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Chapter Text

It was a quaint little afternoon in mid-July when Ino had managed to pry her away from the bowels of the hospital and to a little coffee-and-cake shop at the junction of one of Konoha’s newest roads. There had been more and more of them cropping up, dirt roads replaced by paved ones in lieu of the growing industry of civilian trade and the popular development of cars and trucks which made moving goods far quicker and easier than by horse and cart.

“Over here, Sakura-chan!” Ino called, a large smile on her face as she waved her over to the nearest seat by the window. “I’ve already ordered for the both of us,” she declared, even as Sakura sat down ever so cautiously on the cushioned seat.

“Without waiting for me?” One pink brow raised, watching as one of her oldest friends shrugged. Sakura followed suit, figuring it was probably for the best that Ino had ordered for her. All too often people complained that she took too much time when deliberating over what pudding to have. She had a sweet tooth – problem? “Oh well, whatdya get me?” she asked, yawning then and stretching out her arms, the lingering ache and tiredness catching up to her after her extended shift at the hospital.

“A selection of three deserts, if only because I know you’re ridiculous when it comes to sugar and sweet treats,” Ino said, sipping at her coffee, and eyeing her almost judgementally over her cup.

Sakura shrugged without a hint of shame. “Whatever gets me through the day.”

“Coffee,” Ino declared.

Her face shifted, memories of the first time she had tried the bitter brew cropping up in her mind in that instant. “No thank you! Hot chocolate for me all the way,” Sakura said, leaning forwards to rest an arm on the table. “So… What’s got you so worked up this time?” she asked, having seen the tell-tale signs of Ino holding herself back from the instant she had walked through the door.

Ino paused, sighed, and fished around in her bag for something then – the same something which was soon revealed to be a game. Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn it said on the packaging, stark crimson colouring standing out amidst the other, paler colours.

“Isn’t that the game you and Hinata were joking about a few months back?” she asked, lifting the game and smiling almost nostalgically. “I couldn’t get past the first few hours of gameplay… The sight of me with long hair and drill curls was… an acquired taste.”

“Not to mention you acted nothing like yourself,” Ino added, the smile which had swiftly appeared on her face vanishing just as quickly. “I thought it was funny before…”

One pink brow rose. “Before?” Sakura questioned, picking up on the wording, eyes narrowing. “What happened?”

“I heard people talking the other day – about the game,” she said, brow furrowing as she all but glared at the obnoxious packaging. “They said that the Yin Seal is easy to get, and I know they were talking about it in the game… but it just frustrates me because I know how hard you worked to create that seal on that massive forehead of yours, and I don’t think it’s right for people to say that any variation of the Yin Seal is easy to obtain.”

Sakura blinked, a smile curving at her lips. “You’re being nice today, darling,” she said, tilting her head as she leant forwards, only to be interrupted by the arrival of their sweet treats. “It’s just a game, isn’t it?” A smile curved at her lips, even as she ate a few mouthfuls of her cake. “It’s not like it affects the real world… It’s just some artist and author’s portrayal of me and Hinata. It’s not like they know me, so why would I care about their portrayal of me in some weird game? Everyone at the hospital knows better than to think I’m some ‘evil villainess’.”

“There are idiots out there, Sakura,” Ino muttered, shaking her head. “Honestly, the amount of times I’ve heard people complaining about how ‘evil’ Sakura is, and how she gets what she deserves – it scares me,” she said, and Sakura leant out then, grabbing Ino’s hands in her own. “It’s like someone’s created this game with the sole interest of smearing your name and making everyone think that you’re some sort of evil villain, when really, you’re the complete opposite…”

“Shinobi aren’t heroes,” she mumbled darkly at that, having long since removed those rosy lenses she had once seen the world through.

“Konoha Shinobi are heroes to Konoha,” Ino said pointedly, looking at her so very flatly, never letting her forget that her dear friend was a Yamanaka. Someone designed to root out dissenters and spies and ensure Konohan loyalties stayed strong through years of service. “Besides, you’re one of the ones who saves lives.”

“Mn, I suppose you have a point,” she acknowledged, shrugging then, feeling those blue eyes lose their intensity ever so slightly.

“Mn? Seriously, Sakura?” Ino laughed. “You’ve been hanging around Sasuke far too much. Is that your version of the Uchiha Hn?” Her eyebrows quirked up and down conspiratorially. “For when you take the Uchiha name, hm?”

“Shh!” she hissed, slapping a hand over Ino’s mouth, and looking around, wondering if anyone had heard her words. “Don’t say it like it’s a sure thing… it’s, well… nothing’s set in stone.” A blush painted her cheeks, heat racing through them, and Sakura could only curse her pale complexion. She had an unfortunate tendency to lean towards the end of the tomato scale when it came to embarrassment.

“Oh, please – unlike his game self, real life Uchiha Sasuke is over the moon for you,” Ino said, pausing then at the mention of the moon then. Before the war it had been such a simple thing to speak about. Then Kaguya Ootsutsuki had come along with a sledgehammer to that. “He likes you. Nah, he loves you,” Ino purred, grinning and laughing as Sakura glared at her venomously – silently telling her to shut up or face her wrath on Training Ground Eleven.

“You don’t think he’s got the hots for Hinata?” Sakura asked wryly, thinking then on the so-called protagonist of Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn. The one whose face was on the cover of the packaging, recognisable despite the animation style.

Ino burst out laughing, whacking the table accidentally as she all but doubled over. “Seriously, Sakura?” she wheezed. “You really think Sasuke would be interested in sweet, shy, Naruto-obsessed Hinata?” Ino tilted her head. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but not everyone likes the same kind of person. In my expert opinion, dear Sasuke likes an opinionated, strong woman who can crush him with her pinky finger.” Ino snorted, tucking the otome game back away into her bag. “Don’t let some game written by some bigoted fool who thinks that women should be sweet, submissive, and polite get you down.”

Sakura smiled. “Yeah,” she said, going back to devouring her cake and hot chocolate as quickly as she could before she felt a tell-tale buzz at her pager. “Ugh.”

“Already?” Ino grumbled. “Can’t they survive without you for thirty minutes?”

She grinned at that, patting Ino on the shoulder as she stood up. “Duty calls, it seems,” she said, blinking as Ino climbed to her feet, with half her cake and coffee left. “I can get there myself, you know.”

“I’ve barely seen you this last week – let me enjoy my time with you while I can,” she complained, clutching at her arm until the very last minute as they stepped through the door and onto the street.

She headed out onto the paved surface, turning then to wave at Ino. “There’s always a next time!” she declared, brow furrowing in confusion as she saw Ino’s face turn from happy to confused to shocked—

There was a squeal of brakes, a flash of lights, the sound of a body hitting the ground with a sick, wet thump, and Sakura could only spin around—and freeze as she spotted pink hair matted with blood, a crushed, malformed hand sticking out from behind a large tyre.

“SAKURA! Ino screamed, appearing beside that pink-haired body in a flash.

“Ino?” she mumbled, feeling ever so confused and offput by the situation in front of her. “I’m right” Her hand went through Ino’s body, and Sakura could only blink as she stared at the translucent visage of her hand. Her ghostly hand. “Here…” she finished off weakly, a numb, ringing in her ears as she vaguely recalled an intense sense of pain before she had wound up standing there – as a ghost of all things. The ghost of a shinobi killed by a truck. Sakura frowned, wondering then why exactly a truck had hit her before she could even react. Certainly, she had been distracted, but those sorts of vehicles had speed limits inside the city bounds—

“For Hinata!” a voice croaked from the cab, triumphant and gleeful, and Sakura could only blink as her world came crashing down around her, reality fracturing irreparably as she realised she was dead.

There was no rhyme nor reason to it, she found. One moment she had been Haruno Sakura, eighteen-year-old war veteran, and the next she was Haruno Sakura, sixteen-year-old daughter of Duke Haruno with all the memories of eighteen-year-old war veteran Haruno Sakura. The fact that it had come at a time when they—she?—was being accused and ‘punished’ for her crimes against Baron Hyuuga’s daughter, Hinata, was just her bad luck.

“Huh?” she mumbled ineloquently, the years of etiquette training as Duke Haruno’s only daughter slapping her in the face, and Sakura could only clutch at her head as she tried to figure out exactly what had happened. She had died, and then…

“You dared to bully Hinata, and for what?” A face she recognised looked at her so severely, and she could only squint, unfamiliar with that very expression being directed at her. Sasuke had occasionally smiled at her, more often seemed invariably expressionless, unless one learnt where to look. The picture of rage written on this Uchiha Sasuke’s face as he stood there, dressed in clothes which were both somehow familiar and unfamiliar, was a puzzling sight.

“Uh…” Pain throbbed in the back of her skull once more, indignity rising at the thought that it had been a truck – a truck, of all things – which had killed her. She was a war veteran for crying out loud! She should have been able to dodge the oncoming vehicle. If she had seen it or otherwise realised that she wasn’t as safe in a time of peace within her own village as she thought she had been. Her teeth sunk into her lip, tears of indignity biting at her eyes as she tried to think beyond the odd, numbing pain in her chest.

“SAKURA!”

Ino’s pained scream lingered in her ears, part of her feeling infinitely sad and sorry for herself at the lingering sense of loss she had. Eighteen year old war veteran or not – she had died. Yet she was mystifyingly alive. Confusion warred with sadness and loss—

“Do you really think tears will save you from my wrath?” the harsh voice of Uchiha Sasuke cut through her internal breakdown. “You think you can appeal to me with your womanly charms?” he demanded, and Sakura could only blink as a stirring of anger replaced the odd emptiness she felt in her heart. What sort of power trip was Uchiha Sasuke having? Why would she cry to attract a man? A man who was behaving so brutishly towards her nonetheless, she mused to herself, wincing at the tight grips she could feel around each of her arms, holding her down on her knees.

Uchiha Sasuke’s lackeys, she recalled, the memories of Haruno Sakura, daughter of a duke, coming back to her right then and there.

It was odd, how seamlessly those memories seemed to blend together. Unnerving, the longer she thought on it – which wasn’t for long because there was something irritating and familiar about the scene before her.

“What?” she muttered, reminding herself then that the Uchiha Sasuke in front of her was not the one she had long since fallen for. In fact, she realised with a dawning horror, he was rather reminiscent of the version of himself in that blasted game from the little she had played and the lots she had overheard about the gameplay. Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn. The same game which had made someone successfully attempt to kill her via truck. Her teeth clenched, irritation rising as she realised just how the circumstances lined up.

What sort of cosmic joke was being played on her?

“It seems Lady Sakura’s ears have gone deaf,” Sasuke stated, and Sakura felt the blush in her cheeks rise unbidden at the laughter which echoed around the hall in which he had chosen to do her condemnation. “You stand before me, accused of bullying my beloved Hinata – all to gain my attention, something a woman like you would never have. You have committed crimes, done all sorts of heinous acts in the name of your so-called love, and I shall tolerate this no longer!”

Sakura blinked, the parts of her which were the Duke’s Daughter panging with hurt, whilst the parts of her which were shinobi grew indignant. His words were callous and uncaring. Certainly as the Duke’s Daughter, she had held a fleeting, pure love for him which he had undoubtedly not reciprocated in the slightest. Yet she had pursued him nonetheless, and that, truly, was on her. That unreciprocated love had been marred by jealousy – driving her to commit actions, now with her memories as a shinobi, she was just a bit regretful of. It had been so very childish. Yet that hardly gave him the right to brush off the feelings she had and label her, ready to put her in whatever narrow-minded box he had made for her type. “Pray do tell,” she said, surprising herself with the amount of venom which lined her words, cutting off his listing of her ‘crimes’. “What is the definition of a woman like me?” she demanded, meeting the haughty grey eyes which looked down at her in disgust.

She ignored the pang in her heart at that – at the way his face reminded her of someone else, a different version of Uchiha Sasuke she had known and loved. Because the being in front of her was nothing akin to the Sasuke she had grown to care for deeply. His resemblance was only skin-deep.

“You,” he spat, glaring at her with those grey eyes which looked sorrowfully familiar and yet infinitely different. Her traitorous heart ached at that, part of her not ready to let go of the life which had been ended far too soon. “You are nothing but a shameless vixen. A venomous serpent who seeks to take that which doesn’t belong to you.”

Her eyes closed, a soft sigh escaping her as she tried to wrangle the two odd halves of herself together. The part of her which was crying inside at the harsh words of the one she had loved, and the part of her which was quietly comforting that side of her and telling it to move on. She had known of what a reciprocated love was like – or at least the bare bones of such a beginning, and as such, she knew with a certainty that the Uchiha Sasuke standing before her would never come to love her.

He had fallen for another, and that was perfectly fine.

What was not perfectly fine though, was the way he was treating her – having two of his lackeys holding her down and forcing her to bow to him.

She was a Duke’s Daughter of those lands, and he was a Duke’s Son who hailed from the Holy Lands, come to study abroad to further his horizons. He had no sway over her there, besides that which he once had over her heart. The shinobi part of her was already trying to quash the lingering remnants of that hold. “I see,” she said, wrenching her arms loose with an alarming amount of difficulty. Why was she so very weak when she had once been capable of crushing boulders with her bare fists? She blinked. Oh, she had died and that was a ‘new’ body. It was almost alarming how the two faces to her self were blending and merging together. “Have fun with your beloved then,” she declared, skirting back out of the reach of the two who had held her captive there only moments before. She wanted—no, she needed to leave, if only to get her thoughts and facts in order. “You have no sway over me, nor do you have any right to keep me here,” she told him, part of her feeling so infinitely tired then.

She wanted nothing more than to go back to her home – not the accommodation the school provided – and sleep for a decade. Or perhaps until she had adjusted to the strange phenomena which had overtaken her. Was she a shinobi war veteran who was now a Duke’s Daughter, or was she a Duke’s Daughter who had once been a shinobi war veteran? Her shoulders slumped.

“It would appear my presence has put a damper on these celebrations,” she declared, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling at the feeling of all those stares on her, the thoughts of all their names and positions making her head hurt. The Duke’s Daughter knew them, yet she wasn’t quite the same ‘Duke’s Daughter’ anymore. “Rest assured I will see myself out,” she called, her voice carrying across the hall. As it had been trained to do. “Enjoy the rest of the festivities, and do ensure there’s a toast to the happy couple!”

A smile pulled at her lips, ears tuning out the rest of the voices – especially that of Uchiha Sasuke’s – as she left the hall. The pain in the back of her head was growing unbearable, the burning need to get out of sight and go home overwhelming her as she set her sights on the carriages. The sigil of her household stood out starkly against the black of the carriage, and she stumbled towards it.

“Take me to my home,” she demanded of the carriage driver. “The Haruno’s Residence,” she clarified, cutting off any questions or complaints as she stumbled into the carriage and collapsed on the cushioned green seats with little fanfare, succumbing to the specks of blackness filling her vision.

Chapter Text

A groan escaped her, low and long, and reverently, she prayed that the world would stop spinning sometime soon enough. Her stomach rolled, barely able to keep down the rations the coach driver had procured for her, each time looking more and more nervous the closer they drew to her home estate. She had an ‘estate’, or rather, the Haruno Family did. It was almost boggling to part of her mind, whilst the other part of it simply went I know.

It had taken days to even come within viewing distance of her family’s ancestral home, and what a sight it would have been if she had been in any state to admire it. As it was: she wasn’t. She was horribly sweaty, very uncomfortable, and she was fairly certain she felt the onset of a fever. The pettier part of her wanted to blame it on Uchiha Sasuke, the familiar stranger. Logic told her that her apparent transmigration was probably more likely to blame.

The carriage came to a slow stop, a neigh almost announcing their presence there within the gates of her home. “Ugh,” she muttered, silently wondering how long it would take for someone to gather that she wasn’t about to be making it out of the carriage on her own. Her stomach roiled, another groan escaping her as she fought against the bile rising up in the back of her throat. She liked that carriage, and she didn’t particularly want to ruin it with her vomit.

“That’s sister’s carriage,” a voice made it through the carriage walls and over the pounding thud in the back of her head. It felt like someone was using her brain as a punching bag, and she wished it would stop already. “I didn’t think the school term had finished just yet…”

“Why is she not coming out to greet us?” another voice came, and Sakura distinctly recognised it as her eldest brother’s.

“Brother Ichiro,” she mumbled, just about remembering his name amidst the haze which was rather swiftly descending on her now that she had reached somewhere she instinctively knew was safe. She didn’t need to hold onto her sanity and the mask of the Duke’s Daughter by the tips of her fingernails for much longer. “Ngh…”

“Oh, sister!” the first voice sing-songed, a part of her brain labelling that voice as belonging to Ren, her second oldest brother, and probably, by far, the most annoying of her relatives. “Why did you come home so early?” His voice grew closer and closer, though her depth perception both visually and audibly were undoubtedly malfunctioning. “Don’t tell me you went and got yourself sent back home early due to—”

The carriage door burst open, golden rays of light filling her vision, and Sakura could only groan at the sudden influx of light.

A warm hand cupped at her cheek, eyes cracking open to meet the matching green ones of her second brother. “Sister?” The playful, cheery tone was gone from his voice, leaving only concern and fear. “Sakura?” His hand patted at her cheek, as if that could rouse her from the darkness slowly beginning to fill her vision. “Ichiro!” he screamed, and Sakura could only burp as she found her body shifted suddenly, vomit escaping her as the world spun, saliva and bile dripping from her lips as a rancid smell filled the air. “Call for the doctor! Now!”

She was being carried, she realised dumbly, like a damned princess, the logical part of her brain added. “Brother…” she mumbled feebly, despising her own situation right then and there. “Ren…”

“Shh,” her brother murmured. “Save your strength, sister…”

“Too… noisy,” she slurred, slumping fully into the arms holding her – carrying her somewhere she couldn’t quite remember. Though she should have been able to. That place was her home. The Duke’s Daughter’s home. That was her, wasn’t it?

Ren chuckled. “Clearly you haven’t lost all of your senses—”

The world faded to black.

“SAKURA!”

Two cries of two different people overlapped, and Sakura felt her eyes slide shut, head falling to rest against something firm yet comfortable. Her brother. The Duke’s Son. She wondered how two different titles for the same person could sound both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

Then the darkness swallowed her whole and she couldn’t think on such a thing any longer.

There was something soft at her head and back, and a weight holding her hand, a thumb tracing over the back of her hand absentmindedly. Her eyes fluttered open, stomach rumbling audibly as a high ceiling and the top of a four-poster bed met her gaze. “Nh—” She coughed, abruptly aware that her throat felt like a scorpion had decided to nest inside it for a few days.

“Drink.” A glass was pressed to her lips, and she drank greedily. “You have been asleep for three days. It is no surprise you are thirsty when you’ve only just opened your eyes the first time since,” her eldest brother said, letting her drink her fill before he set the glass back down on her bedside table.

“Three?” she echoed, coughing then, scowling when her brother helped her up to a seated position.

“Yes – four nights and three days if you wish to be specific, and that is not counting the time you spent ill in your carriage,” he said, fingers brushing against her cheek, forcing her to turn to face him. “Why did you travel in such a state, sister? You should have summoned one of us to take care of you – or at least secure your journey back safely…”

Her eyes slid away from his gaze, unable to hold that blue-eyed stare which seemed to bore into her very soul. Could he tell she wasn’t quite the same sister who’d left to go to the academy in the Royal City? “Not safe…” Thoughts of not-Sasuke stirred in her memories. “Strange…” she mumbled, thinking of a Sasuke who had listened to her silently, and whose lips moved only minutely to display what he was feeling. It was a far cry away from the Sasuke she had fallen so desperately in love in there—and yet…

Pain throbbed at her temples, a groan of her own puncturing the air, even as the rumbles of her stomach reached fever pitch. “Calm yourself, sister,” her oldest brother said, touch at her hand grounding her there in that strange-familiar place. “You are home. You are safe,” he murmured, and tentatively, Sakura clutched at his hands like the lifeline they felt like. “Mark my words there will be an investigation into exactly what happened… To think you would be forced to travel in such a condition.” He frowned then. “You were very ill, sister… I am not to sure whether your body could’ve handled more…”

A soft snort escaped her. “Is that your way of trying to tell me that I almost died or something?” she mumbled, tongue fumbling over her words. “I’m fine… brother,” she said, the word still feeling so eerily uncomfortable to her. She remembered being a shinobi who hadn’t had brothers, and that part of her had probably become more dominant. After all, that was her after all the trials and tribulations she’d had to go through to claw some happiness from amidst the wreckage of the world in the aftermath of war. Her gaze darted down to her hands, teeth sinking into her lip as she remembered dirt and blood staining them in another life. Dirt and blood had rarely stained the Duke’s Daughter’s hands…

“You are sitting in bed after being ill,” Ichiro told her, blue eyes boring into her flatly. “You are far from fine, though I will accept the answer that you are feeling better than before,” he said. “Now, would you like to stretch your legs and head to breakfast, or would you rather dine in bed? I can have the maids assist you, unless you’d be willing for my own assistance…”

Sakura blinked, remembering then that she had maids. Her memories as war veteran Haruno Sakura were definitely more vivid, or so she was finding. It was what made the world around her feel so familiar and strange at the same time – and what an unsettling feeling that was. “I can get changed myself,” she blurted out, remembering how she’d lived by herself – her own independence from others. Not that she had that much as a duke’s daughter those days…

Her brother frowned, hand going to her forehead. “You don’t have a fever,” he murmured. “How odd…”

“Breakfast,” she grumbled, feeling her stomach rumble again. She needed breakfast – then she could scramble to come up with a plan. What did one do when they found themselves incarnated into a character in a terrible game? Sakura didn’t know. Instead there was only one certainty before her: that she needed to live as Haruno Sakura, Duke’s Daughter. Somehow.

“Will you need—”

Groaning, she swung her legs out of bed, idly noting that her clothes had definitely been changed. People had handled her unconscious body, and the thought perturbed her. “I can manage,” she said, blinking as her brother presented a robe to her.

“I know you would usually prefer to go down in full dress, as is proper, but I think comfort and breakfast are more of a concern for now,” Ichiro said, and Sakura was hardly going to argue with such logic. She wanted food, preferably five minutes ago.

“Uh, okay?” she mumbled, taking the dressing gown from him and slipping herself inside it, scowling at the odd weak feeling she could feel in her legs. “Where’s breakfast?”

Her brother looked at her oddly once more. “Where it always is, sister…” he said, and Sakura could only smile and desperately try to wrack her brains for answers. “Come, let us go to the dining room…”

“Sure thing,” she mumbled, earning another sidelong, confused look as she stumbled out of her room. Her brother was fully dressed, and yet there she was beside him, looking like something dragged in off the street. She probably smelt terrible too, she mused, sniffing at her armpit as discreetly as possible – though evidently not discreetly enough, given by the odd look her brother sent her way. She smelt of soap and lavender. She swallowed thickly, realising then that her outfit hadn’t just been changed, rather, she had been bathed by practical strangers and the thought almost made her break out in hives.

