Chapter Text
Sakura spent days in the library, reading whatever wasn’t sealed. Most of it was useless — old maps, daily records, scraps of fūinjutsu theory. She stayed because she needed something to focus on, something to drown out the weight of her memories.
Tena hovered nearby most days, bustling around the library, dusting shelves, or repairing torn scrolls. And she talked, spinning tales about Uzushio’s glory days.
Sakura mostly ignored her. At least, that’s what she told herself. Tena’s voice became a backdrop, something easy to tune out while her focus stayed glued to the pages in front of her. But there was something disarming about the woman’s easy chatter.
She didn’t ask for anything. She didn’t push too hard. She just…existed, content with Sakura’s presence even when Sakura offered nothing in return.
“You know,” Tena said one afternoon, running a finger along the faded edge of a scroll, “Uzushio wasn’t just a village of seal masters. We were much more than that.” Her tone was wistful, her words tinged with pride.
Sakura didn’t look up from the tome in her lap, but her ears pricked despite herself.
“Three families built it,” Tena continued, as if she hadn’t noticed — or didn’t care — that Sakura wasn’t engaging. “Each with its own gifts and responsibilities. Together, we built this place, made it more than just a collection of buildings. It was alive.”
“Three?” Sakura’s voice broke the stillness of the room. She didn’t look up, didn’t shift her posture, but her curiosity slipped through anyway.
“Of course, the Uzumaki,” she began, her face lighting up as though she’d been waiting for Sakura to bite. “We were the backbone of Uzushio — masters of fūinjutsu, protectors of knowledge, allies to Konoha. My husband, Ashina, led the clan. You’ve probably read about him in those dusty old history books.”
Sakura turned a page, keeping her expression neutral, though her fingers lingered on the paper.
“The Yakuzawa were medics. Saved more lives than they took.”
A pause. “And the third?”
Tena smiled knowingly, as if expecting the question. “The Mitama. Sea priestesses. Spirit-talkers. They kept the balance between the living and the dead.”
The name struck something deep within Sakura. Her hands stilled, her mind replaying the yūrei’s words: child of Mitama. She schooled her expression, but her thoughts churned.
“What kind of power?”
Tena leaned back. “The Mitama were born with a gift — or a curse. They could hear the spirits of Uzushio. Some say the sea chose them.”
Sakura frowned. She didn’t believe in old legends or mystical nonsense, but the mention of spirits hit too close to home. The yūrei she had encountered earlier…they hadn’t felt like ordinary spirits, not that she’d met any before. And then there was the lullaby her grandmother used to sing. Had Rei baachan known something about this supposed lineage?
“When a Mitama is born,” Tena went on, “a spirit is born with them. Incomplete, like two halves. When the child turns five, they undergo a ritual to merge.”
Sakura’s gaze sharpened. “What if they don’t?”
Tena’s voice was quieter now. “Then the spirit stays untethered. Wanders. The High Priestess is supposed to help it cross over to the Pure Lands.”
Sakura’s fists clenched. Her grandmother died before she turned five. No ritual. No priestess.
“...And what happens if the ritual isn’t performed? If the child lives without it?"
“The spirit grows stronger, influencing the child’s mind. They begin to lose touch with themselves. Emotions fade, replaced by something colder, something…disconnected. Eventually, the spirit may take control entirely, leaving the child little more than a vessel.”
Sakura froze. Her pulse quickened, a cold knot tightening in her stomach.
Disconnected. Cold. Like something else was always just beneath her skin.
It was her.
All those years of numbness, of apathy, of doing unspeakable things without hesitation or remorse — things she had thought were simply a result of war, of survival…Had it all been because of this? Because of a spirit inside her, slowly taking control of her mind?
Sakura frowned. “I don’t hear it anymore,” she said quietly. “No voice. No presence. And… I feel things again. Like I woke up.”
"That’s…unusual," Tena murmured. "Even for a Mitama child."
