Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Minato’s decided he likes diplomatic missions, for the most part; there’s little need to stealth, a low likelihood of bloodshed, and usually a good room at an inn. The most strenuous part of them is the travel, sometimes at a pace quicker than he would prefer, but he’ll take the trade-off for the relative lack of stress they require.

That’s not to say he enjoys them. Subterfuge is a necessity in his line of work, and he takes to it as a fish to water like most things, but that doesn’t soothe the ache in his cheeks from the placid smile he dons for hours at a time. He’s in the room with the Ino-Shika-Cho trio to act as a soother to civilians and another thinly-concealed threat to shinobi. According to the diplomat he’s been shoved onto, civilians see his “boyish charm and baby blues” and soften up accordingly, even if it’s Shikaku’s ever-droll being doing the talking.

Minato’s reserves and weapons pouches are undepleted, though he’s mentally wrung out from parsing convoluted conversations, as his team flits into the thick trees that denote their home territory. Shikaku has set their four-man squad to a moderate pace, which lets him think about the spinach in his fridge that’s definitely spoiled and the order of sealing papers he needs to pick up when he has a chance. 

So he’s fully armed but slightly distracted when a mass hurtles straight through the canopy of the forest and he barely avoids getting crushed, completing a Shunshin at the last possible moment. He is grateful for his speed, because the tree he was just passing has now been turned to shrapnel he has to dodge, and the ground behind him craters with the force brought upon it. The trunk he sticks himself to sways with the shock, the air filling with dust.

Nothing moves in the immediate aftermath. His eyes manage to find his teammates further from the crash as his lines of sight come back. A minute passes, and whatever fell remains inanimate. He sends a light wind jutsu to clear the area.

The team flickers closer to surround the periphery of the crater, fifty feet in diameter, and only then can Minato tell what was intent on rocketing towards his fragile human skeleton.

The mass that created a crater in the earth is a person.

Unmoving, maybe unconscious, most likely dead. Minato thinks that under all the dirt and blood and torn clothing he can see at least two limbs twisted at unnatural angles and a fall at that velocity has to be spine-breaking, no matter the general hardiness of the shinobi population. Based on the flak jacket that looks like it’s been through hell and the pouches decorating their thighs, this person is almost certainly a shinobi. 

It’s possible the lingering dust and heavy feeling in the air are playing with him, but what he thought were dried blood streaks decorating their face seem too spread and symmetrical to be anything but seal lines. Extended seal lines. 

“Active seal lines,” he says lowly in Shikaku’s direction. He hears a stifled sigh.

More dust clears, his suspicion is confirmed, and he’s starting to see this person’s face is feminine, with shoulder length hair that may or may not be pink under everything.

Minato’s wariness is abruptly joined by disappointment because active seal lines can still persist as the last of a person’s chakra coils empty, returning to the world as natural energy; he wants to examine it in its entirety. He also really wants to ask if her pigmented hair is related to the Uzumaki in any way, which is perhaps not the most respectful or relevant question to inquire of a mysterious lump of shattered bones, but he thinks his curiosity can be excused. This person almost turned him into a puddle of viscera formerly known as Minato. 

Seriously, that fall would even kill Chouza.

They wait minutes, yet the seal remains; if the person is breathing, it is impossible to tell so from a distance.

He begins to edge closer to the pit after signaling, being fastest in case of retreat, but Shikaku takes hold of the shadows dipping across the earth. He’s got good backup for this situation. He takes careful steps into the dip, approaching until he stands ten feet from the pink-haired (definitely, ah man) ninja. He can see a hitai-ate wrapped as a headband and catches the insignia she bears: shinobi. 

Any breathing remains imperceptible, and he envies his local doujutsu users for a flash. Fugaku’s said he can measure a person’s pulse with his Sharingan. At least he can tell for sure that the seal is a seal, and remains active, and crosses down her neck and appears to continue along her broken limbs, tracing tenketsu points. That’s a damn powerful seal, and he really wishes it was appropriate to pull out his notebook right now.

He is glad for his caution when he hears a faint wheeze pass her bloodied lips, one familiar from battlefields he generally prefers not to reminisce on. The warmed metal hilt of his kunai tightens in his grip, and he signals to the team. Shikaku’s shadows begin to writhe, and her next wheeze is a louder half-gurgle that does a bad job concealing a grinding noise coming from within her body, and it sends his stomach churning.

Minato decides he is going to spend as much time as possible figuring out his version of the Hiraishin when he gets back to Konoha. He wants to be at least a hundred feet from this, right now please. 

He can finally see her chest rising unevenly as a horrible cracking noise comes from her right thigh. He can’t help but cringe.

It doesn’t take long for him to realize that she is not uttering her death rattles. Her body is putting itself back together with no medic standing over her. He’s glad they’re in the middle of nowhere, or they’d have anyone within a mile or two or however far the sound of her impact traveled butting their heads in on this. 

The seal is still active, and he only knows of one that unconsciously repairs the user’s body. Shit.

-

It doesn’t take long for the rest of the team to join Minato in witnessing a medical miracle. Chouza frowns, Inoichi watches their surroundings, and Shikaku considers her figure. He keeps his shadows close but doesn’t use them, letting her body restructure itself without impediment. A short exchange lets him know that Minato’s heard zip about his sensei’s old teammate spawning or picking up a stray. 

Blood still leaks from the girl’s mouth and he examines the lines of her seal, following them with his eyes though he’d rather run his fingers along them. He’s never really had interest or access to true medical fuuinjutsu. The desire to grab his notebook rises again but he just twirls his kunai as something happens in her sternum. Shikaku would have his ass.

They wait while her breathing begins to even, and she gurgles less, much to his relief. It’s truly incredible to see a seal of this caliber at work. He’s done some pretty wild things with and without Jiraiya’s safety recommendations and Kushina’s assistance, but this is an S-class seal. He’ll be honest: he’s practically salivating.

At least fifteen minutes pass before she truly begins to stir, swallowing and whimpering as her eyelids flutter. The entire team is poised at the ready, though they don’t really expect her to be in any state to attack. When she blinks, seemingly desperate for moisture, he sees that her eyes are jade-bright and knows they’d be piercing if not for their haziness. He does not want to experience whatever level of pain she is feeling at the moment. 

She grits her teeth, scrunching her nose in a groan, and shifts her neck with extreme care. Her whole face pinches as she manages to slightly even her torso to ease pressure on her spine from the packed dirt keeping her lying at an angle. He is… genuinely impressed at her ability to even twitch, active Byakugou or not. Both of her arms are still in unnatural positions, one from her humerus and forearm and the other limp from her socket. 

Minato steels himself as her eyes open and miraculously stay that way. They land directly on him, though she’s clearly still not seeing fully straight, lashes fluttering with effort. Her brows scrunch in confusion, then recognition (he is low down in a couple bingo books), and then she groans. Not in pain, not in resignation or fear, but in annoyance. Minato’s own eyebrows dip. He’s regretting standing closest to her eyeline. 

She lets out a pitiful cough that decorates the ground with a few drops of blood and tries to wipe her mouth on the scuffed neck of her flak jacket. She’s partially successful. He hears Shikaku tread quietly closer to him, while the others shift to cover his position. A few more hard blinks and the girl that fell from the sky connects her wobbly gaze with his own unblinking eyes, cracked lips frowning.

“Naruto,” she grits out, and he frowns too; maybe he likes the titular character of his sensei's debut, but he is not named after kamaboko. “Soon as my arm heals I’m going to beat you and Sasuke to smithereens. Fucking Kaguya...” It takes a moment, but her blown pupils track away from Minato and settle, squinting, on the Nara that stands behind his shoulder. 

The girl leans slightly forward and gasps in wonder. She flashes her blood-stained teeth in a grisly facsimile of a smile and slurs, “Shikaku-oji! Shika’ll be sooo glad you didn’t get blown up!” 

And then she slumps and passes out, leaving his team to gape in confusion. 

It doesn’t help that they can still hear her bones scraping under cloth and skin, reassembling themselves without guide, in the epicenter of the crater her body made. 

-

They wait until her body stops shifting itself and making ominous noises (ten minutes, plus five for caution) before approaching. Minato is so indescribably glad to have Shikaku and his handy dandy shadow possession if needed; his paralysis seals are all well and good until you put them on someone with biological interference and have to deal with the splatter. 

He doesn’t want to deal with the splatter, in this instance at least. In the same vein, he’ll wait to apply chakra restraints (he also allows himself to be concerned about her health if he interferes with her coils as he does not want to chance facing the wrath of the Slug Sannin). Not a ton of answers you can get out of a bloodstain, and for the love of all that is holy does his team have some questions. 

They restrain her limbs carefully after Inoichi lays a genjutsu across her to keep her unconscious. He suspects the restraints will be about as effective as a paperclip if she wants out, chakra suppressed or not, but it does comfort him slightly. Chouza carries her as they find somewhere suitable to make camp for the night. Just the last hour has left him a bit tired, and he is sure it’ll get worse as soon as the girl wakes up again.

-

Poking around her weapons pouches and clothes doesn’t reveal much beyond a few scratched kunai, some ninja wire, what Chouza identifies as two ration bars he doesn’t recognize the origin of, and exactly seven loose almonds falling out of her torn pants pocket. Checking the underside of her hitai-ate doesn’t add much; it lacks standard identification seals and is simply stamped with: K012601.

She remains under as she’s set against a tree a safe distance from camp and the team takes great enthusiasm in their Akimichi-made dinner. The shadows of the forest shift as the sun begins taking its leave, the insects who thrive in the chilly dusk making themselves known. Minato listens to their songs as he watches her, only stirring when he notices the lines of her seal begin to slowly retreat up what skin of her forearms he can see. The team is gathered by the time black is pulled back from her jawline, the Byakugou drawing itself to rest and flaring bright as it closes, leaving the telltale purple diamond marking behind. Once again, Minato wishes for the ability to record. 

Having the village’s up and coming information gathering and interrogation squad here makes decisions simple. Minato is not as skilled as Inoichi at genjutsu, but he takes over so she remains incognizant as he begins his legally standard peek at an unknown’s mind, now that there is no seal to possibly interfere with his family jutsu.

Within five seconds, the man cringes back, letting go of his hand signs to rub his forehead and squeeze his pupilless eyes shut. Chouza mutters with quiet concern, “Inoichi…?”

He groans. “What the fuck. I think I just got socked out of her brain.”

Minato blinks. “Is that not… common?” He isn’t overly familiar with the Yamanaka jutsu.

Inoichi takes a chug from his water pouch. “Getting mentally beat up by a personality fragment before I can even check for a name or village of origin? No, no it’s not.” He cracks his back and says, “This one’s on you, Shika. Have fun!”

“Shithead.”

“Release the genjutsu, Minato. I don’t think she’ll stay unconscious too much longer after that.” 

He does so, letting it dissipate while they move to let Shikaku in front of her. He seems to be a point of familiarity, somehow; there exist no other Shikakus within Konoha. Minato creeps out of view, as his name is certainly not Naruto. She starts to stir and Inoichi takes a moment to lay another genjutsu down, meant to lightly blur perceptions and loosen the tongue.

A heavy intake of breath and she wakes, bleary, blinking at the Nara that rests in front of her when he asks softly, “How do you feel?” as she stumbles through the first sticky moments of awareness, exacerbated though they may be. 

She groans, dry and parched, licking her lips and swallowing so she can crack out, “Like I got squished by Gamabunta.” Minato holds back a shocked laugh with the confusion that immediately swamps him. The boss toad hasn’t been summoned to this world for over half a decade now, which he imparts with quick movements of his fingers. Chouza gives her a small sip of water, allowing what words may come of her answers to slip with more ease.

The girl manages to open her eyes, squinting once more at the Nara that rests in front of her as she tilts her head. A moment, and her breathing hitches. “Shikaku-oji-san…? But you -”

Inoichi flinches. He freezes before repeating the genjutsu hand signs, throwing a bit more chakra into it. 

“Yeah, it’s Shikaku,” the man in question says evenly. She opens her mouth again, but Shikaku’s eyes snap to where her fingers twitch around her elbows, and Inoichi lets out a hissed breath.

The Nara signals for one more try with a stronger genjutsu, which is broken in approximately five seconds. Inoichi’s hands fall to his sides. 

“What happened?” Shikaku asks anyways, counting on her naturally muddled perception to ease his questioning.

The shinobi leans forward gently, as far as the ties that bind her to the tree allow, though she doesn’t really seem to clock the restriction. She clenches her jaw and narrows her eyes, lips almost forming a pout. “Shikaku-oji, Kaguya… where are Naruto and Sasuke?” Her gaze flits for a moment, finding nothing as Minato has left her view. Shikaku drags her eyes back with a light cough.

“What do you remember?” he questions again. 

She returns to examining the man in front of her, brows furrowed as she bites her lip hard enough to draw blood. Quietly and almost absently, she says, “Kaguya, there were more clones… maybe lava? And then Naruto…” she trails off, tilting her chin up and examining her surroundings again, taking deep sniffs of the air. 

“Naruto…?” Shikaku prompts.

After a moment she slowly swings her head back to meet him and takes a steadying breath. “Did Chouji cook? And... why are your scars so fresh, Shikaku-oji-san?”

-

Sakura’s body aches something fierce, but she keeps her eyes locked on Shikaku’s face as he digests her question. He’s too good of a ninja to show any reaction to such direct provocation, but she examines the two identifying scars stretched across his forehead and cheek. She’s used to them as a silvered reminder of his past, but the ones she’s seeing now still contain a faint memory of red. He also lacks the deep wrinkles between his brows, the constant five-o’clock shadow she grew used to seeing before he - well, before he and the rest of HQ got a Bijuudama thrown on them. 

She’s already thrown off three genjutsu and has since flared her chakra, stopped and started its flow, reversed her coils’ directions, and inflicted pain on herself. She hasn’t had to do a proper kai in ages and doesn’t try, hands not moving with the effort she’s willing to expend at the moment. As her mouth waters at the faint scent of Akimichi spices, she briefly does an itty bitty elective heart surgery. 

Shikaku’s still plopped on the ground in front of her, distinctly not blown up, his chakra permeating the evening shadows that surround them. She’s also vaguely sure she noted the presences of Inoichi and Chouza earlier too.

Sakura still doesn’t have a concussion.

He finally decides on his words, responding, “No need to worry about it. Dinner was cooked a while ago. When was the last time you ate?”

Her stomach rumbles, because she’s not sure when it was, but she remembers stuffing a handful of nuts in her mouth before setting someone’s broken leg. Judging by the way her body feels and tenketsu tingle, her Byakugou was recently active and would like much more than battlefield snacks to fuel it. 

She is also far from stupid. The man in front of her has given her very little information to work with. She’s trying to do the same while most of her already-scrambled mind is pondering the likelihood of being stuck in Infinite Tsukuyomi, but she’s pretty sure the ultimate genjutsu isn’t meant to let you think it’s a genjutsu. Sakura doubts that a slightly-off Shikaku would be her first sight in a dream world and begins to remember what, exactly, precipitated her leaning back against a Fire Country oak. 

“Not sure,” she mumbles, thinking about flipping through dimensions with an evil moon princess on track to get smushed between her dumb fuck teammates and their crazy magic hands. “What’s the date?” she asks.

Shikaku decides to take a risk (or he’s lying to her), but he tells her the month (which she remembers), day (hasn’t been sure of that in a while), and year.

Which makes her clench her jaw and run through all her genjutsu breakers again, capping it with another quick but inadvisable surgery. 

She swallows, twitches her hands enough to recognize she’s restrained in a relatively kind manner, and says, “It’s been a while, then.” Sakura feels no seals affecting her movement or chakra, but the cool whisper of the Nara’s unique jutsu surrounds her. It’s been over a year since she’s had to deal with being captured like this, and she thanks all her time with Team Ten for how well she knows the movements of manipulated shadows. The wire’ll be easy as shit to break; dealing with the shadows crawling beneath her will be more difficult but not impossible, though she hopes there won’t be need to. 

“Then you’ll have to excuse my questions,” Shikaku says, tired of subtlety, “but can you recall your name, rank, titles, and identification number?” 

Sakura sighs as her stomach rumbles again, considering the wisdom of doing so. She’s still half-sure she’s in a wacky new genjutsu she hasn’t managed to crack, in which case she is already a public figure and this fake Shikaku would know anyways. If she’s dealing with the all-time record for Team Seven weirdness, she might have a chance of getting some diplomatically handled camp food and the opportunity to summon Katsuyu as an ID card. She may have just woken from unconsciousness, but it’s already been a long day.