“Sister…?” Ichiro looked at her, pausing in the junction in the corridor. “Are you sure you are well enough to be out of bed…? You are behaving… strangely… and you appear to have forgotten where our dining room is,” he said, gesturing to the left corridor when she had been beginning to walk over to the right corridor.

“I’m fine,” Sakura said, stomach growling yet again. “I’m just hungry, brother… and a bit tired…” she added hastily as if that would explain how very shoddy her memory of that world had become. As if that could explain why a ‘Hinata-fan’ had run her over with a truck and sent her into a strange world which appeared to be the virtual one she had despised. Well… the one she had despised ever since it had all but caused her death as such.

“You look sad. Is there something troubling you?” Blue eyes bore into her green ones, and Sakura choked down her spit and desperately tried to adjust to having a brother. Someone who looked after her, and had done since she was younger. Pain pulsed in her temples, and she winced, not giving her brother any time to ask her if she was well enough, even as she barged into the dining room with all the grace of an elephant and sat in the nearest available seat.

“Daughter.”

Sakura choked on the glass of water she had just began sipping from, even as her eldest brother slid into the seat next to her and Ren along with her third and youngest brother looked at her oddly alongside the man who held barely a passing resemblance to Haruno Kizashi. But it wasn’t ‘Haruno Kizashi’ as such, not the one she knew, rather the man at the head of the table was Duke Haruno, a stern yet doting father. “Uh… yeah? I mean—what is it, father?”

“A letter has arrived from the academy,” he said, and Sakura felt her stomach flip whilst the larger part of her regretted not asking for breakfast in bed. “It requests for your immediate expulsion, and I would verily like to know why.”

She blinked at that, heart in her throat as she swallowed her nerves, looking at the empty plates in front of them then. “Uh, could that, like, wait until after breakfast?” Her stomach rumbled louder than ever. “I’m hungry.”

Chapter Text

There was the distinct sound of metal clinking against china, and Sakura could only swallow her breakfast as best as she could, considering it tasted like rubber. She wondered if she’d been given a plate of questionable food, or whether she was simply too nervous about trying to interact with her family. It was probably the latter, knowing her, and her stomach could only twist and feel as though it had been replaced with a can of worms.

“How were your last days at the academy?” her father asked, peering at her with those pale blue eyes her eldest and youngest brothers shared.

“Besides the expulsion, you mean?” she muttered, freezing only a moment later when she realised just how out of character she was behaving. Though she wasn’t a character in some stupid otome game. Rather, that was real life, and she was a mishmash of a duke’s daughter and a war veteran, and she didn’t have the first bloody clue about how she was supposed to deal with that much.

Her father paused, blue eyes fixing on her, head tilting in a silent question which was never asked. “Yes. Besides whatever the circumstances leading up to your expulsion. You said you wished to speak on that after breakfast.”

There was a beat of silence so thick it almost felt like smog, and Sakura could only shrug and mentally say fuck it. She was there right then and there, a combination of two different Haruno Sakuras, and she wasn’t about to pander to the whims of a life so reminiscent of the story which had made some dim-witted moron murder her. “I fell in love with a boy,” she said flatly. “He was a dickhead.”

Ren choked on the egg he’d been eating.

Her third brother, Itsuki, dribbled water back into the cup he’d been drinking from.

“Language, sister,” Ichiro said, casting a sharp, searching glance her way as she ate a few more bites of her meal. The thought of the Uchiha Sasuke of that world pissed her off, not least because what he’d done to her – to the person she’d used to be. Yet it was also a reminder that he wasn’t the boy she had loved in another life. The Uchiha Sasuke there was so akin to the Haruno Sakura who’d been there before she had come along and merged with the latter – a reminder of just how two personalities had been twisted to align better with some author’s fantasies.

“I’ve learnt that I like boys who look good, but now they have to have a decent personality on top,” she said, vaguely realising that her verbal filter was completely and utterly shot to hell. “In fact, I don’t think I’ll be falling in love again anytime soon…” She glared at her plate, silently willing her murderous urges to calm down. “I did stupid shit in the name of love, and… well… it came around to bite me in the arse, didn’t it?”

Itsuki stared at her like he’d never seen her before, water still running down from his lips as they parted in shock.

Ren was casting wary eyes between her and their father, all the while looking as if he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or sob.

Ichiro set his glass of water down with a defined clink. “Language, sister,” he said, really stressing that first word, blue eyes boring into her own with a determined glint to them. “Honestly, what sort of ruffians have been teaching you those sorts of words. Perhaps I ought to pay a visit to the academy. It certainly has been a while since I’ve visited… and then perhaps… I could find out the exact reason why they dared to expel a Haruno.”

“The evil villainess – not you Sakura-sensei – uses her family’s power to return to the academy and wreak havoc on the budding couple.” The bright, cheery face of one of her old interns flashed through her mind, and dimly, Sakura wondered how Konoha was getting on… now that she was dead and probably buried, thanks to a ridiculous game that all the people closest to her had laughed about. It had been a joke to all of them, if only because they had known that portrayal of her to be the furthest thing from the truth.

Yet some people couldn’t separate fantasy from reality, and the thought made her jaw clench. “I won’t,” she muttered, wanting to separate herself as much as she could from the image – from the shoes – someone else had designed for her.

“Sister?” Ichiro peered at her, blue eyes looking at her searchingly.

“If they want my expulsion, then why not grant it to them?” she muttered, chewing through her breakfast with as much poise and grace as she could feasibly muster. “I can take my exams at the end of the year with a tutor, can’t I?”

The silence which fell in the wake of that statement was eerie and unsettling, and Sakura only waited for someone to come and demand she reveal herself for the imposter that she was. She almost felt like it, having nearly subsumed the personality of the other Sakura. “Love,” her father spoke suddenly, voice ringing out through the dining room. “It is sometimes a fickle, cruel thing,” he murmured. “Yet it is also a thing of beauty and heartbreak. It can cause great change in people, and whether it is the catalyst for good or ill can never be determined immediately…” Her father looked at her, and Sakura shivered at the blue eyes which felt as if they were looking into her very soul. “Do not let this hurdle prevent you from reaching out to another.”

“Uh,” Sakura fumbled. “I wasn’t planning on letting it…” she mumbled. “I just don’t think it’d be a good time for me to return to the academy.” She shrugged, trying desperately not to think about Uchiha Sasuke. “I don’t want to be near him and the one he loves… Besides, if the way he treated me at the end of term ball was anything to go off of, then I have a feeling he’ll be eager to… what’s the word…? Pay me back, I suppose, for all the wrongs and perceived slights I’ve undertaken towards his precious Hinata.”

“Baron Hyuuga’s daughter?” One perfectly shaped eyebrow on her father’s face quirked up.

“Um, that’s the one,” Sakura said, swallowing thickly, her throat feeling like sandpaper even as she took a quick sip of her drink.

“I remember her,” Itsuki spoke, reminding her of the fact that he was only a year older than her – having graduated from the academy the summer previous. “She was quite… lovely, at least, to many of the gentlemen in my classes,” he muttered, lip curling. “Why they adored her is beyond me though… No one can really be that nice and quiet unless they’re hiding something.”

“Does it matter?” she asked, staring at her plate. “She and Sasuke are happily in love, and they can be disgustingly happy in the academy for all I care – so long as I don’t have to see either of them.”

“Expulsion or not, there will be an investigation into this incident,” her father said, voice solemn, and Sakura couldn’t quite muster the words to say don’t bother. She knew better than anyone that, at the end of the day, she probably deserved the expulsion. Perhaps if she hadn’t woken up and merged with that body, then the Haruno Sakura there would have shamelessly used her family’s status and continued dogging the heels of Uchiha Sasuke. Yet she had, and she couldn’t go back to swanning around the academy as though she were above reproach. But that didn’t mean she wanted to apologise all that much. Such a thing, she knew from memories of that world, would only be scorned and disbelieved, and it wasn’t like she was about to take abuse and scorn until everyone realised she had changed – and probably for the better.

“I acted pettily and spitefully out of a mere, trifling crush,” she muttered, not wanting someone else to say exactly what she had done to her family. The words of others would only probably paint her in a poor light than her own. Besides, it was a mature, adult thing to do to own up to one’s wrongs, and Sakura liked to think that she was very much an adult. War had a way of aging people up before their time, or so she had found. “You don’t need to investigate – I know what I did wrong, and I have every intention of learning from this.” She took yet another sip from her drink, mildly aware of the looks all three of her brothers were giving her. The tiny part of her which was truly their sister wanted nothing more than to slap those looks off their faces, but she digressed. That wouldn’t do anything to help her predicament. Though she didn’t think her… father would do anything too drastic with her.

Her fingers massaged at her temples, confusion still being one of the most prevalent things she felt right then and there. Who was she truly? She knew who she needed to be – Duke Haruno’s only daughter – and yet there was an understandable disparity between her different selves, even merged as they were.

“Sister,” her eldest brother murmured, looking at her sorrowfully. “You will not need to return to the academy any time soon. Will she, father?” he said, looking at their father pointedly. Duke Haruno’s nod was all the confirmation he needed to continue. “You can rest here a while and recuperate – you will not need to return to the Capital for a long while yet.”

“Uh, thank you… brother,” Sakura mumbled, almost feeling as though she were slurring her words as she tried to keep up with both the conversation and the thoughts racing around in her head. “Can you arrange for tutors for me… in the normal subjects… and… magic?”

“Certainly,” Ichiro said softly. “You do not look very well, sister. Would you like me to escort you back to your rooms? We can have some light snacks sent up to you later…”

“Um. Yes. Yes! That would be nice,” Sakura blurted out, climbing to her feet and hurrying towards the door, feeling every set of eyes in that room fixed upon her back as she stumbled over and through the door. She needed to go back to her room, lie down, try to feel better, and get her thoughts in order.

Her brother caught her by the arm, preventing her from flailing about embarrassingly any more than she already was. “Sister, do you need me to carry you?” he asked, frowning down at her.

“I don’t need you to carry me,” she declared, hating the way the world was spinning right then and there. She had moved far too quickly and abruptly, and she, without a doubt, looked absolutely terrible. Which was probably why, in hindsight, she found herself carried like a bloody princess back to her room.

Thoughts were not easy things to arrange.

The rough plotline of the game akin to the life she was stuck in—had merged with? Sakura wasn’t sure, though the fact remained that she had some idea of the so-called ‘plot’. The so-called story wasn’t over with her expulsion – Haruno Sakura was supposed to be a villain who met a terrible ending at the very end of the story, and that story was far from done.

“So… it’s the traditional demon king versus the hero and the saintess,” she muttered, chewing on her lip – a bad habit she had all too recently acquired. It was strange – what being murdered could do to one’s health and habits. “With Sas… him and Hinata taking the latter two roles respectively,” she spoke her thoughts aloud. “I’m supposed to be the evil villainess, though I’m more of a trifling side-character as opposed to the demon king… who even is the demon king, anyway?” She scratched at her head, wracking her memories, and she wrote down as much as she could – if only so she could pore over it later. “Though I’m also technically a saintess candidate…” she mumbled, blinking as the realisation came to her.

The villainess Sakura had the so-called holy element when it came to that world’s magic, but she had squandered it, and used if for nefarious purposes instead of healing and helping others.

A huff escaped her. “They really screwed up my personality and abilities,” she hissed, part of her wanting to be furious – whilst the other half of her reminded her that she was dead to her old world and the author who had come up with that stupid game. “So… from what I can remember,” she said to herself, jotting her notes down. “There’s the graduation ball event… A route-changing event, because some characters are only available later in the game… and then the stuff in the Holy Country… whatever those are…”

Never had she regretted not playing the stupid game as much as she had.

But then again – it wasn’t like she had any intention of sticking to the plot of that terrible game which had resulted in her life coming to an end.

Sakura felt her head thunk against her desk as she sat there miserably. “Fuck the plot,” she muttered. “It’s not like this is a bloody game…” She was a living, breathing person, and she wouldn’t let the storyline of a stupid otome game which didn’t even exist in that reality dictate her next moves. “And screw that shitty author—game creator, whatever…”

Chapter Text

“Why,” Sakura ground out, sitting at the neat, practically unused desk within the bounds of her room, “are you staring at me like I’ve grown a second head?” Green eyes narrowed on the form of her second eldest brother who was hovering beside the door looking uncannily nervous. “More to the point – why are you here?” She folded her arms across her chest. “Ichiro said that I could self-study until my tutors were decided…”

Ren shifted on his feet. “Your memories truly have been scrambled, haven’t they?” he murmured, and Sakura felt herself stiffen. “How could you forget that your darling older brother is a very talented mage?” he asked, a note of playful ribbing injected into his voice even as he edged closer to her, eventually coming close enough to drape his arms over her from behind in some mockery of a hug. “If you want me to leave you to study by yourself – that’s fine, but magic can be rather hard to learn without a tutor, and I have plenty of free time today unlike our other beloved brothers.”

“And father is always busy,” she mumbled, shoulders sinking, even as she tried to remind herself that her Haruno Kizashi was dead to her. Or rather she was dead to the old Haruno Kizashi, and she had a new Haruno Kizashi to deal with… “Well…” Sakura tilted her head, weighing up her options. “I suppose I wouldn’t say no to an expert mage’s opinion.”

Her brother laughed, matching green eyes meeting her own as he fluttered about the chair she sat on, planting a set of thick tomes on her clean desk. They stacked up and up, reaching just above her head, and Sakura let out a long breath at the sheer amount of reading there was to do. Not that she hadn’t expected as much – it was just that, whenever magic had cropped up in novels authored by those who had no experience with chakra, magic just tended to be simple and easy to use. Not that there were many shinobi who had gone around publishing books. Perhaps if there had been, there wouldn’t have been that terrible game. If only because people had something decent, gritty, and realistic to read or watch.

“Well, before we even get to the theory, we ought to start with finding and accessing your mana core,” Ren said, pulling a seat from the other side of the room and bringing it around to place opposite her – or near enough as she pushed herself out from under the desk and shifted around. “Most of the theory can be learnt, understood, and put into practice far better once you can access that core of yours.” Her brother reached out a hand, holding it in front of her, a few inches away from touching her. “We can cover what gates are after this is done – because I’d say those are the two most important things to a mage: the mana core, and the mana gates.”

Sakura raised an eyebrow, glancing between his outstretched hand and his face. “Well,” she said. “What are you waiting for?”

“I need to place my hand over where your mana core is, and it is generally polite to ask permission before you do so,” Ren explained. “May I?”

She moved her hands away from her naval area, chakra feeling odd and unsettled there as it had ever since she had ‘woken’ up in that body. Ever since she had become ‘another’ Haruno Sakura who was quite different to who she had once been, and yet glaringly similar in some respects. Not that she wanted to muse on those similarities much.

His fingers pressed over her heart, and Sakura blinked in surprise, realising then why it was so correct and polite to ask for permission. It was probably lucky that she had a rather small chest – otherwise that move might have been a bit awkward. “You might feel something stir, and you might feel a little strange, but that’s perfectly fine and normal.” There was a pulse of something in her chest, stretching through her skin, like a child hesitantly prodding at the cheek of their baby sibling.

Yet something answered back, a strange, almost mythical force stirring in a different plane in place of her heart. With it came an unbridled sense of curiosity, as if there was a child opening their eyes for the first time and exploring the world around them. Time seemed to slip from her grasp as she sat there, a strange, unknown energy pulsing beneath her skin, constrained to a circuit akin to a circulatory system.

She could feel them within her – chakra and magic, and their oddly harmonious balance, the pathways they each followed never overlapping or interfering, a harmony of union. Her chakra was green-blue, and her magic was purple-white, the tastes she somehow associated with them varying as well yet complementary all the same. Purple-white wove through unused pathways, thin and almost clogged from years of disuse, spreading out through her body and congregating in several places which seemed to attract her magic.

“Sister,” a voice called to her from afar, and dimly, she became aware of a hand patting at her cheek. “Sister, come back,” Ren ordered.

Consciousness seemingly returned to her, the figure her brother cut swimming in and out of focus momentarily as she tried to reacclimatise herself to reality. “Ngh,” she grunted, gripping at the armrests as if they could ground her and eradicate that unsettling floaty feeling which she despised.

“I probably ought to have warned you that some people go into a trance-like state,” he murmured, a smile pulling at his lips. “Though those few tend to turn out rather skilled in the use of magic.” A finger prodded at her forehead. “There’s hope for you yet, sister.”

Sakura frowned, peering down at her hands. “A shame I didn’t try to learn magic earlier…” she murmured. “I’m supposed to be a saintess candidate…”

Ren looked at her. “It’s not that unusual to start learning at your age – in fact, it’s better to learn at your age, or sometimes even later. Accidents happen frequently enough with older mages. I hate to think about the havoc that children, unaware of their power and potential for harm, could cause…” He tilted head, pink hair shifting with the movement, and Sakura finally noted that it was loose as opposed to the ponytail he preferred. “If you are chosen as a saintess, one due to be taken to the Holy Lands, then they would have begun teaching you how to harness your magic – or holy magic, to be specific, once you arrived there. There’s no shame in not having already learnt – though I suppose that’s a moot point, given how you’re learning now.”

“There’s an exam on magic,” Sakura muttered.

Ren shrugged. “I don’t know what anyone’s told you – but it’s mostly theory. Most people – sensible people, that is – know it’s generally better to learn magic after you’ve learnt all about the dangers. Especially when it comes to the classroom setting.”

“Hinata can already use healing magic,” she said, thinking then on how Sasuke had mentioned it being one of Hinata’s greatest beauties – that she could and would help others.

Green eyes narrowed. “I do hope she hasn’t used it on anyone,” he stated, and Sakura could only blink. “Well, unless her father has been paying a tutor, or otherwise had that child drilled in medicinal practices.”

“Uh…”

Ren sighed at that, shoulders slumping. “Healing is a delicate and complicated art, sister,” he stated, matter-of-factly. “It—”

“I know,” she muttered quietly. She knew that better than anyone, besides, perhaps, Tsunade. Yet she didn’t think Tsunade existed in that world. Or, at least, she hadn’t existed in the plot of the stupid game or in her current nearby vicinity. She had shed blood, sweat, and tears to reach the level of skill she had before. Her hands clenched, aware then that her skills in everything besides her knowledge stored away in that brain of hers had been reset.

There was no Yin Seal on her forehead. There was no other wrongly-placed game Yin Seal on her forehead either – not that she had expected as much.

“It can appear to be fine when someone unskilled and unknowing about anatomy and healing fixes a simple injury, but say someone had shattered their bone into several pieces – that, sister, is an injury which no one without the proper knowledge and skills can fix, lest they wish to make the problem worse or otherwise more painful.” Ren let out a long breath. “I shall have to tell father that he needs to ensure matters such as these are investigated…”

Sakura frowned. “He praised her for it, though,” she muttered, thinking then on how Uchiha Sasuke hailed from the Holy Lands, as Uchiha and Senju did in that strange world. “He’s from the Holy Lands, so isn’t he supposed to know better then…?”

Ren snorted. “I hate to tell you this, sister, but there is no cure for idiocy and stupidity, if this dickhead you so fell in love with happens to be afflicted…” he trailed off, a warm hand landing on her shoulder, and she took a strange sense of comfort from it. “Truly, I am glad you’ve cut ties with him. I presume it’s that Uchiha Sasuke – you never did mention his name, but he’s the only exchange student from abroad in your year…”

“Sometimes it’s scary just how much you know about my year,” she mumbled. “Even I don’t know that much, and I’m the one in and around my year group…”

“Politics,” Ren answered in a heartbeat. “If anything should happen to father and then Ichiro, then I’m next in line to inherit the Haruno Dukedom… and it’s always good to know who your allies are.”

Sakura frowned, reminded then of the phrase know thy enemy. “Do you think you could teach me about the prominent nobles of my age group… or the ones who should matter to me, then?” she asked, an uncomfortable twisting in her gut as she tried to piece things together. She was on the back foot – not knowing everything about that strange world, besides vague memories and common senses of the other ‘Haruno Sakura’. It truly was a wonder that no one had called her out for the stranger – for the imposter who she was. Yet she hadn’t – and she very much doubted it would happen. The motto of shinobi was adaptability, and infiltration was their bread and butter.

Not that she was trying to be sneaky and akin to the personality of the one who had come before her. She wondered then, on whether it was possible to accidently infiltrate something.

“You only have to ask, sister,” Ren said kindly, a soft smile curling on his lips.

“Sister,” she mumbled.

“Even if your memories are scrambled from your fever, the fact that you are my sister will never change,” he told her, looking her in the eye determinedly. “You’ve forgotten the Haruno Motto too, haven’t you?” he murmured, patting her head then, and strangely enough it didn’t feel demeaning. “Family first.”

Sakura blinked, staring at her brother, a sudden realisation coming to her, even as her brother continued talking – continued tutoring her in the ways of magic. She recognised his appearance then – from before she had woken beneath stranger stars. A artist’s impression of him had been one of the figures pictured on the cover of [Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn]. Sakura felt as though she had thrown up in her mouth as she realised that her brother was a capture target.

“It’s kinda traditional – don’t you think – to have one of the Villainess’ family members as a capture target…”

She wondered if her brother had betrayed her in the route of a game which no longer existed, if only because it was seemingly in existence around them. A finger prodded at her cheek, Ren’s bright face oblivious to the dark thoughts which had been swirling in her mind. “You weren’t listening to a single thing I said, were you?”

“Uh. No?”

Ren huffed. “At least you’re honest about it. Whatever happened to the times where you would bluster and try to pretend that you could do no wrong…” His fingers fiddled with her hair, seemingly weaving a small plait out of habit. There was something ever so grounding and relaxing about her brother doing her hair for her.

“I… grew up,” she mumbled, lies slipping from her lips ever so easily. The Haruno Sakura hadn’t quite grown up, rather she had been merged and almost subsumed by a alternate version of Haruno Sakura. She leant into the touch ever so slightly, part of her wondering then what her old life would have been like if she’d had brothers. Would they have been chewed up and spat out by the shinobi system? Would they have become healers, fighters, infiltrators…? A soft laugh escaped her, even as she idly listened to her brother as he spoke to her of mana gates and mentalscapes.

“There are seven mana gates,” he said, flipping open one of the books he’d brought for her perusal. “Each corresponds to one of the seven elements of magic.” He pointed to the symbols arranged in a heptagon. “Often you might notice opposing elements which are situated opposite one another – for instance, the top and bottom gates, which are light – or holy – and dark respectively. When magic is pushed through that particular gate it… I suppose the best way to explain it is like seasoning in cooking. When magic is pushed through a gate it acquires a… flavour which is unique to each gate, and those ‘flavours’ allow you to accomplish different tasks – whether it be lighting a fire or increasing the temperature of the air around you through using the flame mana gate, or summoning lightning through using the lightning mana gate.”

“Everyone has all of those gates, don’t they?” Sakura asked, peering at the diagram, preferring to focus on knowledge rather than her thoughts and feelings.