Sakura hesitated. “You said the spirit takes over the mind. So why did it stop? Why did it leave?”
Tena didn’t answer right away. She leaned in, thoughtful. “Some things even I don’t know. The Mitama kept their secrets close. But if I had to guess…maybe you fought it off.”
Sakura blinked. “Fought it?”
“Something must’ve shaken it loose,” Tena said. “A powerful emotion — grief, rage, love. Anything strong enough to break the bond.”
Sakura’s heart skipped a beat. She remembered the war. The grief, the anger, the overwhelming weight of loss when Neji died, when Sai betrayed her, and when she received news of Rin’s death — the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Could it have been then, when her emotions became so strong they shattered through the void inside her?
“If it left me,” she asked quietly, “where did it go?”
Tena’s expression darkened, her gaze dropping to the candlelight. “That’s the troubling part. Without a proper ritual to guide it, the spirit wouldn’t have crossed over. It might’ve been destroyed…or it could have taken on a form of its own.”
“A form of its own…?”
“It may exist somewhere in this world, fragmented but alive. An ikiryō. And if that’s the case, it’s no longer bound to you. It’s its own entity now.”
“That’s not possible,” Sakura said, but her voice lacked conviction.
“It shouldn’t be,” Tena agreed. “But when something is forced apart — especially something as deeply connected as a Mitama and her yūrei — it leaves scars. On both sides.” She hesitated, her voice softening. “If the ikiryō is still out there, it could be searching for answers, for purpose…or for revenge.”
“I feel like I’ve lost something,” she admitted. “Something I can’t get back.”
“You have,” Tena said simply. “A yūrei is half your soul, after all — half of what made you whole.”
Sakura stared at her, a cold chill settling over her. Half of her soul missing. It explained the emptiness she sometimes felt, even now, even after being able to process and understand emotions. When she should have felt more than just fragments of herself piecing back together.
"But…I’m still here.”
"You are.”
She didn’t answer. Just sat there, silent, trying to ignore the hollow ache in her chest.
Tena rested a hand on her shoulder. “You’re stronger than you think. And what’s lost…might not be gone forever.”
Sakura didn’t look up.
Maybe, she thought. Maybe not.
🌸
Tena wasn’t what Sakura expected of an Uzumaki. Then again, the only Uzumaki she really knew was Naruto — loud, chaotic, impossible to ignore.
Tena was the opposite. Sharp-tongued, blunt, and endlessly opinionated. But underneath the tough exterior, there was a kind of steady warmth. She didn’t coddle. She taught, corrected, challenged — and somehow made Sakura want to be better.
“You call that a seal?” Tena barked one afternoon, pointing at Sakura’s sloppy attempt at a containment formula. “That scribble wouldn’t trap a fish, much less hold chakra!”
Sakura scowled. “It’s just the handwriting,” she muttered. “I understand the theory perfectly.”
“Good theory means nothing without execution, girl,” Tena shot back, though her voice softened just a bit. “But at least you’re stubborn. That’s something.”
Under Tena’s sharp eye, she nailed the basics: tags, storage seals, simple barriers. The rest? Still way over her head.
Despite the grueling pace of her lessons and the constant critique, Sakura found herself drawn to fūinjutsu. It was a far cry from the brutal simplicity of combat, requiring not just strength but precision, intellect, and creativity. The complexity fascinated her, even if her calligraphy often made her want to tear her hair out. It wasn’t like the battlefield was a place for her to practice her handwriting, after all.
Her hands cramped, her shoulders ached, and she ruined more scrolls than she completed. But she kept going. But the challenge was soothing in a strange way. There was a rhythm to it, a methodical process that quieted her restless mind.
One night, hunched over an old scroll, her mind drifted to Naruto. The boy who sat at Minato’s table, full of life and fire. She traced the spiral etched into the parchment — the same one on Konoha’s flak vests. A symbol of alliance. Of history.
Did Naruto even know what it meant?