“No worries,” she responds. “Sakura, jounin, apprentice of Senju Tsunade, Slug Summoner, ID 012601.” She keeps Haruno and Godaime’s aide and Konoha General's Deputy Chief of Surgery and Medical Division Captain to herself, at the very least. He notes the lack of the first with a tilt of his head, and seems to acknowledge her words with a slight flare of his nostrils. Seeing him tick is a distant memory at this point, but Sakura’s never been good at forgetting.

“Thank you, Sakura. Since it’s been so long and you’re not wearing a Konoha hitai-ate, would you mind calling a portion of Katsuyu-sama to confirm your identity? I wouldn’t want you to strain your chakra much more, so as small as you can handle,” Shikaku says with a steadiness that does not belie the absolute batshit crazy allowance he just made with such small prompting on her end. Also, she’d bet her bottom dollar they already saw her Byakugou active; she’s always had better gambling luck than her master. He’s definitely got company, and his curiosity has been dangerously piqued. 

Sakura blows some of her loose bangs away from her eyes and says, “Of course, if you’ll remove the restraints on my arms.” 

He nods and looks somewhere behind her left, prompting the light footsteps of a shinobi making their presence known. She doesn’t twitch when a head of yellow-blond hair comes around her at an angle, crouching down to nick the restraints keeping her forearms folded together, but the breath she takes feels substantial. Sakura is suddenly intensely aware of her body, and not just because of the cool that spreads as Shikaku’s shadows creep around her still-bound legs.

Namikaze Minato takes enough steps back to be out of her range, twirling the standard kunai he used between his fingers in a show of intimidation, a series of well-practiced tricks that tell her just how much time he spends with one in his hands. She tries not to let her eyes linger on his face, picking out the various differences between his and Naruto’s, how time and Edo Tensei changed him, and thinks she’s partially successful. 

Sakura tilts her head in thanks at the both of them and flexes her arms, letting the wire fall away. She wipes her hand across some of the tacky blood decorating her opposite forearm, runs through the signs to complete the summoning jutsu, and slams her hand onto the ground beside her. They watch the lines of the seal spreading, formed from her blood and chakra, and a shoe-sized piece (like she’d ever only summon a fingernail of slug in this situation) of Katsuyu appears in a shroud of smoke.

It’s only as the smoke disperses and she sees stalks wiggling in her direction that Sakura belatedly runs through a long list of reasons she probably shouldn’t have attempted a summoning when she’s possibly around twenty years too early to have her name in the Great Slug’s contract. 

Well. Team Seven does love to dive in headfirst. 

-

Katsuyu is a creature Minato’s mostly heard of in Jiraiya’s grand battle tales and has only seen once. As a green genin, before Tsunade’s fiance died and she grabbed his niece and ditched the war effort, his team got to enjoy a short, vocally-fraught lesson on summons from the previous incarnation of Team Seven. The convivial toads had his heart in an instant, but he remembers the way Orochimaru’s young snakes glid about like moving lines of ink, and the singular slug summon presiding from the Senju’s shoulder, calmly answering what questions Minato and his teammates fired off while the older humans got into a bickering match.

Angled to stand on the side of her dominant hand, Minato can tell the summon that appears at the pink-haired shinobi’s side is, without a doubt, Katsuyu, teal stripes and all. His kunai does not return to his weapons pouch, and he can see the members of Ino-Shika-Cho tense further in their own ways. 

Sakura bows her head lightly at the slug facing her, leaving a bloody palm on the ground for her to slither upon, which lifts to bring her closer to the general eye level of their group. If this unknown slug summoner says anything to the creature, he doesn’t hear it. The seconds tick by as Katsuyu examines her charge. Minato feels a trill of fear run down his spine as he considers what, exactly, a summon of her caliber can do if she thinks they are the reason for her ninja’s recent injuries and tries desperately to believe in Shikaku’s decision-making process. He’s deeply glad to not be facing Manda’s legendary viciousness.

The slug’s eyestalks retreat from her dusty face and take a proper swing of her surroundings before they pause in Minato’s direction. He hopes she can’t tell he’s on the verge of calling a toad at least five times her current size, for whatever good that’ll do him. 

“Sakura-chan,” the slug starts slowly, “what are you doing here?”

Her summoner shifts uncomfortably, peeping at her onlookers. She keeps the gastropod steady in her palm and clears her raspy throat, responding, “You tell me, Katsuyu-sama,” which is not exactly how Minato expected her to begin running Shikaku’s ballsy identification scheme. 

The Great Slug slides her small body around, fully facing Minato along with her eyestalks, and by the Sage he’s really hoping she’s just recognizing him as the evolved form of one of Jiraiya’s “tadpoles”. He doesn’t dare look towards his team leader but he wouldn’t be surprised if Shikaku’s shadows are on a hair trigger. 

“Well,” Katsuyu says calmly, “this isn’t good.” Balancing on Sakura’s extended fingers, the slug cranes her stalks further towards Minato. He resists the urge to lean back, already well out of reach, but the air he breathes begins to feel suffocating, heavy with damp as his gaze remains locked with the slug. He wants to glance at the summoner, check her body to see if shadows are crawling along it, but he can’t look away, vision drawn into the dark pinpricks that constitute eyes for a being beyond mortal ken. “You’ll do well to keep your mouth closed about this in the company of jackanapes and their king, little tadpole, if you know what is good for you.”

In a puff of smoke, the Great Slug and her crater-causing summoner disappear, leaving the remaining wire binds to fall directly into the crushing grip of Shikaku’s shadows. Minato’s next inhale is thin and dry. 

-

“What’s a jackanape?” asks Chouza, breaking them from their slug-induced stupor. 

“Monkey,” the Nara mutters, not breaking his staring contest with the recently-vacated dirt. Minato adds that knowledge to his mental bookshelves easily.

“Nice going,” Inoichi chirps, “now we’ve got an extra-dimensional slug remotely menacing the Hokage and no summoner to bring him.” 

“Go brush your hair or something.” 

-

“... 012601 isn’t a valid Konoha ID.”

“No shit, Inoichi. There’s no jounin named Sakura on the register as far as I’m aware.” 

“… I need to talk to Jiraiya-sensei.”

“Oh, make sure to ask him about that old Mist Cuisine cookbook I’ve been looking for again.”

“…”

“What? Her hair made me think of all the crazy clan shades in Water.”

“It was a nice shade of pink, under all the…”

“Blood?”

“Dirt?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t let Kushina-chan hear you say that!” 

Minato chokes on his own spit and coughs when Chouza’s hand pats his back. He’s pretty sure he can feel his ribcage rattle. 

“Let the man live, Ino.”

“… Thank you, Chouza.”

-

The dirt and leaf litter she falls upon is damp, the air humid but cool as Sakura swallows bile and tries to calm her churning stomach, and her eyes crack open to see a form of Katsuyu crowding her vision. 

“Eat something, Sakura-chan, it’ll help the disorientation,” she says.

Tired and so, so done with today, she groans when patting the outer compartments of her flak jacket reveals nothing and the hand digging for her loose almonds comes up empty. Not wanting to put in the effort of unsummoning rations from her storage seals, she manages a triumphant noise when exploring the discreet pockets in the lining of her vest, fingers brushing the small packet of dried mango strips Ino slipped her the last time they shared a tent. 

Sakura halfheartedly chews through the tough flesh while lying on her back, the moist forest nocturne lulling her heavy lids closed, transforming the vague weight of Katsuyu spreading across her body into a mirage of comfort. She falls asleep with the aftertaste of forgotten fruit on her tongue.

-

“If she knows someone named Naruto of all things, maybe she is from somewhere coastal…”

Absently attempting to defend his sensei’s nominal literary decisions, Minato comments, “She also thought you got blown up, Shikaku.” 

“I’m aware, tadpole.”

Chapter Text

Sakura’s early bird tendencies, only reinforced by months of war, wake her when the sun bends through layers of foliage to smack her right in the face.

Her bones feel achingly new and her blood tells her she should really still be sleeping, preferably in a hospital bed with an IV stuck in her arm, even with a shimmer of Katsuyu’s chakra lingering within her tissue. Opening her eyes and dropping her cheek to the dew-covered forest floor, she makes out a large mass of white sitting on the other side of the glade she was dropped into. With a line of teal running along its side, Sakura recognizes a couch-sized portion of her lucky break.

As she tenses and releases portions of her body one by one, checking them for injury, she breathes in the clean, moist air, perfumed by verdure, and recognizes the scent of a place she’s been brought to only once before. 

Shikkotsu Forest, which holds the entire mass of Katsuyu and the various slugs who prefer the company of their own species, is only accessible to humans via reverse summoning or other reality-bending method, being somewhat outside of the dimension she calls home. A younger Sakura was brought without her master to be evaluated by Katsuyu, her hidden cornucopia, and the Forest itself for her worthiness.

Within a week, she was back in the Hokage’s office, her blood decorating the true contract scroll buried in a part of the forest light never reaches. She always intended to come back at some point, but she thought it would be with a lot more preparation and planning, and not in the middle of a war.

“Good morning, Katsuyu-sama,” Sakura says softly, pushing herself upright.

The slug perks up from her resting place on a frankly enormous leaf, chiming, “Good morning, Sakura-chan. How do you feel?”

A roll of her shoulders, a pop of her back, and she responds, “Functional, though dehydrated.”

“Behind you,” Katsuyu tilts her eyestalks to indicate, “I have collected some fresh water for you. Drink.”

Perched upon a stump is a filled weather-worn wooden bowl, which fits smoothly in her dirty hands. She’s seen a few similar items here in the past, but she’s never been able to tell if they’re a blessing of the forest or a quiet remnant of human life. It doesn’t matter much when her tongue loses its fuzziness and she starts to feel less like a husk. The stump provides a comfortable backrest.

Sipping her drink, she asks, “What happened?”

“Do you remember summoning me?”

“Ah, yes. There was… Shikaku-oji-san, and Yondaime-sama?” Sakura’s half-convinced that memory is a fever dream.

Katsuyu hums. “Of a sort. Can you recall what preceded your meeting with them?” A faint ring of dismay starts in the very back of her brain, and she swallows her next sip of water with difficulty.

Sakura says, “I believe I last saw you on the battlefield some days ago, Katsuyu-sama. Before… before last night, Kaguya was sending us through… dimensions? Pretty much just Team Seven, but I know we had her cornered, I was…” Flashes of the battles, ridiculous circumstances only suitable for those beyond mortal, ice and fire and gravity itself moving with the thought of a goddess. “I punched her horn off.”

The hand that damaged what no others could touch clenches. “Sasuke and Naruto sealed her? I’m not sure, I just remember light, maybe her eyes? And then feeling like Shishou got me with a boulder.” She takes another drink from the bowl gripped in her other palm, letting the clear water wash away the memory of ash as her brows pinch tight. “Katsuyu-sama,” she starts, “why am I in Shikkotsu? This isn’t a genjutsu, right? Why did I see Shikaku-oji-san and Yondaime-sama alive? Just - where is everyone, the war, did we…?” 

“Calm, and I will do my best to explain what I know,” Katsuyu implores, and her summoner settles back to listen to the words of the Great Slug, surrounded by the ambiance of a waking forest teeming with life. “I will be frank with you. Prior to last night’s summoning, I was not aware of your existence, Haruno Sakura.”

-

The luck of Team Seven resides in a strange place outside the general bad-good scale, notable primarily for absurd complications they deal with, somehow, scraping raw their stores of fortuity to come out the other side in something resembling alive. Sakura has long recognized this and has been dealing appropriately, by becoming functionally indestructible and widely curative, able to navigate the bizarre with a foot still stuck in the reality necessary to work around demons and men with ocular divinity. 

She’s just had the misfortune of fighting a woman with ocular divinity in excess who was decidedly offended by her little makeover and took it out on Sakura in her final moment of panic. 

Kaguya had already been yanking them through dimensions, scrambling the lines between what does and does not exist, trailing around their reality in loops, pulling them further and further from the accumulated chakra of their natural world. It didn’t take much to punt Sakura from it completely.

She got bumped out of her ball pocket and spun round the roulette wheel of the macrocosm until she fell into a different slot. Basically. That’s how Tsunade would explain it, at least.

“Summons and their realms, especially those as aged as I, understand chakra and Natural Energy in a way you humans are incapable of. Sages may be able to feel and channel the Natural Energy of the world, but they lack a facet of sense that comes from being born of chakra, rather than with it. Summons are not so pure as the great Bijuu, but our… hearing, so to say, is good enough to distinguish the different notes between worlds. I can tell, by listening to the song of your chakra, that you are of a central, human reality the summoning realms surround. It is more difficult to hear, but there is a difference far fainter that you carry, that tells me you were formed and nurtured in a dimension that carries a minutely different… key.”

“... Okay.”

“I am being selective in my choices of when to use realm and dimension.”

“Ah. So… you’d say the whole ice and lava worlds were just realms?”

“Correct. Realms are tethered to a central reality, and all share the same key, as it were. Dimensions may resemble each other to the point of indistinguishability on all levels except for the slightest difference in that key.”

“And the time travel?”

“My knowledge of Time is lesser than that of Space, but say… ah. I remember your usage of radio systems. Dimensions are different wavelengths; you are the sound, as am I, but I have a radio I may listen to and change the channel to which I am listening, if I know its wavelength. Greater Beings and Powers can physically navigate, or even alter, the different wavelengths in a variety of ways.”

“So the SharingaRinne-whatever did some crap to me that booted me a step to the right and a bunch back, but there’s no way you or I could do that?”

“I’d say that’s an accurate description, especially with what carelessness you were transported.” Sakura gets that split-second vicious reaction Kaguya had; she’s a petty bitch too.

“Wonderful. And my ability to summon you?”

“Another note of similarity. When you signed your version of our Contract, it added another note to your chakra. The summoning jutsu acts as a sort of tune one plays through the Shikkotsu-specific fuuinjutsu gate, and though I didn’t know the player, I could hear that note of connection we share. And then because I came and learned your song, I could tap into that connection and learn of the ‘me’ you contracted with. It is difficult to explain. Please excuse any confusion regarding my use of your musical terms, none of my summoners have exposed me to much music theory.” 

“Katsuyu-sama, I am one of those summoners; none of us have been exposed to much music theory. No worries. I’m… pretty sure I know what you mean. I’m curious though, is my name on the contract here now?”

“Hmm. Certainly not the copy Tsunade-hime carries. You would have to make the journey to the scroll here in Shikkotsu and check that one for yourself. It will not make much of a difference beyond efficiency on your end of summoning, so you may be able to tell on your own; I will still answer your call. The links connecting summoner and summon are not so simple as to rely upon a mark on a paper. However, if you wish to pursue further training within Shikkotsu Forest, your signature and blood must be transcribed upon the Contract.”

It was an entirely worthwhile journey when she was fourteen and desperately needed to go through the emotional growth the process of retrieving the scroll required of her. Sakura has an even broader understanding of herself in relation to the oft-invisible forces that govern nature at this point and does not need to add another possibly hallucinogenic layer to her current existential crisis. 

“Maybe another time. So… chances of getting home without Kaguya? What about Nagato’s Rinnegan?”

“Theoretically possible but incredibly unlikely. Nagato is no Ootsutsuki, and he would need to be skilled enough to access realms, at the very least; the chakra required… I am unsure, but I would estimate it to be no less than ten times the amount your Byakugou contains when full. And while I may be able to hear that difference in the song of your chakra, I have no way to navigate to its source. The same restrictions would stand even if you managed the impossible and created a viable piece of fuuinjutstu capable of dimensional travel within your lifetime.”

-

The large slug sits silently, slime glinting in the small slits of sunlight that fall through the eaves of this section of Shikkotsu Forest, as Sakura’s thoughts jumble and speed. Her brain knots itself with strings of reasoning; the few texts she’s read on Space-Time theory (thank you, Senju compound library!) are accompanied by the logical panic of being harshly booted from her life and the horrid certainty of knowledge from a trusted extra-dimensional being (and she’s still gonna use that term, fuck it). There are a few of those she’d like a brawl with, right now. 