“I get where you’re going with that thought, sister, and let me explain – you have a tendency for holy magic because your holy mana gate is naturally loosened, meaning you don’t have to train for a long period of time to force that gate open as such. I was naturally inclined to earth and water because of my gates,” her brother added, smiling smugly. “Two loosened gates are a rare phenomena though, so don’t feel too disappointed, sister darling.”

“I wasn’t,” she stated flatly, rolling her eyes at her brother and his antics.

“Sure, sure,” her brother said in a tone of voice which said he really didn’t believe her. “Now let me finish explaining to you to fundamentals of magic before you go for your afternoon nap.”

“I don’t need an afternoon nap,” Sakura grumbled.

Ren looked at her flatly. “I will set Ichiro on you if you don’t.”

“Ugh,” she grumbled, remembering how only the day before her eldest brother had hovered over her, insisting that she rest because she ‘was still recovering’. It was, in part, why she was focusing on non-physical attributes to improve. Like magic, chakra, and her knowledge of that familiar-unfamiliar world.

Ren smiled smugly, like the cat who got the cream, knowing he had won that argument, and never before had Sakura wanted to punch him in his perfectly straight teeth as much as she did in that instant.

Chapter Text

Magic played by different rules to chakra.

Sakura groaned at that, plonking her face into the pages of the book informing her of that much. Ren had vanished a few hours previous, after seeing her tucked into bed for an afternoon nap. A bed she had swiftly left ten minutes after Ren had shut the door and vanished into the bowels of their too large house. It was an estate, a literal mansion made for people with too much money on their hands. She had tried briefly to close her eyes and sleep, but she could almost feel the nightmares awaiting her. Apparently death by truck and becoming a duke’s daughter was trauma-inducing, as if she didn’t already have enough of that by herself. Who knew? She smiled at that, humour having been thrown a few shades off in the past few days, almost wanting to scream in frustration and rage – because how was this her life?

It all would have been so much simpler if she had died and stayed dead after that truck had hit her. But those kind of thoughts were leading her off in a dark direction, so she wasn’t going to focus on them. Instead, she was going to focus on magic and how exciting it seemed. Trauma repression at it’s finest, a voice like Ino’s seemed to ring out in the back of her head. She ignored it. “So there are sigils instead of hand seals to get mana to do what you want, but you can also just go off intent and focus – often to cruder results, the main outlier to this being healing.” She squinted at the diagram of a sigil in the book, turning it sideways and then upside-down. “These are basically like fuinjutsu,” she muttered, regretful then that she had never really touched the subject. Something Naruto’s father had been renowned for, and she wondered then if there was an Uzumaki Naruto counterpart somewhere within that world. She wondered if she would despise him as much as she had Sasuke’s. “But more confined in a circle, and based of patterns rather than words.” She chewed on her lip, engrossed in her work, the magical lamp keeping her desk well-lit even as the navy-amber sky turned to a twilight blue and then a deep navy encrusted with stars.

Idly, she wondered if the constellations and stars were the same, but her focus was on learning magic. Not that it was the only matter she needed to take care of. Her chakra had been reduced to its base state, and she didn’t have her Yin Seal. Which meant it was a long road back to where she had been. Though with the addition of magic… A smile curled at her lips, part of her ever so eager to surpass what had once been her limits. Give and take, it seemed that the universe liked to, and she didn’t know whether she loved or loathed such a thing.

A knock at the door startled her, but not enough to tear her eyes from the pages in front of her. The brother whose hand clamped down on her shoulder was enough though.

Blue eyes bore into her own, and Sakura abruptly realised that the worst of her brothers had found her awake at far too late of an hour, she noted, finally turning her full attention to the world outside her windows for a split second. “Why, sister, are you still up at such an hour?” Ichiro demanded, blue eyes like chips of ice as he stared down at her, dressed in his sleepwear, lamp in hand.

Part of her was almost disappointed he wasn’t wearing a nightcap – it would have made an amusing sight: her most serious brother—her thoughts trailed off, something gripping at her heart and squeezing as she realised she had just thought of Ichiro as her most serious brother. She chewed on her lip, wondering if the original duke’s daughter’s personality had rubbed off on her just a bit more than she thought.

That was the only explanation for why the term her brother was so easily coming up in her thoughts.

“Sister?” His face softened, angry concern being replaced by a mellower version.

“I’m not tired,” she stated flatly, knowing it for the barefaced lie it was. She was tired, she just didn’t want to fall asleep and dream. Or, more accurately, have nightmares. That was what awaited her, she knew with an uncanny certainness. “And magic is interesting.” That was definitely the truth, and she would punch anyone who claimed otherwise.

Sakura paused. Maybe she was just a bit too tired? she mused, feeling her eyelids droop as she sat there, the artificial light beginning to hurt her eyes.

“Get dressed and go to sleep,” Ichiro said, retracting his arm from her shoulder and folding it across his chest with the other.

Sakura blinked, eyeing his unmoving form. “You going to tuck me in or something?” she asked, wondering why he wasn’t going away already. He looked tired too, dark shadows circling beneath his eyes.

Ichiro blinked. “Do you want me to tuck you in?” he asked, seeming puzzled by the question, which, she supposed, was fair enough. She was a teenager in body, near enough an adult, and those didn’t generally need tucking in.

“Not particularly,” she answered.

One pink brow raised. “Well tough, because that is exactly what I am going to do – because otherwise I get the feeling you will be right back at your desk until you fall asleep there.”

“You can’t make me sleep,” Sakura muttered bleakly, well aware that it was going to be a long night for her as she trudged over to where her sleep clothes had been lain by the helpful maids of the household. “In fact, I doubt I’ll get any sleep at all,” she grumbled, more to herself than anyone else. Yet her brother seemingly had annoyingly sharp ears.

“I can help with that, you know,” Ichiro said, looking oddly sad in that instance, and Sakura could only ponder if it was related to something she had ‘forgotten’. If that didn’t make her feel like the imposter she was, then she didn’t think anything would.

“How?” she asked, curiosity ever a fickle thing when it came to her even as she pulled her sleeping wear on and trudged over to the side of her bed she usually slept on. She was a creature of habit, it seemed.

Ichiro turned off her desk light, and she found herself reminded of just how dark it was. “Ren told me he taught you about mana gates today – and therein lies your answer. While my holy gate isn’t naturally loosened, I have managed to loosen it through my own efforts. Healing magic is diverse in its forms, sister, and one of them is particularly useful in helping you get to sleep.”

She crawled beneath the covers, dreading and knowing that she needed to sleep. Needed to dream. “Well then… work your magic,” she said, meeting those blue eyes which seemed to curve up in a smile as he reached out, prodding the space just below where her diamond mark would form. The diamond marking only she would apparently have, unless everyone else had a secondary system of chakra on top of having magic.

“Sleep well, sister,” he said, and there came a cool sensation at her forehead, the feel of what could only be her brother’s mana seeping inside her making her eyelids droop as she lay there, staring at the ceiling until she closed her eyes and knew only her dreams.

She felt strangely well rested that morning, and the urge to run around like a headless chicken was stirring. Part of her felt as though she might just be going a little stir crazy, trapped within the bounds of the house, only able to look upon the garden she could run around. Though, she mused to herself, that was something she could change. Idly, she ventured over to her wardrobe and cast its doors open. “I should have expected this,” she muttered, starring at dress upon dress – and while they would undoubtedly suit her, they weren’t quite suited for running around and exercising in.

It took digging through until the back of her wardrobe to find some mildly exercise-adjacent clothing. Jodhpurs and a shirt to go with it, it seemed, were her only feasible options unless she wanted to crack out a dress to ruin with sweat and dirt. She tilted her head, knowing she would eventually have to go and beg her father for clothes. She would have to visit the tailor, or have them make a house call, what with her status.

She wasn’t used to having people at her beck and call.

Still, a pair of jodhpurs and a shirt stronger, she left the room, feet finding their way to the kitchens miraculously. Or maybe it was her sense of smell which had led her there, given how terrible her apparent sense of direction was in that far too large house. Who knew? She certainly didn’t.

Her breakfast was probably undignified for a duke’s daughter, but it was more of a pre-work-out snack. She didn’t particularly want to faint and be confined to her rooms for another however-many days. In fact, she probably wasn’t supposed to be exercising right then and there, but if she spent one more hour sat in her room studying, she had the distinct feeling she might lose it. And that would probably result in her acting far too much like the ‘original’ duke’s daughter, which was an image she was trying to distance herself from. She couldn’t throw a tantrum, nor could she throw things at others, potentially injuring them for no good reason. She was a shinobi first and foremost, and they protected the folk of their land. Never mind that shinobi didn’t exist there, and she wasn’t supposed to exist there either—Sakura shook her head, trying to rid herself of that thought as she snuck out from the house with what felt like the grace of an elephant.

Running around in the open after so long being stuck inside was like a soothing balm to her soul, her feet hitting the ground in the closest thing she could find to her old sandals making her relax ever so slightly. Her breath misted in the crisp morning air, the coldness of the air causing her nose to run ever so slightly.

She was on the second lap before she spotted a familiar face or two, drawing level with the window beside the door she had stepped out of only fifteen minutes before when the latch clicked and her father and her eldest brother stepped out. They were in deep discussion, and Sakura had the mildest of hopes they wouldn’t notice her running by. Her hopes were abruptly crushed as two sets of blue eyes locked on her panting form.

“Sister?” Ichiro mumbled, shock turning into something like angry concern. “What are you doing out here?”

“What does it look like?” she questioned, continuing in her running, and then she was past them and continuing in her run – until a hand clamped down on her shoulder and jerked her to a stop. Sakura bared her teeth. “What?” she hissed.

“You have only just recovered—”

“I’m sick of being cloistered in my room!” She waved her hand in the direction of where she thought was her bedroom. “So I came out here to exercise. A bit of exercise never hurt anybody! And look at me – I was doing fine until you showed up!”

Ichiro blinked, as if taken aback by her vehemence. “But… you never exercise,” he mumbled, staring at her like a strange puzzle he had yet to fully piece together. “You like staying in your room where no one can bother you…”

Sakura felt her eye twitch – a nervous tick she thought she was developing the longer she stayed in that place. So it was definitely on its way to becoming permanent. “New day, new me,” she hissed, shaking off his grip and getting back to her run.

He let her go, and she could feel his dumbstruck gaze on her back.

“Breakfast will be served shortly,” her father called after her. “I expect you to be there!”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, panting for breath, scowling as she slowed her pace for what would be her final lap of the stupidly large garden.

The Haruno Duchy had far too much money on their hands, she decided, despising the fact that she was already out of breath and tired from the tiniest excursion.

Breakfast was just as awkward and excruciating as dinners and lunches were, eternally dining together as her family seemed to. She could feel the eyes boring into her as she sat there dressed in her ‘exercise wear’, Ren and Ichiro’s concern almost palpable. Her brothers were worriers, it seemed, if the evidence she had, and vaguely remembered, were anything to go off of. Her shoulders sunk, even as her knife scraped against her plate with a noise which made her wince. “Is there a problem?” she asked, feeling on edge from all the stares directed her way.

Though she supposed it was only natural, strange and unfamiliar as she probably seemed to their eyes, and oh, if that fact didn’t burn something inside her.

“Are you planning on going riding around the estate grounds, sister?” Ren asked, green eyes feeling as though they were boring a hole into the side of her skull. “You rarely crack out… that outfit,” he said, reminding her of the fact that the original hadn’t really ventured out that much, happy and content to stay in her room and read. Not that she had anything against reading.

It was just that whenever her brothers inevitably said something about what she used to do she was only reminded of how she wasn’t the duke’s daughter. Not truly. Their words only served to make her feel like the imposter she was. Yet she had the strangest feeling that ‘she’ wasn’t going anywhere, so settling into another’s skin and becoming ‘one’ were things she had to do. Adapt. Survive. The motto of a shinobi which she had long since taken to heart.

It didn’t make the feeling of being a fake any lesser, and ever did she hate the feeling, ugly and unsettling as it was.

“Well it was either wearing this or running around the garden in a dress,” she said flatly, ugliness feeling as though it were eating at her insides. “Speaking of which, I would prefer more sets of clothing like this… rather than dresses…”

Itsuki snorted, choking on his food ever so slightly. “This coming from the sister who always used to flaunt her dresses literally everywhere,” he said flatly, dry humour in his voice, a tell-tale sign he thought she was lying.

“Used to,” she muttered, emphasising the past tense, because the girl he had used to know was long gone, and she felt so very guilty for that fact the longer she was stuck in that house.

“I will send for the tailor,” her father intoned, blue eyes level as they bore into her own green ones. “The soonest appointment they will have will likely be in a week’s time. I will let you know the timing once I myself am aware of when they will be calling.”

Sakura swallowed, throat dry. “Okay,” she mumbled, lowering her own eyes to her plate. Sometimes she felt as thought her ‘father’ could see right through her, and if that didn’t make her feel so very exposed she didn’t know what would. “Well, I’m going back to my room,” she said, standing up, appetite having left her. The urge to escape the stares which accused her of being exactly what she was overwhelming her as she stood there.

“I’ll come up later to teach you more about magic, sister darling!” Ren called, looking ever so cheery, ignorant to how much she wanted to vomit at the way he carelessly called her sister.

Her thoughts, it seemed, were clearer after a good night’s sleep, as were the feelings of not-belonging and fakery. Part of her almost wished for sleep deprivation and the confusion which came along with it. If it meant she wouldn’t feel that strange nausea in the pit of her belly. She was a shinobi, and they were supposed to be fine with infiltration and pretending to be someone they weren’t.

Yet she had never been an infiltration-type, and she had died a death no shinobi should have.

Her lip curled at the thought, the door to the dining room closing behind her with a soft click and then she was alone with her thoughts. Alone, like she had been since she had woken up there, and oh how that feeling had decided to burn that day.

Chapter Text

Disquiet.

That was one of the many names for what she was feeling, she knew, even as she sat at her desk, wondering when and how everything was going wrong. She was supposed to be blending in seamlessly to the Haruno Duke Family, and yet there she was – feeling guilty and ill for something she couldn’t have helped. It wasn’t like she had asked to wake up in a familiar yet strange skin. It wasn’t like she had asked to be offloaded on a family of a father and three brothers. It wasn’t like she had asked to somehow be inexplicably alive.

Logic dictated that she was supposed to be dead, and yet there she was, alive in a land of magic with her chakra intact. Proof she was indomitably foreign and strange. Part of her wanted nothing more than to scream and punch something. Ever was that her go-to response when she had felt out of her depth, as though she were drowning amidst a stormy sea. She wasn’t swimming, as she had mistakenly thought only the day before. She was drowning, slowly but surely, and she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to swim.

She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to live with being an imposter. She didn’t know how she was supposed to smile at people she felt she barely knew when they were her supposed blood relations. She didn’t know how to fundamentally be someone else, and she felt terrible every second she wasn’t trying to be the old Sakura that her family knew.

They didn’t know her.

A knock at the door startled her out of the rabbit hole of her thoughts, and she turned, catching sight of Ren as he let himself into her rooms with a soft smile. “Sister,” he greeted, clueless as the way that word made two sides of her brain fight against one another. “You didn’t look too well at breakfast,” he said, pulling a chair towards her, eyes lighting up as they spied her stack of textbooks. The information she had been zealously trying to learn the night before.

She wondered if she had, for some reason, woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. Or maybe stress was finally getting to her? She wasn’t sure. There wasn’t much she was sure of right then and there. “I’m fine,” she mumbled, sounding as sullen as she felt.

“Truly?” One pink brow rose.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped, folding her arms across her chest, misery and anguish taking a hold of her tongue. “If you’re here to teach me, then teach me. I don’t particularly want to be asked twenty billion questions. Since when do you care about how moody I am?” A huff escaped her.

“So you are moody?” her brother asked, a smile curling at his lips.

Idly, she wrangled with the sudden urge to scream and throttle Ren before she slammed her hands down on the desk and stood up, ready to leave.

A hand caught her elbow before she could. “I’m only teasing, sister,” he murmured, smile vanishing from his face. “Nevertheless – you wanted a lesson, so a lesson you shall receive.” He sat forwards, eyes fixed on her hands with an oddly perturbed expression. “I don’t suppose that happens often, does it?” he asked, nodding at her hands, and Sakura could only blink at the whisps of what looked like black smoke curling almost lovingly around her fingertips.

“No,” she mumbled, annoyance replaced with something like fear instead as she stared at a phenomena she had no knowledge of. “That’s never happened… before,” she said, uncertain if that was true past her incarnation into a stranger’s body. Who looked almost exactly the same, if she discounted the lack of muscles, calluses, and the excess of hair. She swallowed thickly, because her chakra was undoubtedly where it always was – contained within her, unmoving except for when she drew upon it actively. Her magic, on the other hand—well, she was only just beginning to learn about the strange new power.

“Then I am afraid your lesson might have to wait,” Ren said, looking strangely worried right then and there. “There is something I wish to check first. Though hopefully I am wrong.” He didn’t look like he thought he was wrong, and something in her gut twisted at that. “Might I access your mana core, sister darling?” he asked, and Sakura blinked and nodded, jaw clamped shut, words and questions refusing to fall from her lips as she stared into those worried green eyes.

Worried green eyes which worried for his sister, not quite who she was as the world liked to remind her that very day.

His hand rested over her heart, and she felt something slipping inside her again, a wispy sensation so akin to the time Ichiro had helped her to sleep without terrible nightmares. “Relax,” he spoke, voice gentle. “This might be slightly discomforting, but it will not hurt – though please tell me if it does, since that will mean there is a problem which needs to be addressed.”

She swallowed, struggling to find her voice for a few moments. “What are you doing?” she asked, staring at him even as he concentrated so intently.

“I am testing your mana gates, sister,” he answered, and she stiffened as she felt an odd discomfort in her chest – as if someone was pushing against something shored up tight, and yet she was a part of that something and that same someone was trying to bore their way through. The sensation came again, and again.

“Does this have something to do with that black stuff around my hands?” she questioned, already knowing the answer long before her brother nodded in assent.

“That it does,” he said, and that was when white light seemed to pulse beneath her skin, the sensation of blockage not there, leaving the mana to circulate around her body before dissipating. “That was your holy gate,” he explained, and then it was back to that uncomfortable pushing-blocking sensation.

Until there came that black mist, dark lines spreading beneath her skin as her brother’s mana pushed against what could only be another mana gate. A smile curled at her lips. “So I do have another naturally loosened gate,” she murmured, expecting Ren to look at her, smile, and confirm that much.

He didn’t.

Instead his eyes opened slowly, and they shone with rage. “Who?” he demanded, green eyes blazing like miniature suns. “Who hurt you?” he questioned, fingers gripping ever so gently at either side of her head, as if his hands could pry the information he was asking for from her brain. Was there a magic which could do just that? She didn’t know. All she knew was that her brother was angry, and she didn’t have the slightest idea of why that was the case.

“What are you talking about?” She blinked, hating the note of fear she could hear in her own voice.

Evidently her brother heard it too. Ren sighed deeply, fingers losing their grip on her as he stared down at her, green eyes seeming ever so old and defeated in that instant. “Amnesia,” he muttered under his breath. “Of course… Why didn’t we see the signs earlier? It’s obvious, now I think about it – that sickness. So it happened rather recently—”

“Ren?” she whispered. “What—What’s going on?” she asked, not liking being left in the dark. Like she felt she might as well have been since she had woke up there in a strange body, in a strange world with strange yet familiar faces dotted here and there.

“We can discuss this at dinner, I think,” he said, stepping back as if to retreat.

Sakura stood, chair scraping against the floor. “What’s going on?” she demanded once more, making a grab for him and blinking when she found herself pulled into a warm chest. A chin dug into her hair, and she despised being as short as she was in that instant.

“Dinner,” Ren murmured. “I need to inform father of this development so… appropriate measures can be taken.”

She blinked, and then her brother was out of the door, and she was left with the ghost of a warm hug haunting her as she stood there, dumbfounded and very much confused. A huff escaped her, and she sat back down on her chair, legs feeling as though they might as well have been kicked out from under her.

She didn’t understand that place or anyone there in the slightest.

She hated that fact, like she hated the fact she was a glorified skin-snatcher.

Dinner came around far too quickly, and Sakura felt as though a black hole might as well have been growing in the pit of her stomach. Anxiety ate away at her, and she could feel it nibbling on her gut as she forced herself to move towards the room where all her family members awaited her. Her eyes remained fixed to the floor, joys of magic long since spent as more of her brain decided to tick over the dilemma of her existence. What was she even doing there? That was the question which she knew would haunt her forevermore, and somehow she doubted she would ever be getting her answers. A smile curled at her lips, tempered by the bitterness of the day.

The door to the dining room creaked open, and she could only swallow, throat as dry as the desert as she met the four gazes which looked back at her with an alarming amount of solemness. “Sakura,” her father greeted, and hesitantly, she looked between him and the seat left free at Ren’s side. “Come. Sit. There are some things we need to discuss, but they can wait until we’ve eaten,” he said, and she stiffened, noting then that none of the maids were there in the room. It was only family. Her stomach roiled at the thought. How could she call them family? Her fingers twitched, curling momentarily into claws, as if they could scratch away at the feeling of being a complete and utter imposter.

She sat down, pondering on the mood at the table, subdued as it was, the silence around them damning and daunting, only broken by the sound of metal scraping against plate as they ate. She ate as much as she could, sickened as she felt, and then she could only wait for what felt like judgement. Her fork and knife made a light clink as she set them down, revulsion bubbling in her belly as it had been simmering for the entire day.

“Sister,” it was Ren who began the long awaited, long dreaded conversation. “How familiar are you with the term Negative Mana Reflux?”

She blinked. “What?” Her brow furrowed, mind well aware of what the term reflux meant.

Ren smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I figured you’d probably never heard of it before… It’s not a very common occurrence, but there is one undeniable, unique symptom of it.” He closed his eyes. “I can only be grateful you have another of them: partial amnesia.”

Sakura frowned. “You’re grateful I have amnesia?” she echoed, staring at her brother and wondering what exactly that was supposed to mean. Her stomach twisted once more, nausea coming back around to bite with greater vigour. “What does that mean?”

Ren’s hands clenched, knuckles turning bone white. “You have not learnt enough about Mana Gates to understand why your condition is… abnormal,” he said, and Sakura felt her face shutter at that. Abnormal was one word to describe what she was. “I told you I have multiple mana gates loosened, and I will tell you this, sister, only compatible gates are found naturally loosened. Water and wind… water and earth… never water and fire, and the like. Never holy and dark.” Ren closed his eyes. “There are times though, when a mana gate can be forcefully ‘loosened’, so to speak. Through great trauma, often both physical and mental, and not necessarily directly after the event.” A shaky breath escaped him, even as he forged on, their father closing his eyes, solemn and serious as the room had been the entire time. “This phenomenon is known as Negative Mana Reflux, since your mana seems to reverse its flow and travel through the opposite mana gate to that which it’s supposed to.”