Maybe, one day, she’d tell him. Teach him what she was learning now. It could be a way to connect — to him, to Minato, to the past she wasn’t ready to let go of.
But not yet. For now, she stayed. Studied. Learned.
In the ruins of a forgotten village, Sakura was slowly putting herself back together.
🌸
When she wasn’t buried in scrolls, Sakura trained.
Out here, surrounded by crumbling ruins and sea winds, she didn’t have to hold back. Her twin tantō cut through the air again and again, each strike crisp and brutal. The wind hissed around her, but otherwise, there was silence — no judgment, no eyes watching.
Only movement. Only breath.
Until a voice cut through it.
“Why is your sword so full of rage, girl?”
She froze. Blades mid-swing, chest heaving. Sweat dripped down her neck, and for a moment, she didn’t turn around.
Then she did — slowly — and found Tena standing at the edge of the clearing, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
“It’s not rage,” Sakura muttered, wiping her brow. “It’s control. Precision.”
Tena gave her a look — the kind that saw too much. “No. It’s rage. You fight like you’re trying to outrun something.”
Sakura’s jaw tightened. She said nothing.
Because it was true. Every movement came from somewhere dark — anger, grief, guilt. The ghosts she carried didn’t leave her. They followed, clung to her skin, whispered in the edges of her memory.
She turned back to the clearing, blades still in hand, and moved again — faster, harder.
Neji’s voice echoed in her head: “Again. No hesitation. Precision matters. Or you die.”
She used to hate those drills. Hated how Sai picked things up faster. Hated how Neji never let up.
But she missed them now — because they were gone. And she wasn’t.
That’s what stung the most.
She thrusted her blade forward again, this time with more force, picturing Sai’s face in her mind. Not because of his betrayal — though that was still a wound that hadn’t even begun to heal — but because he’d been there. Because he’d survived when Neji hadn’t, and that filled her with a bitterness she didn’t know how to let go of.
Her movements became rougher, sloppier, each strike coming harder than the last, until her rhythm was lost entirely.
She stopped, breath heavy, lowering her tantō.
The blades glinted in the fading light, slick with sweat and grief. She didn’t pick them up to fight — not really. She picked them up because stillness felt like death. Because moving forward, perhaps even backwards, was easier than the weight of nothing.
Why was her sword so full of rage?
And if she stripped away that rage, what would be left?
“Fine, I’ll bite,” she muttered, turning toward Tena with a flash of irritation. “If I’m doing it wrong, what do you suggest?”
Tena didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the snark in Sakura’s voice. The old woman walked closer, hands clasped behind her back, her eyes glinting with something like amusement.
“For one,” Tena said, calm as ever, “those swords don’t suit you.”
“What do you mean? They feel…” she hesitated, glancing at the tantō in her hands. “They feel right.”
Kenjutsu had always been something she admired from afar. Neji had suggested she try it seriously, but she’d stuck to her kunai, more out of comfort than skill. The kunai had been her crutch for so long — reliable, familiar, efficient.
It wasn’t until after the war that she truly began experimenting with the twin tantō she now carried, blending them into her old routines. At first, the weapons felt awkward in her hands, too heavy and foreign. But now, they felt like extensions of herself, natural and deadly.
“They feel familiar, yes,” Tena corrected, circling her slowly like a teacher assessing a student. “But familiarity isn’t the same as suitability. You wield them as if they’re kunai — quick, precise, lethal in close quarters. That’s not the purpose of a sword.”
Sakura scowled, feeling the sting of criticism. “Then what?”
“A wakizashi.”
She blinked. “Seriously? That’s barely longer.”
“Exactly,” Tena said, nodding. “Long enough to give you reach, short enough to stay fast. A companion blade — but still capable on its own. Balanced. Adaptable. Like someone who doesn’t fit one mold.”
She gave Sakura a look — the kind that saw far too much.
“Not a soldier. Not a priestess. Not a healer. Not quite anything, but trying to be everything. That’s who you are. So get a blade that matches.”