She briefly considers a light grave robbing for a Space-Time brainstorm sesh with the Nidaime (this version of the Yondaime was clearly in his pupal stage, going by the lack of Hiraishin kunai; he looked less like Naruto’s Hot Dad and more like Naruto’s Long-Lost Brother with a Sharper Jaw) before discarding the idea as foolish. Tobirama, of all the Hokage, was least upset by his disturbed rest from the Pure Lands and would certainly be down to chat, but her developing headache makes it difficult to want to track down a Zetsu clone for a morally-upright Edo Tensei. She also has no idea what protections are in place around the Hokages’ burial grounds at this point in time and no desire to experience the wonders of Konoha T&I from the wrong side. Above all, Katsuyu’s explanations make a terrifying logic that Tobirama, for all the beauty of his brain, would not be able to counter with any ease.

(So, okay, she would still appreciate the second opinion of the only Seal Master of meddling with the fabric of space and time she knows - she didn’t even get booted far back enough to traipse over to Uzushiogakure, damn. He’d even appreciate it, seeing as dimensional time travelers were not something he had the chance to research, what with their lack and the bureaucracy of a village on his shoulders. Sakura, who long thought him an impetuous fool for not destroying all scraps of his Edo Tensei after opting to let his brothers rest peacefully, wonders slightly hysterically if this kind of preternatural fuckery was why. He’d only ever seemed offended by the who and why of his resurrections, not the resurrections themselves. Fascinating man, truly.)

The damp ambiance of the forest is only disturbed when Sakura closes her eyes and mutters, “...Shit,” the absent cracking of her knuckles an ugly semblance of breaking twigs. Katsuyu says nothing, letting the heavy sigh she releases encompass the small clearing until she rubs her lids and stinging nose, looking to the slug again. Her stalks wiggle, patient but inspecting the wilting form of her summoner.

A palm-sized section of Katsuyu breaks off, sliding to Sakura with her usual quiet grace. She lifts her, silently acquiescing when her stalks tilt knowingly at her aching head. Smiling slightly even with the prospect of slime-covered hair, Sakura places the piece of her only company in this mess on the crown of her skull.

The sensation of another’s healing chakra is nearly unfamiliar at this point. She’d woken with remnants of Katsuyu’s diffusing her flesh, but the cool wash of relief without drawing on her own system nearly makes her cry. Long stints of self-healing are not recommended to most medics for a variety of reasons; Sakura is not most medics, and recommendations fall a bit to the wayside when shadows and goddesses are out to get you. She’s mostly sure the last human to heal her was Tsunade, closing a laceration across her shoulder blades in a rare moment of quietude between battles, though she’s unsure of how long ago that was - weeks, at least. 

Sakura definitely got the best deal of the three legendary summons. She’s had dreams about putting her boot to venerable toads and tying asshole snakes in knots. Kakashi always found it funny that someone with her temper got on best with the calm, noble slug (and was reminded, far from gently, that not provoking her is a wonderful way to maintain a nonviolent relationship).

When the chlorophyllic taste of Katsuyu’s chakra retreats, she continues to rest on her head, a calming (and wet) reminder of her companionship. Seeing her slightly more settled, the larger Katsuyu moves in, tilting her head in contemplation. Letting slime treat her war-buffed hair, Sakura waits as her stalks shift, half-expecting another notification of shin-kicking from reality and realizing she’s passed her point of incredulity for the time being. If she were in the Hokage’s office, she’d be kicking open the floorboard full of mini sake bottles she conveniently forgot to inform Shizune of. 

It’s still a slight relief when the legendary slug simply asks, “What will you do now, Sakura-chan?”

Licking her teeth and cringing at the sour taste in her mouth, she comes to a quick decision. Thanking her lucky stars for fuuinjutsu and poorly-advised storage scroll experiments (Naruto’s wayward thinking and her propensity for logical processes managed something successful in the midst of global annihilation), she unseals her beat-up toiletries (which include her final sad, empty pill bottle) and mostly-clean pre-war outfit from her calf. The stream nearby and a simple water jutsu are a heavenly combination she makes use of once Katsuyu finishes her impersonation of a hat.

Standing in the midst of Shikkotsu Forest, looking like a kunoichi but not dressed in the scraps of her Konoha fatigues, Sakura asks the Great Slug Katsuyu, “Can you drop me off wherever Tsunade-shishou is? I need a drink, and if she doesn’t have one on her there’ll be some nearby.”

Alcohol and her summoner, never too far apart. She just makes the slug equivalent of a smile and responds, “Of course, Sakura-chan.” 

-

Chakra smoke and the nauseating feel of dimensional travel accompany Sakura as she pops into being on the side of a near-empty Fire Country road at midday.

She has to promptly dodge the familiar, deadly fist that immediately comes for the left of her ribcage. It’s only her extensive experience with evasion that saves her from having to drain her already pitifully tapped Byakugou again. Ah, so she’s still got the impeccable punch-first ask-questions-never reflexes of a surprised active shinobi even in the depths of her drunken misery tour. It’s heartening to know her master stayed sharp in her unsanctioned retirement. 

Avoiding a brutal kick, Sakura leaps away in time to escape the crevice and resulting destruction that form under a size eight heel. She lands on the trembling ground in time to hear Katsuyu’s cat-sized form call out, “Tsunade-hime! Halt!”

She can make out the high, wavering voice of a tween girl from across the road beneath the slug’s, saying, “Ah! Tsunade-shishou, it’s Katsuyu-sama!”

Sakura’s gaze focuses on the vaguely younger form of her master, now still with arms poised to keep fighting if necessary. Her neck is twisted towards Katsuyu, but she keeps Sakura in her near periphery. In Sakura’s own, she notes that the girl is, without a doubt, Shizune; she’s short, but has hair dark as ever with certainly-poisoned senbon poking out of her fingers. There is no Tonton in sight, seeing as the pig won’t be adopted until the year Sakura turns (turned? fucking hell, she needs that drink; she’s certainly allowed her vices right now) five.

Tsunade’s face falls neutral, narrowing her eyes at Sakura before addressing her summon. “Katsuyu-sama. I didn’t expect to see you, and I’m too sober to have accidentally called you.” Sakura makes herself relax her stance, and the woman reluctantly follows. “Who’s the brat?”

The war veteran (and isn’t that a mindfuck?) who’s been a legal adult since the age of twelve and has heard the endearment directed at her too many times to count still has to hold back her instinctual reaction to pout or shout. She’s gotta take the less-threatening slug way or forget mooching off Tsunade any time soon. At least the senbon disappear back into Shizune’s sleeves. 

Katsuyu slides to her older summoner, speaking, “This is Haruno Sakura, your graduated apprentice from two decades in the future who was caught in a Space-Time incident that cannot be resolved. She requested a summoning to your side to indulge in whatever alcohol is nearby.”

Tsunade blinks at Katsuyu, straightens, and turns to face Sakura directly. Her amber eyes are as piercing as ever as they examine her. Sakura just puts on her best smile and tries not to think too much about her predicament. The Senju, unhaggard by an active war, is a comforting sight. 

Looking back to the slug, Tsunade raises her brows and says, “This brat is my apprentice from the future? Really?” in a flat disbelief. She knows the woman enough to see her actually processing Katsuyu’s words, that this is a typical conversational routine for when she receives surprising news, but Sakura’s tired and knows she’s edging into a slight mania and, honestly, if she knew this Tsunade wouldn’t break all her bones immediately she’d have already thrown herself at the woman for a hug.

She finally cracks, crooning, “You said ‘this brat’ surpassed your skill when I was seventeen,” and grins when Tsunade sneers. Sakura just settles her weight on her hip when Tsunade stomps up to her, stopping out of her reach. Her grin turns into a smirk as she points to the Byakugou displayed proudly on her forehead. “We even perfected Creation Rebirth.” 

Tsunade’s eyes widen then narrow again quickly, leaning into Sakura’s space. She crosses her arms over her chest and steps forward. Sakura lets her hand drop to her hip as Tsunade reconsiders her. The woman tilts her head, decides something, and settles back with a lift of her chin, lightly questioning, “Is that so?” She never fails to cut an intimidating figure. Sakura has long grown used to it.

Katsuyu chimes in before she can mouth off again. “Yes, Tsunade-hime. You confided in her ‘me’ a month prior to informing her of your judgement. The two of you created the pinnacle of medical fuuinjutsu. Sakura-chan will explain if she wishes.” She mentally thanks the slug for not spilling S-ranked jutsu on the side of the road. This conversation, actually, shouldn’t be happening on the side of the road. She’d half-assumed she’d warp into a shitty room at an inn, honestly, but beggars can’t be choosers. 

Sakura’s feeling a lot like a beggar. 

Contemplating the trustworthy slug, Tsunade just mutters, “...Shit.” Pursing her lips and turning on Sakura, she says, “How the hell did you manage to make me your teacher?” 

The weary teen sighs and smiles pleasantly, making to walk to where Shizune is lingering by the road. She’s subtly on her guard, as any good shinobi should be, but by Tobirama’s tits she can’t be older than Sakura was when she graduated the academy; the genin form of Team Seven would be in the midst of inciting a full-on brawl in this moment. Though she doesn’t look it, the Tsunade standing in front of her is also a good few decades short of familiarity with her. Tucking some (much smoother; slime is a great cosmetic) fringe behind her ear, she says, “Lots of shouting and dodging paperweights. And sake bottles.” Holding her hand out, she reiterates her primary reason for dropping out of nowhere. “Speaking of, got any on you?”

The laugh Tsunade lets out is more akin to a bark, but Sakura can’t help chuckling in response as her outstretched hand is (very lightly) slapped away. The Senju turns with her, heels ripping the already-fucked grass, and starts back to her charge with Sakura following. “Shit, that’s almost as much credit to your master as the Byakugou. And no, brat, otherwise I’d have chugged it as soon as Katsuyu-sama finished her first sentence.” 

They both look to the summon, who stops in front of them as they reach the road. “I can endorse that this once, Tsunade-hime. Sakura-chan’s situation is unprecedented, but she is lucky enough to be in the company of slugs. Please take care of her.” Her stalks angle towards the war-torn youth. “I may not truly be your Katsuyu, Sakura-chan, but I am still Katsuyu. Summon me whenever you are in need. Enjoy your indulgence, but be sure to rest. You are aware of the tolls your body has taken.”

Squatting to place her hand on Katsuyu’s back, her smile is genuine as she says, “Thank you, Katsuyu-sama, for your assistance. I’ll call if I need your help. Take care.”

Behind her, Tsunade says, “See you, Katsuyu-sama.”

Shizune chimes, “We’ll take care of her, Katsuyu-sama. Rest well.” Damn, she’s always been exceedingly polite then.

Sakura stands, joining the two travelers where they’ve moved onto the road. The slug says, “You are most welcome. I hope you have a good day, Tsunade-hime, Sakura-chan, Shizune-chan. I will see you,” and poofs back to her forest in a small cloud of smoke. 

The Senju starts trotting her way along the road, heading in what Sakura thinks is North, and her tag-alongs follow without delay. “We’ll get to the next town with a bar within two hours, and then we’re drinking. I’m not going to hear about paperweights without sake.”

“Sounds good, Tsunade-shishou,” Sakura replies, quirking her lip when Tsunade scrunches her nose up. Turning to their quieter companion, she says, “And hello, Shizune-senpai. Sorry about the ruckus.” With great will, she holds herself back from squishing her baby-fat filled cheeks when the girl smiles timidly.

“Hello, Sakura-san. And, um,” she fidgets with her sleeve for a moment, “you don’t need to call me Senpai. I’m ten.” 

Noting the baby-fat cheeks again, Sakura tries to digest that yes, Shizune is ten. This Shizune only reaches her shoulder and has yet to teach her a hundred and twenty-seven different ways to kill someone with an actual toothpick. 

Sakura just nods, saying, “Alright, Shizune-chan,” and contemplates just how much of the Senju bank accounts she can drain in a night.

-

“You’re fucking with me.”

“Nope. He tapped out at 30 bowls, I made it to 42 shots before Shizune-senpai found out and cut me off. She couldn’t put me on bedpans so I got to cover a long weekend for her in the office on top of my shifts. Winning was worth it, though.” Sakura finishes her sixth cup of mid-tier sake and pours another. “He didn’t go back to Ichiraku for two weeks or have any of his nasty instant stuff. That’s the longest he’s ever voluntarily gone without a bowl of ramen.”

“I don’t even want to know what that boy’s sodium levels are.”

“Don’t think about it too much. He’s built different. What, no concern for your poor little fifteen year old apprentice?”

“I was completely right to label you a brat. You were fifteen and managed not to die of alcohol poisoning, wonder who taught you how to do that?” The Senju downs her cup.

“And I have been grateful for the skill from the day I learned it.”

“…”

“Which was that day.”

Tsunade cracks their next bottle open. “You sure I didn’t give birth and dump you on Konoha’s doorstep?”

“Baby photos exist.”

“Can be doctored.”

“There’s literally a home video.”

“Doctorable!”

“… You did a DNA comparison. I am not your child, but one of my great-great grandparents was an Uzumaki, apparently.” 

“Hm. If I mixed Mito-baa-chan’s hair with Tobi-oji’s…”

“My mom’s hair is dark blonde and my dad’s is like… burgundy. That’s more like if Karin and Suigetsu spawned - an Uzumaki and Hoozuki.”

“Alright, I’ll buy that. Do I want to know why I was actually testing your DNA?”

Finishing and pouring cups of alcohol is a great distraction. “Right now? Definitely not. After particular events happen or if you really want the deets? Maybe.” 

“Save it. I already don’t want to think about this bullshit.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Shut your twerp mouth.”

“Sure.”

Tsunade pours and takes a chug straight from the bottle too. “Fuck off. My summon dropped a bizarre teenager on me just cause she wanted to mooch off my wallet. And my summon endorsed it.”

“Jiraiya told Naruto about the thing with the cursed piranhas and he told me. You’ve always been curious against your better nature.”

“I’m just not a fan of the imbalance of blackmail material at this table. You can’t blame a bitch.” 

“That would be hypocritical. Nosiness is a shinobi plague. Which is why you should be prouuud of me for my silencing seal!” She smacks her palm beside the aforementioned seal. Lightly. Tsunade was out of the ones she filched from Jiraiya, so Sakura had to make do! It may be written on the blank side of a kabuki flyer she tore off a wall in town, but she worked with what she had! Which somehow included a half-full bottle of chakra ink from her storage seals but not a single clear sheet of paper between the three of them. (Shizune has since long finished her share of dinner and gone to bed.)

“I admit it’s functional. It is a seal. Somehow.”

“Don’t blame me, I only really studied medical fuuinjutsu; blame Naruto. Or Jiraiya, since it’s his fault Naruto got into fuuinjutsu in the first place.”

“Yeah, I’ll be doing that. But this stinks of Uzumaki on a level I’ve only seen from Kushina-chan.”

“That would make sense.” 

“… You’re fucking with me.”

“… No, Shishou. I told you about that on our second glass.”

“Ah. Pass the water.”

Their carafe of water only empties two bottles of sake later. Thank all slugs everywhere for medical jutsu’s headache healing properties.

-

Sakura, in absence of a war or mission or hospital shift or anyone who actually knows her to return to, joins Tsunade on her drunken tour. Shizune follows along dutifully, and Sakura cannot help but be amazed at her patience, though she tries to wrangle the Senju in addition to herself because truly, no ten year old deserves their only two guardians blasted at every hour of the day. Even if that ten year old has grappled with a body count. 

So they only get blasted at night, when little Shizune is chilling in their rented rooms. 

Light day drinking doesn’t count as blasted. They’d look out of place without a vice in the gambling halls. Naturally.

(Look, Sakura’s career path has been extremely out of the ordinary. Most are not beset with intimate bonds to demon containers and boys with magic eyeballs, nor do they go on to become a world-renowned medic and fight in a war against terrorists and then Uchiha Madara and a bunch of evil plants and then the plant’s goddess mommy with super mega magic eyeballs up close and personal. She can confidently say she has had a unique and troublesome life. She has been able to say that since her first C-rank mission went exceptionally off the rails. Team Seven’s particular blessings have left her with an astounding ability to adapt to wildly unexpected situations. 

All those situations included the existence of some form of team to rely on. She’s coping with what she can get. Unconsenting dimensional travel is a lot to deal with.)

Tsunade, for all she is not the Godaime Sakura knows, is still Tsunade. She’s lacking a certain conviction, is more brash and less confident. Much less inclined to put up a respectable front. More openly vivacious. But she hasn’t even made it four years into her self-imposed exile. Bitterness and resignation haven’t crept quite so deeply into her heart as they had when it took all the force of Naruto to drag her home. 

The Third War has yet to start. No Kyuubi Attack, no Uchiha Massacre has occurred. 