“Your sickness and your desperation to come home,” Ichiro spoke, blue eyes fixed upon her, feeling as if they were boring into her very soul. “The way everything seems unfamiliar, thanks to your memory losses. We should be grateful that there weren’t any other issues, like you gaining memories.”

The words rang around in her brain, and Sakura stared at him, his words taking far too long to sink into her brain as she sat there at the table, dumbfounded—because they undoubtedly thought she had been tortured or something of the like. She hadn’t. At least, not in her memories, and neither had there been mention of the villainess being tortured in the game either. So obviously they were completely and utterly—

“I understand this might come as a shock to you—” Ren began, but her lips were already moving, what Ichiro had spoken about finally sinking in.

“What do you mean about gaining memories?” she demanded, something like fear reaching up to close her heart in its iron grip.

Ichiro blinked, brow furrowing as he looked at her, as if weighing up what that information meant to her. “Evidently you don’t remember pondering over it when you were younger, but there’s some weight to Lord Namikaze’s Theories on Reincarnation, thanks to this phenomena, though there are plenty who question his theories.”

Her fingers went slack, heart thudding so very audibly in her chest as she sat there, the word reincarnation ringing about in her head. “Reincarnation?” she parroted, mind feeling numb and blank. “Gained memories?” Her hands fell into her lap, and she tried her best to conceal the shaking.

Her best wasn’t good enough.

“Lord Namikaze, a few generations ago, that is, experienced the phenomena of Negative Mana Reflux,” Ren explained, his eyes burning her skin as he stared at her shaking hands. She wished it would stop beneath his gaze, but the spasms only grew that much harder to control. “He claimed to have gained memories of another life which could have only been his own, and he described those memories – in particular that of his previous self’s death – in such depth that some could only believe him. Hence his exploration into the idea of reincarnation and previous and future lives came to be. Not that it pertains to the situation—” he paused, green eyes narrowing. “Oh, but it does, doesn’t it, sister?”

Her fingers twitched, fear twisting within her stomach as she sat there, wishing she could shrink into her chair and vanish.

“Did you remember a death of your previous self?” he asked, and Sakura felt something inside her fracture at the unwieldy question which somehow managed to push on all of her sore spots.

Her hands slammed down on the table, plates jumping and rattling at the movement. Black smoke-like whisps curled around her hands and wrists, mana swirling within her as she did, moving not accord to thought as she stood there, chair clattering to the ground behind her. “Shut up,” she muttered, the word previous rattling about in her head like an echo which would never fade. “Previous?” she hissed, watching as her fingers cracked the table, a phantom of the strength she had once had. Yet how could she call it a strength from a previous life when she was alive and breathing then? When she was the dominant personality? “I’m not dead!” Her fingers curled in the fabric of the shirt she wore, clutching as the space above where her heart beat – irrevocable proof that she was alive and well. She wasn’t a remnant of the past, a relic to be remembered. “I’m not!” She met the blue eyes across the table which stared at her, confusion and a dawning realisation burning in that gaze. “I’m…” she trailed off, energy leaving her as she stumbled back from the cracks left in the table. “Alive…”

“Sister…” Ren breathed, green eyes staring at her as everyone seemed to be doing those days.

Something else snapped within her at that accursed title. “I’m not your fucking sister!” she screamed, hands clenching in the fabric of her clothes. She didn’t know how to be a sister. That was reserved for the girl who was supposed to be there, living in her rightful place which she had usurped. “What don’t you get about that?” she begged, cold realisation that everything might as well have been tumbling down at that point. It was surprising what taking over someone’s life and being addressed as them rather than her could do, she mused almost hysterically as she turned on her heel and ran.

Feet pounded the ground, breath coming in gasps as she ran to a place she didn’t know. They knew. That meant they wouldn’t chase her. She was just an imposter, after all. She was just a different Haruno Sakura who had no place there. She didn’t even want to be there, resemblant of the game which had killed her as that world was.

There was a reason she hadn’t been recommended to go on infiltration missions, it seemed, and she was discovering just why.

She cast open the doors leading to outside, the moon high in the sky above, breath misting in the air as she ran and ran until she could run no more. Her foot rolled over a stray branch of one of the many trees which covered the lands of the Haruno Estate, pain throbbing from her ankle and up her leg as she went sprawling face down in the dirt. A place which was undoubtedly where the real duke’s daughter would never have been. Fitting that she was there instead then, she thought to herself with a harsh snort.

Pulling herself to her hands and knees, she tested out her ankle, muttering curses under her breath when it wouldn’t take her weight. Sprained, she decided, pulling off her shoe and swearing yet again. How was she supposed to go anywhere with a busted ankle? Her eyes glanced back towards the mansion she had once thought of as home in the early and late days of her sickness. Before the remnants of the duke’s daughter had been overridden by her.

“Where exactly do you think you’re going?”

Sakura blinked, despising her general lack of fitness and abysmal running abilities in that instant as Ichiro towered over her, arms folded. “Away, because you know – I’m not your sister…”

Ichiro sighed, crouching down in a single second, gripping her chin and looking her right in the eyes. “You know, even if you have some extra memories rattling around in that empty head of yours, even if your original memories have been subsumed by them, that hardly changes the fact that you’re my sister. Now and forever, darling sister,” he said flatly. “I appreciate this might be terrifying and confusing for you, but the fact that you seem to have the memories and personality of a previous iteration of yourself – that doesn’t change a single thing in my eyes.”

“Is all it takes occupying the body of a relative to make them as such?” she demanded, eyes narrowing as she locked her jaw and glared at him mulishly.

“Don’t call it occupying a body,” Ichiro chastised. “This is you. Ren told you about reincarnation. A cycle of the soul, and your soul remains unchanged. All that has happened is that you regained memories of your previous soul cycle. It doesn’t change your place as the sole adored daughter of the Haruno Family. You seem to be labouring under the delusion that you’ve possessed someone, and can you trust me when I say that is something completely different.”

“He’s right, you know,” Ren said, stepping around the tree whose roots she had fallen over. “You claim to be different, but does that not mean you don’t quite know the ‘other’ Sakura, do to speak.” She nodded at that, words refusing to come to her lips as she sat there. “So can you not trust that we do? And trust us when we say that you and her are one and the same – you simply have a few extra memories, and a shift in personality… and all of that is simply a part of growing up, isn’t it?”

Sakura blinked, not really having an answer to that. All she knew was that they thought she and the duke’s daughter were one and the same. They didn’t think she was an imposter, and they were the ones who knew their sister best.

“Now,” Ichiro said, reaching down. “I think it time you came back inside and had that ankle of yours tended to.”

She stiffened, realising what was about to happen. “I swear, if you bloody princess carry me back inside—”

Ichiro chuckled, and Sakura could only scowl, confusion and annoyance swirling as she was lifted up in the hated princess carry. “You – the memories you have now – there weren’t any brothers in them, were there?”

“How did you know?”

A smile curled at his lips. “Otherwise you would have already understood that we would never abandon you, new memories or no.” The words seemed to ring in the air for a few moments, and his smile turned into a grin. “Well, that, and the fact that I’d be answering your earlier statement with an in fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he said, and Sakura blinked, confusion still being the most prevalent thing she felt as she was carried back to the Haruno Household, still a welcomed and beloved member.

Chapter Text

Breakfast was an awkward, perhaps slightly tense, affair.

She could hear the veneer of calmness, and the calamity which swirled beneath as she sat there, trying her hardest not to scrape her plate. Her hands shook ever so slightly, and the fact that her father kept on reminding her that he was her father, new memories or no, was the icing on the metaphorical cake.

“Sister, would you like to reacquaint yourself with the joys of riding?” Ichiro asked, tilting his head as he looked at her in a way which had her knowing deep down that he would never accept no for an answer. “The day looks to be lovely, and I have already asked the kitchens to make a picnic for us – and others, should any of our other family wish to join us.”

“I would love to,” Ren declared, gazing at her pointedly, and Sakura only shrank down in her seat. “Sister, you should really stop flinching at the word family. You are one of us – family.”

Itsuki, her quiet third brother nodded. “Would someone with amnesia not suddenly be a family member because they lost their memories?” he asked, gazing at her with those blue, blue eyes.

“That’s different!” she exclaimed, lips closing with a soft pop as those blue eyes only stared at her and made her realise just how much of an empty argument her words were.

“See?” One blonde brow rose.

“Shut up,” she muttered, glaring at her breakfast as if it had personally offended her.

“A family ride across our grounds sounds lovely,” her father intoned, and Sakura closed her eyes, knowing her fate was sealed from the moment he said those words. Her father was the voice of all decision-making in that house, so a family picnic there would be.

“We can also discuss control exercises,” Ren said, smiling and evidently spying her confused look. “You know – for your magic, darling sister,” he explained, green eyes boring into her own, and she was distinctly reminded that they were the only two with green eyes in that household. Glaring similarities between family members, inherited from their mother. “Unless you’d rather shed black smoke whenever you lose control of your… negative emotions.”

She glanced down at her hands, remembering the whisps of black mist which had curled around them so very recently. “So no one else can figure out I had Negative Mana Reflux,” she mumbled, glaring at her hands as if that would solve the problem there and then.

“It would cause quite the stir, and if there’s anything I know about you these days, is that you might be just a tad uncomfortable with causing a stir,” Ren said, reaching out to pat her shoulder, his hand a comforting, familiar weight. “It would undoubtedly bring a lot of pitying gazes your way too, should others learn of what’s happened to you…”

Sakura snorted, vaguely recalling the few memories of the hall full of others her age who’d looked down at her ‘condemnation event’ with a sick glee and a hungry anticipation. “They would probably just say, ‘I got what I deserved,’ knowing them,” she muttered, pushing her food around on her plate with her fork, shoulders sinking at the thought that she would probably eventually have to see them all again. Her eyes narrowed, a dark expression carving itself out on her face as she thought on Uchiha Sasuke and how different that one was – compared to the one she had known before she had died. She paused, the thought that she had actually died ringing about in her brain as she sat there, teeth clenched, a sick feeling stirring in the pit of her belly.

“Then they are uneducated imbeciles too full of hate,” Ichiro said, lip curling. “Nobody deserves to be—” he cut himself off, blue eyes flickering over to her. “Nobody deserves the circumstances leading up to Negative Mana Reflux. Nobody. No one should wish them upon another, unless they have no heart, or are otherwise prepared to face the same just deserts.”

“Hear, hear,” Itsuki murmured. “I’m going to go and saddle my horse,” he said suddenly, chair screeching as he stood and hurried out of the room as quickly as humanly possible.

“Don’t mind him,” her father said, looking her way. “He often excuses himself from discussions which become too sappy, in his own words, too serious, or too political. He takes after his mother in that way, goddess rest her soul…”

She stiffened at that, realisation and truth sinking into her like a iron weight in her stomach. “Mother is…” she trailed off, distinctly recalling staring at the portrait of her mother in her father’s office then. A memory which was supposedly hers.

“She passed while you were still young,” her father said, undoubtedly having had years to come to terms with that alternate version of Haruno Mebuki’s death. The Haruno Kizashi she had once known would have been inconsolable. Idly, she wondered if both her parents were just that after her own death. “We can exchange stories – or I can simply tell you stories of… before when we go out for our picnic. We shouldn’t let Itsuki have too much of a head start, otherwise he might wander off on his own. Which would defeat the purpose of this family walk.”

Riding a horse was a strange experience for her. As a shinobi there had never been much point to riding a horse, when she could move faster in the trees. Horses hardly held much value for shinobi, and yet she wasn’t a shinobi right then and there, and so riding a horse around the green fields and trees of the Haruno Estate it was.

Her horse was a black mare with a single patch of white – a star on her face – and in truth, she thought the horse rather lovely. Though apparently she hadn’t ridden much before, not that she actually remembered any of it. She wondered if other memories would resurface, proving that what her existence was, was merely the result of new memories. Fear curled in her stomach at that, part of her wanting nothing more than to reject the idea that she had simply gained memories that night.

That she had died, stayed dead, and remnants of her ‘old’ personality were peeking through. A sigh escaped her, even as she wondered then about reincarnation and whether the Pure Lands had only ever been a myth. She pondered on who her brothers might remember being if they ever experienced Negative Mana Reflux. Not that she ever wanted them to, given what it apparently entailed.

Idly, she wondered if she would remember anything relating to that – if anything like that had actually taken place. She couldn’t help but ponder over it, anxiety nibbling at her gut like an old friend. Being reincarnated and gaining memories – if that was what it truly was – was entirely too stressful and exhausting. “How much further will we be travelling?” she asked, glancing around to look at Ren and Ichiro who were riding in tandem with her while her father and Itsuki rode ahead just a little bit.

“Are you hungry already?” Ichiro raised an eyebrow, glancing at her from beneath the fringe he usually kept tucked back with bobby pins. In fact, his hair was usually artfully styled, long as it was. Though his hair length didn’t have too much on Ren’s. Her second brother probably had a similar length of hair to her. Most of the Haruno Family, barring her third brother who was the only one to inherit their mother’s dusky-blonde, had their father’s pink hair.

“Not yet,” she replied, legs already aching, much to her own chagrin. She might be doing more horse riding, it seemed, if only to improve her fitness and leg strength. “But I am, unfortunately, tired.”

Ren cocked an eyebrow that time. “Unfortunately?”

Sakura shrugged. “I used to be at the peak of fitness.” She crossed her arms as best she could, considering she was riding a horse and holding the reins. “Forgive me if it chafes to be brought to this level,” she said, gesturing to all of her right then and there.

“Then perhaps you could join myself and Ren,” Ichiro said. “We participate in fitness training to aid in our swordsmanship lessons which father imparts to us.”

“Swordsmanship?” Sakura felt her head swivel, green eyes locking on her eldest brother. It was funny how easy it was to think of them as brothers, the faint, few, and far between memories of ‘her’ as a child echoing in her brain. It made the strange feeling in her belly dissipate ever so slightly.

“You know, sister,” Ren said, an impish grin on his face. “Where we learn to wield our blades—”

“I know what swordsmanship is, you dolt!” she hissed, glaring at her second eldest brother who was all too good at prodding at the fires of her temper.

Ren chuckled. “I am glad that sharp tongue of yours isn’t hiding away any longer,” he murmured, fondness suffusing his expression as he looked at her.

Sakura frowned, glancing ahead to where her father and brother rode, silently wishing she knew how to ride better so she could get away from her insufferable brothers. “You’re insufferable,” she decided to inform them, sighing as she gazed ahead, not wanting to meet those blue or green eyes which stared at her with earnest affection.

Brothers were strange creatures.

Though she supposed that as the ‘shinobi’ she hadn’t really had much information on brothers. Naruto had been an orphan. She had been an only child. Sasuke’s ‘brother’ situation she highly doubted was the norm. From what she was aware any form of fratricide was highly frowned upon, unless the sibling in question was a murderous traitor who’d betrayed the village. That much left her with having vague echoes of ‘her’ memories which helped her to feel slightly less like an imposter.

“I will join in your swordsmanship lessons,” she declared, knowing that she didn’t have any kunai or throwing stars to hand. She also had the distinct impression they might not have existed at all in those strange lands which occasionally saw a friendly face which wasn’t quite so ‘friendly’ anymore. “I would also like to learn to ride better, so I would appreciate lessons,” she said. “On top of my other studies, of course.” She paused for a moment, biting her lip as the musing came up that she actually wanted to learn more about her brothers. Even if she truly was an imposter, she had been welcomed by the Haruno Family of that place. Family First, the motto whispered in her head, and she tightened her grip on the reins. “I need to learn more about this place… given how my memories… well, you claim they have been overwritten, I suppose is the best word for it.” Her shoulders sunk, glumness mixed with excited curiosity swirling within her. It was an odd combination, to say the least.

“You know,” Ren said, still grinning in that dopey way which made her want to punch him in his perfectly straight teeth. She wasn’t sure what it was specifically about Ren which gave rise to that urge, but it was something more unique to him. “I never thought I would see the day that you were eager to learn. I distinctly remember having to drag you kicking and screaming to you writing lessons. You drove your poor teacher to tears that day.”

Sakura frowned, something cold wrapping its icy fingers around her heart. “Do you miss her?” she asked, staring vacantly ahead, bitter at the thought of the echoes of memories that she was apparently missing. “The ‘me’ you used to know?”

“Does that much matter?” Ichiro questioned. “You are as you are right now, and what has been done to you cannot be undone,” he said matter-of-factly, sorrow overtaking his expression as he sat there in the saddle. It was his turn to stare solemnly ahead, it seemed. “In truth, you were a complete and utter brat before. How quaint it is that you can only miss what you once had when it is gone. Yet you are my sister, through and through, and whatever trauma was afflicted upon you – that can neither be undone. You are vastly more mature now, and the only reason for me to despise this is because of what happened to shape you into the figure you cast now. I do not despise you, sister – never you. Only the bastards who have dared to harm you. Make no mistake that we will do everything in our power to find them and bring them to justice. One way or another, that is.”

Ren tilted his head. “Would it be wrong of me to say that I quite like you as you are now,” he spoke, that grin of his curling slyly at his lips. “After all, you are so much more fun to tease like this…”

“Ren!” she hissed, silently daring him to try.

“Father!” Ren called, cupping his hands around his lips. “This is a good spot, I think!”

Picnics weren’t things she had been on very much before – and camping with her teammates was very much a different thing, or so she was finding. They were yet another time for family discussions, as all mealtimes seemed to be. The difference to her life before was slightly jarring, if she was truthful. Though, she mused wryly, that was probably to be expected what with the fact that she had died – even if she was alive right there and then. Her hands shook as she stared at them, memories of the moment of her death ringing in her ears.

“So you wish to learn the blade?” her father spoke, blue eyes boring into her own green ones, and Sakura felt like an object on display.

One pink brow rose. “Problem?”

A chuckle escaped him even as Ren smirked where he sat, poised on the edge of their picnic blanket. “Hardly, though it is what noble society would consider to be an odd hobby for a lady in any case.” He shrugged, sitting back slightly, hands resting on their picnic blanket as he stared at the canopy of leaves shielding them from the worst of the sun. “Though we are a dukedom, dear daughter,” he said. “It is only natural that those of the highest class should seek to set standards, rather than adhere to the suggestions of others.”

Ichiro smiled. “Careful,” he said. “You don’t want father to get into a discussion about what it means to be a noble, and traditions which ought to be observed rather than trampled upon – unless you want to be here all day debating about it.”

“Well, I do need to learn these kinds of things,” she mumbled, folding her arms as she sat there, sandwiched between Ichiro and Itsuki. The joys of being situated towards the middle of the picnic blanket.

Ren smiled at her, pressing his hands together as if in prayer and nodding towards her from behind their father’s line of sight.

Sakura felt her eyebrow twitch.

“Were you not a noble then?” her father asked, peering at her curiously once more. “In your… past?”

It was her turn to shrug. “No,” she said flatly. “I was… well, I suppose I was like a knight, though the profession wasn’t called that.”

Her father hummed. “Interesting. Though that means I will definitely have to refresh your memory of what it means to be a noble.” Blue eyes narrowed, a frown appearing on his face. “I suddenly feel as though I have been far too absent to you as of late. Everyone always said I should remarry to provide you with a mother figure…”

“Pardon my language,” Itsuki murmured, “but fuck that.”

Ichiro sighed, pinching his crinkled brow. “What is it with the amount of crass language in this house?”

Itsuki pointed a finger at her. “Blame her. She started it!”

Sakura felt her eyebrow twitch once more, the urge to tackle her brother and wrestle with him suddenly overwhelming her as she stared into those mostly blank blue eyes. “How old are you?” she asked, instead of giving into a fight she wouldn’t be able to win in her current state. She needed to build up her training and her muscles before even thinking about beating anyone in a fight – what with the fact that most of her fighting strategies were designed for the brute force she had once been able to pack into a single punch.

Her chakra thrummed beneath her skin, hand clenching into a fist as she reminded herself that her strength was only a routine of training she had already done once before away. She had done it once. She could do it again.

It was just that she now had to tackle a new, stranger, possibly more volatile energy at the same time. The way it seemed to respond to her emotions, black smoky whisps curling around her hands whenever she became highly distressed – chakra had never done that. Which meant that it was time to hit the books and learn.

Her gaze drifted to her brother Ren then, reminded that he was supposedly rather knowledgeable when it came to magic. Yet he was also training in swordsmanship. She wondered if there was a profession called magic swordsman or if her fantasy-riddled brain was simply running away from her. There was a demon king and a saint to consider too, she mused idly, reminded that it wasn’t a game she was playing. That there was her life, and there was a possibility of something supernatural on the horizon.

“You know,” her father spoke, cutting off whatever her brothers were saying between themselves. “Should the Holy Lands not wish to take you for training as a saintess, then, depending on how you do in your swordsmanship lessons, you might want to think about becoming either a knight, a magic swordsman, or even a holy knight.”

“Wouldn’t it be a magic swordswoman?” Itsuki asked, flicking some of his short blonde lacks behind his ear once more.

Part of her cackled in glee at the answer to her earlier question, her heart feeling lighter whenever the shackles of trauma and cuckoo seemed to slip. Yet they were still there, still chaining her down, and Sakura could only muse on how she was supposed to adjust.

“I’m gonna be the best saintess!” a childish voice drifted through her memories, and Sakura could only blink as she remembered a younger Ren patting her on the head, lifting her up, and beaming up at her.

“Then I’ll be the best magic swordsman around!”

Her stomach twisted, the words magic swordsman ringing about her brain, and she had to ponder then on how much truth there was to the idea that she was still the duke’s daughter, just with memories of a shinobi.

The more she thought on it, the more vivid and possibly true of an idea it became.

She didn’t quite know how she felt about that.

“While we’re here though,” her father said, pulling her attention back onto him once again. “Are there any other lessons or subjects you wish to take?” He tilted his head. “There is only so much time in every day, so you might need a proper plan drawn up, given how much I fear is needed to be taught.”

Sakura blinked. “Not off the top of my head,” she said, well aware that there might be other topics she would need to cover that she didn’t know existed. “But if that changes, I’ll let you know.”

Her father nodded, ponytail fluttering in the breeze, and Sakura could only stare at him, the similarities and differences to the father she had once known made all the more apparent as he sat there, not attempting to crack any jokes. If anything, there was a rather melancholy air about him.

Ren’s laugh cut through her musings. The melancholy wasn’t shared, she thought to herself idly, a hum of amusement escaping her as she stared at the people around her. At the family she had somehow acquired.

Chapter Text

Her excitement at learning new things had been rekindled, it seemed, or so Sakura mused to herself as she finished up with her tutor her brother had brought over first thing in the morning. She had dragged herself over to the main study to be greeted with the sight of a woman who was quaking in her boots all too literally. It hadn’t taken much to guess that the lady had evidently tried to teach her before, and so her seeming sudden change in personality hadn’t gone unnoticed. Not that she was trying to hide that much.