Sakura didn’t answer at first. She hated how much sense that made. She’d poured months into these tantō, into turning her fury into something sharp. But the truth lodged deep.
She wasn’t the same girl who picked them up.
“And where exactly am I supposed to find a wakizashi?” she asked, voice dry.
Tena smiled, already turning toward the ruins beyond. “Follow me. There’s something I want you to see.”
They crossed the ruins into the underground archives. At the far wall, Tena pressed her palm against a faintly glowing seal. The stone parted with a low groan, revealing a hidden armory.
Dust clung to the air. The room was lined with blades — some rusted, others gleaming despite the years. At the center sat an empty stand.
“That’s where my husband’s ōdachi once laid,” Tena said softly, her voice tinged with a quiet sadness.
Sakura stepped closer but didn’t speak. Tena’s eyes stayed on the empty mount.
“It was stolen,” she said simply, then fell silent.
Sakura let the moment pass, gaze shifting to the blade beside it — a wakizashi, black steel etched with delicate floral patterns. Its hilt was wrapped in black and crimson cord, a tassel swaying gently at its end.
Sakura's Wakizashi
“This,” Tena said, her voice quieter now, “was a gift from Ashina. He had it made for me when we were young.”
Her hand hovered over the sword like she wasn’t sure whether to touch it or not.
“I was never as skilled with a blade as he was, but I learned what I could. Watched him fight. Picked things up over time.”
Sakura stepped closer, eyes on the wakizashi. She’d read about Uzumaki Ashina in the library, his prowess in both fūinjutsu and kenjutsu renowned across the Elemental Nations. The idea that this blade had come from his time made something inside her go still.
She reached out and lifted it. The weight was right. Balanced. She gave it a cautious swing, the edge singing through the air with a smoothness her tantō never had.
Tena watched her carefully. “Ashina used to say a sword reflects the soul. And yours?”
A pause.
“You fight like you’re still trying to figure out who you are. Nothing’s really yours; it’s all borrowed, patched together with no foundation.”
Sakura said nothing. She couldn’t deny it. Her style was a mess — old academy drills, Hyūga techniques she learned from Neji, random scrolls she’d pieced together. No foundation. No clear shape. Just survival.
Just a clumsy, unpolished amalgamation of techniques that lacked refinement and didn’t quite fit together.
But perhaps that was why it suited her. After all, she, too, was a patchwork of broken pieces, a survivor of a thousand battles that had left her scarred and incomplete.
Sakura’s grip on the wakizashi tightened. “And?”
“And it’s sloppy,” Tena said bluntly. “You force it to work because you’re too stubborn to quit. But you’re not moving with the blade. You’re dragging it along.”
She hated how true that felt.
“If you get control of yourself,” Tena said, “I’ll teach you Ashina’s style. I don’t say that lightly. But I see something in you. More than just anger.”
“I can’t just…turn it off.”
“No,” Tena said. “But you can learn to use it without letting it control you.”
Sakura looked down at the blade. She’d spent so long fighting just to keep moving, built herself out of rage and necessity. Could she really find peace in a world that had shown her none?
"Find peace within your blade, not war,” Tena murmured, as if reading Sakura’s mind.
Sakura let out a dry laugh. “There’s never been peace in my life.”
“That’s the problem,” Tena said. “You’ve survived. But you’ve never lived. And that anger? It’ll drive you. But it’ll burn through you too.”
Sakura stayed quiet. The truth sat heavy in her chest.
“What if I can’t let go?”
“I didn’t say let go.” Tena’s voice was calm. “I said control it. There’s a difference.”
She turned to leave but stopped at the door. “Figure out which parts of it are helping you…and which are just dragging you down.”
Then she left.
Sakura stood there, blade in hand, thoughts too loud.
Would letting go of her anger make her stronger? Or would it strip away the only thing that had kept her standing this long?
