit sad at the notion, especially since she’d gotten so close to everyone, but she wasn’t any closer to finding the Nadeshiko, and every day spent in Senju territory felt like a risk. She subtly tugged at the leather lanyard she wore as a bracelet, having embossed it with chakra suppressants as a substitute for her clothing. 

“Oh, Sakura, did you know? I spoke with Captain Musō, and he agreed to let us visit the circus before we head towards the Land of Rivers. I’m so excited! I’ve heard so much about Master Chikamatsu’s circus, and now we’ll be able to see it in person, finally!”

Sakura flinched when she heard the name, snagging on something so undeniably familiar. “Wait, Chikamatsu? As in, Monzaemon Chikamatsu?” 

Nana laughed excitedly, clapping. “Yes, him! Oh, Sakura, you’ll love it! Promise me you’ll stay with us until then?”

“It’s being held in Akada,” Kimiko explained, exfoliating her arms that were washed away by the small currents in the pool. “We’re only half a day away if it’s not too much trouble.”

“So… you know I’m leaving?” 

Nana straightened with a slight frown. “You said you were looking for your friends west of the Naka, right? Well, that’s not where we’re headed, and the Land of Rivers is very close. Technically speaking, we’re already in Uchiha territory.”

Sakura visibly bristled. “Wait, we are? Shoot, I should’ve paid more attention!” With Kimiko and Nana’s confused looks, she coughed sheepishly. “Sorry, it’s just… I had thought I would start my search earlier. I got so caught up in our travels that I forgot.”

“Are you concerned about the Uchiha?” Kimiko said gently. “If it’s any consolation, we’re closer to the coast and near neutral grounds. The big shinobi clans tend to operate inland much more.”

Sakura’s shoulders sagged. “Oh… No, that makes sense. That’s what most ordinary people do, right?” 

“Are you extraordinary?” Nana goaded teasingly, smiling impishly. “I’m glad we got to befriend you, Sakura. So, as friends, please go to the circus with us before you leave!” 

Emotion swelled in Sakura’s breast: gratitude, remorse, warmth, and regret. Maybe it seemed infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things, but she was glad to have met these people. As good as it had been, the end would’ve come sooner or later. 

The last time she’d been at a circus was several months into her training with Tsunade in the Crescent Moon Kingdom. She still remembered how giddy and joyous it had been to attend with Rock Lee, Naruto, and Kakashi-sensei. It was a glowing memory she treasured, so to end it there felt fitting.

More than that, she couldn’t help the irresistible feeling that this Monzaemon Chikamatsu was significant beyond just his name. As the namesake of the puppets Granny Chiyo had used, she had fought alongside that legendary arsenal. Maybe, if she were honest with herself, going to the circus had more implications beyond just entertainment. If she was going to move freely through Uchiha territory, why not have a convincing act to go along with it?

Literally.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised we’re going along with this. I’m assuming Nana-san talked you into this, too.”

Shotarō’s expression was visibly displeased, glancing at his hip where his katana wasn’t present. As they were headed to a heavily populated area, swords and other weapons were not 0welcome. Luckily for Sakura, she didn’t need much to be a formidable weapon herself. She wasn’t worried, even if the omnipresent threat of the Senju and the new addition of the Uchiha and now Kakuzu lingered in the back of her mind. 

“It’s not that hard to be convinced when said activity is pretty objectively fun,” Sakura joshed the swordsman who glanced at her unhappily, much to the kunoichi’s amusement. It took every ounce of self-control not to burst out laughing, but by the poorly repressed smile, he could tell she was seconds away from it. 

Although the circus wasn’t exactly a formal event, they decided to dress up a little, anyway. She, Nana, and Kimiko all donned casual komon kimono with fall motifs and plain hair sticks paired with hardy geta suitable for walking. Sakura’s was a deep blue color with stylized, scarlet higanbana flowers fluttering across the print, and though her hair was still short, it was longer than the pixie cut she’d given herself months ago. Dolled up with light tinges of rouge on their cheeks, lips, and eyelids, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d allowed herself to dress up like this.

Well, to dress up in a situation she desired to, at least…

Their party had stayed over in Shukaba Town days ago after leaving Saikyō, and just like in her time, it was still as much of a cesspit then as it was in the present. However, after a few hours in Renpu, she was under the impression that Shukaba Town was vanilla by comparison, a concession she never thought she’d make. Still, as it was south of the capital, it was the largest town they’d travel through before they continued to Akada, which had enough clothing stores to restock a small wardrobe. Given the fact that the only possession she’d managed to hold on to was the Kubikiribōchō, it felt nice to have clothes of her own again. 

On the outskirts of Akada, on rolling grassy bluffs that descended into a vast prairie, Sakura marveled at the circus grounds that spangled the trough of several hills with innumerable starry lights like rivers. Game stalls and food vendors littered the trampled turf, muddy paths torn between the several rows of milling townspeople enthralled by the festival games. A white and red striped carnival tent crowned its hill commandingly like a king from his castle, gay music suffusing in the air for miles around; the tinny tunes of a harpsichord, the braying of trumpets, and the clash of cymbals were as inviting as could be. 

It made her feel like a Genin before the harsh reality of the shinobi world had stolen her innocence away. 

“Hey, don’t get too far ahead on your own!” Nana barreled into Sakura and looped their arms together, though the kunoichi couldn’t help but be charmed by the woman’s exuberance. 

“Don’t worry, I didn’t plan on going too far. Where’s Kimiko?”