Sakura only knew Tsunade after she stepped back into Konoha, but she’s heard stories from Shizune, from Jiraiya through a Naruto Filter, and on rare occasions, the woman herself. 

She smiles when she hears the name Uzumaki. She’s picky with her alcohol and argues with bartenders over their proper preparations. She’s not constantly on the run from debt collectors. She spends time on their travels fussing over Shizune in an initially baffling roleswap and laughs as the girl dodges projectile rocks on the road. When she’s silent, contemplative, she frowns but doesn’t look dour, even as Sakura drops the vague framework of her lifetime in bits and pieces. She still seems more bewildered by the outlandishness of the Fourth Shinobi War than distressed over the milestones that will precede it, as is logical.

She hugs Sakura, eventually, when she wakes up from a nightmare that sends her into a panic attack. 

She throws an arm around her shoulders in a bar when all the sake does is send her sniffling.

Tsunade begins to share tidbits of her own life, the way Shizune flies through all the medical texts she can get her hands on at least twice, stories of her team and stupid patients and childhood (though she never speaks of Dan or Nawaki) and the absurd silliness that occurs as a teenager around any firepit. 

Sakura doesn’t say anything about how she knows half the tales of Jiraiya, but only two of Orochimaru.

-

Shizune comes up to her one day when she’s snacking on anmitsu outside a cafe and requests medical lessons from her.

Sakura almost drops her spoon into her bowl, but like the experienced shinobi she is, she keeps her grip. She’d begun to get used to this miniature form of Shizune, but it hadn’t really sunk in that her body and brain being even tinier when they left also meant her clinic hours had been nearly nonexistent. 

And her aunt has hemophobia.

Blood’s pretty difficult to avoid as a healer, and her only teacher can’t be around it (and it occurs to her that this is perhaps one of the reasons she focused so extensively on poisons; Tsunade could do practical demonstrations to teach her). This is yet another baffling roleswap to digest.

“Sure,” Sakura says, taking a bite of her anmitsu to process. “Get yourself a treat and think about what you want to know, and we’ll go over what you’ve already learned. We can figure out a path from there with Tsunade-shishou.”

She comes back with her own anmitsu and two iced teas, and they talk for an hour. As a genin (she’s very proud of the field promotion she wiggled her way into through loopholes in the Academy bylaws), her skills are well-rounded, generally balanced between combat and book knowledge. As the Sannin’s charge, she spends a large amount of time reading medical literature, with her hands-on training in the subject less frequent than optimal and only occasionally used; all her advanced practical knowledge is non-surgical, lacking in coverage of flesh wounds. Tsunade buys her scrolls in the small towns they visit, and she camps out in libraries when she gets the chance. 

Sakura’s seen her gather herbs on the roadsides. Shizune has a genuine passion for them and all the damage they can do to the human body. Tsunade knows much about poisons, but she didn’t crack Akasuna no Sasori’s depraved concoction. Sakura’s still damn proud of that, and intends to spill when she’s got a seal active. 

Her taijutsu and weapons handling are above average for her age, other basic skills at a middling level. She really, really likes her malicious needles. Sakura is decidedly going to make sure Tsunade doesn’t slack in her portion of Shizune’s education even with her assistance.

“Thank you for deciding to teach me, Sakura-san,” Shizune says, swallowing the dregs of her tea. “I look forward to learning from you.”

Still a bit stunned by the prospect of teaching her Senpai the results of her own research, she responds, “Me too, Shizune-chan. You’re already a great student. And please, you can just call me Sakura. It’s all still a bit odd to me.”

Shizune smiles and nods, kicking her feet under the table. There are nice things, even in the mess that is her life.

-

Minato returns to Konoha in a daze.

The remainder of the trip wasn’t long after clearing their campsite in the morning, but his brain has been working overdrive to theorize things he currently has no way of confirming. He is, once again, deeply grateful for Shikaku.

He’s Nara to his core, a tactician and investigator who can turn over fifty plans and suspicions in a minute. He factors in the otherworldliness and abilities of legendary summons and the respect they call for. It helps that the summon is loyal to Tsunade, even if the woman is considered a deserter. It only takes a few moments of conferring to decide on abiding Katsuyu-sama’s words for the time being, though Minato can already feel the angst of conflicted loyalty seeping in as they leave the Hokage’s office, Sarutobi happy with the renewed trade deal they acquired (they’ll be getting a bonus too, since the town had recently been the site of a skirmish!). Inoichi and Chouza defer to their team leader’s plan to keep their mouths shut about the pink comet, and he admires their easy confidence in following Shikaku’s judgement. They plan to meet up, surrounded by silencing seals, after Minato’s spoken to Jiraiya, who knows the value of discretion.

He picks up three bowls from Ichiraku and reaches his apartment with his head lost in the clouds. The seals he has around his door flicker as he passes through, other traps avoided with ease of long practice. The food rests on a temperature regulation seal and he disappears into the shower with a grateful sigh of the beleaguered. 

His living room suits his needs for this summoning, and Kosuke appears on his coffee table with a few drops of blood and chakra. His little goggles rest atop his horns; Minato can’t help but think of getting a pair for the plush frog residing in the side chair. 

“Minato-chan! What’cha need?” He hops to the edge of the table and Minato sits back on the couch so they can speak comfortably.

“Good to see you, Kosuke. I’ve got a message I need you to get to Jiraiya-sensei soon as you can, please.”

“No problem, kid.” 

The toad sticks out an arm for a letter that Minato does not have. He lets his face fall into his hands, apologizing, “Ah, sorry… just got back from an… unusual mission. Give me a moment.” Paper and writing utensils are never far out of reach in his home. Kosuke just sits back and laughs at him as he struggles to find the words that will concisely describe his past day.

When the coded ink is dry and the paper folded, Kushina busts his door open. 

“Guess who it is!! Any limbs missing, pretty boy?” she calls, hopping over the arm of the couch and promptly bowling Minato over. 

He squawks and goes down easily, face burning at the endearment he has never gotten used to. When he finds his balance sprawled beneath Kushina on the cushions, he knows he’s smiling even though he’s sure the soot he can see smeared across her face is getting on his fresh clothes. She smells like sweat and fire and crushed grass. He tucks her into his arms, happy to have someone who seeks him out when he comes home.

“Good to see you too, Kushina. All limbs are in place, and they were clean before you went and got ash all over them. Sparring with Mikoto-san?”

Kushina pushes herself up, letting Minato right himself. She smirks as she greets Kosuke and he knows the ragging he’ll get from Jiraiya next time they see each other will be longer than usual. 

Minato passes his letter over to the toad while Kushina says, “Who else? That girl is a nuisance to anything flammable anywhere, which includes me, y’know. Go shower again if it’s got your panties in such a twist, Minato-chan.” 

“Why don’t you use my shower and change and not get any more ash on me, you menace?” 

“I can smell ramen, so you’ve got a deal.” She hops off the couch and smacks a kiss on his cheek before heading to the bathroom, still damp with lingering steam. Kosuke pops off wearing a worrisome grin.

Minato wipes himself down, puts on another clean shirt, and debates the wisdom of letting his closest friend (no matter what Sensei thinks, though he maybe, possibly, has aspirations) know about the bump in his mission. Katsuyu’s warning was specific; Kushina’s never been close to the Sandaime or any others that may deal with monkey summons. She’s the closest living blood relative of the only Slug Summoner he knew before this week. If Jiraiya hasn’t heard about Tsunade taking another apprentice, maybe she’s contacted her family? 

And if this Sakura is somehow Uzushio… Kushina can provide perspective, and deserves to know if she has any connections wandering the world. 

When she comes back out in sweats, smacking him with her wet hair when he takes too long grabbing their ramen, he activates one of the more intense silencing seals he begged off of her.

-

“My Byakugou wasn’t complete yet, so I had to heal the stab regularly, for the most part. Chiyo’s chakra strings saved my butt so many times.”

“Woah… that’s amazing. And that’d be cool with projectiles, kinda like ninja wire. Tsunade-shishou would be happy to hear about Chiyo’s poisons, you know.”

“Oh, definitely.”

“… Would you tell me how Sasori made the poison you solved?”

“Maybe once you perfect handling senbon with those chakra strings.”

“How?”

“Ah… we’ll figure it out.”

-

Jiraiya reads Minato’s letter about his mystery girl and half-listens while Kosuke begins going into a detailed play-by-play of the interaction with Kushina he got to witness. The Toad Sage burns the paper to ash once he’s finished and massages his temples, already dreading his near future. He hopes, despairingly, that this is all just some summon drama he won’t have to deal with.

“Alright, Kosuke, I’m gonna grab some grub from downstairs and then we can keep gossiping about Minato’s romantic woes. I’ll write a quick note to him too, if you please.”

The tavern on the bottom floor of his inn at the edge of Grass has cheap, highly-effective liquor. He buys a whole bottle and starts budgeting around Tsunade’s regular alcohol intake, which he’s sure he’ll be conned into providing.

Chapter Text

Minato 

Katsuyu-sama may hold some fear of the toads, but that’s eclipsed by her protectiveness of Tsunade-hime. She and your mystery girl shouldn’t be too hard to find. If anything comes of it, I’ll deal with Sensei. 

Akimichi needs to learn some patience. Water Country sucks. He can wait. But Icha Icha’s been doing well, so my agent’s been talking about setting up a book tour even after what happened last time. Maybe I’ll make my way over there at some point. 

I’ll be in touch.

The Gallant Jiraiya, Great Toad Sage of Mount Myouboku, Bestselling(!) Author of Icha Icha Paradise

-

Sakura’s a bit of an odd combo of her own team, Tsunade decides after a couple months of being tricked into covering the girl’s bills. She has, of course, carried on the legacy of being a badass bitch with a spine of steel (and an alcohol problem). Orochimaru’s quick thinking and endless thirst for knowledge are less obvious with their leisurely lifestyle, but when Tsunade’s helping Shizune replenish her poison mixes after they expire, Sakura looks like she’s doing some kind of mad science in the corner. Her resemblances to Jiraiya take longer to notice.

Small towns have bars with an old codger dealing poker in the back, middling ones have bars and gambling halls, and large ones have lots of bars and a few gambling halls and at least one brothel.

They do not ever step foot in a brothel. They’re dedicated tourists of the bars and gambling halls (Sakura even manages a good profit, sometimes, which is better than Tsunade’s rarely and sends her brow ticking). They tend to keep their own company, sometimes donning henges or just covering their Byakugou with concealer. At times that is simply for Tsunade’s security reasons or to fuck with people, but they do use it to dodge around that one prick that was hired by the douche owner of an only okay hall that mooches off the crowd outside the capital the couple times he lucks out and ends up in the same town as them. 

She maintains she was mooched off of. 

Tsunade is a single woman and she intends to remain that way, looking to the bottle when she remembers the reason for her relationship status. Pretty faces and crass comments about her chest do nothing to change this.

Her non-tween companion is also single and has no such compunctions keeping her from indulging in romantic entanglements. Sakura’s spilled some about her ill-fated childhood crush turned teen infatuation turned aggrieved enemy turned reluctant comrade and Tsunade thinks her love life is decidedly better off with the juvenile delinquent straight up just not existing yet. 

(An apprentice from the future was not something she ever considered encountering. Learning about that future has been something she’s trying and failing to compartmentalize. In the back of her head for the last few years, she always imagined herself growing older without showing wrinkles, traveling and drinking away her sorrows to her heart's content until she can be sure Shizune won’t die the second they’re not within a mile of each other. After that… she didn’t really know. The world would keep turning and the nations would keep fighting and people would keep dying and leaving her behind to fall apart in their absence. 

Sakura’s been cagey about some events and details and Tsunade has no desire to press her at the moment. She knows Kushina has a brat and dies, Sensei dies and the brat dupes her into being Godaime (the existence of a Yondaime is rarely, if ever, mentioned). Jiraiya’s first student exits the picture at some point and one of his own students goes batshit crazy and gets brainwashed by her grandpa’s somehow-living Rival into setting up an apocalyptic genjutsu, who in turn has been conned by a shadow of the Sage of Six Paths’ evil moon mommy into resurrecting her. Or something.

And her apprentice managed to get all mixed up in the middle of it.

She’s missing a lot of details and doesn’t particularly want to know most of them. But beyond bafflement at the extent of the insane machinations of the next couple decades, what hits her hardest is the fact that her life does not, if truth be told, end at the bottom of a sake jug.

A bunch of idiots put her in charge of the village she ditched and she heals again. It’s a daunting idea she's not sure how to contend with.)

So Tsunade teases Sakura when she catches her staring at the shot girls whose short dresses rise with their trays. The chit actually slaps a hand over her mouth before she can rag on her about the quiet, quick-fingered dealer they see for a week straight who smiles at her from beneath a curtain of dark hair. She receives a broken wrist for the insult but repeats it two towns later after the bartender with a high, blonde ponytail flirts with her, utilizing the ubiquitous “oh no, I think I sprained my wrist, would you pretty please check it with your skilled hands” move every medic experiences at least once in their life. 

Since it’s near the poor kid’s birthday, Tsunade pays for a separate room for her and her girl for the night. She and Shizune enjoy a sleep free of her tossing and turning. 

Sakura joins them for a late breakfast with a hickey beneath her ear and an expression that’s a confusing mixture of sated and unbalanced, but she casts a lecherous, happy smile at Tsunade when asked about her night.

Weeks pass, they dodge the prick again, and Sakura makes out with a couple different staff members and patrons in alleyways of varying quality, starting to reveal to her new version of her master exactly what her types are. 

(Girls with long tresses and a sharp tongue. Pretty boys with hair that at least reaches their jaw. Anyone quiet but playful with sharp eyes who’s confident in what they’re doing.) 

Tsunade avoids many of Sakura and Shizune’s lessons, grateful when she’s not pressured into confronting her fears. The guilt she feels at neglecting her niece’s medical training remains, and covering that is another thing she’s deeply grateful to her future apprentice for (and as her future apprentice, Tsunade can actually trust her with her teaching). 

Her gratefulness does not extend to paying for her love suite the next time she wants to get some pussy. 

Bizarrely, Tsunade only ends up realizing the depths of Sakura’s similarities to her imp of a teammate from a completely different direction, after she starts dragging Shizune around small clinics and low-income areas, healing the misfortunate and getting her niece's more bloody learning done in one. But that doesn’t happen for a while yet.

-

Sensei

Found anything? I spoke to Kushina, and Tsunade-hime hasn’t contacted her since her birthday last July. I’m pretty sure I told you about the whole mess with gifting her the Senju library when Kushina can’t actually get in without her or a key. She said she’s never met anyone with pink hair, but she was only in Uzushio until she was of academy age. She even checked her old photos.  

I’m making a little progress with the Hiraishin, but I’d definitely like to get in on the Senju library too.

Hope your travels have been easy. There have been some scuffles around Waterfall’s border.  

Minato

P.S. Congrats on Icha Icha’s sales! 

-

“O-kaaay,” Sakura starts, lowering herself down to the flowering, partially crushed field. There is a large gash running the course of her bicep, courtesy of the boulder crop she and Shizune had been dancing around while Tsunade decided to suffer her hangover in the inn (yesterday was a Bad Day for her, so she let it lie). She hopes the sleeves of the shinobi-grade kimono top she bought with blackjack winnings is as bloodstain resistant as advertised. Maybe she should see about getting some mesh… “Well, Shizune-chan, never a bad time to learn. Get over here.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you bleed so much!”

“No apologies. If I was your enemy, would you be saying sorry right now?”

Shizune plops beside her, stuffing her kunai back in her little kiddie holster. “... No, you’re right.”

Unclasping her med pack from the back of her wide belt with her uninjured arm, Sakura says, “You did a good job, using your precise aim to force me to a place I couldn’t find an even footing and pushing your ground. Why’d you say sorry? I’ve been hurt during training before.” The pack is unceremoniously dropped in the young girl’s lap.

She starts poking through it, keeping her eyes on the contents while she chews her lip. Sakura has made sure she is familiarized with her pack (not as well-stocked as she’d like) by touch in case of emergency, but allows her the time and space to think. Sage knows she always appreciated a moment to formulate her thoughts. She’s not about to die of a mere flesh wound; she actually has to consciously stop sending a flush of her own chakra to it.