🌸
⋆˖⁺‧₊────🌸────₊‧⁺˖⋆
⋆˖⁺‧₊────🌸────₊‧⁺˖⋆
Sakura watched the sun dip below the horizon. The sky burned with streaks of orange and pink. A final kiss between sea and sky. Too familiar. Too raw.
Barefoot, she pressed her toes into the sand. The coolness of it grounded her. Like if she anchored her body, she could keep her mind from drifting into the past. The waves whispered at her feet. Calm. Steady.
For a fleeting second, she felt that elusive sense of peace Tena had spoken about, brushing against her skin like the wind weaving through her hair.
But it didn’t last. It never did.
Her mind, traitorous as always, conjured the image of Neji’s lifeless eyes, empty and forever closed to the sunset he would never see again.
And Sai would have loved this. He always did. Sunsets, of all things. A fascination that used to seem odd. Now it just hurt.
The moment soured in her throat, bitter and unbearable. She impulsively bolted toward the water. Wild. Frantic.
She needed to escape, needed to feel something other than the hollow ache in her chest.
The chill cut through her skin, clothes clinging to her body like a second layer as she waded deeper, waves rising to meet her. She didn’t stop until the water engulfed her shoulders, until it lapped at her chin and blurred the horizon into a line she could barely see.
And then she just…screamed.
It tore through her. Primal. Raw. Her fists pounded the water, over and over. The waves fought back, mocking her, as if daring her to keep going. She did. Each strike met with resistance. Each scream burned her throat.
The ocean didn’t care. It never did. It didn’t care about Neji, or Sai, or anyone she had lost. It didn’t care about her grief or her rage or her guilt. It only fought back with an indifference she both hated and envied.
She sobbed, her strength fading. The saltwater mixed with her tears, the ache in her chest swallowing her whole. Her body trembled, but not from the cold. From exhaustion that ran deeper than muscle.
When the fight left her completely, she floated on her back, her limbs heavy, her breaths shallow. The water cradled her like the oblivion she craved, carrying her wherever it pleased.
Maybe she should let it take her. Maybe she should let go.
But instinct pulled her back. The burning in her lungs reminded her that she still wanted to breathe, that something in her wasn’t ready to let go just yet. That she was still here, still alive, still fucking fighting.
She forced herself to claw her way back to shore like some pathetic creature washed up on land. When she finally collapsed onto the sand, she laid there, shivering in the cold, too drained to move. The night air bit at her damp skin, the warmth of the earlier sun long gone.
She didn’t care. She didn’t deserve comfort. Not after what she’d done. Not after what she’d failed to do.
She lay there in the cold, the warmth of the sand long gone, wrapped in nothing but a thin blanket that offered no protection from the night’s chill. She gazed up at the endless sky above her, the stars radiating and ever-seeing like the pearlescent irises of Neji’s eyes.
Somewhere in the tangled mess of her mind, she drifted into fragmented thoughts, half-formed dreams that offered no respite.
Of Uzushio and Konoha.
Of Neji and Sai.
Of Rin and Kakashi.
Of Naruto and Sasuke.
And she wondered, as she always did, where she truly belonged in the midst of it all. No matter how many battles she fought, no matter how many wounds she endured, she always found herself here, on the outside looking in. A part of everything, yet separate from it all.
Alone. Always alone.
Excerpt from Logs 227, 240, 289:
“Log 227
I believed I’d finally found the key to healing Misako's mind. But despite my efforts, she remains unwilling to seek treatment.
But I stumbled upon a new approach through my research and experiments. If I can replicate the voice techniques of the Koetaka Clan, I’m certain it will break the curse that plagues our family.
Log 240
The Koetaka woman refuses to cooperate, despite my attempts to reason with her. Perhaps if I let her out of the basement, a change of scenery will make her more pliable to my demands.
No, it’s too risky. I may have to go back for her son.
Log 289
I did it. I finally did it. Misako…my sweet daughter is whole again.
But why doesn’t she want anything to do with me?”