Nana made a face. “On a date with Musō-taichō. They don’t get much time alone, and when they do… Well, you know.”

The two women looked at each other and burst into a fit of giggles, a happy glow radiant from the kunoichi. 

The last two weeks had felt like a much-needed reprieve from the months spent in Sennan, a spiritual retreat that had seen her more rested and at ease than she’d felt since arriving. Outside of the sentinel she was alongside the samurai, the journey had almost been entirely without stress. 

It was almost discombobulating with how detached the Shinobi World was, but then and there, she couldn’t be more grateful. If this separation meant a few days of freedom and peace, then she’d gladly take it. 

The two joined the crush of the crowds, and Sakura felt her heart patter giddily in her chest. Dozens of booths crowded by both lanes of people made for tight quarters as the pair explored the myriad festival games, Ryō in hand as they took their pick of many.

They had to pass up the Goldfish Scooping because travel would make it impossible to keep a goldfish, opting instead for the other carnival games. Super Ball Scooping, Underwater Coin Dropping, Ring Tossing, Shooting, Fishing Yo-Yo… They participated in as many as they could. Beneath the illumination of the ring lights that draped from each booth’s awning, Sakura excelled at Ring Toss, Shooting, and Fishing Yo-Yo, which was simplified due to her prowess as a kunoichi. Nana cheered whenever she succeeded, but pouted when she didn’t. When it was the brunette’s turn, she excelled in some areas. By the end, both girls had enough tickets that they could purchase foodstuffs from them alone. Underneath the umbrage of trees dotting the landscape, a dining area had been allotted. Sakura had chosen a bowl of saucy yakisoba to feast on while Nana indulged her wicked sweet tooth and got Okonomiyaki, a sweet pancake saturated in toppings that contrasted with the sweetness. The chatty din of the other festival-goers in their summery yukata beneath the strands of lights created a hazy atmosphere, one that made people-watching a dreamy affair as they slowly ate through their meals. 

Nana yelped softly when the loud, steady percussion of taikō drums jarred them from their reverie, nearly dropping her bamboo chopsticks on the turf they were squatted upon. Sakura perked, following the sound. 

“Is that—” Sakura began, but was interrupted by Nana.

“A sign that the next show is going to start soon? Yes! Come on, let’s go now before all the good seats are taken.”

Hurriedly, both women disposed of their trash and wove through the crowd. A throng of people seemed to have the same idea and followed suit, and as they threaded through the narrow lanes betwixt the booths, Sakura was glad to see that they appeared to be leading the pack. It took only a few moments to scale the small hill the enormous circus tent crowned, Nana linking their arms together in anticipation.

A man in what Sakura deduced to be Suna-style kumadori ushered them towards the entrance with a ghoulish smile, the flap pinned back to allow them entry. While the circus tent was a familiar sight, instead of the typical set-up of three rings, the back was dominated by a stage veiled by drawn curtains elevated above the ground floor. A single limelight harshly illuminated the folds in the curtain, the rest of the ground and stands bathed in a velvety darkness. 

“Let’s stand up front! I want to see the stage up close!”  

Nana dragged Sakura towards the front after paying for admission, grins on their faces as they hurriedly claimed two seats next to the aisle. For once, Sakura felt a different kind of jittery excitement that foiled against the sort that had been filling her with dread for weeks. She couldn’t shake the enormous feelings of guilt that came from remembering her many misdeeds against the Senju. Still, she forcefully reminded herself that they weren’t the same virtuous clan known from the village’s earliest days. 

The two women settled down on their bench seats; although not very comfortable, Sakura imagined that it was difficult to worry about luxury during one of the most violent times in shinobi history. The lights dimmed, and the limelight trained on the stage, the soft juddering of the curtains opening on an artistically rendered backdrop of a noble’s estate commanding attention. The bunraku puppets of a noblewoman and a peasant man began with their opening lines, a mournful soliloquy outlining what would comprise the plot of the play.

Nana leaned in as the puppets, tugged by chakra strings, flinched in exaggerated despair. After several minutes of lamenting the impossibility of their love—a noble’s daughter and a cowherd’s son—a voice from the stage’s right wing called for the daughter.

Sakura had seen one of Monzaemon Chikamatsu’s plays when she’d been a girl and had technically fought with his greatest creation in Chiyo’s hands. But seeing the real deal in his heyday was something else. As arduous as her experiences in the past had been thus far, being able to meet historical figures was a fairly amazing occurrence, as malformed as some had become…

Though she was captivated by the tragic romance that was Chikamatsu’s hallmark, she couldn’t help the niggling feeling that she was being watched. Chancing a few furtive looks, angling to her left in the grandstands caused her to freeze like she’d been struck by lightning. 

A pair of Sharingan psychically bored holes through her, the unmistakable sight of the Mirror-Wheel Eye burning caustically in the darkness. 

Sakura’s hackles raised, and she glanced at Nan,a who was too absorbed in the tragic story to notice. “Um, hey—I’m gonna go to the little girl’s room. Be right back.” 

“Sure. Don’t take too long, though,” Nana told her cheekily as Sakura eased her way out, her stalker having vanished. She doubted he’d gotten far, though. 

Slipping out the back where she’d be relatively unseen, Sakura could scarcely see the signs of footprints made sparsely as the errant shinobi had darted into the treetop of the forest that bordered the circus, expecting her pursuer to have made his escape there. The evening hour had since lapsed into the night, stars winking in the ultramarine sky while the woods were a dark silhouette against a starry backdrop.