There was no turning back, after all – no way for the personality she had supposedly once had to make a reappearance. She was a Duke’s Daughter rather than a shinobi, and that was forever how it would stay, what with the nonexistence of the job role she had once had in that world. A world she was slowly gaining a passing familiarity with as each day came and went.

Her family were clingy, and perhaps, ever so slightly, overprotective. Though given they thought she had been tortured to gain those memories of hers… Sakura tilted her head, wondering on that fact then. She had never thought she would be someone who could forget memories of torture, horrific as it was – and apparently as her family thought it had been for her.

She wasn’t completely convinced, even if she was slightly more accepting of the idea that she had gained memories. Either way, her family seemed to love her – both the girl she had apparently once been and the being she was right then and there.

“When is my next tutor coming?” she offhandedly asked Ichiro after he had finished seeing Dame Amane out. The number of titles and how they were inherited or obtained were still things she needed to figure out for herself. She hardly wanted tutors for the basic things, what with how embarrassing it would undoubtedly be to have to say that she had some form of amnesia to people who would undoubtedly judge her for it. A shiver curled down her spine, memories of her so-called condemnation event still vivid in her mind. Part of her felt as though she might as well have been a rabbit amongst wolves sometimes. Though, if that were the case, then the rest of her family were undoubtedly rabbits with razor sharp teeth ready to rip out the throats of those wolves. Her eyes narrowed, hands clutching at thin air as if she could grab a hold of her dream and sharpen her own fangs while she waited.

“You have fifteen minutes,” Ichiro answered, watching as she finished writing her notes in one of the many new journals which had mysteriously appeared on her desk the day before her first tutor had come to call. “Are you sure you’re fine for this?” he asked, the familiar concern appearing then, and Sakura barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “This is quite a heavy schedule for you to follow, sister. Rest is important.”

She waved a hand at him flippantly. “I can tone down the amount of lessons once I’ve learnt the basics,” she answered. “I still have those exams at the end of the year, and I need to pass them with flying colours.”

“You only need to score above a certain threshold, you know,” he said, looking at her ever so forlornly. “I… I do not want you to burn yourself out,” he stated, blue eyes boring into her with the force of a thousand suns. “I worry, sister – we all do, especially as of late.”

Sakura scowled. “So sorry to worry you,” she muttered, shoulders sinking as she heard the phrase the had to have heard a thousand times since she had woken up in that household in her stupidly large four-poster bed.

“Sakura,” Ichiro spoke sharply. “You know I don’t mean it like that.”

Her shoulders sunk a fraction more, anger subsiding all too quickly as she looked at the figure her brother cut against the doorway. “Yeah,” she muttered. “I know. Now leave me be – I only have thirteen minutes left to relax before my next lesson.”

Ichiro sighed, looking as if he bore the weight of the entire world for a moment. “Very well,” he said softly. “I will see you later for sword practice – father has moved back the time so we can all train together from now on.”

“Oh.” Sakura blinked. “I thought he’d just get another instructor to teach me…” she mumbled to herself even as Ichiro saw himself out – only appearing some twelve minutes later with her next tutor – a Count Yamanaka.

Or, as she recognised him, Yamanaka Inoichi.

He was surprisingly similar to what she remembered of him from Konohagakure, not that she had known him all that well. She had been a child when she had interacted with him the most, and then she had tread down a different path which had never really coincided with her best friend’s father. Then he’d died, and Ino had been inconsolable for a while. Her heart skipped a beat, part of her wondering if there was a Yamanaka Ino there too. Then she remembered that even if there was she would hardly know her. Ever did that place seem to like reminding her of her loss.

Ever did it like unbalancing her emotions and making that dark, pitch-black smoke curl lovingly around her fingers. She gritted her teeth together, trying to wrangle the misery she felt under control for once. Her hands were tucked below her desk in an instant, and Sakura was grateful for the fact that the Yamanaka Inoichi before her was nothing like the sharp-eyed man she had once known. He would have noticed the move, and discovered in an instant that she was suffering from Negative Mana Reflux. The man before her didn’t, and that only helped to iron out the differences between them.

It had been different when she had encountered Sasuke. It had been different when she had encountered her father and her brothers – if only because she hadn’t had brothers before and her father looked far too different from what she remembered. The man before her was too similar in both appearance and in the way he spoke to her. As if he was what a different Yamanaka Inoichi could have been without the need to grow up through war and work in T&I. A soft breath escaped her, hands unclenching in her lap as she sat there, black miasma still curling around her fingers as she focused her attention instead on the lesson he was setting out.

“Healing?” she mumbled, wondering exactly why she had been expecting an alternate version of Tsunade to have appeared to teach her just that. She wondered if an alternate version of Tsunade even existed. Her brothers were new elements in comparison to before. Who was to say that some elements hadn’t been removed?

“Yes,” Inoichi answered her, a smile curving at his lips even at the words which only proved she hadn’t been listening to anything he’d said for the past five minutes whilst she’d been freaking out over his existence. “That is what the Yamanaka Family specialise in – within our lands, at least,” he said, looking oddly wistful then. “The Holy Lands are the place where you will find the best of the best at the healing arts, but they are very selective about who gets to venture there – and who they take on as both students, holy knights, and saintesses.”

Sakura stiffened, abruptly reminded then that she was technically supposed to be a saintess candidate, though she doubted she would get the opportunity to go to those infamous Holy Lands if they caught wind of what had gone on in the academy all too recently. Not that it mattered. She would find a way to do what she loved, no matter what. That was what she had done… in a different life. She swallowed thickly at that thought.

“Though before you can even begin using magic to heal, it is better to learn more manual methods along with the composition of the body – along with the varying types of injury,” he informed her, and Sakura could only hum, blinking as her new teacher procured a thick stack of pages which landed in front of her with a heavy thud. “Which is why I will be giving you this comprehensive exam, and I will begin teaching you more practical application, such as stitches and sutures, only once you are able to complete that exam.”

She risked a glance down at the thick paper, eyebrow arching up as she realised that she knew the answers to everything on the front page, at least. In fact, she was willing to bet that, aside from magical maladies like Negative Mana Reflux, she would be able to complete a vast amount of that exam in one sitting.

She was still dressed in the only outfit she found acceptable for exercise as she stood side-by-side with her brothers. All three of them were dressed far more appropriately than her, and that was a matter which she hoped would be rectified soon enough with the arrival of the tailor scheduled in two days time. Though she had the strangest feeling they would probably be arriving with dress designs rather than the clothing designs that she actually wanted. Whilst dresses were pretty and nice to wear, she found pants to be far more practical, what with how much more active she was becoming as the concern over her health began to subside somewhat. It meant she had less to do behind their backs. A snort escaped her at the thought, even as she took the simple wooden training sword which was given to her for practice.

“Ichiro, you will be helping your sister through the exercises I give her – it’ll be of more use to you to learn how to teach others,” their father said, nodding at the eldest of them, and Sakura could only resign herself to being under her brother’s careful watch. “Ren. Itsuki. You can both spar for today. I will mediate, but bear in mind I also have to keep an eye on your sister – so preferably don’t go too wild today. Ichiro will not always be here to patch you up, and neither will your sister, once she inevitably learns healing magic.”

Sakura tilted her head, fighting to keep the slight smirk which wanted to curl at her lips at how her father had phrased it that it was all but inevitable that she would learn to heal. Idly, she wondered if Inoichi had informed him of just how far along she was in regards to theory work, baffled as the older man seemingly was.

“Well then, sister,” Ichiro said, stirring her from her thoughts. “I suppose we ought to begin with our warmup – it’s to prevent—”

“I know what a warmup is for, and what a cool down is too,” she said, cutting him off before he could try to explain further. She had been very active before along with being a medic who knew how to avoid the more basic, easily preventable injuries. “You should speak to Count Yamanaka about my theoretical knowledge when it comes to injuries—and also, on another note, can you go through the noble ranks with me again later? I’m still… confused by them.”

Ichiro smiled. “Of course,” he said, ushering her along as they broke into a steady jog around the plot of land which was seemingly allocated for training purposes. Itsuki and Ren were ahead of them, finishing their short warmup before them, and then she was greeted by the repetitive thuds of training swords colliding with one another as her brothers began their first bout.

She was only a short while behind, soon beginning learning the basics of swordsmanship in those lands. Though she could safely say the most experience she had with swordsmanship before had been poking at the grip of a katana in a weapons shop with a person who she didn’t want to think about right there and then. Because he was lost to her, irrevocably and eternally so.

“There are eight basic attacking angles that you’ll need to be familiar with,” Ichiro spoke, gesturing for her to watch him. “I will demonstrate them now – slowly, so that you can watch. In a real fight, they’d be more like”—he jerked a thumb over in the direction of their brothers—“that.”

Sakura blinked, staring at the oddly savage grin on Itsuki’s face as he battled against a far more composed Ren. It was almost hypnotic, the way his pink hair seemed to dance back and forth as he blocked, dodged, and attacked.

“Ren will win that bout, at least,” Ichiro said matter-of-factly.

Sakura blinked. “How do you know that?”

“Because he’s in control – notice how Itsuki is reacting whilst Ren is calm. I hate to say this but our brothers give themselves away by their reactions and facial expressions whilst fighting. That’s how I can tell, at least, but father can probably tell by the way that Ren is both anticipating Itsuki’s moves and leading him into the position he wants. Itsuki has an unfortunate tendency to fall into a rhythm, and that is something you don’t want to do, since it makes you predictable and easy to block. Ren has a habit of capitalising on that weakness of his, and I have little doubt he’ll find a new weakness once Itsuki rectifies that habit of his. He’s a crafty one, that brother of ours.” Ichiro sighed. “But never mind them.”

She took that as the cue it was to focus back on her eldest brother, watching as he swung his wooden blade carefully, eyes darting over to her at the end of each strike as if to check she was still watching.

“Ten repetitions of each for now, sister,” her brother commanded, and Sakura totalled that up to eighty strikes – and that was only to begin with.

“Okay,” she mumbled, settling herself into a solid stance which her brother thankfully felt no need to correct as she started going through the motions. Magic, she mused as the sweat began to drip and her arms began to ache, was seeming much cooler than sword fighting in that moment. She’d be damned if she didn’t learn both though, what with how much the title of magic swordsman tickled her fancy.

She just needed to get started properly on the magical side of things, fickle as her control still was over the dark gate which had apparently been pushed open forcefully within her mana core. Idly, she wondered when Inoichi would begin teaching her to heal with magic, and could only muse that it would be at least a few weeks or a couple of months before she could start on that aspect of her training.

“Stop daydreaming, sister, and focus,” her brother called, jolting her from the rabbit hole in her thoughts she had fallen down. “Unless you’re—”

“I’m fine,” she grumbled, cutting off the all too familiar question before it could be finished, focusing then on swinging the wooden blade as precisely as she could. Slow repetitions until she got used to the motions it was, and then, one day, she would hopefully be at a similar level to where her brothers were right there and then.

Chapter Text

She had slipped into something of a routine as the days went by; waking up, doing her morning exercises, meeting for breakfast with the rest of her family, then attending varying classes until lunchtime came about. After lunch it was more lessons, followed by swordplay classes taught by her own father, then there was a short time for a bath, followed by dinner, and then she usually kidnapped Ren to get him to teach her about magic until the sun came to set. It was a long routine, and one which became increasingly familiar to her as the days rolled by.

Her father paused after their breakfast came to an end, ever indicative that he had something to say. Breakfast time was announcement time, she had come to learn as she lived in that house. In her household, the thought becoming less alien to her as days rolled into one.

“Is something the matter, father?” Ichiro asked, quirking one eyebrow up in question. “You look pensive.”

There was a slight pause before anyone spoke, the silence almost suffocating. “Your uncle is coming to visit, it seems,” their father stated, and Sakura watched as all three of her brothers stiffened. “It will be a week until he arrives…”

Sakura blinked in confusion. “Our uncle?” she asked, frowning at the faces all her brothers were pulling.

“Ah, yes,” her father said. “I will have to tell him of your amnesia, it seems, though I will not disclose the reasons behind it, unless you wish for me to.” He tilted his head. “Though if we told him, I have little doubt he would be able to figure out exactly who did this to you, and eliminate them with extreme prejudice…” he trailed off, a soft smile coming to curl at his lips. “He might remain distant to you, but Mebuki was his treasured younger sister, and you are all that’s left of her on this earth.”

“So Uncle Sasori is going to pay us a visit then?” Ichiro murmured, and it took Sakura a good few moments to digest those words before she spat out her water in a spray of mist.

Itsuki’s lip curled at the sight.

“Sasori?” she echoed, the memories of punching his puppet body and his heart container into smithereens vivid in her mind. “Sasori of the Red Sands?”

“Ah, so you recall uncle,” Ren said, smiling until he realised her state of abject shock wasn’t dissipating anytime soon. “Mother was a Princess of the Sands, you know. It’s why it would be one of our family considered for a political marriage, should anything disturb the relations between our countries…”

“Too much information, Ren,” Ichiro said matter-of-factly. “Though we might have to give our dear sister a reminder of our family and its lineages.”

Sakura felt a hysterical giggle warble from her lips. “That would be ideal,” she remarked, still trying to get her head around the idea that Sasori – or some alternate version of him, at the very least, was her uncle. It was a bizarre, frankly alien idea, and she didn’t have the first idea of how she was supposed to face her uncle, who was in actual fact an alternate version of one of her first kills in her previous life.

Ren frowned at her. “But if you remember who uncle is—”

“I don’t,” Sakura said flatly, quashing the urge to vomit as best as she could as she tried to picture Sasori of the Red Sands as any sort of familial figure. Though that only made her want to vomit that much more. It was a strange, utterly incomprehensible picture.

“So if you don’t actually recall uncle and who he is,” Ren murmured, “then the only reason you’d act like that is… you knew him in your previous life, then.” He nodded to himself, and Sakura could only shift on her seat, not really ready to unpack the vivid details of what she had done to Sasori of the Red Sands in her previous lifetime.

Past lives, it was seeming, were rather traumatising, and exceedingly confusing to come to terms with. More so when there were figures from her past life – alternate versions who acted in strange, bizarre ways. “I suppose you could say that,” she murmured, the familiar wave of hysteria crashing down over her head as she sat there, around the breakfast table she had so quickly become acquainted with in that life of hers there.

Itsuki tilted his head. “I take it you did not get on well with uncle in your previous life,” he said, hitting the nail ever so lightly on the head.

“He was a criminal,” she blurted out, staring at her empty plate and wondering what she was supposed to make of her uncle in that life. “And he tried to kill me…”

“Ah,” Ichiro murmured, sitting stiffly in his seat.

Ren blinked. “Oh.”

Her father steepled his fingers, looking physically pained as he asked the next question. “Forgive me if this is a difficult question to answer, but… was he involved in your death?”

Sakura blinked, remembering the way the puppet had smashed beneath her fingers and the satisfaction she had felt at taking out a member of the Akatsuki. The same person who was her uncle in the bizarre world she had woken up in with memories of her past life. “No. It was actually the other way around…”

“Oh,” Ichiro murmured, throat bobbling as he swallowed thickly.

“Ah,” Ren mumbled.

“I… see,” her father said, lips pursing as the room devolved into a silence so thick she could have easily cut through it with a knife. “Will you have any issues meeting with him?” he asked, one eyebrow raised as he looked directly at her.

She paused for a few moments, wondering whether she would be fine with encountering the ruthless Akatsuki member. Who wasn’t a ruthless Akatsuki member there, because the Akatsuki didn’t exist, and that was a completely different world. “I should be fine… I think,” she remarked, swallowing at the idea of what she would do when encountering her uncle. “I mean it’s not like he a criminal who poisons people…”

“Criminal, no,” Ren agreed, and everything which went unsaid made Sakura frantically take a sip of water.

“It might be best to bring him in on the know… Sasori is an intelligent man,“ her father said, chewing on his lip. “I highly doubt he would do anything malicious with this information. We are one of the most tight-knit families there are – besides, it’s not like it would do much harm to our family image, nor your own, if that’s what you worry about.”

“Uh,” Sakura mumbled. “I’ll… think about it,” she said, wondering what she was supposed to think about a man she had never met. There were no helpfully timed memories resurfacing to help her know what she was supposed to think about her mysterious uncle. Who had the same face as the man she’d killed in her previous life.

“That’s all I can ask,” he remarked. “But on another note, there will be some delay in your lessons today – the tailor has arrived. Meet them in the Green Room after breakfast—Ren, take your sister to the Green Room,” he corrected himself, undoubtedly having seen her blank face at the mention of whatever the Green Room was. Presumably a room decorated with green, Sakura mused. “Spend what you wish.”

“Oh. Okay,” Sakura murmured, wondering then what was a reasonable amount for a Duke’s Daughter to spend.

“To my knowledge, the dress you ordered last time is being delivered today,” Ichiro said matter-of-factly. “If you wish to attend your Graduation Ball, then if you have any modifications you wish, it would probably be best to deal with them soon. All dress shops and tailors are probably rather busy. It’s one of the most important events in the capital, at least for our sort of age group.”

“It’s probably the only time you’ll have to go to the capital,” Ren chimed in. “What dear brother is neglecting to mention, is that in order to properly graduate, as such, you will have to attend that ball. Though it will be a family event, and one of us will happily attend as your partner.”

“Ah,” Sakura mumbled, vaguely recalling that those sorts of balls were generally attended with fiancés and the like. To attend with one of her brothers, at her age, would probably be just a tiny bit embarrassing. As if showing how unmarriageable she was. Not that she was all that fussed about marriage right at that moment. The logic of that world was just a bit different, and her peers… She shuddered at the memory of them in her so-called condemnation. At the thought of Sasuke and how cruel he seemingly was in that world.

She paused at that, musing then on the cruelty of Uchiha Sasuke in that world and her last. It was as if their personalities had been carved from the people they had once been before they had grown up – a trait of theirs taken and twisted by the designs of some strange author.

The Uchiha Sasuke in that world was far removed from the boy-turned-man she had once loved. Just like how Sasori of the Red Sands wasn’t a criminal member of the Akatsuki. He would, probably, just have the same face. The person beneath would be vividly different, more likely than not.

It wasn’t easy to deal with, not when her heart cried out for and clung to what once had been. In a different life. A life in which she had died, and that fact was ever so hard to truly come to terms with. Who wanted to acknowledge their death? Especially when she should have been able to avoid it… Sakura shook her head, trying to rid herself of those thoughts. Thoughts which didn’t seem to want to leave her alone, longer as she spent in that odd, distorted reflection of what had once been the world she’d known and loved.

“Sister,” Ren called softly, waiting by the door for her. “Are you coming?”

“Yes,” she stated, hurrying out of the room behind him, mind focusing then on her fast-approaching meeting with the tailor. The same person who she needed to get many a trouser suits from. Dresses were pretty, but there was a practicality to trousers and shorts which she missed dearly. Her hand bunched in the fabric of her dress, admiring the pale blue colour for a moment before she focused on the route they were taking to the Green Room.

“She’s inside, sister,” Ren informed her, waiting by a door to a room she hadn’t been inside just yet. “Do try your best not to freak her out.”

“Anyone who’s met me after the…” she trailed off, biting at her lip for a moment. “Well, after, has been completely and utterly freaked out.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Well, no I won’t,” she declared. “I have no idea what’s in fashion right now, but I suppose I’m not planning on going anywhere anytime soon.”

Ren tilted his head. “I suppose I do have a little time on my hands, if you aren’t adverse to my input,” he said, and Sakura only grabbed him by the wrist as she pushed the door open and ventured inside. “Why yes, sister, I would love to assist you,” her brother said snarkily, even as she found herself inside a pastel green room, with a long, flowing red dress on display in the middle of it all.

“Is this to be my dress for the ball?” she wondered, staring at the red and black styling, musing then on how she probably would’ve preferred to go for something more pastel. Red was still a favourite colour of hers, but that liking had been tempered by things which were red which she didn’t quite like. Like the Uchiha crest that world’s Sasuke wore. Like the red of her blood spilling out as she had died.

“I believe that’s the case, sister,” Ren remarked, venturing over to inspect the craftwork, plucking at the sleeves – flared lengths of red fabric attached to the shoulders with black lace. “A nice colouring too, given how you originally requested Uchiha red.”

Sakura fought the urge to grimace.

“I apologise, Lady Haruno,” the lady – the seamstress or tailor – spoke, and Sakura finally turned to face the lady who had evidently arrived to both take and give her order. “Bolts of fabric in Uchiha red are difficult to procure, so we had to choose the alternate Suna red.” The lady bowed her head, flinching ever so slightly, and Sakura could only wince at the reminder of how temperamental she was still rumoured to be.

“Probably for the best,” Sakura stated, looking at the dress then and wondering what it would be like to dance in. She swallowed at the thought, remembering the dance lessons which would be creeping up on her far too quickly after she finished making her way through the history of the empire. A subject she was quickly finishing, what with her ability to memorise basic facts. “It’s mother’s colour, then, technically,” she said, reaching out to touch the fabric which was named for where her mother had come from in that reality.

“Right you are, sister,” Ren murmured. “You might want to try it on so you can check that you still like the style, but I have little doubts it will suit you – and yet that’s not the main reason that you summoned our lovely tailor here, is it?” One pink brow rose in question, and Sakura abruptly remembered exactly why she had wanted to see the lady in front of her.

“That’s correct,” she said. “I wanted to request more clothing… my apologies, I never caught your name?”

“She is Madam Fuji, though it has been a while since she last called,” her brother said, evidently covering for the title and name for someone she had already met. “Clearly the stress of that dreadful academy took its toll.” Ren’s lip curled – and it was at times like that she could really see the similarities between him and Itsuki.

“Ah, Madam Fuji,” she greeted, smiling at the lady who looked oddly unnerved. The exact same expression many others who had met the ‘before’ Sakura had worn when interacting with her for the first time. “A pleasure to see you again. I have found myself growing to enjoy certain activities which dictate a change in wardrobe, and I was hoping you would be able to lend your expertise?” she spoke, maintaining her polite smile as best as she could in the face of sheer disbelief and shock. Aimed at her.

Something she had become far too intimately acquainted with as of late.

Chapter Text

There was an oddly still air around the house which Sakura couldn’t help but notice as she moved about between classes and exercise. It felt like the calm before the storm, a moment of quiet before the hubbub eventually returned. Her uncle was coming, she reminded herself, even as she paced back and forwards, wishing she could get rid of the nervousness swimming about in her gut. She swallowed thickly, trying to picture Sasori’s face, and wondering if she was remembering it properly. Wondering if she was ready for another Sasuke-not-her-Sasuke situation. Only this time it would involve her enemy who had mystifyingly ended up becoming her family in her… next life. She swallowed thickly at the thought, shoulders sinking at the reminder that her memories of her death, of dying, and of a life she could never return to would forever be there. She just somehow needed to learn to cope with that much, and hopefully – eventually – move on.

They were such easy words to say and think, yet it was an infinitely harder process to put into practice. More so when her life liked to give her those familiar-strangers. One of them was coming to visit, the time of his arrival ticking closer with every single second which passed.