Letting go of a heavy breath, Shizune picks out gauze, holding it for Sakura to moisten. Drawing humidity from the air, she drops a tablespoon on the cotton, and the girl starts patting and wiping with her usual excess care. “I think it’s the blood,” she says, running a finger through the dust-crusted stream of it before going over the area with her gauze. “Usually it’s just breaks, bruises, or punctures, but I know I didn’t even hit you, so it surprised me. You know how Tsunade-shishou is…”

“It must be difficult. I wish I had a clear way to help, but I only knew her after she overcame it,” she responds, not reacting when her student presses a fresh stretch of gauze, now covered in precious antiseptic, to her arm. “Naruto told me it was kind of a… shock therapy. He would have died if she didn’t push through.” 

“Oh…”

The gauze leaves her, wound as clean as they’ll get it in the field with Shizune’s current skills. “I'd like you to practice the disinfection jutsu more on fish before using it on me, so the antiseptic will be enough. Now, inside-out.”

“Of course, Sakura-senpai.” 

She files the sudden change of address to break down over later. The immediate wave of feelings are immense and if Shizune wasn’t here she’d turn the boulder crop to dust. She tries to ride it out. “Obviously, we’re not going to put Shishou in such a position if we can help it.” 

Shizune’s hands, glowing green as she’s been able to make them for two years now (a result of Tsunade dropping her by the riverside during the day with a pile of fish for months), hover over Sakura’s broken tissue. She can feel her medical chakra, yin-pure, unsure and vibrating wildly like most young medics’ do (though most patients wouldn't be able to tell). Her flesh ever so slowly begins to close from its deepest point, her healer working with focus and care. Sakura wonders if this is what she looked like at her genesis, all concentration and amazement at the results of her work. 

She knows her eyes are larger than Shizune’s, so the excited puppy-dog look was probably even worse. Swallowing that same tide of emotion is still difficult. How Tsunade didn’t laugh or coo at her every day is beyond her.

“No…” the young girl mumbles, world centered on what she’s doing. “Tsunade-shishou doesn’t deserve that.”

Shizune is the type to read and learn and ask questions and take notes on something before trying it out, working through the process on her own before returning with more questions and asking politely for feedback, so Sakura pays close attention to how her body is being affected but provides no guidance or complaints. She’s an easy patient. The novice proceeds carefully, the morning breeze swaying the little specks of pink and purple and blue that dot the area they sit in, removed enough from the nearby town that a lighter form of her strength isn’t a disturbance. 

Her birthday has passed, nineteen in a world that’s known her for less than a season. Parties were effectively cancelled with the start of the War, but she vaguely pictured herself with her team and the rest of the Rookie Twelve in a shitty tent or around a fire taking swigs from contraband flasks, forgetting death and destruction for just a moment. She thought of spending time pressed against Ino’s side, teasing Naruto about being his elder once again, and letting someone else take control of the med tents and corps for a celebration rather than a battle she’s needed in. Shikamaru had brought his travel shogi set to live or die by his side, and she looked forward to playing a tournament of their horrible creation of a combination stripping and drinking game based on it. 

Instead, she drank her weight in a slightly better quality of sake than normal with Tsunade, ate tempura and dango with her and Shizune, and tried not to think about how the first woman she slept with, just days before, had been overlaid with an image of her best friend half the time. She won a hand of poker and used the meager payout on shots. When Tsunade went to their room to pass out, Sakura plastered her back to the inn’s roof, snacking on expensive dried mango that was objectively better than her war treat but tasted like ash without the flavor of Ino’s generosity. For some sick reason, the sky was clear and the stars looked the exact same as they did on the battlefield, and she pretended the mistiness that crowded her eyes was a result of all the drink. After the sun rose and townspeople set up shop, she left her companions to their sleep and cried into an already over-salted bowl of ramen, made by an older woman who kept giving her weird looks. The world felt more fake than usual that day, but Shizune brought her extra tea with their actual breakfast and Tsunade cooled her aching head and burning eyes with a kind slap of healing chakra. No one spoke a word of her overnight absence, the company of a professional mourner making her own grief an easy thing to navigate around.

It wasn’t the first time it happened, and it certainly won’t be the last. There’s a despair in that fact she tries not to think on too long.

“Alright, I think I’m done,” Shizune says, exhaling and dropping her hands to grab a fresh piece of gauze, knocking Sakura from her morose reminiscence. “Does it feel right? I tried to make sure all your tissue connected correctly, but I couldn’t get the last of your epidermis to do exactly what I wanted…”

She drops water on the gauze, watching as her charge wipes the last of her blood away, revealing a long, slightly-scabbed red streak where a deep gash used to exist. The girl frowns at it, looking close enough to touch with her nose, until Sakura laughs and pokes her forehead, pushing her away from her work. 

“Good job, Shizune-chan! I’m so proud of you!” she finally responds, genuinely impressed. Flexing her bicep and rotating her arm, she smiles when her skin doesn’t immediately rip apart again. In fact, she can tell it’ll stay together completely. Oh, baby Shizune is just too good. “This is functionally healed, much more so than some would expect in the field. My epidermis may not be fully repaired, but it’s no longer an open wound so I won’t be chancing an infection. 

“‘Don’t worry about scars if you’re risking receiving them’ is advice I’d like you to remember. Your priorities on and off the field may line up in places, but they are not the same, and Tsunade-shishou or I will never expect cosmetic perfection in an active field setting. Repeat this, Shizune-chan, because it’s important for perfectionists like us to internalize. It could cost you your life one day.”

Wide-eyed, Shizune nods slowly. “Don’t worry about scars if you’re risking receiving them,” she says. “I’ll remember.”

“Good. Now, want to see me finish healing it?” Sakura asks with a smile, trying to lighten the mood. “It’s finicky and difficult when you’re dealing with the final steps of a deeper wound, just from the amount of time you’ve had to spend focusing your chakra and concentrating already. The great thing is that once a flesh wound is closed, you can come back to it later when you have the time and energy for it. Mostly. First priority is keeping them from bleeding out, as you well know.” 

Shizune gets close again, watching rapt as Sakura forcibly slows the speed of her healing, allowing her to watch the change from irritated red to fresh peach. “Tell me, what kinds of scars would you prioritize treating?”

Brushing her small fingers over new skin in wonder, she says, “Contractures? Keloids? Anything that impacts range of movement or causes excess pain.”

“Correct. Tell me what I’m thinking about healing and keloids, though.”

“Keloids… oh! An error in healing the dermis could cause or exacerbate keloid scars.”

After pushing off the ground and dusting her clothing, Sakura holds out a hand to help Shizune to her feet. “Right in one, my cute little student!” she exclaims, lifting the girl clear into air and smiling when she shrieks before letting her sandals drop back to the ground and releasing her grip. She’s got a little payback to impart.

She takes a few large steps backward and forcibly moves her gaze when it wants to stop on the boulders. Putting her hands on her hips, boots crushing fresh grass, she barks, “Now! What do I want you to remember, Shizune-chan?!” letting a slightly-vicious grin crack her face when the ten year old immediately drops into a flexible stance Tsunade’s drilled into her. Ready to dodge and defend with arms incapable of wielding enhanced strength (though perhaps, with Sakura's additional teaching, she may be able to in time).

“Um!” she stutters, and Sakura, now fifty feet away, strikes her heel into the earth in front of her. She doesn’t shatter it, just kicks up a chunk the size of Tonton into her hands. “Uh, don’t worry about healing scars if - Sakura-senpai!”

“What was that?!” she calls across the field, watching Shizune dodge with ease. Not fast enough, then. Another piece of earth falls into her hand, then sails for her student’s dark little bob. Her palms don’t remain empty for long.

“Don’t - DON’T worry about - ah! - scars if you’re risking receivingthem! ” she squeaks out with a missile passing close to her skull. 

“Uh-huh! Alright, step-by-step through your work, and repeat that between each one! Go!” she hollers, letting the joy of throwing stuff at a relatively-capable child curb any excess of her more volatile emotions. 

“Sakura-senpai!”

“Get to it, kid! Don’t stay stiff! Projectile incoming!” Oh, how the student has become the master. 

Tsunade’s not the worst thing Sakura could be turning into; she knows that to be true. People have been dubbing her a miniature of the legend for years already for her strength and temper. She’ll cry about feeling deeply alone, depressed, and detached from reality later, when she’s not tossing rocks at a tween.

-

She takes watch five nights after the boulder crop, halfway into an impulsive journey to the west side of the southern gulf of Fire Country to enjoy the steadily warming air. The piedmont is well behind them, the quiet slope of the wooded plains slowing creeks and streams to a babble that joins the serenade of the spring night, the nocturnal birds hunting lively bugs while frogs call out their waking. 

Sakura patrols a stretch of creek that curves in a mile from their camp, watching the rippling water flow and catch the streaks of pale night she avoids. Her feet are light upon the bank, allowing her ears to catch a deeper voice within the chorus of amphibians. Chakra heightens her ocular and audial systems, pinpointing the idiosyncrasy further along, hopping quietly through the brush that clings to loose dirt.

Kurenai’s a good teacher when she’s not mourning her boyfriend or floundering through the beginnings of single motherhood, so the genjutsu Sakura wraps around herself melts her further into the dark forest, just another tree standing vigil. The amphibian does not take her same precautions and crosses through puddles of moonlight.

Were it not for her extended time in the company of one Uzumaki Naruto, Toad Sage and owner of the well-loved Gama-chan, she would not be able to recognize a small toad of Mount Myouboku when she sees one. This one is unfamiliar to her and, without a doubt, answers to Tsunade’s great big perv of a teammate. 

She doesn’t deliberate before running through the signs for another genjutsu, throwing it at the toad with less care and more force than she typically employs, catching it unconscious in the middle of a jump. It thumps flat to the earth, the sound pitifully small due to lack of mass. Her footsteps remain silent, slowly approaching until her toes are but a foot from its open mouth. A small pouch is attached beside her med pack; she finds the vial she needs by touch. 

A pair of disposable gloves cover her hands as she crouches, making sure to dirty them in the humus; it wouldn’t do to leave the taste of plastic on the toad’s mucosal skin, but no way in hell are her fingers or leathers getting close to leave a clue. Dosing out a miniscule bit of her vial is difficult, but she counts it as a success when she manages to get only half a drop on the back of its lolling tongue. 

She waits five minutes, and drops the genjutsu.

Another five, and she stands from her crouch, carefully moves the toad out of the open, and continues her patrol with her perceptions on overdrive. 

She sets discrete traps meant for sneaky little summons and sits in the tree above Shizune’s bedroll, not waking Tsunade for her shift. Dawn comes, and she’s still wondering why she dosed one of Jiraiya’s toads, which may not have even been looking for them, with enough soporific to keep it asleep until long after they depart their well-covered campsite, wandering a little more in the direction of Fire Country’s isthmus than the tourist traps decorating the shore that edges towards River Country’s deltas. 

-

Minato

Don’t be a dumbass and get ahead of yourself. You could turn yourself inside-out. Literally. 

Tell Kushina-chan thanks for the info. Tsunade-hime was hanging around Otafuku-gai over the winter, according to one of my guys, but he didn’t have anything else of note. I haven’t gotten any good leads besides that. She hasn’t been leaving behind the same kind of messes she used to and I’m still building my network. I’m wondering if that’s because of our wayward blossom.

I thought I caught her scent in Tanzaku-gai, but I had to drop it for an errand from Sensei. Man needs to get more spies, honestly.

The toads still know jack shit about any Shikkotsu news or the girl. 

You, Kushina-chan, and Ino-Shika-Cho keep your eyes peeled for any suspect female trios that include an older kid or any skilled healers when you’re out on missions for me. Thanks for the warning. Had to avoid a bastard of a missing nin from Yugakure of all places not too far outside of Grass. Dude was just walking by me in town, saw me, and tried to brain me with a Yuga water bucket and I couldn’t even catch his face. I’ll be honest. I could have chased him out of town and grappled with him, but I did not have the time or energy to deal with that. It is wise to make the proper choices regarding the preservation of your sanity.

Keep me updated.

The Gallant Jiraiya, Great Toad Sage of Mount Myouboku, Bestselling(!) Author of Icha Icha Paradise

-

When they can smell the ocean about ten miles west of the isthmus, they allow Shizune’s badly hidden excitement to bring them straight to the water. This area of shore is empty even as the afternoon peaks, windblown live oaks still reaching out over the scrubs that peter away as the earth gains more and more sand. The beach itself does not stretch far and is patchy with tall, bleached grasses, crowded with driftwood and natural debris, and not at all the image of “beach” one would spend money to vacation upon. 

None of them give any particular shits about that. They’ll stop at one if they feel like it.

Shizune kicks her sandals off, switches into shorts and a tank top, and suffers through the kind of sunscreen application only two world-class doctors can give. As soon as the exact mental timer for absorption she set goes off, she ditches the blanket they laid beside a blanched log with Sakura trailing slowly behind her quick form. Tsunade took off her outer shirts (only snickering when Sakura noticed the extra cleavage for a moment too long), pulled sunglasses out of somewhere, and promptly relaxed against the log, looking right at home. She might be asleep. She might be observing Sakura stub her toe on a piece of driftwood while she’s tying her hair into small poofs of low pigtails and trying to walk at the same time. 

In a pair of off-duty shorts and her own short tank top, Sakura lets the waves that lap the shore slosh her calves, watching Shizune splash in the novelty, and thinks that if they go to more beaches soon, she should get the girl a bucket hat to protect her pale scalp, like the silly little green one with a cartoon turtle Naruto bought in Tea when they were all silly little genin and their world hadn’t quite cracked yet. 

He wore it when they put in a show of teamwork, annoying Kakashi into kicking them to the ocean water so he could read his porn under a shady tree without a trio of preteens screeching in his ears and harshing his vibe (the foolish man thought genin wouldn’t figure out he had heightened senses; he was wrong). It got soaked through ten times over, only staying attached to him by the virtue of its chinstrap when Sasuke or the waves or ocean life disrupted his attempts at playing the water walking games Sakura made up (and exceeded at). 

She’s up to her hips in the cool water, eyes stuck on Shizune practicing her own water walking skills and tumbling ass over teakettle into the gulf when a clump of floating seaweed brushes her foot, and Sakura realizes why she’s been doing her damn best at forgetting that there is a Konoha that exists and is entirely within her ability to reach since she got drop-kicked out of her dimension and rescued from living ghosts by a slug. It’s really obvious. It’s one of those things that’s so obvious she feels stupid for not noticing, but Ino would tell her she missed due to trauma or something else psychological or just her big forehead blocking the view. 

It’s been months, and she has not woken from a dream or broken a genjutsu to find herself beside Naruto and Sasuke on the battlefield. Sakura has not been assigned a mission to escort Tsunade and a de-aged Shizune's vacation and will not return home to a hug from her parents, a bowl of Ichiraku with Naruto and Kakashi, and hours of catch-up with Ino, with all her various and sundry friends and comrades and patients who know her name and grew up with her and accept her as a part of the fabric of Konoha. There’s no going home from this. The Konoha of now is liable to eat her alive in a variety of ways.

Kakashi probably doesn’t even know what porn is yet; Naruto and Sasuke have years before they’re born and have the misfortune of getting the souls of the Sage’s sons stuck in them. This world has never seen Sasuke tease Naruto about his bucket hat, get smacked down by a wave she successfully jumped, and wake up looking like a lobster the next day to reluctantly beg painkillers and aloe vera from a pink-cheeked Sakura. 

Not sure what to do about that in the least, she gets up on the water to throw seaweed at the ten year old who taught her about identifying poisoned consumables and making death burn from the inside out when she was an adult in another world.

Sakura hopes it’ll be a long time before she sees another toad, for both the sake of her dilemma and their wellbeing. She’s not an expert at drugging anything inhuman.

-

Sensei

Shikaku wanted me to remind you that we have no confirmation that they’re traveling together right now, and Sakura is unlikely to advertise her talents if she’s planning to keep up a low profile. I told him you’re not stupid enough to be so exclusive in your search, but he stood over my shoulder until I finished writing that sentence. I’ve still passed on your message to everyone. 

Chouza’s heading out in a few days with an escort team for a family’s yearly vacation to Noodles; he should be able to send a hawk if need be. Shikaku and Inoichi are in-village for the next month, Kushina’s on-call, and I’m scheduled for a message run to the Capital in the morning.

Thank you for the advice, Sensei. If I see Mister Water Bucket anywhere, I’ll give him some payback for you.

Minato

Chapter Text

Minato

I swear, it’s like your girl just popped into existence on top of your head. You know, I’ve seen some of my contacts who let me know about Tsunade-hime’s wellbeing in the past few years again and none of them mentioned seeing a teenage companion or pink-haired anything since she left home. 