Padding on the grass, Sakura could take heart in the fact that any Uchiha outside of Madara and their small band of Mangekyō Sharingan users probably wouldn’t pose too much of a threat in terms of raw power. Thankfully, she existed in a time when the Rinnegan would take another fifty to sixty years before it would appear in the world. As familiar as she was with the Rinnegan, a world without it was better for her. 

A flash of movement drew her eye, and Sakura took pause to note their position before she was off like a shot into the woods. Taking to the treetops, the kunoichi bounded between branches in pursuit of the Uchiha agent, determined to apprehend them before they got too far. The Uchiha’s signature dull blue tunic with their uchiwa emblem came within view, and Sakura was seconds from removing the chakra-suppressing seal so she could spring into action before something long and serpentine sprang from below and lassoed around the Uchiha and arrested them. With no way to keep their balance, the person fell to the forest floor and landed hard in the underbrush.

Sakura balked in surprise and stopped at the area where the Uchiha had been captured, peering down to their location. She was surprised to see the pursuer was none other than Hikaku Uchiha, whom she’d met a few months ago. The brunette struggled in his fetters, likening them to a snake constricting his body. 

“What a nuisance. Shinobi really can’t keep away from this place.”

A svelte, tall woman with silky ebony hair partially pinned up by shimmery kanzashi sashayed into view, her exposed shoulders pale as bone in the moonlight. Sakura’s heart skipped a beat when lurid, chatoyant gold eyes accented by purple face markings glanced up and plum lips tugged into a churlish smile. 

She looked almost identical to Orochimaru. 

“Who are you?!” Sakura blurted nervously, speaking tactlessly. She felt like a girl again, meeting Orochimaru after they’d emerged grotesquely from the cadaver of one of the Forest of Death’s monstrous serpents, their borrowed face sloughing off like melting candle wax. It was an image that had been emblazoned in her mind since youth; enough that, years later, as a Neo-Sannin in her own right, it was something she could never forget. Something that would remain with her for the rest of her life.

The woman laughed, a serpent emerging from one of her loose, voluminous sleeves to coil loosely around her shoulders like a boa. The oily black snake trained its eyes as intensely gold as its master’s on Sakura. 

“Hmm,” she hummed superciliously, “short pink hair and green eyes, but concealed chakra… You must be that Sakura girl I’ve heard has caused so much havoc among the Senju. By the appearance of this man, I take it you’re no friend of the Uchiha, either.”

Pursing her lips, Sakura dropped to the underbrush with a muffled crunch of the decaying leaf litter. “How do you know that? How do I know you’re trustworthy?”

“Really?” the woman scoffed as she produced a fan from her kimono’s lapel and snapped it open to fan herself. “Dear, I’m a Snake Sage. That’s close enough to shinobi to have an ear to the ground, never mind the fact that I’m an actress in this circus. You’ve never heard of me?”

“If I knew who you are, I wouldn’t be asking!” Sakura snapped exasperatedly, and the sage rolled her eyes. 

The woman chuckled and lowered her fan. “My name is Handa of the Ryūjin clan. There, now we’re acquainted. And you must be on the run from your enemies, hm?” Handa toed Hikaku, who hissed at her. Narrowing her eyes, she rebutted with a swift kick to the gut that left him groaning. 

“You don’t plan on killing him, do you?” Sakura demanded with folded arms. “If his trail goes cold here, it’ll bring the Uchiha forces out, and that’s the last thing I need.”

Handa grimaced as she glanced down at Hikaku like she’d stepped in dog shit. “Oh, good point. Darling, why don’t you use some genjutsu and erase his memories of the past day and take him far from here? Good boy.”

The snake acquiesced and locked eyes with Hikaku, the man entranced in an instant as his mind was wiped. Then, as his body fell slack, it was to Sakura’s horror that the snake’s jaws unhinged and began to swallow the Uchiha whole.

“Oh, gross!” Sakura exclaimed, wheeling back in revulsion. 

“Oh, please. This isn’t exactly the worst any of my summons has done.”

“Handa,” a deep, masculine voice interrupted from the gloom. “What’s going on—”

“W-Wait a second, you’re that masked man from Renpu! I remember you!” Sakura sputtered, jabbing her finger at the white-haired man. Under the moonlight, she could better see his squared jaw stubbly with a white beard, nape-length white hair, and familiar golden eyes much more mellow than Handa’s. Clad all in black with a cloak on his shoulders, she couldn’t tell if he belonged to a clan or not. “You work for Tōka Senju, don’t you?”

It was only at the pregnant pause that Sakura realized her outburst might not have been the wisest choice, wincing with an embarrassed blush when it dawned on her how tactless she’d been.

“So, that’s why you were being so mysterious. Going off to the fatherland, hm?” Handa joshed as she prodded the taller man’s large bicep teasingly. “Sakura-chan, calm down. We already know Taito’s tragic backstory. He’s been with us for quite some time. Our resident Toad Sage and the chief illusionist of the circus.” 

“Wait, so you’re… Tōka’s brother?”

The masked man nodded once but said nothing else. 

This was the man that she owed a lot to, then. She wasn’t sure if helping Tōka on a mutual plan to escape really counted, but she could at least reconcile her debt to this man. He’d risked his life to ensure they could escape from the Senju’s clutches at significant personal risk, and Sakura couldn’t just let that debt go unpaid.

“Taito-san, I owe you my life.” Sakura bowed suddenly, facing the man directly. 

“No, you don’t,” Taito informed her sternly. “Freeing my sister was the most important thing. If anything, she told me what you sacrificed for her… It should be the other way around.”