“Um, Lady Sakura?” the timid voice of her current teacher pierced through the haze, and Sakura tried to smile as best she could – an effort which went awry, if the look of terror on Countess Yuki’s face was anything to go off of.

“My apologies,” she said. “My mind was miles away. If you wouldn’t mind repeating what you just said?” Sakura tilted her head, sighing inwardly as ever so hesitantly, the older woman did as she’d been asked. Idly, she wondered if anyone would ever overcome the fear they seemed to have for her, and Sakura could only wonder exactly what the Sakura of before had done to merit such a reaction. She wondered if it was selfish of her to hate the girl she had apparently been before for that much, and the many messes there were to clear up. She wondered just how long it would take to clear those up – or if people there would be content to bask in whatever image of her they had build up prior, and foist that onto her forevermore.

She hoped that wouldn’t be the case, frustration boiling up inside her at the very thought of that happening. “Look at me now, Naruto,” she whispered, pondering then on if her situation resembled her once-friend’s in some way, shape, or form. With everyone treading carefully around her, likely speaking badly of her behind her back. Sakura closed her eyes, sighing softly as her lesson came to an end, the mock test paper she received for homework making her hum under her breath and wonder if she had retained anything from that lesson. Her thoughts were a mess, and she could only be grateful that her sword training was next. There was nothing better to prevent nightmares than by working herself hard enough that she could only collapse into bed and sleep dreamlessly. It was either that or begging Ichiro to work his magic on her – and it was getting to the point where he was trying to earnestly talk with her about her problems.

She didn’t particularly want to talk earnestly about what plagued her, about how pathetically she had died, about how she should have been able to avoid it, and so that meant working herself to the bone it was.

“Sister!” Ren greeted, charging through the door her tutor had left through only a matter of minutes before. “It’s sword practice time!” he declared, full of enthusiasm and cheer as he always was. Idly, she wondered if that was how she used to come across to her own friends. She pondered then on why that seemed so exhausting to her thoughts right then and there.

“I know,” she answered, allowing her brother to help her to her feet, a blanket of exhaustion seeming to settle over her as she clambered over to the door.

“Are you—?”

“I’m fine,” she said flatly, cutting him off before he could ask the question that everyone always seemed to whenever they saw her. She hated their ever so blatant concern, even merited though it might be, and even though she would probably show the same concern if one of her brothers looked as she did right then and there. She was a filthy hypocrite like that.

Ren looked at her for an instant, green eyes sharp and cutting, and Sakura only sighed. “If you insist,” he said, shoulders seeming to sink, eyes dimming in their blatant enthusiasm ever so slightly. Sakura wondered why that sight made part of her feel cowed – ashamed as if she had told someone a lie she shouldn’t have. He was earnest, she had long since learnt, and ever so perceptive. A combination which only promised her more frustration and headaches in the coming future.

She wondered then what her uncle would be like in that world. Would he be kind? Perpetually angry? Murderous with an aura which whispered at her not to cross him? Sakura could only wonder, the days until his arrival seeming to slip through the hourglass like sand. He would be there soon, and Sakura mentally tried to steel herself for the approaching storm.

“I can do this,” she whispered to herself, reminding herself that she needed to get through an hour or so of sword practice before she could soak in the bath for a short while and promptly go to bed. Dreams were hard-pressed to find – at least the good ones which didn’t have her waking up in a cold sweat were.

“That you can,” Ren declared, reminding her of the fact she had company. “You haven’t even missed a single day of training just yet,” he said, evidently not aware of the rabbit hole her thoughts had jumped down. “Even I wasn’t as good as you – Ichiro had to drag me by my ankles a couple of times to get me to come, so you’re certainly on the right track,” he said, smiling ever so sunnily – a smile Sakura felt she might have lost in that moment, even as tiredness seemed to eat away at her very being itself.

“Do you think you’ll be able to teach me some more on magic tomorrow?” she asked, shifting the topic of conversation before she really realised it. “I mean, will you have time?” she added, wanting some way to shift the fog of tiredness and unenthusiasm which seemed to have crept up on her. Magic was more exciting than most things, a new, shiny thing to play with. If that didn’t get her brain going, she wasn’t entirely sure what would.

“For you, certainly,” her brother answered, pushing open the door to their little training courtyard and beckoning her through. “Now, though, our beloved wooden swords await.” He skipped the last of the distance, and Sakura could only stare at him, something like longing bubbling up in her gut – for the times when she hadn’t had to worry about feeling like an imposter or otherwise losing everything.

Rain had just began to fall when their training finished up for the day, the skies beginning to turn a familiar dusky colour as the sun edged closer and closer to finishing its descent. The moon was already up, pale and distant as its light was. Dinner was still to be had, she was reminded as the first embers of hunger came crackling to life in her gut. She needed a bath as well, what with the fact she had one tutor coming to call the next morning. She hardly wanted to be stinking the room out. Sakura could only envision the rumours which would fly around at the idea of the duke’s daughter having far more than a hair out of place.

They would probably blame it on her beloved Sasuke treating her ‘as she had deserved to be treated’. They would want her to be miserable, wouldn’t they? She could picture them all then – blurry faces, malicious grins, eyes watching and waiting for her to make a mistake. Part of her shuddered in fear and nervousness at the thought that she would have to go back to that place – to those judging stares even if she wasn’t quite the same person who had once stood in those halls. Truthfully, she didn’t really want to go back there. She would rather stay within the walls of the Haruno Duchy where it was safe and where she was coming to know. It wasn’t safe there in that academy she had come from, and a part of her felt that viscerally. She could only wonder why – why a bunch of schoolchildren seemed to terrify her so.

An image came to the forefront of her mind – a door carved with an unfamiliar sigil. A club room, her brain told her distantly, and Sakura only shook her head and pushed that thought aside.

“Sister,” Ichiro spoke, hand on her shoulder, guiding her forwards from where she had stopped all of a sudden. “There is dinner to be had,” he informed her, and she nodded at that. “Come along,” he beckoned, not leaving her any other option than to follow him along. “It’s your favourite—or, well, what used to be your favourite. We need to use up the shrimp before Uncle Sasori comes along – he’s allergic, you see.”

Sakura barely refrained from choking on her spit at the casual name drop, brain still trying to process the idea of Sasori – any version of him – being distinctly friend-shaped. Or, perhaps more accurately, family-shaped that time around. “Huh,” she mumbled, storing that little factoid away in the recesses of her brain. “He’s allergic to shrimp…”

Ichiro glanced at her questioningly, and she almost tried to reassure him that she wasn’t out to poison their uncle. Her uncle. Whenever he decided to arrive – that was. There was an unsettling thought to that. The fact that she didn’t know precisely when the look-alike of the man who had been her first big kill, to say the least. The act which once had her thinking she’d end up in the bingo book with a high bounty and either kill or flee on sight marked next to her name.

“I’m not planning anything untoward, stop looking at me like that,” she grumbled, treading down the familiar corridor which led to the dining room. Her hand traced the wall, part of her musing on how she ought to explore all of that place and figure out exactly what was where. A tiny part of her couldn’t be bothered, content to let things happen as they happened. Another bit of her wanted to be bothered. Yet being bothered was quite exhausting for her those days. Sakura wasn’t really sure what to make of that fact.

“Of course, sister,” Ichiro acknowledged ever so calmly. “I wouldn’t dare to think otherwise.”

One eyebrow rose, disbelief scrawled across her face. “That look on your face begged the contrary,” she said flatly, expelling a loud sigh when her brother only looked back at her ever so piercingly.

“I worry for you,” he said, closing his eyes and leaving it at that as they neared their destination. He pushed the doors to the dining room open and took a seat, even as their trusty serving staff started bringing out the dinner the chef had kindly made for them. “Shrimp tempura,” Ichiro murmured, smiling as their dinner was laid out in front of them. “I hope you’ll like it…” he trailed off, and Sakura heard the as much as you used to, unsaid though it went.

She smiled as best she could, but truthfully, she didn’t feel as though she were fooling any of the four other family members who sat around the table with her. “I’m sure I will,” she said, digging in, thinking then about the long soak in the tub which awaited her instead of the eyes which watched her curiously. She rather felt like she was inhaling her food as opposed to eating it, eager to get out of the room and sink into the bath and then collapse on her bed and sleep as her aching limbs wished to.

“Is it good?” Itsuki asked, lip curled in that familiar way as he watched her eat like something he probably classed as a savage. “It certainly looks… as if you’re enjoying your meal. Though, Ichiro, brother, when will our darling sister learn table manners again?”

“Smooth,” she muttered, rolling her eyes at her third brother. “Real smooth. Totally not taking a jab at me for anything.” She stared at him, scowl deepening as he only stared back. Sakura grinned, feeling a bit of batter stuck between her front teeth. Itsuki grimaced, and mentally, she patted herself on the back for that much. Being petty was oddly relieving in many odd ways, and one of her brothers was easier to bother – generally by simply existing.

“Stop it, both of you,” Ichiro grumbled, and then it was his turn to roll his eyes at them, it seemed.

Ren only smiled at them all as he ate, humming quietly to himself, seemingly eternally full of good cheer compared to the rest of them. “I think today went well,” he declared, steering the conversation away from their bickering.

“You only say that because you keep winning,” Itsuki said between mouthfuls. “If you lost a bout for once, then I doubt you would look as cheery.”

“On the contrary, dear brother, I look forwards to the day when you finally, eventually manage to defeat me,” he replied, looking as blasé as ever about the prospect of their brother winning a fight. “No matter how far in the future that might be.”

Sakura snickered at that, seeing the twitch of his brow – ever an indicator of his irritation.

“You all did well today,” their father spoke, cutting all of them off before anybody could speak – and inevitably start bickering with one or the other. “You made me proud,” he said, and Sakura felt the faintest bit of warmth come to her cheeks at that. At the praise. “Though you each have varying hurdles to overcome – it does not mean you are not doing exceptionally well for both your age, and your skill level as well,” he continued, blue eyes flickering over to her green ones at that last bit. “I’ve received word from your uncle that he is due tomorrow – evening at the latest, though knowing Sasori, he’ll be here in the early hours of the morning.”

“Oh goodie,” she muttered at that, shoving another forkful of rice into her mouth, ignoring the nervous twist there was to her stomach.

“I will inform him of your amnesia,” he said matter-of-factly. “He’s a perceptive man, and that much can’t be hidden. I won’t inform him of Negative Mana Reflux, not if you don’t want me to – but there’s always the chance he might figure it out himself.”

“You can tell him,” she grumbled, pushing the remnants of her food around on her plate. “Sasori… he’s, well, family, isn’t he?” she spoke, feeling awfully hesitant. He wasn’t Sasori of the Red Sands there, she reminded herself, thoughts pausing. Well, technically he was called Sasori of the Red Sands there, but he was supposed to be her uncle. She tapped her finger against the table, a nervous habit she had picked up; constantly keeping a part of herself moving whilst her mind raced on ahead.

“Uncles are generally considered part of the family, yes,” Itsuki answered, a sardonic smile curving at his lips.

“Itsuki,” Ichiro called warningly, eyes narrowing on their blonde brother.

“It’s fine,” she said, setting her cutlery down on her plate. “Might I be excused, father?” She tilted her head. “The bath is calling my name.”

“Certainly.” He nodded at that. “See you tomorrow morning – I have cleared your schedule just a bit from after tomorrow, if you would like to… get to know your uncle a bit better.”

Sakura blinked, feeling inordinately nervous all of a sudden at the prospect of getting to know her ‘uncle’. “I see… thank you,” she mumbled, uncertain then of whether or not she was truly all that thankful for not having excuses to avoid Sasori. The doors to the dining room shut behind her with a soft click, and the tension fled from her shoulders as she realised she was out of sight from her family. The same family that had an uncle whose alternate self she had once killed in battle. “It will be fine,” she tried to reassure herself, walking towards her bathroom, a slight shake to her step as she did so. “I’m sure it will be.”

Morning came too soon.

She woke with her heart racing, a cold sweat over all of her body, and the faint memory of eerie chanting and whispering. “Well, this is an auspicious start to the day,” she muttered, speaking to herself as if she could get rid of the lingering remnants of fear that the nightmare she couldn’t remember had left her with.

A knock came at the door, and she unthinkingly called for them to come, forgetting that most of her new family preferred not to see her in her sleepwear.

“You could have told me to wait,” Ren said, folding his arms as he looked at her briefly before going to peer out the window. “You should go and get changed behind your screen. I’d prefer to talk to you when you’re dressed properly.”

“Fine,” she mumbled, grabbing herself a dress from her cupboard – still awaiting Madam Fuji’s return with more trousers and the styles of clothing she had specified. Of which – according to Madam Fuji – were more popular in Suna. The place her mother had been born and raised in, she was reminded. Her parent’s hadn’t both been native to her current lands, a difference between her last world and her current one. “I’m dressed properly now,” she declared, having quickly thrown on that dress before striding out from behind her screen, ready to greet her brother. “Happy?”

“Much,” Ren answered. “Father just received word that your tutor won’t be able to make today's session. There’s a sickness going around, it seems.”

“Is it safe for uncle Sasori to stay then?” she asked, thinking then on epidemics and hygiene then. They definitely had sewer systems and proper waste disposal systems to her knowledge. It wasn’t like they were peeing in a bucket and throwing it out the window – there was plumbing and there was fresh water.

“It’s a minor flu, don’t worry, sister,” he said, quelling her worries as much as they could be quelled. “We would rather you not get sick though, especially what with how you’ve been unwell recently.”

“I see…”

“Breakfast will be in an hour. The staff and father have been busy with preparations for uncle’s arrival, if you’re wondering about the delay.” Ren folded his arms, shrugging then. “I’m not sure what you’ll want to do, given how you seem to have acquired some free time. It’s quite the contrast to that schedule you’ve been following for weeks now.”

“I am capable of self-study, brother darling,” she grumbled, folding her own arms and staring right back at him.

“Do you want me to show you where the library is?” he asked, one pink brow quirking up in question. “I’m quite surprised you haven’t come across it before, what with your new rampant thirst for knowledge, but there are other bookshelves in the rooms you’ve been using for tutoring, and I suppose you haven’t seemed to be all that keen on exploring the house.” He tilted his head, as if wondering why that was the case before he turned and headed towards the door to her room.

“Lead the way,” she said, hot on her brother’s heels at the mention of the library. A place which had been her best friend for a period in her prior life. She swallowed thickly, wondering then if Sasori was already roaming the halls of the Haruno Estate, and whether or not she might bump into him. If he arrived in time for breakfast… her thoughts trailed off, the knowledge that she would see him – whether she liked it or not – at mealtimes making her stomach twist with anxiety.

Ren only chuckled at her apparent enthusiasm for all things bookish, leading her through halls she had yet to traverse – to a corner of the house she had yet to visit. He pulled aside a tapestry, revealing an ornate door carved with a variety of flowers. “If you’re wondering why it’s hidden behind this tapestry, it’s because our library is rather well known amongst other nobles, if only for the large variety it contains, mostly on esoteric magic.”

Her eyes narrowed, flickering over to her brother’s matching ones. “Have we had problems with intruders before, then?” she questioned, raising her own eyebrow then.

“Well deducted,” he answered, pushing the door open and beckoning her inside. “Come on in. You might as well read to your heart’s content until breakfast.”

“Is that what you’re going to do?” She looked at him, the question written all over her face.

“Why, sister darling, you know me so well,” he declared, smirking at her then. “History is the section on our right where the rugs are blue trimmed with silver, geography is green with burgundy trimmings, but I think the section you’ll be most interested in,” he said, pointing to a few rows of shelves further in where the rugs were purple trimmed with gold, “is this one – magic.”

Sakura blinked, looking longingly at the magic section of their library, before spinning around to take in the expanse of the library. It was a rather open-plan room, large glass windows in the walls and skylights in the roof providing most of the daytime illumination to the room made up of stained panelling and dark wood bookshelves. There were three storeys to the library, a myriad of books on each floor, spiral staircases leading up to the balconies which overlooked the main floor, a large square space above her, allowing the sunlight to flood down through the windows. There were sofas positioned close by the windows, armchairs dotted about at odd intervals, yet there was an odd charm to the haphazardness. She could smell all of the books, the musty smell she had been expected nowhere to be found as she gazed at the varying colour of book spines which dotted the bookshelves.

“Personally,” her brother said, pulling her attention away from the towering bookshelves. “I would recommend you read these – they will probably be of the most interest to you.” He held out two books, one bound in a royal purple stained leather, the other wrapped in a forest green print embossed with gold decoration.

“A guide to exercising mana,” she murmured, reading the golden title on the green book. “And the study of mana pathways in the body…” she trailed off, franticly trying to wrack her brain for the sort of information they might contain. “Mana pathways…”

“They’re important – both how strong they are and how wide they are,” her brother said. “What do you suppose would be easier: walking down a narrow forest track littered with branches and brambles, or walking down a paved street in a town?” He raised an eyebrow. “Now replace the person walking with your mana, and the track or road with your body – that’s what your body currently is for your mana: a narrow forest track which is difficult and slower to navigate.” Ren smiled, folding his arms and leaning back against the bookshelf. “I know we have yet to cover the specifics in the little lessons, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I’m a wealth of knowledge when it comes to magic, I’ll have you know.”

Sakura looked at the books he’d given her. “Magic and sword fighting… is there anything you aren’t supposedly good at?” she asked, thinking then on the power behind her navel – an energy no one else in that world seemed to have.

“If there is, I certainly haven’t discovered it,” he replied snootily, and she rolled her eyes and went on a hunt to find the perfect armchair or sofa to relax and read on. “Happy reading, sister!” her brother sung, and Sakura only sighed at his antics.

“It will be,” she murmured, finding a sofa right by the window, perching herself on it and curling up, shifting the skirts of her dress until she was as comfy as could be. “Let’s find out some more about mana pathways then…”

Her uncle hadn’t arrived by breakfast, and Sakura wasn’t sure whether she wanted him to hurry up and arrive and get his introduction to her life over with, or whether she wanted him to be delayed until nightfall and thus tomorrow’s problem. She liked avoiding problems, it seemed, and Sakura didn’t know whether she wanted to do something. “You can’t avoid your problems forever, you know,” a line Ino had fed her many a times rang out in her brain, bringing the inevitable sense of loss she felt back to the forefront of her mind as she sat at the dining room table with her three brothers and her father.

“I hear uncle should be arriving soon,” Sakura spoke, hoping that her father would say that he’d been delayed.

“Yes,” he answered, crushing that wish of hers without a shadow of a doubt. “I’ve heard that he’s entered our territory – he should be with us just after we finish breakfast.”

Sakura smiled at that, hoping it didn’t look too strained as the raging ball of anxiety in her stomach came back to bite with vengeance. “That’s… great. I’m looking forwards to it,” she said, wincing internally at just how unenthusiastic she sounded.

Itsuki raised an eyebrow at her, scepticism written clearly on his face as he stared at her.

Determinedly, she ignored his stare, instead opting to mentally go over the theory she had just learnt about cycling mana and the many mana pathways of the body – all of which were tiny and narrow due to the fact that she hadn’t used magic all that much before. Not consciously, in any case, she mused, thinking of the black wispy tendrils of smoke which still gathered around her hands on occasion.

Start from the heart, she recalled, trying to mentally picture all of her mana gates. The holy gate was the uppermost, she remembered, pushing her mana through that ever so slowly. It was slow to move, sluggish almost, undoubtedly from disuse, like a muscle she hadn’t exercised before. She was going to change that fact though. She was aiming for becoming a magic swordswoman in any case, hopefully after becoming something of a healer – whatever qualifications there were beyond going to the Holy Lands.  If she was able to go to the Holy Lands in the first place. She needed to pass the examinations from her academy and whatever other trials awaited her.

The gentle impact of a hand on her head had her startling from her trance, hold on mana slipping. “No mana cycling at the table, sister,” Ren ordered, and Sakura scowled. “That’s best saved for when there’s peace and quiet.”

“Well, excuse me for wanting to learn while the rest of the rabble finish eating,” she grumbled, sour that her little mana cycling session had been delayed, even as her mana slunk back into her core, some of it lost to the ether in the process. “You made me waste some mana,” she muttered, folding her arms with a harrumph.

“It will recover in time,” Ren said, taking his seat beside her once more. “Though, perhaps, for our next lesson together, we ought to investigate your mana recovery rate – everyone’s is slightly different.”

“Sounds interesting,” she said, perking up at bit at the mention of that.

“Whilst I am glad to see you both getting along,” their father said, smiling at the sight of them. “Might I suggest you shelve the discussion about mana for later, I can hear—”

A crisp, sharp knock sounded at the door. “My lord,” the butler’s voice reverberated through the wood. “Prince Sasori of Suna is here.”

“Show him in, please,” their father said, rising to his feet. “We had best go to greet him—”

The door swung open, and Sakura abruptly regretted sitting with her back to the door, hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end as she heard footsteps; the sound of someone entering the room. She felt infinitely apprehensive and worried, both of which went up by a few notches as a voice she recognised rang out, soft and sibilant.

“He meant that I am right here,” Sasori spoke, “outside the room. Did you honestly think any of your staff would stop me at the entranceway to wait for you?”

“Well, technically, now you’re inside the room,” Itsuki pointed out, a cheeky grin on his face.

“Ever the one for technicalities, I see, you impertinent brat,” Sasori said, and Sakura felt herself stiffen as she caught sight of his red hair as he plonked himself down on the open seat opposite Ichiro – beside father, and far too close to herself. “How fare the rest of my darling family?” he asked, and Sakura only swallowed nervously as those brown eyes fixed on her.

She smiled as best she could. “Hello, uncle,” she greeted.

Sasori looked at her for a few moments, and she felt her smile twitch under the scrutiny. He turned to her father. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked blankly, and Sakura barely resisted the urge to bash her head against the table.

“That,” her father remarked, glancing at the butler and the rest of the staff, “is a conversation best saved for family.”

The butler, someone she hadn’t really interacted with just yet, only inclined his head and seemed to non-verbally encourage the rest of the staff out, until she, her brothers, her father, and her visiting uncle were the only ones left in the room.

“Elaborate.”

Sakura sighed, grabbing the arms of her chair hard enough to make them creak. “Negative Mana Reflux, and the resultant amnesia from that,” she declared, tiring of her father looking between her and Sasori for a few seconds too long. “There, I said it.” Her fingers slackened their death grip, arms coming up folded in front of her chest, as if that could protect her from the piercing gaze of her uncle.

Sasori blinked, taking a few moments to digest that. “Ah,” he said, recovering alarmingly quickly. “So, who do I need to kill?”

Chapter Text

There was a storm named Sasori in the dwelling she was quickly coming to think of as home. The feeling lingered long after that fateful breakfast and long after that seemingly honest question had been asked. What’s wrong with her? A clear cut reminder of just how different she was, since that strange phenomena known as reincarnation and memories of another soul cycle. It was almost funny how she’d tricked herself into thinking she was over it all.