Did she just sprout up in Shikkotsu Forest and get plucked when she was ripe? That sounds like the kind of bullshit Katsuyu-sama’s Forest would pull. I’m trying not to theorize the fantastical like your Nara until I speak to Tsunade-hime. You can see how well that’s working. 

Tell him he needs to go and remember his genetic joy of napping. Who’s the professional spymaster here? I’m making things simple for you novices.

Book tour’s on in the fall so I get to tell Sensei to eat his words about my “low-brow writing scheme”. My agent’s making me hit up Water too, so you can tell Akimichi I’ll look around for his damn cookbook. Apparently Paradise sells on those dour islands.

The Gallant Jiraiya, Great Toad Sage of Mount Myoboku, Bestselling Author of Icha Icha Paradise

-

They decide to keep up their beach tour for a while, staying in a town near their spot on the gulf for a few days before traveling towards the isthmus and checking out more picturesque locales. Sakura’s past coastal experience revolved around one trip with her parents before she entered the academy and a range of missions that were far from concerned with her personal leisure time. Sure, sometimes her teams would eke out an afternoon on the sand, but laying on a lounge chair for hours and sipping on a drink topped with a little umbrella was not viable. 

Shizune is having the time of her life, acting more like the child she is than usual. She shows a little pep, walking in front when they make their way to the water and doing cartwheels through the waves. Sakura plays with her sometimes, egging on her youthful behavior until she’s laughing and splashing, shrieking when she’s tossed a hundred feet off shore in a fit of pique; Shizune actually, genuinely tries to sneak up behind her with a hand full of seaweed poised for revenge. 

Sakura almost lets it hit, floored by the concept of Shizune trying to prank her. And then she remembers that Shizune is ten, her only companion for years a downtrodden woman lost in her grief, trying not to love, and Sakura has encouraged her to let go of some of the rigidity she carries. She’s done it outright, but taking over some of the Tsunade-wrangling has given her the opportunity to not constantly be the polite face and voice soothing over any troubles their master gets into or the lone caregiver for her despondent form on a Bad Day. Sakura’s methodology may not be quite so demure, but it’s a sharing of a load someone prepubescent shouldn’t have had on their own in the first place. 

There are many choices Tsunade has made that Sakura has trouble understanding, and for a long time she was baffled by the decision to take a young child away from her home and stability and drag her across the world and back. She thought it deeply selfish, carting Shizune around from place to place like a vassal, her existence a mere fragment of the lost love she could still keep around. 

And then Sakura went to war. 

Hearing little Shizune speak quietly when it’s just them about her uncle, the parents she barely remembers but misses with her entire heart, and older cousins who came back in corpse scrolls, she can see that clinging to the last of one’s family was a choice that went both ways. 

But Shizune is still a child, and wants to play and make friends and reach milestones she deems “normal”. Milestones such as becoming a genin of a village she hasn’t seen in years through a series of letters, mailed tests, evaluations she managed to get Tsunade’s signature on, the existence of obscure apprenticeship laws, and (most certainly) the Sandaime’s desire to keep his student tied to Konoha in some official manner. She puffs up when Sakura treats her errands like D-ranks, looking quietly proud of herself when given her mission payment (either a fruit candy or a few ryo from her winnings) after reporting in sentences that are still more like rambles, trying to include every possible important detail. It’s… it’s adorable. Even Tsunade agrees, though she looks towards Sakura’s rewards with disdain.

A drunkard with horrible gambling luck, worrying over giving a child sugar. 

The strawberry ones are Shizune’s favorite. Sakura likes cherry, and Tsunade will never admit she steals all those adorned with green wrappers proclaiming to taste like sour apples.

-

“Tsunade-shishou said the sun tired her out so she’s going to take a nap for a while.”

“She’s going to sample that fancy tequila the boardwalk bar advertised and doesn’t want to pay for me, isn’t she?”

“I - well. She didn’t take the turn that leads to the inn.”

“Tch. That shrew of a woman… Well, whatever. I made oaths to only drink tequila from this one distillery in Suna anyways, and now I can show you the fish games me and Ino play by the water.”

“You made oaths to… Nevermind. Why can’t Tsunade-shishou see the fish games?”

“How do you feel about trying to heal a bisected fish for fun? Or we can do tic-tac-toe.”

“… On the fish?”

“Yeah, and you’ll clear the board each time. Obviously not the exact same as the human epidermis, but the control and detail work you need for Fish-tac-toe is good practice.”

“We’re not very nice to fish, are we? And… Fish-tac-toe? Really, Sakura-senpai?”

“Nope! Blame young teen Ino’s T&I training and young teen me’s pathological need to practice Mystical Palm when presented with the opportunity for the existence of fish games. Also, hush. It’s better than saying, ‘let’s play tic-tac-toe on a dead fish and then heal it and do it again,’ isn’t it?”

“... Okay. Let’s do Fish-tac-toe.”

“Wonderful! Now, let’s go find us a fish. Plenty to choose from, and fresh as the day!”

“You’re going to make me catch one, aren’t you?”

“Your water walking is good, but you need more practice when you’re traversing whitecaps. Don’t worry, I’ll help with the fish.”

The child lets out a relieved sigh. “Thank you, Sakura-senpai.”

-

The sea cradled between the continental peninsula and the islands of Tea is a different shade of blue from the gulf, and the sands are smoother, though the shells that wash up on the beach crack and shatter more with the heavier tide, leaving some stretches sparkling and less fun to play on. Shizune’s gotten pretty good at healing scratches on the soles of her feet. 

They’re checking out the cape that borders Noodles, the farthest point east that Fire reaches, and Shizune watches Tsunade and Sakura bicker over whether or not they should cross it. Tsunade is in favor, being lured by some specialty alcohol and tales of Noodle-specific gambling games; Sakura, who she’s become close to with an ease she didn’t expect, wants to start moving back inland. Shizune’s not sure why, but she really, really likes the beach and is quietly supporting her aunt’s choice (and she is very, very careful to never call her that out loud). 

Sakura is an emotional quagmire just like the Sannin, but she’s better at keeping up a good attitude. The fact that she’s from the future isn’t something Shizune thinks about too much, but it explains why she knows much of their favorites and many of their habits and slots into their life so quickly. She just knows that training with Sakura is probably what it would feel like to be trained as a proper apprentice by her aunt, and Sakura knows how to handle a sad, strong, inebriated adult, and Sakura doesn’t shut down when she makes a comment about how Dan always said they’d try every tea in the world together. 

Tsunade will accompany her searches for whole shells, and her new mentor will play in the water with her, but the civvie kids she throws balls around with are a uniquity she would like to keep enjoying. 

Debates over travel are something new to her; she’s always been fine just trailing Tsunade where her vices take her, but Sakura doesn’t look at the Senju as an authority to be unquestionably obeyed. Which is a bit odd, considering that the pink-haired shinobi only knew her aunt as a Hokage (which means they go back to Konoha at some point!), but Shizune guesses that a combination of the familiarity gained with an apprenticeship and their location away from home might be why. 

“Tobirama’s tits, I can’t believe you’re convincing me to go to fu - uhhh - freaking Noodle,” Sakura mutters, often forgetting that Shizune is fully numb to cursing at this point. “I will eat at every noodle stand we pass, and I will be crying at each one, and because it’s Noodle and they’re everywhere, I’m probably going to get ramen poisoning or something, and you will have to heal my comatose form, and you will be very sorry, Shishou.”

Tsunade throws the pit of the peach she just finished eating at Sakura. She dodges, and the poor tree behind her gains a hole. “Okay, first off, don’t take my great uncle’s tits in vain. Second, those are your own choices; keep your ass parked right here if you don’t want to go. Third, if you manage to get food poisoning on purpose, you will suffer and I will not let Shizune help you.”

Shizune looks straight through the tree and out the other side. She knows they won’t just ditch Sakura at this point. When she turns back, her young mentor is scowling at the air. It’s pretty fierce, but she’s known Tsunade almost her whole life. She’s immune, and just smiles to herself.

“I always knew you were a bitch, but come on.”

“Sakura, I know I have no right to tell you to get over yourself about this, but… okay. I know I’m a selfish bitch for saying this, but I’ve wanted to check out the rum for years at this one place, and this is the first time I’ve been so close. Just… Okay, this is weird because I’m not as… worldly… as my counterpart, but you said I was - will be? - very important to him. I’ll eat a fucking bowl of ramen with you, pour out some shots, and let you yell at me, uninterrupted, for one hour.” 

Shizune picks up a peach from their carton and bites into the fuzzy, soft fruit while Sakura grimaces and looks sad in the way that tells her not to ask about whatever future thing’s bothering her. Eventually she lets out a heavy sigh, rubbing her face with the non-sticky parts of her hands. “... A full hour?”

“A full hour.”

“... Sage, fine. He’d even want that. Stupid freaking idiot blond.” She lets herself fall flat on her back on the blanket with an oomphf, giving Shizune a glance before looking to the blue sky filled with thready clouds. “I’m gonna go through the border… the unofficial way, though. I don’t exactly have any valid identification, which means I’ll be turned away. And I don’t feel like doing all the genjutsu necessary to get around that. So.”

“Even in the company of a Sannin? There’s always Konoha nin at the border in case Kiri loses its head, and we’ve got a major trade deal with Noodle, so they’d vouch for me, and thus you. Very few would dare tell me no.”

“... Maybe, but I’d rather not deal with it.”

“... Alright, that’s your prerogative. Have fun being sneaky.”

Sakura huffs, perfectly in time with Tsunade’s eyeroll. “I will. I will have so much fun being sneaky.”

“Would that count as stealth training?” Shizune asks, picturing herself silently moving through the shadows of the night. She takes another bite of fruit. The peach juice is dribbling all over her right hand, and there’s definitely a bunch around her mouth. 

Both adults look to her and immediately sus out what she’s really asking. They say, in unison, “No.” Sakura continues, “Stealth training does not involve illegal border crossing, especially for a sweet little genin. You can do that when you’re older. Besides, Shishou needs someone to keep her in line.”

“Hey!”

Shizune sighs through her nose, saying, “Fine,” and petulantly finishes her fruit. She wishes she could throw her pit through a tree, but she can’t yet, so she hands it to her prone mentor to use as ammo against the Senju.

At least they get to keep beach-hopping, and Sakura will stay with them. 

-

Sakura crosses the Fire-Noodle border alone with no trouble, still thinking about Naruto’s plan to tour the little country and try every bowl of ramen he sees once the war is done and vacations are a thing again. As she passes through some of the farmland, she watches a herd of horses silhouetted in the moonlight. They’re wild, she thinks, unpenned and roaming. She stops to watch them for a while in wonder, never having seen so many at once, and then moves on.

-

The town Tsunade makes a beeline for is one of the larger ones, situated on the seaside. It’s full of seafood restaurants on the water and tacky souvenir shops, and she’s pretty sure half the locals wish tourism didn’t exist. Sakura does have to admit the rum is pretty damn good. The tallest feature in the area is a lighthouse, equal stripes of black and white spiraling upwards a ways away from town. According to the plaque outside, it was originally built by an Uzushio contingent at least two hundred years ago; it has stood in place against hurricanes and wars and the destruction of its creators, partially due to good construction, and partially because they went buckwild and put seals on top of every individual fucking brick.

Not even ninja are keen to get into shipwrecks. There are ghost stories the more crotchety locals tell to scare people off, but it just makes eidolism another draw to the town.

Sakura leaves Shizune and Tsunade on the beach when she realizes she’s been staring absently at it, thinking about Naruto’s passion for fuuinjutsu and everything he lost before he was even born. His mother is probably still a teenager like she is, if she’s the same age Namikaze Minato seemed to be. She wonders just how much of Naruto’s rambunctiousness and creativity and determination comes from her, and if she would also try to outpace Sakura’s shots with bowls of ramen.

She eats a bowl of hot noodles on an already-warm day with extra narutomaki. She isn’t a big fan of the kamaboko, but she chokes it all down, and then starts to wander the quieter streets of the town.

There’s a little bookstore tucked between a shop that makes saltwater taffy and a hair salon, crowded with bookcases. They mostly carry used literature, but a case at the front carries new ones, and she sees a few bright orange spines on the top shelf. They read Icha Icha Paradise, and as the student of a dedicated fan, she unwillingly knows that this is a first edition. She grabs a copy without thinking.

Many of the books carry signs of water damage, wrinkled along the edges, and much of the paper bears the yellowed crispiness of time. She finds an adventure book about mermaids for Shizune and a history book about the country for herself or Tsunade before picking up a large hardback with a blank spine from the culture section. It’s a cookbook. The cover reads: The New Book of Island Cuisine. It has no indicated author.

It’s incredibly beat, the glue of the spine nearly rotten, and she has to hold it carefully so any loose pages don’t come out. She recognizes some of the simple dishes from Wave and Tsunami’s kitchen and their current time on the coast, but a few ingredients are unrecognizable to her. She’s about to gently close it and put it back when she sees a damn ramen recipe and her stupid ingrained associations make her read it and its background thoroughly. 

It’s a legacy of an Uzushio special, popularized across the sea by trading fishermen. She adds it to her pile. The bookseller gives her choices an inscrutable look, but Sakura now owns porn and her first ever cookbook.

-

They stay in town for a week, which means Shizune’s able to make a few friends during her allotted beach time that she can play with for more than a day or two. 

A brother and sister watch her in wonder as she tries to hop around on top of the waves, and they approach her when she gets out to grab fresh water and wash the salt from her mouth. They’re enamoured with her awesome ninja skills, even though she can see a Konoha nin up the beach with their parents and cousins. Apparently they’re from central Fire and all but one of their escort team won’t show them any cool tricks. 

Shizune’s not allowed to use her weapons on the beach, but she shows them the more complicated acrobatics she knows, and they play something called bocce ball until their parents call them away. 

When they come up to her again two days later, they pressure her into water walking with one of them on their back. It’s a little fun to see them so amazed by it, but they’re around her age and while Shizune’s got good muscles, carrying a person and water walking on waves at the same time is difficult.

It’s when the brother won’t stop asking for another turn and she gives in (she’s not very good at saying “no”) that things go a bit wrong.

He jerks on her back while they’re still in the shoals, shouting in her ear that he thinks he saw a crab, and she loses her concentration. They drop just as a wave rolls over them, sending them straight to the sand and shattered shells, dragging them across it until a break between the waves lets her right herself. She grabs the boy and immediately rushes to dry shore, her bicep stinging and knees scraped. 

He’s blubbering to his sister, a deep gash bleeding freely along his shin, friction burn from the sand reddening his side. 

“Hey! It’s okay, you’re fine,” Shizune says. “One of my cool ninja tricks is healing, but my senpai is a lot better and faster. Put pressure on it, I’ll go grab her, don’t go anywhere!” she calls when it looks like the girl is about to run off to their parents a ways down the beach. You can’t leave a patient in crisis all alone!

When she reaches the area where Sakura is lounging, sipping brightly colored drinks adorned by little fruit wedges on the rims with Tsunade and reading an orange book, her pink-haired mentor immediately gets up and rushes to her, face marred with concern. Tsunade goes pale, and she realizes she must be bleeding too. She moves so Sakura is between the two of them. 

“Shizune, what happened?” she asks, in a no-nonsense tone, flat, all business. 

“I was playing with some Fire kids and me and the brother got smashed under a wave and I think he got cut on a shell and his shin is bleeding a lot and I don’t want to risk an infection can you please come heal him?” comes out rapid-fire, and she points a few hundred feet down the beach where it looks like the brother is sitting with his sister, and one of their escort nin has come down and is pressing something against his leg. Shizune silently applauds him for showing common medical sense.

Her senpai turns and grabs her med pack and canteen from under the lounge chair, looks back at the kids, and grabs the large sunhat right off a still-frozen Tsunade’s head. She puts her hair in a tiny ponytail, smushes the hat right onto her head, grabs her supplies again, and rushes down the beach. She’s not going truly ninja-quick, but Shizune still struggles to keep up with the flutter of the light beach pants she's wearing. Running on sand is difficult.

Sakura doesn’t acknowledge the Konoha nin, a big man wearing the Akimichi crest; she just shoves him out of the way with no issue, taking over the gauze he had been using to staunch the blood flow. Before she picks it up and begins working, she sets her med pack at her side, points next to it, and says, “Shizune, sit facing away and heal yourself. You may pay attention if you finish, but do not rush.”