Sakura bit the inner flesh of her lower lip after she straightened from her bow, unsure of what to say. No one needed to spell out for her that the two siblings meant the world to each other, or that Taito was sincere, but had she really sacrificed that much? Mulling over the relationships she’d cultivated and toppled for the sake of escaping, maybe it was significant. But Tōka and she had wanted the same thing. It was half self-interest and half altruism, not going all out for the woman she’d befriended. The interest in helping the Senju was genuine, but their goals had aligned. 

“Um… okay. Let’s just call it even.” Taito Sho nodded and absconded into the treetops, making his way back towards the fairgrounds. 

Handa fell in stride with Sakura, lips curled in amusement. “He really doesn’t have a way with words, but I can promise you he is grateful. Those two went through hell under their bastard of a father,” Handa observed as she scritched under her summon’s chin with a long, claw-like nail. “He’s not the only one with a bone to pick with those bastard Senju.”

“Wait, you too?” Sakura’s voice lilted in surprise. 

Handa huffed, snapping her fan emphatically shut. “They took my Heiman from me. I won’t forgive them for that.”

It took Sakura a moment to remember his name. “Wait, Heiman… Oh.” She glanced sidelong at Handa guiltily.

“I know about Yuga no Sato. I know that Tōka was the reason he was dragged to Sennan in chains,” she informed Sakura loftily. “Yet I have no reason to unleash that vengeance on Taito, nor you. That idiot would follow Gengetsu Hōzuki into an early grave, he’s so loyal. It's the Senju I’m mad at, not their disenfranchised strays.”

“I should probably be sorry anyway. I belong to this group called the Nadeshiko, and we worked together to dispatch the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist and steal their arsenal. Hashirama Senju told me that what we did triggered Byakuren and his people to unleash campaigns against other clans, including Yuga no Sato. So… it technically was my fault.”

“Oh, so you’re the one who whispered in Byakuren’s ear to go after those other clans? Who encouraged him to drag my beloved into the fray?” Handa challenged as she tilted Sakura’s chin upwards with the tip of her folded fan, forcing their eyes to meet. 

“No, but—”

“But what?” Handa reproached smoothly with a sharply raised eyebrow. “You chose to take those swords for yourself just as much as Byakuren, Gengetsu, and Heiman chose to retaliate for it. Choices that have been made and can’t be taken back. The consequences are here, and all we can do is plan accordingly for them. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.”

Whipping the fan away, Sakura’s head jerked back slightly from the recoil as Handa began to saunter away, but not before flashing the kunoichi a catty smile. 

“You’re in new territory, aren’t you, Sakura-chan?” Handa asked merrily as Sakura trotted to keep up with the woman’s ground-eating strides. “Tell me: how would you feel about joining the circus?”

Chapter Text

Warning(s): M, explicit gore & body horror

“Zae-Zae? Where are you?” 

Handa led the trio—with Sakura following complacently behind—as they entered a workshop located inside a tent behind the main tent, led by Taito. The limbs of disassembled puppets clattered together slightly as a breeze followed them through the tent’s flap, its chill eliciting a shiver from Sakura. Lanternlight scattered a low, effusive glow throughout the makeshift workshop. Distantly, she knew Nana had to be worried about her as she’d only claimed to be going to the bathroom, not a moot regarding her next stage in this unfamiliar but pivotal time in shinobi history. 

“Where else, Handa?” a voice tiredly responded. Pushing aside a row of legs like a curtain, a man with a pair of loupes on entered into view. He was a handsome black man with androgynous features, violet eyes framed by thick lashes, while his chestnut brown hair was pulled into a loose ponytail that touched his shoulder blades and framed his face in curly fringe. Clad in an apron, long-sleeved top, and long-sleeved shirt, he wore leather gloves and black boots on his feet. Dabbed in grime, it was clear the man had been busy at work until their sudden arrival had interrupted him.

A small, stocky little girl with a bronzy complexion and shaggy hair giggled as she flounced past Monzaemon Chikamatsu and caught herself on Handa’s leg, bouncing on her feet and grasping towards the older woman, who lifted her in a flourish and balanced her on a cocked hip. The motherly reception sharply contrasted with the femme fatale Sakura had encountered, but she didn’t dwell on it.

“Oh, hello, my dear Chiyo-chan. Isn’t it past your bedtime? Where’s your brother?” Handa questioned indulgently, tapping a pointy nail on Chiyo’s button nose.

“Ebizō is asleep, as he should be. You know how she is,” Monzaemon said with a sigh, lifting his loupes to settle on his brow. “Hm? Who’s this?”

Sakura hadn’t realized she’d been gaping at them, piecing together a conclusion: it all made sense. No wonder Chiyo had wound up with Monzaemon’s collection; she’d been his apprentice and had likely inherited it from her master. 

“Oh, ah—sorry. My name is Haruno Sakura,” she greeted with a sharp bow, pulling back up as Monzaemon regarded her like he’d been jolted with a shot of espresso. 

“Really? The same I’ve heard so much about?” He chuckled, revealing a dazzling array of pearly white teeth when he smiled at her, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Your reputation certainly precedes you.”

“Oh… Ah, hopefully you haven’t heard anything too bad,” Sakura replied sheepishly. “I mean… Handa has a reason to pick a bone with me if she wants.”

“That we already agreed is a moot point,” Handa sighed, waving her free hand flippantly at Sakura. “I don’t plan on poisoning Taito unless it’s the usual pissing contest between our two Sage Paths.” She smirked churlishly at the Toad Sage, who seemed to ignore her.