How easy was it to forget that she’d seemingly died and was living a new life different to everything and anything she had truly known?

Not that easy, it seemed, and Sakura could only sigh and stare at the books stacked at her desk, knowing then that she wouldn’t be able to sit and read through them all as she’d wished to. Her thoughts would sooner eat her alive than allow her to do something so mundane.

“You didn’t answer my earlier question, you know.” Were the words which greeted her as she stepped out of her room. She stiffened at the sound of the voice she would never probably be able to forget fully. There were lines on this Sasori’s face – proof he was a living, breathing human being rather than a puppet made to live forever. He was flesh and blood rather than porcelain and clay, and that was a stark change, or so she tried to reassure herself. Sasuke was different. Why couldn’t Sasori be so vastly different as well?

“Excuse me?” she mumbled, wracking her brain back to their breakfast table conversation – if that could be called a conversation, that was. She had barely contributed to that conversation beyond saying what was ‘wrong’ with her.

“Who do I need to kill?” Sasori asked, and there was no joke hidden away in those brown eyes of his. “You used to be all too eager to tell me which of your insipid classmates would get what was coming to them… yet now…”

“You know why I’m acting so different to how you remember me,” she stated, folding her arms across her chest. “I told you, after all… and you don’t need to kill anyone – not that I could even point you in the right direction. I don’t remember whatever it is that happened.” She scowled at the reminder of that; the ongoing war of the answer to that question as to whether she just couldn’t remember being tormented to the point of undergoing Negative Mana Reflux, or as to whether something else entirely had happened. She hated being in the dark – hated that insidious feeling that her mind was working against her, when that was usually her last bastion of trust and stability.

“Pity, that,” he murmured, and Sakura could only step around him, hairs on the back of her neck standing up on end as Sasori fell in step with her. “Where might you be going right now, darling niece of mine?”

“What business is it of yours?” she shot back, pausing in the wake of the silence which followed, part of her acknowledging that, perhaps, she was being a bit too harsh on the man she called uncle. “I’m, uh, not used to people butting into my business,” she tried, earning herself one perfectly sculpted red eyebrow arching up.

“You’re not used to people butting into your business… then what do you call those infernal little imps – your brothers, I mean – if not people?” he demanded, and Sakura could only blink at the realisation that her brothers were annoyingly good at sticking their noses in where they didn’t quite belong.

“Uh…”

“You seem to have some issue with myself personally, or perhaps you aren’t too fond of newcomers. I suppose I am a stranger to your… unique… perspective,” he acknowledged, and Sakura was hit with the wave of realisation that her uncle Sasori was actually quite rational. It was almost alarming to think that about anyone named Sasori, more so one who was the spitting image of his counterpart in the world she remembered.

“I’m going to exercise,” she said matter-of-factly. “Nothing interesting.”

“Apart from the fact that I have never seen you, of all my delightful relatives, exercise before,” he said. “Otherwise, yes, very uninteresting.”

“I don’t think watching someone run around the training grounds and wave a sword about is particularly interesting,” she grumbled, thinking of the embarrassment she would feel at Sasori, of all people, seeing her sweaty and comically out of breath. Not least because she’d been able to defeat him in one universe, and she had the distinct feeling that she would be incapable of doing so that time around. Her fitness had improved from the shambles it had been in when she had first arrived, yet it was a far cry away from what she had once been capable of, and Sakura was hardly about to deny that very fact which felt as though it might as well have been staring at her in the face.

“Shame, and here I was thinking I’d try to impart some of your mother’s homeland dagger techniques to her beloved only daughter,” Sasori said, sounding so infinitely disappointed then that she couldn’t help but wince at how utterly unsubtle he was being. “Pity. It seems you aren’t interested in them.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to learning some dagger techniques,” Sakura shot back, salivating ever so slightly at the thought of smaller, more easy concealed weapons and the proper techniques to use them with. Kunai and shuriken couldn’t be used the same way, similar to the differences there were between single bladed swords and double-edged blades. She would be a fool to turn down lessons in a weapon she had never used before.

“Would you now?” One red brow quirked up, a sardonic expression carving itself out on her uncle’s face. “Excellent. I suppose that means I’ll get to spend more time with my delightful niece who’s so happy to be interacting with her darling uncle,” he said, and then his hands were on her shoulders, pushing her towards the familiar path to the training grounds.

“Some daggers as gifts for your delightful niece wouldn’t go amiss,” she remarked, somewhat reluctantly allowing herself to be directed towards the training grounds she had already been heading for. Only it seemed as though she no longer had a choice in the matter of her training. Yet more training, no matter who it was with, could only be a good thing for her.

“I must say, this personality of yours suits you,” he said, and Sakura could help the way those words made her heart waver, as with anything which mentioned what she had once previously behaved like. Idly, she wondered if she would ever overcome that feeling of longing and disgust which all too often liked to plague her whenever thoughts of the past came to the forefront of her mind.

“You prefer me over whoever was here before, eh?” she grumbled, unable to stop the tinge of sourness that brought to both her voice and her mood.

“That would be highly illogical, seeing as you’re still you.” A hand ruffled her hair, and Sakura blinked, unable to compute the motion with Sasori. “Somebody simply dared to harm you, and believe me, darling niece, I intend to find out exactly who and deal with them as scum like that should be dealt with.”

“And if I told you not to?” she asked, wondering what his answer would be to that. “To leave it alone? Would you?”

“Of course not,” he said flatly.

“Not even if I said that it’s because I’d be more than happy to take care of things myself?” she questioned, stopping alongside her uncle in the corridor, harsh green eyes meeting the brown ones which widened in surprise.

Laughter belted out through the air, and Sakura couldn’t hide the shiver which ran down her spine at the glint of madness in his eyes. So similar to what she had seen, despite the fact those eyes had been nothing more than a doll’s eyes, supposedly glassy and lifeless. Sasori, no matter the universe, always seemed to defy expectations. “My,” he murmured. “I would love to say that you take after your mother, but that streak of viciousness is more something which would belong to me. Mebuki was always the sweet one, you see. The one who got me to stay my hand. I always thought her daughter would be more like her… like mother, like daughter, or so they like to say. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to have my expectations subverted.”

“You’re still going to teach me daggers, correct?” she demanded, doing her best not to show just how perturbed she was by the sudden outburst of emotions from her uncle.

Sasori grinned – an expression she had honestly never seen before on his face. “Come along, darling niece. There’s much for you to learn.”

She stared at the two daggers she had been gifted as promised, taking a moment to stare at the sheaths they were in – all leather and decorated tastefully. It was a far cry away from the simple yet effective kunai she was used to. Then again, she could hardly be surprised by such a thing at that point in her life in that strange distorted mirror of a world. She felt their weight in her palms, freezing in the midst of posing with her new daggers as her second eldest brother walked into her room.

“I guess I should have knocked?” he mumbled, and Sakura felt her cheeks heat up at that.

“What are you doing here?” she grumbled, sliding her newly acquired daggers carefully back into the sheaths, hating the bright red blush she could feel spreading across her cheeks to the very tips of her ears.

“Aw. Should I be offended that my darling sister forgot about the lessons that her dear older brother promised her?” Ren asked, tilting his head, looking oddly coy as he played with the ends of his long pink hair.

“What are we learning today?” she demanded, staring at him, previous embarrassment forgotten even as her brother beckoned her closer with a finger.

“Come along, my dear student – it’s library time,” he said. “Which means it’s mostly theory we’ll be covering today, what with how father might actually murder me if I did anything to his precious library.”

“It’s our library, isn’t it?” she questioned, raising an eyebrow at her brother, somewhat grateful for the fact it would be a theoretical lesson. She was exhausted enough form her uncle’s brand of training earlier that same day.

“I suppose, but father is the one who’s been expanding our repertoire of books most recently. Neither myself nor Ichiro have been able to contribute much to it just yet.” He tilted his head. “There’s a thought. Maybe I should figure out a research topic and publish a book or a paper on it?” A grin curled at his lips, even as he skipped towards the library and its moderately concealed entrance.

“Wouldn’t you have to write a book before you published it, brother?”

“Right you are, sister,” he said, looking relatively unfazed by the idea of writing an entire book and publishing it. “But for now, I’ll settle for teaching you some more about mana pathways, and mana breathing.” He pushed open the door to the library, ushering her inside.

A shiver ran down her spine, the shadows of the library seeming to loom that much darker and longer as sunset funny settled into the room. “Where abouts are we headed?” she asked, waiting for Ren to lead the way to whatever sector of the library he thought best.

“Come now, sister. Surely you’ve visited enough times to know where the magic or mana section is?” he asked, stepping around her and plunging through the towering shelves of book. “It’s where we always go whenever I have something new and interesting to teach you in this library.”

“You’ve made your point,” she grumbled, following him along to the purple-carpet section of the library. The place both she and Ren usually made themselves comfortable within.

“And what an excellent point it is,” he said, cheery grin fixed in place. “Come. Sit,” he ordered, indicating then to the armchair closest to him. “We might as well have a discussion and a question session so that you can learn all there is to learn about the chosen topics.”

“Mana pathways and mana breathing?” she asked, watching as he nodded with a grin, waiting for her outpour of questions. “I know a little about mana pathways already from the book you gave me.”

“Any questions?”

“None so far,” she said. “It seems pretty easy to understand. I’m more interested in learning some more about whatever this mana breathing is. It sounds like a technique.”

“Well, you’re right in that respect – it is a technique,” he explained, sinking back in his own armchair ever so slightly as he came into what she had long since learnt to be his element. “A meditative technique to help with clearing the mana pathways and circling your mana. I figured they go hand in hand—”

“REN!” their father’s voice echoed throughout the house, and Sakura could only blink at that. Her father didn’t sound angry, so she supposed Ren hadn’t done anything which merited being summoned for a scolding.

“Uh oh,” her brother mumbled. “Looks like I’m being summoned. Sorry, Sakura. If I’d known this was going to happen I would have rearranged this promised lesson of mine.” He frowned at that, looking so disappointed then that she actually felt the slight need to reassure him.

“If father’s calling for you, then it’s probably serious. Go,” she said, shrugging and trying to look as unbothered as possible – never mind the fact that she was rather disappointed she couldn’t learn anything else from her brother that evening. “I can explore the library for something interesting to read until you can find some time to teach me more.”

“I’m still getting used to you being such a good student… and so understanding,” he muttered under his breath. “Thanks, sis,” he said, and Sakura found her hair being ruffled a second time by another family member. Truly, it was slightly unnerving how much her family members liked to use the word ‘darling’ and how prone they were to ruffling her hair. “I’ll drag you back to the library another time – or maybe I can teach you how to perform mana breathing, now there’s an idea.”

“Mhm, ‘kay. Now go and see what father wants,” she said, watching as her brother hurried out of the library, the door behind him closing with a click which sounded rather final and eerie. “Let’s find me a book to read,” she mumbled to herself, wandering down an aisle of shelves and sighing softly as nothing seemed to catch her eye. She didn’t want anything too dry to read, and all of the titles she was seeing looked to be just that. She ran a finger across the titles of the many tomes, quietly revelling in the fact that there was no dust on them – something, perhaps, to ask Ren about, the next she saw him. Somehow, she had little doubt he would have an answer for that. Or perhaps Ichiro would? She tilted her head, eyes narrowing on the title of the book her finger had found itself resting on.

Daemons Most Foul: A Grimoire.

She blinked, acutely aware then, that at some point she had left the purple section of the library and had entered the dark red section. She paused for a moment, silently debating whether or not she wanted to read that book, something niggling at the back of her mind at that, even as her hand found itself pulling the tome free from the shelf. She set it down on the reading ledge, flipping it open and staring at the shadowy creatures drawn on each page with a gruesome detail to them. Her gut churned at the sight of those pictures, and she could only blink as a drop of red splashed down on the page.

Her hand went to her nose, the pain she felt there suddenly becoming that much more acute, even as her fingers came away stained in red. “What?” she mumbled, tasting copper as she stumbled back away from the book, the shelf it had come from suddenly seeming that much more ominous.

A growl rent the silence of the library, her heart leaping in her throat then, the frantic thud-thud of her heart making her hands tremble. Something was there. The shadow she could see, cast by the light in the centremost corridor, told her that she was no longer alone in the library.

Shadows moved and twisted, seeming to bubble as she idly wondered exactly when the amber sunlight had turned to grey. The world darkened, as if a cloud had blocked the sun, and she swallowed thickly at that. She needed to get out of there. Sakura wasn’t certain where the thought came from, fear making her heart beat that much faster, panic making her gasp despite the way she tried to rationalise exactly what was going on.

Yet she had no clue as to what was going on.

She thought of a door, carved with an unfamiliar sigil, part of her wondering why it made her heart beat that much quicker, fear suffusing through her.

Movement caught her eye, and she froze, abruptly spotting one of her brothers walking down the centremost aisle – the one she wasn’t on best terms with, no less. “Itsuki?” she called, relief seeping through her amidst the cold and darkness which was slowly beginning to seep into her bones. Even if he wasn’t on the best terms with her, there was someone else there in that library which seemed so ominous all of a sudden. Or maybe it was all a figment of an overactive imagination?

She reached out for her brother, freezing as something gelatinous and inky dripped onto her arm. “Oh,” she murmured, staring then into her brother’s blank white eyes. “Itsuki,” she pleaded, shivers curling down her spine as she dared to look up then just in time for a wave of inky black rain to descend upon the both of them. “Itsuki, wake up!” she screamed, voice lost to the din around them, even as her brother only blankly looked up to the ceiling and smiled.

Dizziness hit her, each black drop that landed on her skin making the world spin that much more. Blackness tinted the corners of her vision, part of her only able to watch as that gelatinous rain seemed to climb up her arms, its true intent unknown, before the darkness consumed her whole.

Chapter Text

“Sister!” a familiar shout pierced through the hazy murk she found herself trapped in. “Sister!” Ren called once more, a light tapping on her face making her groan softly even as her eyes cracked open. “Sakura.” Ren breathed a sigh of relief, and she could only ponder on why she was lying on the floor of the library. “What happened?” her brother demanded, looking uncharacteristically stern – an expression more suited to Ichiro, she mused, even as the events of—she squinted, noting the skyful of stars in the skylights and through the wall of windows on one of the upper floors—what could only have been a few hours previous came rushing back to her. She sat up with a start, almost headbutting her brother with the suddenness of the motion.

“Itsuki?” she mumbled, frantically looking up at the ceiling, remembering then the inky black blob behind the inky black rain which had lingered above them. The ceiling was clear, her view of the skylights unobstructed, and Sakura could only frown, feeling incredibly confused all of a sudden.

“What about Itsuki?” Ren questioned, looking as puzzled as her. “He actually came to dinner, unlike a certain someone.” His tongue clicked, and then he was pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and pressing it to her nose. “Your nose has been bleeding. Do you know what’s caused this, or should I sent for a doctor?” He frowned. “Unexplained nosebleeds do warrant some concern, especially given how you’ve only just recovered…”

“I’m fine,” she grumbled, grabbing a hold of the handkerchief and pinching her nose shut. “Itsuki was here. In the library. I saw him, before I, well… passed out,” she said, wincing at the sharp pain which started throbbing behind her temples. Her stomach chose that moment to growl loudly, and she hummed under her breath, trying to ignore the first pangs of hunger.

Ren blinked, expression turning wary, his hold on her suddenly becoming that much more gentle. “Sister, darling. I know Itsuki hasn’t been the kindest to you as of late, but even he wouldn’t be so callous as to abandon his unconscious sister in the library, more so without telling anyone.”

“But he was here, I saw him!” she exclaimed, waving her one free hand at the spot he had been standing before she had collapsed. “There was this dark inky rain, and Itsuki looked weird,” she explained, fearfully glancing up at the ceiling, remembering the eerie, creeping sense of fear which had filled the room. That ominous feeling was gone, seemingly nothing of it remaining, and Sakura could only grit her teeth and wonder exactly what was going on. “There was a dark blob on the ceiling.” She pointed up at the ceiling currently free from any gelatinous black blobs. “I’m not making this up!”

Ren looked at her, and Sakura had the creeping sense that he didn’t truly believe her, and there was something that stung about that very fact. “Did you, by any chance, venture into a section of the library with red carpet?” he asked, one pink brow raised in question.

“Well, yes—” Her eyes widened in realisation. “I bled on one of the books there!”

“Oh goddess, don’t tell father that—”

Sakura scrambled to her feet, frowning as she realised that she was no longer in that red-carpeted section. Had she been moved by that dark blob? Itsuki? She hurried back to where she knew the purple carpets were, tracing her footsteps from earlier. Purple turned to red, and Sakura could only frown at the empty reading ledge – the place she knew she had put that book down to flick through it. “It was here,” she declared, eyes frantically scanning the shelves and noting the gap in the row of books. “I took this book out,” she said, pointing at the empty space where the book whose title she couldn’t quite remember should have gone. “But now it’s gone. Itsuki must have taken it—”

“Or,” Ren cut her off, green eyes seeming so infinitely soft, “perhaps father or Ichiro took this book out. Earlier in the week,” he murmured, and Sakura felt her blood run cold.

“You don’t believe me,” she said flatly, hating that she felt the stinging of tears in the corners of her eyes at the seriousness of his expression.

“Sister,” Ren said gently, hands finding their way to her shoulders. “You’ve had a lot on your plate recently, and books on demons are not something you should be reading at your age – they gave me nightmares when I snuck into this section a few years back now.”

“But—”

“An after-effect of Negative Mana Reflux is hallucinations, sister,” he informed her, and Sakura could only blink numbly as that little snippet of information sunk into her brain. “Reading books on demons could only provide the worst kind of fuel for that much…”

A frown crinkled her brow. “But it felt so real – it was real,” she said almost cautiously, hating the wavering sense of uncertainty she felt towards what she had seen, suddenly feeling that much less sure of herself. “Why can’t you even consider the possibility that what I saw was real?” she demanded, folding her arms as if to ward over the cold she was feeling all of a sudden.

“There are wards around our property,” Ren explained, still sounding exceedingly gentle, and Sakura despised that gentleness in that moment. “They were checked a few weeks before your return, and they were fine and working.”

“Wards?” She met his stare, wondering then what she was supposed to trust in that world if she couldn’t trust what she had seen—felt, even. What could she trust if she couldn’t trust her five senses? That was a question she didn’t have an answer to. “What do they do?”

“Wards are a set of anchored sigils, carved into certain mana-conductive materials like marble or other stones – I mention marble because that’s what our wards have been carved in.” He smiled at that, yet it looked infinitely more strained than his usual grin. “Maybe I’ll take you to see them sometime… but those are what keep demons from entering this estate.” His hand slid to her back, urging her to walk forwards ever so numbly. “It’s impossible for a demon to be within these walls, sister.”

“But I saw it,” she mumbled, hating the way her voice wobbled, tears escaping her.

“I’m not saying that you didn’t see something,” he said gentle as ever. “Only that a lot of bad things have happened to you recently. One of which could have caused lasting aftereffects that we’re only beginning to see. Don’t cry,” he murmured, stopping just outside the library to wrap her in a hug she felt she sorely needed. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.”

“Upsetting your sister now, imp?”

Sakura stiffened, quickly wiping at her tears with her sleeve as best as she could, lamenting then that the last person who she wanted to see her crying was right there. What was it with Sasori’s habit of appearing out of nowhere? Idly, she wished she had that ability, before reminding herself that she could probably wrangle it once her chakra and body were in better shape.

“She’s not well, uncle,” Ren grumbled, looking highly affronted at the accusation.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, not knowing whether or not she was lying. How could she be fine when she wasn’t entirely sure of what she saw or heard? Like a genjutsu, only there was no simply way to break out from it.

“She’s hallucinating,” Ren stated as if that was a fact. Sakura could only desperately wish that wasn’t true – yet if it wasn’t true, then it meant a demon was within the bounds of the Haruno Duchy. Something which was apparently impossible according to her most knowledgeable brother. She didn’t know enough about demons to be certain of anything the contrary to what her brother said. Besides, who was she to dispute the knowledge of those who knew more about the logic of that world than herself? She hadn’t known that Negative Mana Reflux was a thing, nor that it could cause people to remember a past life until she had been told of it. Until others had realised what she must have gone through, and that her mind had hidden the events of it away. Sakura wondered if the one thing she had thought she could always rely on was somehow failing her. What could she trust, if not her own mind?

“She is also right here,” she grumbled, folding her arms with a huff. “If you’re going to discuss what’s wrong with me, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do it within my earshot.”

“Sakura, don’t say it like that,” Ren said, closing his eyes with a soft sigh.

“Well, if that’s a sensitive topic, then why don’t we simply discuss what we’re going to do with the ones who harmed you, darling niece?” Sasori spoke, an odd skip to his step that had her wondering if she was somehow hallucinating her apparent uncle’s existence for how strangely he behaved to her eyes.

“There’s no need for such dark talk—” Ren spluttered.

“Hang them by their entrails?” she offered, a dark, almost sardonic smirk curling at her lips at the look her brother shot her.

“A bit more of a gory suggestion than I thought you’d come out with,” Sasori acknowledged, his expression almost matching her own – and Sakura could only wonder about what that said about her and her uncle. “I prefer ensuring a swift death, or perhaps a drawn out one with poison. You need to be certain your enemy is dead, after all, ideally without wasting too much time on them. Otherwise that just complicates things.”

“Then you just watch them until you’re certain that they’re nothing more than a corpse,” she muttered, grimacing then at the side-eye she could feel Ren giving her. It bore into her like a focused ray of sunlight, only growing that much more intense with every second which passed.

“Any suggestions from yourself, imp?” Sasori questioned, giving her brother a passing glance then.

“Personally, I find this conversation distasteful,” Ren said flatly, lip curling in an expression which wouldn’t have looked out of place on Itsuki’s face. “We will find the culprits, the fiendish individuals who dared to attack a Haruno, and justice according to the law, not Sasori, will be meted out.”

“And that’s why, imp, you’ll make an excellent holy knight, should you decide to venture to those Holy Lands everyone keeps harking on about,” their uncle said, ruffling Ren’s hair, proving that she wasn’t the only one whose hair got ruffled by their many family members. “That stuffy attitude will make you fit right in.”

Sakura glanced down at her hands. “Would I not make a good holy knight?” she asked, wondering then if that career path was off the table to her already. Not that her chances as being a saintess hadn’t been ruined… only severely compromised, more than likely. A soft sigh escaped her, and Ren touched her shoulder.

“You can be whatever you want to be: saintess, holy knight, or whatever tickles your fancy,” Ren said, expression telling no lie. “Everything will be fine.”

Sakura wanted to believe him – she really did. Yet her mind was an uncomprehending, confusing place at that moment in time.

“Ah, so the prodigal child returns,” Itsuki drawled, and Sakura felt her left eye twitch at that, even as she sat at the breakfast table, feeling absolutely awful from the terrible night of sleep she had. Their father was conspicuously absent from the table, leaving only the four of them there, staff having returned to their other tasks.