The sister is holding the boy’s hand while the Akimichi stands over them, watching Sakura with a weird amount of focus; Shizune sits down and gets to work, pouring water from the canteen over her wounds to rinse off the salt, all of them silent beyond the brother’s continued sniffling. The waves crash loudly and seagulls caw as Shizune heals her bicep, much the same way she did Sakura’s after the boulder crop. And a lot faster too (it is a much smaller, shallower cut, but still!), and her skin looks good! Fish-tac-toe is certainly weird, but it’s helpful.

Unfortunately for her curiosity, she does not finish healing herself before Sakura is done with the boy, but she can tell her mentor is speaking in a low, calm tone to him and his sister before she turns to heal the scrapes on Shizune’s knees. It’s the first time Sakura’s treated a fresh wound on someone that’s not them, and she wants to learn proper bedside manners! Okay, she’s watched Tsunade heal a couple breaks and illnesses for extra cash over the years, but she doesn’t want to be as… cold about it as her aunt is. 

While Sakura heals her, she goes back to her no-nonsense voice, paying attention to her work but not looking to the Akimichi she’s giving instructions for post-healing care. Shizune watches him get the boy on piggyback as the sister stands.

Looking at the big hat on Sakura’s head, the Akimichi says, “Thank you for taking care of my client’s child, Miss…?” 

Blowing past the bait, she responds, “It’s no trouble. But you need to keep a closer eye on civilian children in the water; this area is known to have riptides, among the other dangers of the sea, and they will not have the skill or know-how to deal with an emergency on their own. Do better.”

The Akimichi looks at them wide-eyed, the contrast of his facial markings stark in the sun. He blinks a couple times while Sakura wipes away the last of Shizune’s blood, and then cleans her hands of red too. “Uh - of course, we were told they’re familiar with this beach and the clients did not ask us to follow them. I’ll inform the rest of my team. Thank -” 

“You’re welcome, but we must be going,” Sakura cuts him off, lifting Shizune into her arms. She’d much rather be on piggyback. “Have a good day, sir.”

She walks away calmly, though Shizune can feel her rapid pulse with her arms hung around her neck. “See you!” she calls, able to watch the siblings wave at her as the Akimichi takes them back to their family. Quieter to her mentor, she asks, “Are you okay, Sakura-senpai?”

She can feel her nod. Tightly, she says, “Just worried about Shishou.”

“She’ll be okay. It’ll take her a while, but she’ll snap out of it. Taking her back to the inn is easy, she just holds my hand and doesn’t say anything and follows me. It’s better to not be in public when she comes out.” It’s not super frequent that Tsunade has to see blood, but Shizune’s worked out a system by now. She’ll put Tsunade against the bed’s headboard, cover her in a blanket, pour a cup of sake and leave it with the bottle and some water on the bedside; she’ll get something simple to eat for when she snaps out, and sits next to her, reading, until she starts to cry. Then Shizune goes out and explores or trains for as long as she can to give her aunt the time she needs. When she returns, Tsunade looks washed out, but she functions again.

“... I’m glad she’s had someone to look out for her.” Sakura says. In a strained fake-playful voice, she then sing-songs, “Teach me your ways, oh Shizune-shishou!”

She lets out a light giggle. “Of course, Sakura-senpai.” 

-

Minato receives a letter and a postcard from Chouza while the man is on his Noodle escort mission. The postcard is a beautiful reproduction ink drawing of a spiraled lighthouse over the sea, tucked inside the letter. The letter reads:

Minato

Curse my lack of summons. Client’s child was injured on the beach while playing with a young, dark-haired girl who had shinobi training. Her guardian was fetched to heal him. She wore a large sunhat, so I couldn’t see a hair color or much of her face, but she called the girl Shizune and the client’s child was healed quickly. I also saw Shizune healing her own wounds. I was brushed off when I asked for a name, and they left as soon as the healing was finished and I was still stuck with the kids. She looked to be about the same height, skin tone, figure, and age range as the pink Slug Summoner. If Tsunade was with them, I didn’t see her, and when I was off-duty today I had no luck looking for them. I even poked my head in some bars and the local casino. 

Only issue we’ve had is some bandits midway to the isthmus, so Jiraiya-sama should have no trouble getting over to the area. Tell him to check out the low-country boil at Dirty Dai’s Shrimp Shack. 

Give the postcard to Kushina-san. It’s an Uzu lighthouse. 

Chouza

Flipping over the postcard shows that Chouza wrote down the story of the beacon, recorded from its plaque. Melancholy mixes with curiosity; if Kushina ever wants to see a lighthouse, he knows where they’re going, and he’ll bring notebooks enough for the two of them. 

The letter he writes to Jiraiya includes a copy of the information Chouza gave him. It’s been a day since the Akimichi wrote, and two since the sighting. He has no earthly clue where his sensei is, but Minato can’t exactly ditch the village to give his own chase without a mission or official leave, and he can’t even request leave right now because of all the running back and forth the Sandaime has him scheduled for. Kushina’s leaves are heavily scrutinized, and Shikaku and Inoichi are stuck in T&I and Tactics. When he hands the letter to Kosuke, he belatedly remembers to pass along congratulations for Jiraiya’s book tour and crosses his fingers for more reasons than one.

That first book tour really did not go well.

Chapter Text

Minato

Fucking finally. I’m a bit west, but shouldn’t take me long to get over there. Akimichi is getting a signed copy of Icha Icha, and I’ll put in an actual effort to find that old ass cookbook. 

Jiraiya

-

Sakura, being the more functional of the adults, decides their exit strategy once Tsunade is mobile with a still-floating mind the next day. It includes a Henge and enough genjutsu to leave the nin at the border with spinning heads; at most, they’ll think a small family is returning from vacation. She considers hopping on a boat to cross the bay, but the northeastern coast of her homeland is patrolled with an intensity and suspicion the Fire-Noodle border isn’t. At least, it was when she spent hours a day in the Hokage’s office.

Considering the Second War concluded only a few years past and the Third is creeping up, Konoha’s wariness of Kiri is likely multitudes higher than in her younger days. 

Still, backtracking across the isthmus should allow her party a bit more distance from the location Jiraiya’s bound to be heading for, if the paranoid voice in her mind is in any way correct. Honestly, letting Tsunade and Shizune enter Noodles officially in the first place was a bad idea for her continued anonymity, but she’s still as stuck in her dilemma as she was weeks ago. Perhaps they could have headed south into Tea, but her instincts had her directing them towards home and safety before she even realized her error. 

Going by the panic that entered her veins when she saw Akimichi Chouza on the same damn beach as her, she needs to straighten herself out. Which is not something she’s particularly good at, seeing as she spent literal years waffling over her intentions towards Sasuke. And, well. She’s never had to make a final decision on that one, due to her dimensional troubles. 

Of all the nin on Konoha’s roster, she had to have a run-in with one she’s almost certain saw her disastrous entry to the past. If anyone is trying to puzzle her existence out, it’s Ino-Shika-Cho and Namikaze Minato, and Jiraiya would be the first person they’d turn to for information. The man with toads and a fledgling spy ring, because that’s just her luck. 

Even with Katsuyu’s… warning, he has the best relations and abilities to sniff her out. Her shishou, his damn teammate, also has the slug on her side, and she outright revealed her most salient connections.

Her mind is fighting itself in circles; fury at her own stupidity wars with the rationalizations she made on limited information when she woke up to a ghost, anxiety crashing as short and violently as the waves she’s forcing them to leave behind, and for all that is holy she just wants to wake up to the waxed canvas of a war tent or the popcorn ceiling of her apartment bedroom.

The picture of her and Ino in their bright summer yukata, taken the month before they made chuunin with Chouji, sits framed on her bedside. The garish quilt composed of pastel pinks and greens was left folded at the end of her mattress; it was made by her grandmother while she gestated in her mother’s uterus, and the hemmed edges have frayed with time. There are books and scrolls stacked haphazardly, journals full of research and wonderings strewn within reach of her bed and couch, decorating the kitchen table she rarely uses for its intended purpose.

Her photograph of the absolute mess that was her genin team sits on the corner of her desk, taunting her with hopes and dreams and failures.

Even her dreary tent had a set of cards, well-intentioned notes of admiration, and one of her mother’s horribly written, incredibly entertaining mystery novels; every so often, the margins held scribbles of disbelief and Mebuki’s scathing commentary. 

Her bodily storage seals hold scraps in comparison, but she’s getting real close to crying on an empty tube of toothpaste. Or ripping it in half, depending on which way her mood has decided to travel in the moment. She’s never regretted her packing priorities more.

She hurries them back across the isthmus, sticking to the northern bayside rather than following their southern beach-hopping path. Shizune gives her some odd looks, but she’s focused enough taking care of Tsunade’s lingering haze that Sakura doesn’t worry about it at the moment.

It was a bit of a shock to see her mentor in the frozen state she assumed at the appearance of her ward’s blood, fragile in a way Sakura had never witnessed. She did break out of it, but the mood it instilled in the Senju lingers days after the event. One of her hands strokes her grandfather’s necklace constantly (and that throws her off too, because she’s only ever seen it adorning Naruto). 

Sakura makes them skip past the bayside towns, setting up camp under the live oaks. She scouts the area while Shizune cooks and Tsunade goes through the motions of checking her own med packs and drinking her personal sake stash dry. She keeps her eyes and ears peeled for any amphibians; if she’s going to be found out by the big ol’ perv any time soon, it’s likely to be in this limited stretch of land. 

She’s glad for her vigilance when she spots two toads chilling in the evening shade of some moss-covered rocks a couple miles inland on the isthmus, croaking to each other but bearing the colorings that mark them as Myouboku. 

Genjutsu, gloves, humus, soporific; wait, drop genjutsu, wait, push them a little more into the cover of the rocks, leave.

She finds one more toad, slightly larger than the others, when she ranges back eastwards towards the main civilian road. She repeats the process with a marginally-heavier dosage. They really don’t know how to conceal themselves from anyone with a single clue about summons, honestly.

Sakura leads her crew north through the eastern side of Fire, pretending everything is perfectly fine.

-

Tsunade may be self-absorbed and still blinking away the sight of Shizune’s blood, but she’s not fool enough to realize her apprentice from the future is keeping them away from fresh alcohol and the gambling halls that distract her best. She puts up with it until she’s three-quarters done with the bottle of rum she bought as a souvenir. 

When Sakura starts trying to navigate them away from the town she knows is coming up, a few days back into Fire Country proper, Tsunade snaps her hand out and grabs her forearm. The brat attempts to slip from her iron grasp for a brief moment, and she feels no remorse when she tightens her grip enough to create minute fractures in the girl’s radius and ulna. 

“Shishou?” Sakura says, looking at her master, lilting her voice with nonchalance. Tsunade examines her; her lips are more bitten than usual, eyes carrying bags heavier than usual, and fake ass smile twitching more than usual. Her ungrabbed hand is balled into a fist. 

Shizune stands far enough away to not get caught in any possible action. She’s been practicing some sort of chakra control exercise with her senbon, holding one of her untreated ones between her thumb and pointer finger while attempting to draw her chakra up its length. Tsunade’s not sure if that came from Sakura or if Shizune made up something while bored, but she keeps one eye on her work and one on the volatile adults. 

Focusing on the protégé she’s only recently met, Tsunade raises her blonde brows in a practiced arch. “I don’t know what got you running around like a chicken with its head cut off, but if it’s not dangerous and you won’t spill, at the very least allow us to sleep at an inn. We can all do a Henge, stupid.”

In front of her, Sakura drops her polite facade, pursing her lips and breaking their staring contest. Tsunade watches her eyes narrow into space, and knowing what she does of the girl, she’s going to get some kind of acquiescence. 

And if she isn’t, the pink menace is doing nothing to protect the pressure points that can knock her unconscious. 

She swallows audibly, finally saying, “Okay. Okay. I know. Sorry, I -”

“You don’t make me talk, I don’t make you talk. We put on the bunhead henges, book a room, go to Shima’s Casino, drink ourselves dry, and hopefully tomorrow you won’t be practically tweaking.” To prove this, Sakura’s left eyelid twitches.

After opening and closing her mouth for a moment, she croaks out, “Sound strategy.” Tsunade’s grip has not faltered, but she can feel Sakura’s muscles flexing in the kind of nervous energy you don’t want in an already on-edge shinobi. Her fist is still curled and shaking. The Senju can hear the teen swallow. In a breath, she says, “Except I’m so hair-trigger right now the first civilian to get in my personal space will become a bloodstain and that’s probably not good.” 

Tsunade sucks her teeth. Pressure points, pressure points…

“What if you two spar? No weapons or anything!” comes from the sideline of their showdown, and they both turn to see Shizune balancing a senbon on her pointer finger. She doesn’t look either of them in the eye, but mutters, “Unenhanced taijutsu?” 

Considering the fact that she and the time traveller have not truly sparred, only exhibited katas and techniques together for the genin’s benefit, the kid is probably frothing at the mouth to observe something more exciting. The last time they got in a real fight was many months ago, before Tsunade’s summon messed with her misery tour, when a few missing nin thought it would be a good idea to sneak up on her young charge.

Shizune demonstrated the effectiveness of her homebrew poisons while Tsunade severed spinal cords with invasive medical chakra; the Slug Sannin, even limited by her phobia, had no trouble taking care of some B-Ranks from Kumo. She’d added their bounties to her purse and continued on with her life, but it wasn’t exactly an exhibition match Shizune could study.

Sakura trains her gaze back on her farce of a master, raising her brows in challenge. “I’m down, Shishou. Been a while since I’ve really stretched my legs against someone else.” 

The Senju considers it. Unenhanced taijutsu will still cause earthly cracks, leave them with bones bruised and broken, but if they avoid head and gut shots the likelihood of a blood spurt is low. It’s still not something she really wants to chance, especially with her charge’s bleeding bicep still fresh in her mind.

Proving she knows Tsunade too well, the unruly teen smirks. “What? Afraid I learned all your tricks while you trained me?” 

It’s her turn to experience a twitching eyelid, and she wishes her scowl had any true effect on her students. She scoffs, “Tch. As if, brat. I’ve still got a decade on your puny ass.”

The smile that stretches across Sakura’s face is decidedly manic. “Aww, so Baa-chan’s already got stiff joints.” She smiles wider when Tsunade fully breaks her radius and ulna. Oh, she’s going to turn this kid into a non-bloody pancake, somehow. She breathes deep, releases the mangled arm, steps back heavily, and crosses her own arms over her chest.

“You’ll regret that, idiot,” she says, even as she watches Sakura mend herself into fighting shape. It doesn’t take long, and by the time they’ve reached a clearing far removed from any populace they’ve decided on Tsunade’s rules of engagement. 

Shizune gets a rundown of observatory instructions from Sakura, embellished by Tsunade’s direction of her lessons, and they leave her sitting safely on a thick tree branch.

The master and the student she’s never trained, never fought, stand twenty paces apart on the grass. Shizune calls their start.

They dodge each other’s first blows, creating ditches in the ground with their natural strength, and Tsunade feels a thrill she hasn’t managed to catch in quite a while. 

-

Kaerukichi and Kaerumaru sit on their little blue haunches atop a mossy boulder on the north shore of Fire’s isthmus, doing an awful job of looking innocent.

The elder of the two brothers, Kaerukichi, is making eye contact with the moss instead of Jiraiya, affirming, “What ‘maru said! We got here, like, three days ago, and haven’t heard any croaks from any Shikkotsu folks! Looked around, of course, but maybe they took the roadway? I’m sure Gamashiki must have seen something!”

The Toad Sage sits criss-crossed on the dirt in front of his summons, resting his chin on his palm, elbow pressed into his thigh. He raises his brows and feels incredibly thankful for the salty breeze that cools the small stretch of land. Summer is encroaching, and with it, the sun’s desire to burn him to a crisp. Completely unimpressed, he just says, “Uh-huh.”

Kaerumaru chimes in, “Or the bay! They could have taken a boat from Noodles! Or even gone south to Tea!” 

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Maybe they hitched a ride to Water!” 

“Hmm.”

“They could have sailed anywhere! Wave! Hot Springs! They could be on their way to Lightning, for all we know!” The shifty little brothers shuffle, looking for all the world like they want to be anywhere but in front of their summoner.

Jiraiya presses his lips together and considers the horrible, terrible liars. By the Sage, he always knew the toads hated admitting any sort of defeat, but seriously? He tilts his head and watches them, running his fingers along the lines of his face markings in an absent gesture. A heavy, beleaguered sigh escapes him before he says, “You know, that sounds remarkably similar to what I heard from Gamashiki already.”