Taito shook his head. “We need to discuss the particulars of Haruno potentially joining the troupe.” He glanced over to Sakura. “Monzaemon-san owns this Circus, so the final decision lies with him.”

Monzaemon pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly. “I keep forgetting you shinobi never like to take breaks,” he groused with a consternated sigh. “This would’ve been the perfect evening to work on the new puppet I had in mind.”

“Zae-Zae, if you want to put that genius brain of yours to use, why don’t we put our heads together for this new act of ours, hm?” Handa teased brightly, snatching Monzaemon’s loupes and fixing them to her own face, eyes bulging comically from the various lenses that earned a bubbly peal of giggling from little Chiyo. That alone was enough to cause Sakura’s lips to quirk slightly.

“Follow me,” Taito cut through their carousing, glancing first at Sakura and taking the lead, navigating them away from the workshop and back into the cool night air that nipped at her skin despite the relative warmth of her komon kimono. The five of them (including Chiyo, who was rapidly beginning to fall asleep while lulled by Handa’s gentle pace) strode towards a clearing in the woods where the underbrush had been trampled by human activity, a fire pit in the center charred from disuse. Taito took the initiative and found a pile of logs at the perimeter, taking a few to heap in the firepit and then spat some toad oil on them, sparking to life as warm firelight soon illuminated the party’s faces. 

Beneath their feet, several reed mats had been unrolled amid the tall grasses that encircled the fire pit, an unspoken invitation to sit first started by Monzaemon, who sank to the ground tiredly, unable to cease rubbing his eyes. “Taito, could you take Chiyo-chan and put her to sleep? I’d rather not wake her because of this,” Monzaemon instructed, and the Toad Sage complied, Handa delicately passing the little girl off, who barely shifted in his arms. It took barely a minute for him to return, but Sakura could feel her pulse begin to race.

Since transmigrating to the past, the most prominent sensation that remained stuck in her mind like a burr was the ineffable feeling of treading water in a river that was constantly forking and whisking her down new tributaries before she could even think of stopping it. This was another branch she was swept down, and for once, Sakura hoped it came with more control. 

If nothing else, the weeks away from Sennan had compelled her to think of a backstory that went beyond her weak idea of memory erasure as being the cause of her lack of understanding of the time she was in or why she possessed ninjutsu that belonged to possessive clans who would surely see through her ruse. 

The one avenue that seemed convincing enough was that her techniques hadn’t come from the Senju or Uzumaki, but from some ancient descendant of the Sage of Six Paths; specifically, an invented disciple of Ninshū. As both the Byakugō and Mystical Palms Technique derived from those times, it felt like a way out. This person would’ve had an ordinary chakra signature like hers, but dazzling knowledge that had been passed down to Sakura herself. Given the fact that two of the Sage’s most infamous descendants from outside the major clans were extant during this time, it felt fitting that maybe their lackluster, forgettable disciples would be, too. 

It was a harebrained backstory, but what choice did she have? Several people, from Hashirama to Mito and Tobirama, had realized that she hadn’t stolen their Hiden, and she needed some probable cause before she was subjected to genjutsu and her mind probed for the truth. Jutsu like the Byakugō and Mystical Palms Technique were from those times, and some of the medical ninjutsu she knew had been invented or innovated by her—a root that hadn’t grown from those two clans—she needed some believable story before someone figured out she wasn’t from this time at all. 

(Gods knew what would’ve happened if they’d subjected her to a Yamanaka’s mind-reading techniques, or worse.)

“I was thinking of a strongwoman act. It would fit, wouldn’t it?” Handa merrily leaned back on her reed mat, blowing out smoke from the kiseru she’d taken a drag of. She became a sensual river of curves and a picture of decadence; when she caught Sakura staring, the Sage blew a cloud of smoke in the kunoichi’s direction teasingly. 

“Um, I was thinking something a little bit more behind the scenes,” Sakura interjected sheepishly, rubbing her nape. “I’ve been in the limelight a bit too much lately, especially since Renpu…”

“Would you like to be our apothecary?” Sakura snapped her gaze to Monzaemon. “I was able to learn that one healing technique not so long ago, but little Chiyo wants to learn more. You said you’re a healer?” 

“Yeah… more or less.” 

“You know, I’ve been wondering about that, too.” Sakura’s hackles raised intensely when Handa’s head meandered towards her, neck becoming as fluid and serpentine as a Rokurokubi. Her face was just inches from the kunoichi, who fell back in alarm. “Zae-zae studied for a time in Uzushio when he was inventing his Puppet Technique. They let him graciously learn the Mystical Palms Technique so he could hone his Chakra Control.” 

Sakura swallowed thickly, feeling beads of perspiration dot her brow. Kami knew that this woman was far too similar to Orochimaru for her liking!

“Handa, enough,” Taito scolded exasperatedly, enough to cause Handa to withdraw and shrug nonchalantly at his reproachful look. As much as they’d agreed to call off any debts, real or imagined, Sakura reminded herself to thank him later. 

“I was originally from the Land of the Moon, way down south… We don’t have any ninja clans or villages down there, but when I was young… on the island we lived on, there was this wise woman who claimed to be a descendant of a disciple of Hagoromo’s and had scrolls on the Byakugō and Mystical Palms Technique, and you probably don’t need me to say that those are ancient techniques, right?” Sakura met all of their gazes, gauging their reactions. So far, so good. After all, that part was the truth, at least. “Well, I took an interest in what she had to say when most people just dismissed her. She didn’t have a family of her own, so she gave me access to those scrolls because I actually liked being around her… She didn’t have a means to teach me things like Chakra Control, so I came up with my own way of doing it by concentrating a ton of chakra in my fists to blast things to smithereens. It takes a lot of chakra control, which is how I refined it over time. I started learning the Mystical Palms Technique first, then I tried the Byakugō. I finished that seal when I was about sixteen, and it took me three years to complete.” 

“Only three years?” Sakura’s head whipped back when Taito Sho had spoken, his eyebrows furrowed beneath his mask. “From what I heard of Lady Mito, it took her ten.”

“It’s not so unbelievable. Don’t forget, she is an Uzumaki with inhuman reserves of chakra. Having less chakra means less to regulate for the Byakugō. I can see why Sakura accomplished it in a third of the time,” Monzaemon reasoned, Sakura sagging in gratitude at his interjection. 

“Not that I have no chakra, or anything, but compared to a Senju or an Uzumaki of hers and Hashirama’s caliber? It’s no contest,” Sakura said with a slight pout. “I mean, I was technically her lady-in-waiting. I would not want to square off with her on the battlefield, that’s for sure!”

“But Madara is so much easier?” Handa asked archly. “How a kunoichi of your caliber flew under the radar for so long is a mystery to me.”

“Okay, but what about you and Taito Sho or his father? You’re all Sages, but I haven’t heard a peep about you through the grapevine. Ryūshu is probably known as the Senju’s Elder, but as a Sage? I didn’t figure it out until I met him. So, why is it so unbelievable that I flew under the radar, too?” Sakura shot back, frowning at Handa’s wheedling. 

“How did you know you could fight Madara and hold your own against him?” Handa volleyed smoothly, effortlessly slinging new, probing questions Sakura’s way. 

That’s easy. My Shisō fought five Madara clones, who Kabuto and Orochimaru had enhanced, and possessed his Rinnegan. They were also Edo Tensei with unlimited chakra and juiced up on Hashirama cells. It’s pretty easy to put two and two together when I excelled past her years ago, never mind the fact that this Madara has none of those things… 

Sakura glanced down at her lap. “Honestly? I didn’t really think about it… Mū and I considered jumping in just enough to interrupt their fight. It was all on impulse,” she continued with folded arms. “That… and they’re so famous. I heard enough about his fighting style, and it gave me a bit of an idea. Of how to fight him, at least.”

“Reputation aside, any competent shinobi can pick up on their opponent’s fighting style and adapt to it. I imagine the concept is lost on you, Handa,” Taito said with a pointed look. Sakura had to bite back a grin at the apparent rivalry between the two Sages and the gleeful pettiness present. It reminded her of Naruto and Sasuke, a lifetime ago.

“Simply because I’m an actress who prefers not to get her hands dirty doesn’t mean I can’t kick your ass from here to Saikyō, Taito,” Handa hummed sarcastically, twirling a strand of black around her long, ghostly finger. 

“There is… just one more thing.” As the eyes of those present trained on her, Sakura exhaled. “When I first came here, I had terrible amnesia—caused by genjutsu, maybe—and I told several people that I’d been taught by some Uzumaki, Senju bastard when that wasn’t true. I mean, Hashirama told me to my face that they didn’t have any records of stolen jutsu, so I can’t use that as a cover story. Hence the truth.” 

“Do you know why they’re able to keep such a short leash on their students? Why that story would’ve imploded at some point?” Handa’s voice lilted devilishly, painted lips curled churlishly. “They’re all implanted with juinjutsu that prevents them from telling others about how their medical ninjutsu works, and if they try? It’s a kill switch that kills them instantly.”

Sakura blanched slightly at the tell, gaze flickering away. “Jeez… Now I’m almost glad I got taken by the Senju. I’m just glad they never sicced a Yamanaka on me.” Would it have worked? Her Inner Sakura managed to oust Ino from her mind back when she was just twelve, and now? Maybe she was immune; who really knew?

“It’s the Shimura. They’re the ones who devised the mechanism, but ultimately, it was likely my cousin who came up with the idea. Tobirama,” Taito elaborated, folding his arms across his chest. 

“Sheesh, now I’m really glad that proposal fell through,” Sakura said with a sigh, but Handa’s chatoyant golds dilated instantly. 

“Proposal?” she echoed with gleeful interest, straightening from her lounging position. “Oh, now I really need to hear this.”

“As much as I’m sure you two have much to gossip about, I think we’ve come to an impasse, no?” Monzaemon interrupted, waving his hand tiredly. “Sakura-san, welcome aboard as our resident apothecary, possibly Chiyo’s new teacher… Are there any objections?”

“Not from me,” Handa chimed merrily, trotting towards Sakura and snagging the kunoichi by her arm. Sakura uttered a sound of surprise, especially after her wheedling, but she didn’t mind the notion of making a friend, however reminiscent she was of a certain Sannin. 

“If my sister trusted her… I’m fine with it,” Taito said simply before he turned away and sauntered back to the fairgrounds, terse as they came. 

“Oh, go get some beauty sleep, Zae-Zae. You look so tired,” Handa crooned with a sarcastic pat to the puppeteer’s cheek, the man playfully swatting her with a sleepy smile. Watching him trudge tiredly back to camp, Handa’s eyes gleamed wickedly. 

“As for you, my dear girl, we have so much to talk about. I hope you can stay up late,” the Snake Sage gushed, an endearing excitement present in her features. 