“... You already talked to Gamashiki?” Kaerumaru asks, hesitant and looking determinedly at his white brows.

“Yup,” he responds, popping the word out. “Akimichi’s escort mission was returning, so I met up with him earlier. Gamashiki was nearby, and what he had to say about his last two days was a whole lot of nothing.”

The brothers, in unison, swallow audibly. 

“So?”

Kaerukichi clears his throat and finally, meekly, meets Jiraiya’s gaze. “Ah… well. We… may have woken up a couple days ago… without remembering falling asleep.”

The poor, disgruntled man scowls (not nearly as impressive as either of his teammates, but still solid!) and sits up straight, cracking his neck. “She’s consistent, at least. Were you two talking in my human language? Get too close to a trap?”

They shift their stances on the moss, finally looking somewhat confident. ‘Maru says, “Course not! We only ever speak human around you, Jiraiya. And we were chilling, just reporting to each other, and then bam! Woke up in a rock crevice.”

He tries to stifle a sigh and resists putting his head in his hands. “Damn it. She must have recognized you as Myouboku somehow.” When the toads have no input to contribute, he gives in and lets his forehead meet his palms. Minato said the slippery little Slug Summoner joked about feeling like a Gamabunta-made pancake. But the last time he summoned the boss was years ago! In fucking River Country! And when he takes the effort to summon the big bastard, very few come out alive beyond his allies, and he’s near-certain he never caught sight of any pink-haired tweens ditching one of those fights. 

Sure, maybe Tsunade has details on his summons, maybe she’s even taking her avoidance of her problems to a new level, but she’s never been big on subtlety. She’d have yelled at his “slimy minions” until they popped back to Myouboku out of sheer fright. 

He doesn’t even have any other marks right now that would know to be on the lookout for summons, or even know how to spot ones that look remarkably like normal toads, if not for the striping on their backs.

Jiraiya’s hands fall to his lap and he cranes his neck to the sky, blue peaking through swaying green leaves. It takes in his groan of pure frustration and does nothing to help him. 

-

The grass and clovers that once covered the ground are crushed and torn, victims of a vicious taijutsu match that has both opponents panting, collapsed on cracked earth.

“Seems you were taught well,” Tsunade laughs, bruised all over and cradling a shattered arm. “Good form, and you’re a quick one.”

Sakura manages to lift herself from the ground even with a broken femur. Her blood is still rushing and she smiles without restraint. Hopping on one leg over to Tsunade, she cackles at the sight of one of the strongest people in the world laid out flat. “Oh yeah,” she says, “you’re a hardass. And two of my old teammates are some of the fastest shinobi to ever come out of Konoha, so I took some notes from that.” She’s not near as speedy as either, but observation and her drive to reach their level definitely gave her a leg up.

She proffers her hand to Tsunade and lifts her when the woman grabs it with her uninjured arm. The Senju supports her as they trek over to the trees, Shizune hopping down with wide, excited eyes. “Oh?” the woman says as she helps Sakura sit back against a trunk before plopping down herself.

“Oh yeah,” Sakura responds, “Uchiha Sasuke and Hatake Kakashi may not be able to beat the Yondaime, and I heard Uchiha Shisui could outrace Kaka-sensei, but, uh… can’t really compete against dead people, so they win by default.”

“Hatake? Guess the talk about Sakumo having a pup is true, then.”

Shizune jogs towards their resting spot, pulling out canteens for their tired forms. “You’re both so good! That was amazing to watch!” she says with a sweet smile, handing over the water.

“Thanks, Shizune-chan,” Sakura says. She takes a deep swig before commenting, “The White Fang? Yeah, pretty sure that’s his dad.” She barely ever heard a word of the man from her sensei’s mouth, but he’s a feature in some history books and according to those, he was an absolute beast in a fight. There was also a rumor of a shrine to him in the ANBU HQ, full of old propaganda posters from the Second War. Even with the unfair disgrace prior to his death, many shinobi of the younger generations held a certain idolization of him. 

If Kakashi’s face is anything like his father’s, then he must be a looker. Her days of believing in fish lips and buck teeth have long passed. 

“Huh. Well, good for him,” Tsunade says after taking her own gulp of water. 

They focus back on their little student as she sits down in front of them. She’s looking at their breaks and bruises; Sakura can practically see her salivating. She makes eye contact with her master, letting Tsunade decide what to do.

The blonde huffs. “Alright, Sakura’s break is less complex. Get on it, Shizune,” she says, smirking when their youngest scoots to her secondary mentor’s side.

Shizune looks at Sakura for permission to start, and she nods after pulling up the leg of her shorts for better access. It hurts like a bitch, but she genuinely cannot count how many times her legs have been broken. She can attribute most of those to Tsunade’s brutal teaching methods, at least. Green surrounds little hands, and she smiles at the look of concentration on the kid’s face. As her bone mends, she watches the Senju putting her arm back together from the corner of her eye. She looks more settled in her skin than she has for days, and Sakura can’t help but feel the same. 

The adrenaline rush of a good fight is something she missed with a desperation she hadn’t previously recognized. This Tsunade still holds a tremendous amount of skill, but certain attack patterns differed; while fighting against her was familiar, it was also an adaptive challenge. 

When breaks are fixed and bruises lightened, Shizune looks up to her nervously.

“Um, Sakura-senpai… I was wondering... is there any way I can get practice on someone whose chakra frequency I’m, uh, unfamiliar with?” Her dark eyes dart over to Tsunade, who just raises her brows and tilts her head at Sakura. 

As the director of Shizune’s dirtier medical learning, she considers her request and finds it has merit. Sakura learned well on fish and herself and those she was close to, but the real challenge, which improved the skill and speed of her healing greatly, was treating wounds on people with a wide variety of frequencies and bodies. 

With her mind more in tune with itself after all the physical exertion, she makes the decision easily. “Alright, Shizune-chan. I’m sure we can find people who need healing in any town.” She lets those words echo in her head as Shizune grins with teeth. 

She needs a fucking drink. 

-

Wearing Henges reminiscent of Tenten’s nondescript features, she and Tsunade play poker and swallow enough sake that the dealer looks at them with concern. The Senju loses, and a trickle of relief passes through Sakura’s spine. She’s smug and drunk when she collects her own coin. A pretty bleach-blond boy watches her with hooded eyes from the bar; Sakura sticks her tongue out at Tsunade’s still-irritated face when she drags him to the alley. 

She proceeds with another of her favorite adrenaline rushes and kisses him stupid.

When she takes Shizune to the town’s little clinic the next day, she can’t even remember his name. She’s honestly not sure if she learned it in the first place.

They move on, because Sakura is still set on avoiding any confrontation with people she knows that don’t know her, and Tsunade lets it happen.

-

“Huh,” Jiraiya lets out, scratching his chin. 

The field in front of him appears fine at first, yet he can see where greenery was destroyed but earth is whole with the slightly unnatural smoothness of a jutsu. He finds a couple missed cracks in the ground and nods to himself. The only other scouting toad who experienced a brief bout of narcolepsy had been hopping around the northern curve of the isthmus, and he took his chances on the path more populated with gambling establishments. “Seems I might be on the right track.”

He whistles as his feet pad on towards the nearest town. 

-

Sakura watches Shizune stitch up a wound on a farmer who had an unfortunate encounter with his pitchfork. Learning manual healing procedures is just as important as chakra-enhanced ones, especially for those not genetically disposed to large reserves, and her student’s agile fingers have no issue maneuvering the needles necessary for sutures. As the wound wasn’t near anything vital and the man will have plenty of time to heal before the harvest begins, he’s stuck with being threaded up.

She did let Shizune use the disinfection jutsu on him, because she practiced hard and did no damage when she applied it to Sakura. Such a diligent learner! 

Luckily for them, the town they’ve stopped in for Shizune’s fourth session of practical healing is rather slow and small; their local civilian healer appreciated a day off, and thus Shizune’s had a relaxed environment for her training. A mother brought her daughter in with a rash they treated with their herb collection, another farmer had a pinched back she soothed, and the healer herself benefited from a repair of an old hip fracture that never quite came back together properly. 

Shizune maintains the Henge that lightens her hair to a more middling brown as she wraps up the farmer’s arm, telling him, “All good! Um, just don’t lift anything heavy until Hitori-sensei takes out the stitches in a couple weeks.” She grabs some of the healer’s stock of bandages when she finishes and hands it to him. “Change these every day and wash the wound with warm water, and it should heal up fine! Of course, if you have any issues Hitori-sensei should be able to take care of them.”

“Thank you very much, Sensei,” he says, bowing lightly to them before exiting into the summer evening, nodding a greeting to the three girls he holds the door open for.

The one at the head of the pack, who looks to be in her mid-teens with a bun of black hair, calls out, “Hitori-sensei, Akira-chan has a - oh.” She takes in the presence of Sakura and Shizune, stopping abruptly and causing the two others to run into her back. “You’re not Hitori-sensei,” she says, pouting. “Who are you?”

Sakura pats Shizune’s head and speaks, the genin looking nervous at the sight of the older girls. “We’re travelling healers; when we came by to offer aid, Hitori-sensei decided to take the day off.” The trio manages to shuffle further inside to get a good look at them. To the leader of their little crew, she asks, “So, what can we help you girls with?”

After a brief stare-off, she seems to take them at their word and pushes another black-haired girl in a plain worker’s yukata towards the one bed in the makeshift clinic. “We work over at the onsen in Shirakawa, and we were cleaning the walls today. Akira-chan was on the ladder and she fell and hurt her shoulder ‘cause Nijika-san, one of our supervisors, started shouting out of nowhere and we all got spooked.” Akira settles onto the mattress and loosens her clothing enough to pull down the back. She’s got a nasty bruise and some scraping on her shoulder blade. Her friends settle onto the floor, and the lead keeps speaking while Sakura directs Shizune into a diagnostic jutsu. “Apparently some old guy was trying to peep on our customers! Tch, what a creep.”

The other uninjured girl crosses her arms and scowls, clearly of the same opinion. “Nijika-san scared him off but we still had to finish our shift. Hitori-sensei is a lot nicer than Shirakawa’s crabby old healer, so Akira-chan was okay with walking home before getting looked at.” Her hair is about the same brown Sakura and Shizune are wearing, and she watches the young medic work with interest. 

Keeping her eye on her student, taking in their information, Sakura says, “I’m sorry to hear that. We may not be Hitori-sensei, but I can promise you girls we’re plenty nice.” In an effort to prove this, she gestures towards the small kitchenette. “It’s not quite fresh anymore, but there’s still some tea if you’d like any.”

“Oh! Thank you, Sensei,” the leader says, grabbing some for herself and her friends while Shizune cleans the scrapes. 

Sakura allows her to partially heal the deep bruise with chakra, and the girls watch in wonder while Akira’s pained grimace begins to disappear. She’s the last of their patients for the day, and Sakura mulls over the news that originated from the larger town, just three miles away, while Shizune gives Hitori a rundown of what she missed.

Tsunade huffs when they trek past Shirakawa the next day. Sakura mollifies her with promises of the busier gambling halls further along the north road and distracts Shizune with pop quizzes.

-

When Tsunade rakes in a profit some miles from the border with Hot Springs, Sakura knows she’s in trouble.

The fact that she’s heard a few other patients gossiping about perverts and an herbalist muttering viciously about disrespectful Konoha nin only makes her jaw ache with how hard she clenches it.

Still looking like her favorite weapons mistress with a penchant for fuuinjutsu, Sakura scowls across the table as her master gleefully counts her coins. She spent a pretty penny on some top-shelf liquor at the bar nearest to their inn and still has enough for at least ten more bottles. The girl kicked from her own time would take a drag from the open ceramic, but she knows drinking more would just make her nerves worse at this point. She taps her short nails on the wood of their table to the tune a travelling band is playing; the singer’s voice is sweet and lilting against her backup’s wind and string instruments, and she’s pretty sure she can hear some kind of horn in the mix as well. It compliments the light patter of rain hitting the bar’s roof nicely.

They’re in a town with crowds large enough to get lost in, which means Shizune got plenty of practice and Sakura got plenty of information. The man who makes the best bread in these parts is apparently having a dalliance with his flour supplier; one of the oldest onsens in Hot Springs has finally reopened after the years of repairs the Second War necessitated; the school some of the younger children attend recently put on a small festival where one of the teachers was caught canoodling with a well-respected mother.

When Sakura’s not the one doing the learning and mending, there’s plenty to pay attention to in a busy clinic. The sounds of gabbing civilians are multitudes more enjoyable than the pained groans of severely injured shinobi she got used to hearing in a medical setting. 

The healing tents set up for the Fourth War are a frequent feature of her nightmares. It lends her a better understanding of this younger Tsunade’s fears than she’d like to admit.

The band finishes their song, but her fingers keep tapping until the Senju flicks her hand. The unimpressed look she gets when she meets amber eyes with her own has her sighing in defeat. Miss Moneybags is inadvertently involved in this whole mess too.

Sakura pulls one of her silencing seals (which she still makes with Naruto’s near-incomprehensible design) from the pouch strapped on her left leg and slaps it on their scratched table next to someone’s shitty carving of a heart. In the dim light of the bar, she decides to fess up. Somewhat.

-

“Shishou… I may or may not have been giving any of Jiraiya’s toads I see a soporific.”

“… I’m impressed. Future apprentice to the Godaime, and here you are drugging the Sandaime’s student’s summons so you can keep up the leisurely deserter lifestyle.” 

“… Thanks.”

“At least you’re not killing them like Oro would in your place.”

“Don’t be silly. The toads know when one of their own dies, and that would leave a much worse trail. And -”

“Sage, you’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?”

“And also because I’m not a vicious, murderous bastard like your teammate!”

“He’d be genuinely happy if you called him that to his face.”

“… That does sound like him.”

-

“You know,” Tsunade says as they bed down for the night, “I’m not going to make you stick around if you really don’t want to deal with Jiraiya and his blockhead.” 

Shizune is already asleep on her futon, curled up around a slug plushie Sakura bought for her before their time on the coast; she looks so innocent, not at all the tired, strung-out woman she grew to love. 

“Then what do I do?” Sakura asks quietly, settling into her own sheets. “I don’t really… there’s no clear path I can see for myself, here. I don’t want to just leave you and Shizune, but if I have to… have to face the music… I don’t think I’m ready for that.” There’s no lie in what she says, but she feels guilty all the same. If she sees Jiraiya, has to talk to a man who doesn’t know the love of Naruto, who warned them of destruction with his last action, she really doesn’t know what she’d say. She doesn’t know if he’d just pry her for information or try to drag her back to a Konoha she doesn’t know.

Not that Tsunade would just let her teammate take Sakura without her consent, but the fear remains.

The older woman turns out the light before stumbling to her futon and collapsing on the plush mattress. She sighs heavily, not near as reluctant to meet the Toad Sannin as Sakura is, but clearly still dreading the confrontation that’s coming. “I don’t know, brat. Go on a healing circuit? Do some bounty hunting? I’m pretty sure there’s a station here you could grab a Bingo Book from, and I think you need something to work your nerves out.”

“Hmm… Never done that before,” Sakura murmurs, eyes closed to the dark. Just a spar with Tsunade helped dissipate some of the anxious energy she was trapped in, and the thought of a good, true fight to wipe away what’s built up since then is enticing. “Would you… I can come back to you guys, right?”

Already on the edge of sleep, Tsunade slurs, “Duh. Shizune’s still got a lot to learn from your sorry ass.”

The chuckle Sakura lets out is a slightly broken thing, but she smiles into her pillow, enjoying the cool air that circulates their room at the behest of an old, clicking fan.

-

Kushina waves goodbye to her pretty blond nerd of a friend at the gates as he leaves on his fifth solo messenger mission in the past couple months. She’s envious of the endless freedom he’s afforded, but she can’t hold it against him.

At the very least, she’s got a hit and run mission with Inuzuka Tsume and one of her Aburame pals coming up in a few days. She’s practically biting at the bit to see some action and unleash her favorite form of destruction.

In the meantime, she turns around and heads to the Senju compound to continue poking at the bastard of a barrier the Nidaime set around his library and personal lab. Kushina’s confident she’s closing in on a crack in it; the Senju style of sealing has nothing on a determined Uzumaki, and she’s going to prove it. He may have directed the world to keep people out with logic and rules, but speaking its language the way Uzushio did can get one (Kushina) into plenty of places (the damn library that holds Mito's oldest scrolls) they shouldn't be able to.