“Oh boy, I’m really in for it, huh?” Sakura smiled weakly, but she wasn’t upset. 

It was a refreshing change to make new friends after leaving so many enemies in her wake.

“Gotcha, ya squirmy little fucker.”

Weeks had passed since her clandestine deal brokered with Tobirama Senju, and Izayoi had spent it by meandering through the hinterlands of Senju territory putting miles between her and Sennan, let alone the Land of Hot Water. As much as the Nadeshiko burned with regret over Sakura’s situation, there would’ve been no way she could’ve freed her little fling. One infiltration had been risky enough, but another? Impossible. 

In the copse of trees she’d made camp at, Izayoi’s shadow extended into the treeline where the Shadow Imitation Technique had snagged a being she knew had been stalking her for miles. Although the firelight's reach was limited, it was sufficient to utilize the stolen Hijutsu. Slowly rising from her crouch, Izayoi became baffled when what followed was a being made of razor wires that caught the firelight, a blank mask with beady white eyes and a wide, toothy mouth outlined in red that was expressionless in her snare.

“Nadeshiko? I’ve heard of you.”

The birds stopped trilling, and even the insects ceased their nocturnal song.

Izayoi froze when footsteps crunched through the leaf litter, frank and dauntless, head slowly turning as a horrified shiver raced the length of her spine. The deep, masculine voice that had addressed her tisked at the sight of his construct captured in her shadow, hunter green eyes in their pools of scarlet studying the woman.

“Well, I ain’t heard of you! The hell are you used to be?” Beneath the black face mask the stranger wore, the insinuation of a smile formed. Fear saturated the Nadeshiko’s voice; funny, considering the spate of high-profile misdeeds her group had been committing in recent months. One would think their infamous leader would be braver. 

“Of no import to you. However, you seem to be unaware of the staggering bounty on your head. Izayoi, was it?” the man continued smoothly, stepping within the perimeter of Izayoi’s camp. Her heart chugged fearfully in her chest, terror curdling the very blood in her veins as her hold over the construct began to tremble, too. 

While no Sensor like her sister, the man’s chakra was hauntingly oppressive. It filled the vicinity with a vile weight, one that shrunk her to the size of a field mouse at the mercy of a wolf. 

The sound of wiry skittering startled Izayoi so severely that it broke the connection to the snared construct, the sound of it bounding back to its master echoing her mind with dissonance. It returned to its master’s side, looming over the stranger with preternatural stillness, staring at her hauntingly. Her shadow snapped back, and Izayoi recoiled, barely keeping herself from falling on her rump. The stranger’s eyes penetrated her, causing gooseflesh to erupt on her skin. 

“Th’ hell do ya want? You gonna claim that bounty, or just stand there like a fuckin’ cunt?!” Izayoi shot back, warily eyeing the glint of his threads broaching in her periphery. 

“You shut off the Blood Market for many of us, Izayoi,” the man informed her patiently, taking another step closer. Izayoi frantically backpedaled, eyes wide upon him. She fell back and caught herself on her hands, gasping as the wiry threads manaced just inches from her face, reflected in her fearful eyes. “It was a good source of income. And you stole that from us by bringing in the Senju. It makes it difficult to operate now.”

“Fuck you want? Me t’ jerk you off while you cry a fuckin’ river over it?!”

“Hm. Something like that,” the man stated distantly, not even allowing Izayoi the opportunity to scream.

The wires reared back like snakes before striking with inhuman speed, grappling Izayoi around her limbs and neck, lifting her weightlessly into the air as she struggled to move, the wires coiling inextricably to her very fingers. Though Izayoi struggled not to hyperventilate, it felt as though her heart would tear out of her chest from sheer terror. Paralyzed and suspended like a starfish, the heat of the campfire crackling beneath her feet, she was brought closer to the stranger, bringing her within feet of him, his expression inscrutible. 

“You and your group made for a good distraction. You’ve outlived your usefulness.”

The man watched unblinkingly as his wires tightened around Izayoi’s neck, the woman’s expression stubbornly defiant as the twang of the threads’ asphyxiation resonated like chords of taut wire plucked by a demon, strumming the dirge of her death. As her face phased blue, she strained to hiss an expletive at him, yet the chance never came.

Her neck snapped with a cruel note, the final sound in the cruel melody. 

Izayoi’s head hung limply, a death rattle filling the air between them. Her murderer’s eyes barely twitched. 

As the cords withdrew back inside his body, he shouldered his bounty’s cadaver, leaving his construct to loot the encampment of anything valuable.

It was meager compensation, but adequate. For the business lost, and the lucrative ventures yet to come. She would keep her heart, however; he was saving space to make room for a premier heart to add to his collection first began ten years ago. 

Lucrative, indeed. 

With the Ketsuryūgan invoked, Mito and Tobirama anxiously watched as the Chinoike clan head made a precise, thorough survey of Hashirama’s beleaguered body. Although their genjutsu was typically reserved for infiltrating the mind like most genjutsu, Maya Chinoike was able to combine it with the dōjutsu’s ability to manipulate blood to garner a more thorough diagnosis. 

Admittedly, and in most circumstances, they would’ve deferred to Katsuyu about this. As a Slug Sage, Hashirama’s regenerative ability had come as a result of the mutations he’d sustained in his journey to become a Sage, a trait that mirrored Shikkotsurin’s slugs, especially Katsuyu herself. However, as his Amrita—the circumpunct that appeared on his forehead in Slug Sage Mode—and senjutsu needed his Chakra to work, which it coudn’t in this state. If they tried sending him to Shikkotsurin to recover, the Natural Energies there would turn him to stone if he couldn’t regulate. 

Needless to say, that was out of the question. 

“Are you sure the Uzumaki can’t do something, Lady Mito?” Maya asked after she finished scanning the Senju’s prone form, enveloped in ribbons of seals simply to keep him stable. “With your level of vitality, surely…” The Chinoike brushed away a strand of wavy blonde hair from her pretty, coppery face. The Ketsuryūgan deactivated and her eyes reverted to an amethyst hue, rising from her genuflection. 

“We tried that,” Mito answered quickly, onyx eyes transfixed to Hashirama’s form like a magnet. Her jaw worked as if she intended to say more, but couldn’t. 

“A chakra retardant was used in the explosives that incapacitated Hashirama. Without access to his chakra, his regeneration is ineffective and can’t heal him. However, this chakra retardant also prevents medical ninjutsu from working. It’s sophisticated, yet… I’m at a loss as to who synthesized it, or where Tōka found it,” Tobirama said as he did the opposite, keeping his gaze on Maya instead. “It’s impossible to deduce as all traces were likely incinerated in the explosion.”

“I know where it came from.” The trio’s eyes snapped to Ryūshū as he strode into the private sickroom, the Senju elder’s features drawn tightly. “Toad oil, from Myōbokuzan. It’s likely infused with a kind of senjutsu that blocked Hashirama’s Chakra Pathway System, and the blocks are preventing him from regenerating. And, in turn, those explosives likely damaged many of the Pathways afterward. That is why he’s not healing. And if the explosives were made with Toad Oil, that means it’s potent enough to affect a Sage, even one of Hashirama’s caliber.”

“Elder, is it safe to assume this may have been Taito’s handiwork?” Mito hedged worriedly, openly imploring the elder Senju. 

As Tobirama glowered at him with stunted breath, Ryūshū nodded once, reluctantly. 

“That bastard!” Tobirama snarled, pacing agitatedly like a tiger locked in a cage. Better for it than channeling his indignation into a punch that might’ve rattled the walls, or worse, and caused a disturbance Hashirama couldn’t afford in his comatose state. 

He had met Taito once or twice when he’d been young, a boy with hair as white as his own. Like his father, he’d also studied senjutsu with the Toads, and that had been the last of it before he’d remained with them and had been disowned by his father for his defiance. But, as a Sage, he still had a measure of superiority that Ryūshū couldn’t afford to transgress too far due to the position of both father and son as Sages. 

“I don’t know much about the Sages, but there might be a way to heal him.” It was Maya who spoke, stepping into their conversation tepidly. “Before we joined with you, our clan would pay for protection by marrying into the Kaguya Clan now and then. You see… they’re Jashinists, and their faith grants some of its members immortality… and regeneration on the level your leader boasted before this. It might be able to help him.”

“The Kaguya?” Tobirama repeated in disbelief, unfolding his arms. “Those savages? No, we can’t—!”

“Tobirama!” Mito barked, breathing hard, swallowing harshly. “What choice do we have? If word leaves our borders that Hashirama has been harmed like this, do you realize what bedlam will erupt? What we stand to lose? We have to!” 

“Mito, what is the wisdom in this? The Kaguya are butchers, slaughterers—”

“I don’t think we can trust your reason right now, Tobi-kun,” Ryūshū interrupted darkly, severely. His gold eyes bored into Tobirama’s cuttingly. “You let your guard down for that Nadeshiko woman. I know you did, in more ways than one. We cannot trust an intellect that let itself be taken advantage of so easily.”

“You agreed to that proposal, too, if that’s supposed to be my lapse in judgment!” Tobirama snarled at the towering brunet who reminded him keenly of Butsuma. Too much. The hair, the flintiness in his gaze. It made him want to use his own jutsu to travel into the past and kill the man who had made the lives of he and his brothers pure, unadulterated hell. His eyes flashed wrathfully, no longer seeing Ryūshū for who he was. 

“Tobi!” Mito shouted, wrapping an arm around her brother-in-law pleadingly, rooting them in place so the younger Senju wouldn’t lunge and cause a fatal lapse in judgment. Pinning him against a wall, she braced her hands commandingly and soothingly on his shoulders simultaneously. “I’m sorry, but Ryūshū-sama is right. We don’t have a choice.” 

Despair filled Tobirama’s eyes as he saw through Mito and stared hard at his older brother, looking for all the world like a dead man on his funeral bier, bedecked in funeral shrouds. Were it not for the rattling of his chest and its strained rise and fall, he would’ve believed it, too. 

This man was his light and the manifestation of all his demons. If he were to die—

(Hashirama was the only brother he had left.) 

Tobirama’s head bowed in mournful defeat. “…Do what needs to be done.” Please. 

“…I’ll make the necessary arrangements,” Maya said quietly, fleeing the room. 

Tobirama flinched when he felt Ryūshū approach, expecting to be scolded again, but shock registered in his features when the older man slowly took his nephew in his arms, the younger going absolutely rigid at first. Ryūshū looked like his father, and he hated the man, yet—he slowly sagged into the sturdiness, the strength he desperately needed to lean on. 

He hated his father. Yet, sometimes… he wished he could’ve been a son. Treated as more than just a tool, an arrow aimed at the enemy and let fly. 

As the weight of everything crushed him in despair, Tobirama succumbed. For the first time since his mother’s death, he wept, shoulders shaking with sobs as his uncle held him comfortingly. 

Please, Kami—don’t take him away from me, too!