“Itsuki,” Ichiro barked, levelling a glare in the direction of his younger brother, evidently taking over the mediation between them all. “What exactly is the matter with you?” her eldest brother demanded, pausing in his breakfast. “You’ve been snappish for weeks, and I’ve tolerated it thus far, but this is going too far now. Sakura hasn’t done anything to you – in fact, you barely see her outside of mealtimes. Apologise.”

Itsuki sighed, a long, drawn-out thing. “I apologise, sister,” he grumbled, glaring at his breakfast plate, even as he listlessly pushed his food around on its surface.

“What exactly is the issue, brother?” Ren asked, one pink brow raising in question. “Ichiro’s right. This isn’t like you at all.”

“I’m just tired is all,” Itsuki said, determinedly not meeting her eye as she glanced at him curiously. “And all everyone ever seems to be doing these days is running about after our darling sister.”

“If you want to spend time with us, then all you have to do is ask,” Ren said, voice as soft as it had been when he’d told her that she wasn’t well the night previous.

“Besides, if you have trouble getting to sleep, then you know I can help you,” Ichiro answered, and Sakura distinctly remembered the time he had helped her get to sleep dreamlessly. A shudder rolled down her spine at the memory of that, and she frowned, wondering why her grip had tightened on her cutlery.

The sound of ceramics shattering had her looking up, head moving to the left on instinct as something silvery embedded itself in the headrest of the chair.

“Itsuki,” Ichiro spoke, and Sakura only stared at her third brother, eyes narrowing on the shaking hands which had thrown—she side-eyed the implement buried in the fabric of the chair—the knife, seemingly on accident for how Ichiro wasn’t yelling at him. “Are you okay?” he asked, and Sakura could only sit there and watch the situation unfolding in front of her. “You don’t seem—”

“I’m fine,” Itsuki hissed, backing away from their eldest brother then, sparing a single wide-eyed look her way before he stormed out of the room.

“Well,” Sakura mumbled, the air of stillness to the room almost palpable. “That happened.”

“Are you alright?” Ren turned to her, eyes fixed on the knife buried in her chair. “That almost took your eye out.”

“I’m fine,” she mumbled, feeling like she was echoing her brother. Who she didn’t think was as fine as he claimed, but then again – neither was she. What a pair of liars they made… A soft sigh escaped her at that, the image of Itsuki standing in that library, blank-faced and white-eyed. “Have you ever seen anyone who looks awake, but their eyes are completely white?” she wondered aloud, pushing her eggs around her plate as she tried to muster the will to finish the last few bites of her breakfast.

“Yes,” Ren answered. “Yet that is hardly a discussion for the breakfast table, sister.”

“Does it have to do with demons?” she asked, shovelling the last few bites of her breakfast into her mouth.

Ren sighed softly, and Sakura knew that she wouldn’t like the next words out of his mouth. “Is this to do with the accuracy of your hallucination?”

“Hallucination?” Ichiro demanded, blue eyes fixed on her all of a sudden.

It was her turn to sigh then, pushing her chair back as she rose to her feet. “I will see you at lunch, brothers,” she said flatly, ignoring the way Ren called her name as she exited the dining room.

Her uncle leant against the wall opposite, a smile on his face as he spun a dagger in his palm. “Fancy spending some time with your darling uncle?” he asked, and Sakura couldn’t turn down the inevitable distraction that Sasori would bring. At least until her classes started back up in a week’s time.

“Sister!” Ichiro called, and Sakura could only glance up from one of the books Ren had left for her in her room.

“Come in,” she bade, uncertain of whether or not she would come to regret that much. She didn’t want to deal with her eldest brother being concerned over her hallucinations. Her teeth sunk into her lower lip, a niggling sensation in her gut just refusing to go away whenever she thought on the memory of what she thought had happened in the library.

“Ah, I’m just here to inform you that Madam Fuji has sent your order – it’s arrived here, I mean,” he said. “You’re the one who knows where you want to place it, so you’d be the best one to direct the maids.”

Sakura blinked, abruptly reminded that she wasn’t expected to ferry her clothing deliveries to her room. “Oh. Right. I can do that,” she said, setting down her book, placing her bookmark in, before she climbed to her feet and went to her cupboard.

“Lady Sakura,” a soft voice called, and Sakura could only blink and smile at the young maid who had an armful of clothing in varying shades of colours. “Where would you like your latest order of clothes?”

“We could move some of last season’s dresses to the storeroom?” another maid, whose name she thought was Aiko, offered.

“Um,” Sakura mumbled, silently debating as she stared at the full wardrobe and the clothing which was arriving. “Yes. Move old dresses to the storeroom,” she ordered, feeling vastly unsure of herself. Who knew they had a storeroom for her old dresses? Sakura certainly didn’t, and she was only reminded then of just how much she didn’t know still, despite the weeks she had been there for. “Thank you,” she said, feeling as though she ought to be helping as they bustled about, storing away her new clothes – something she could only be thankful for, what with the amount of dresses she had ruined whilst trying to do light exercise in them. Her only set of jodhpurs and riding gear had been drying on the line those days. A matter she no longer had to worry about, with the arrival of more trousers and shirts.

Somewhat awkwardly, she returned to her reading, knowing she would have more questions ready for when Ren next decided to drop by to teach her more about magic.

Chapter Text

“You seem distracted,” Ren murmured, eyes boring into her where she sat cross-legged on the floor. He sat opposite her, looking both concerned and somehow not in the blink of an eye. “Is something on your mind?”

“You know what’s on my mind,” she grumbled, sighing softly as he continued in his determined staring – as if that would get her to spill her truths out to him. It wouldn’t, not that she was about to let him know that much. “And I don’t particularly want to talk about it, okay?” she said, having spied him opening his mouth, undoubtedly to ask her another question in regards to those dreaded hallucinations.

“Very well,” he said, something like sorrow lingering in his gaze as he stared at her. “What do you want to cover in today’s lesson?”

Sakura tilted her head. “I suppose if I ask you to teach me about demons, then you’ll say—”

“No,” Ren stated. “Though I think you had already figured out that would be my answer. So what might be your second topic of choice?”

“Mana breathing,” she said plainly. “I want you to go through it with me in practice – not just theory – and then if we have time, I’d like to learn a bit about wards.”

Her brother visibly hesitated, concern waring with practicality. “I suppose that’s fine, though I won’t be showing you our family’s wards just yet. You should learn more about wards and how to not accidentally disturb them before I take you there,” he said, tapping at his lip, hand resting on his chin as he mentally debated over something. “So… Mana breathing it is.”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “Mana breathing.”

“Then let’s begin,” Ren mumbled, seemingly more to himself than anyone else. “Mana breathing, as I’ve probably mentioned before, is a meditative technique designed to help with mana control and improve the so-called ‘widening’ of mana pathways. Or ‘clearing’ the pathways, as you might have heard it…” he trailed off, pausing for a moment, as if searching for the right words to use as he sat there, rocking back and forth ever so slightly. “That’s what we’ll attempt to do today. You need to be sitting comfortably, and you need to maintain your focus. It’s very similar to cycling your mana, only there’s a breathing technique associated with mana breathing, and you move your mana according to your breathing. Hence why it’s called mana breathing.”

“Makes sense,” she replied, nodding along with him.

“The breathing pattern is quite simple – in, hold for five seconds, out, hold for five seconds, and repeat,” Ren explained. “While holding your breath, you want to move your mana, and when you’re breathing in and out, you want to pause. Beginners often find it easier to increase the length of the pause between those breaths, since it gives them more time to focus. Intermediate stage is when you’re aware of mana outside your body, and advanced stage is when you begin to be able to recover internal mana through breathing in that external mana.”

“So for the time being I’m just breathing and moving internal mana?” Sakura questioned, pondering then on just how that technique could be applied. Was it something similar to sage mode, that external mana? She could only theorise, a mere fledgling when it came to understanding mana and magic.

“That’s right,” Ren answered, smiling encouragingly. “Do you want to try and practice while I’m here?”

“Of course,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Then close your eyes,” he replied, “and focus.”

Sighing softly, she did as asked, grasping a hold of the pool of mana she could feel in her chest. She breathed in, eyes snapping open when her mana refused to budge. A frown marred her face, annoyance swirling in her gut as she tried to push her mana through a familiar route – through her holy gate and into the rest of her body. Yet there was an odd sensation of resistance when she tried to do that. As if she was trying to push her mana through the wrong gate. “It’s not working…” she grumbled, feeling frustrated at her lack of sudden progress when it came to mana. “Something’s wrong with my mana flow…”

“Don’t force it,” Ren cautioned. “You have all the time in the world to get the hang of this technique, sister.”

“Not really, I don’t,” she muttered, frustration roiling in her belly as she tried to move her mana normally – only to encounter that same resistance once more. It was strange, what with how she hadn’t struggled with moving her mana before.

“Trying to rush things will only make it worse,” Ren said flatly, and Sakura only sighed once more. “Let’s move onto something else for now – I can teach you some warding basics.”

“Mn. ‘kay,” she grumbled, less than pleased to be moving onto something else so quickly – not least when she thought she’d have been able to practice mana breathing for a lot longer than she had. Not withstanding that she had failed at the first hurdle, and a hurdle she had been able to pass many a times before that… She frowned, doing her best to concentrate on what Ren was saying, even as something niggled at her stomach, whispering in her ear telling her that she’d missed something important and vital.

Instincts were pesky things like that.

Books on warding were surprisingly informative, and idly, Sakura wondered if that was why Ren had given her books on warding – if only to supply her with new material to learn in the hopes that she wouldn’t return to the library and sneak into the demon section of the library. “The demon king,” she murmured, remembering then what the basis of the world she had been dumped into. A storyline that might be played out, no matter if she was no longer a puppet dancing to the author’s tune. She flopped back in her desk chair, abruptly reminded of the truck and her untimely death, all thanks to an overzealous fan who couldn’t separate fiction from reality.

Tears bit at the corners of her eyes, frustration for what she couldn’t do eating at her vehemently until she sprang to her feet and strutted over to her wardrobe. “Angry exercise it is,” she muttered, casting the doors to her wardrobe open and surveying all her neatly hung or folded clothing. “I actually have a choice now,” she mumbled to herself, part of her grinning at the prospect of not having to wear the same clothes over and over again. The jodhpurs she had been wearing, and the single shirt she had owned prior were looking a bit more worn out than they probably should have.

Her eyes were drawn to a beige-brown set of trousers suitable for exercise, and she leafed through the neat stack of tops folded on one of her shelves until she found a suitable long-sleeved green top. There were faint patterns on the top – more than she could say for the last shirt she had owned, which would probably have to go into storage, or whatever counted as fabric disposal there, soon enough. A quick glance in the mirror told her that she looked mildly colour coordinated, and she could only tie her hair back in a quick ponytail with the green ribbon one of her brothers had said suited her before she was hurrying out of the door.

Sasori was surprisingly nowhere in sight, and Sakura only debated on which one of her relatives he was bothering instead. Though she seemed to be a favourite of his to bother, but part of her knew that was because she was relatively shiny and new. He would lose interest eventually, and Sakura could only pray that would be long before he decided to venture back to Suna. Although he would be staying a considerable length of time, what with how long the travel was between Suna and there. That and the fact he hadn’t visited them for a few years.

Afternoon sunlight hit her skin, an awkward and tense lunchtime with her brothers having already passed her by. More of Itsuki behaving badly, it had been, with a side of trauma on her behalf. Both her father and her uncle seemed to be able to avoid them at mealtimes – besides dinner, more often than not, it was.

Wind ruffled her hair, a chilly breeze in the air. A fact which had leant itself to her choosing a long-sleeved top in which to begin her usual exercises in. She started running, ignoring the prickly, uncomfortable sensation that she was being watched. A hum escaped her. Who knew if her uncle was the one behind that? Or perhaps her father was keeping an eye on her from his office? Nobody could forget how recently she had passed out thanks to a mysterious nosebleed.

Her health was one of many topics usually discussed at the dining room table, a fact she had slowly, if somewhat reluctantly, come to accept. Her father had likely already heard of her so-called hallucination. Yet something in her couldn’t quite accept that as reality. Even if it probably was. What her family had been saying about Negative Mana Reflux had all been true so far, no matter the part of her which liked to play devil’s advocate.

Feet pounded against the dry ground of the training field, herself running laps of it having quickly become a pastime of hers. It was either that or bunny-hopping up the stairs, and her relatives had been rather obvious about which they preferred to catch her doing. There was something unseemly about bunny-hopping it seemed.

She glanced at the wall, specifically the wall she knew which was out of sight of father’s office. It wasn’t the trees she had once learnt to run up, but it was close enough, Sakura decided. Her foot hit the wall, chakra ensuring it stuck, and she sighed in relief as one thing worked properly for her that day. Her next foot stuck to the wall as she ran up the wall, launching herself off and backwards as she reached the top of the stone balustrade.

Air whipped past her as gravity took hold, feet landing on the hard ground, chakra cushioning the impact as she landed perfectly. Resisting the urge to do a little victory dance, she sighed in relief, confidence in her abilities returning ever so slightly. She didn’t dare reach for the mana in her chest and disappoint herself with the frustration in regards to that.

Her shoulders sunk as she re-entered the house, clothes dirtied with slight amounts of sandy dirt and sweat. There was probably just enough time for a bath before dinner, she mused to herself, sighing softly as she wandered upstairs to her usual bathroom and drew herself a bath to wallow in for a while. Before the thought of food inevitably drew her from her room to the dining table downstairs. “What bath salts to use today?” she wondered, debating between the blue-coloured ones which smelt like bluebells, and the pink ones which smelt like roses.

It ended up being blue, and she could only sigh softly as she all but dived into the warm waters. The insidious feeling of being watched was gone, much to her own delight, leaving only mellowness and serenity behind.

Part of her wanted to think it odd, how that feeling had vanished, but she supposed nobody would really spy on her in the bath. Not her family, at the very least. Which only leant credence to the idea that she was simply being paranoid and hallucinating about gelatinous black blobs which rained down upon people. Yet another sigh escaped her at that, frustration clawing at her bones at the thought that she was wrong and that there was something wrong with her.

The idea that she could no longer trust everything she saw, and that in itself was a very dangerous thing. She gritted her teeth, long since having finished washing out her hair and scrubbing every inch of skin. There was a splash of water as she exited the bath, wrapped up in a fluffy towel.

A sudden crack rang out in the air, and Sakura froze at the sound, tracing it back to its origins: a mirror. Once a whole and unblemished surface, yet right then it was a mass of uneven cracks radiating from a single point. As if something had punched the mirror, going by the impact and the way fragments of mirrored glass fell to the ground.

She certainly hadn’t punched it, and she knew that for a fact.

Idly, she wondered if anyone would believe her if she told them a random, rather large mirror had cracked on its own, seemingly of its own volition.

A creeping, repulsive shiver curled down her spine, and she shuddered at that, turning her back on that cracked mirror and walking back to her room without a second thought or glance back.

There was a murkiness in the air, she found as she stood somewhere she couldn’t quite remember going to. Shards of rock littered the ground, spiked up haphazardly, creating a little maze of sorts. Part of her wanted to say that she was on top of a mountain, for all the shades of grey and reddish-orange which decorated the landscape. Yet the lack of wind was making her hesitate, a jarring sense of inconsistency to that odd place.

A dream, part of her seemed to whisper.

A crow cawed, the bird perched on a tall plinth of grey rock which looked like a jagged tooth. Black eyes stared into her own, a loud caw piercing the air before the bird took flight with a flap of its wings.

An omen, that same part of her whispered, and something told her that she would be a fool not to listen to that part of her which was so intuitive. That was what she needed, after all, to survive in that strange place: a mix of logic, learning, and intuition.

She stepped forwards, knowing she was on a path out of that maze of jagged stone. Her foot sunk into the black liquid she hadn’t seen, an awfully loud splosh echoing through the still air. It was almost eerie – how quiet things were, and a part of her was so infinitely worried about that fact. Too quiet meant there was a large predator afoot. Sakura wanted to think that was herself, yet that same part of her which whispered of dreams and omens told her there was something more to it. Something which lingered just out of reach.

Her other foot stepped into that black liquid, knowing then that it lined the path to outside – wherever that might be. She needed to go there, she knew, pulled forwards into that deepening pool of inky black liquid. It was freezing, the cold almost enough the burn her skin, but she could only step forwards, transfixed by the lure of the outside.

She was waist deep in that black liquid before she knew it, hands dripping with gelatinous black liquid like treacle as she glanced between them and the structure she could see faintly in the distance.

A gate.

A way out.

Something grabbed her ankle, the rocky ground beneath her feet seeming to vanish as she was pulled under. Darkness closed over her head, cold and icy—

Sakura shot up in bed, heart beating frantically as she woke up from the strange dream-turned nightmare. Or had it always been a nightmare? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she was awake and terrified. Her heart throbbed beneath her fingertips as they scrunched up her nightgown, dimly trying to reassure herself that it was only a nightmare.

Movement caught her eye, heart faltering beneath her hand as she stared at a pool of inky black liquid spreading out from underneath the door to the corridor. She gritted her teeth, part of her trying to remind herself that it was a hallucination. According to her brother, in any case, and yet…

As quickly as that inky black substance had spread, it seemed to stop, its growth stagnating before shrinking back. It was as if someone had made it a film and then hit the rewind button. The darkness receded back out into the corridor, and Sakura could only stare at the doorway, heart beating ever so frantically at the thought of what was out there.

Nothing, if it were just a hallucination.

Sakura wondered why she couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t.

“Those are some impressive eyebags,” Ren remarked conversationally at the breakfast table.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she mumbled, feeling generally awful and not in the mood for Ren’s cheery demeanour. It made her feel oddly jealous for some reason. Because he could sleep – not having to worry about whether or not his mind was betraying him. Her teeth clenched, the worry that idea brought to the forefront of her mind making her stomach curl, even as she shovelled in another few forkfuls of breakfast. Something told her she needed all the strength she could get to face the oncoming day.

“Nightmare?” Ichiro asked, blue eyes boring into her green ones seriously.

“Of a sorts, I suppose,” she answered, shoulders sinking as she thought on the dream which had stuck with her in an annoying permanent fashion. It was as if the details of that dream had been engraved into her retinas. It made her feel scared to go back sleep.

“Hallucination?” Ren questioned, and Sakura sighed deeply, burying her face in her hands.

“Not everything has to be a hallucination, brother,” she grumbled, closing her eyes and wishing she could go to sleep. Yet it was nighttime that she wanted to sleep through – if only she could ignore the image of gelatinous black liquid which seemed to want to haunt her. She couldn’t seem to escape it, not even in her dreams. Wistfully, she longed for the days of sleep where she couldn’t remember her dreams.

“I can help you get to sleep again,” Ichiro said, and that offer brought a full body shudder coursing through her. Pain pulsed in her temples, part of her demanding that her brother kept his hands to himself and nowhere near her forehead. The want was a strange one, almost feeling foreign in nature. Yet that idea made no sense. How could thoughts be foreign? Pain pulsed in her head again, sharper that time.

“’m fine,” she said, wincing visibly then as her newly formed headache assailed her with vengeance.

“Come here,” Ichiro spoke, and she could see the pulsing white light trapped beneath the skin of his right hand. “You’re in pain,” he said flatly, and Sakura could only stare at him and that white light which repulsed something within her.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, staring at that white light and wondering exactly what it was she was seeing. She had never seen something pulsing under another’s skin before.

“I can heal you,” Ichiro said, standing up and advancing on her. “Even if you seem to be intent on attempting to tough it out, it does no good to deny—”

It was instinct that had her moving, cartwheeling over the table and into a chair on the side she usually sat in for meals all in an effort to avoid her eldest brother and his healing hands. She swallowed at that, something telling her that she needed to move and get out of that room.

The door shut behind her with a distinct click.

“Why are the two of our siblings behaving so strangely?” Ichiro asked, voice muffled by the door. Sakura could only wonder if she was behaving strangely. Then pain pulsed in her head again, a quieter part of her whispering why? Why had she run away from healing magic when that could take care of the pain in her head and allow her to think clearly? She winced, eye twitching as pain throbbed behind it then, moving down from her temples to bother the rest of her head.

“Puberty, perhaps,” Ren offered.

Sakura liked to think she could feel the unamused look that Ichiro was undoubtedly giving their cheeriest brother behind closed doors. A smile curled at her lips, feet moving then to carry her back to her room where she could ride out the rest of the headache currently assailing her. Perhaps with a good book to pass the time, given how she wasn’t about to try and have a nap.

That sounded like a plan, she mused to herself, hurrying along the corridor and back to her room. She paused a couple of steps into her bedroom, wavering in her decision to read as the prospect of a bath came to mind.

A bath sounded good, she decided. It also sounded less like it might exacerbate her headache.

Yawning, she went to run a bath, choosing the lavender bath crystals to soak in from the get go. Steam filled the air, humidity soaring in the room, and Sakura only sighed at that, silently reminding herself that falling asleep in the bath wasn’t a good idea.

It would likely only bring back memories of that dream where that cold, inky black water had closed over her head and woken her up. She shivered at the memory of that, catching sight of her reflection in that cracked mirror she had yet to report to her father as needing replacing. She hardly wanted anyone to think that she had destroyed a mirror. Not when Ren already believed her to be hallucinating. She could already see the picture that might paint in their eyes.

Though she supposed it was only a matter of time until one of her maids came to clean the bathroom and noticed the cracked mirror.

The same mirror which was currently showing many fractured reflections of her.

One of which was staring at the ruined mirror with blank white eyes.

Chapter Text

Part of her wanted to laugh, while the other half of her wanted to cry. The image in that cracked mirror haunted her. She knew she had green eyes – she saw them in the normal mirrors and other reflective surfaces in her room. Which meant that her eyes were normal. She was seeing things which weren’t there. Hallucinating. Her stomach felt as though it had bottomed out, something heavy and unsettling settling into her gut as she tried to think of a logical explanation to it.

Yet if she wasn’t hallucinating, then it was the work of a demon, and Sakura knew far too little about such things. So why weren’t her feet already treading the hallways which led to the library? Sakura could only ponder on that, part of her wanting desperately to go while the other half of her told her that she couldn’t. She wasn’t allowed. Yet that made no sense… It wasn’t like she had been banned from the library. “Why don’t I want to go to the library?” she asked her whole, unblemished reflection, hand curling up into a fist as her mind jumped into trying to figure the demon angle out.

It was better than desperately trying to convince herself that she wasn’t going mad.

Logic was like a balm to her mind in times like those. Yet even that balm of logic couldn’t stop the knot of tension building behind her temples. Headaches were a constant problem for her those days. Her eyes shot open, narrowed on her reflection then. Logic dictated that there was a cause behind headaches, more so when they were coming so frequently. Generally an indicator of an underlying health condition, and Sakura would know all about that. Her profession was healing first and foremost. Her head pulsed with pain once more, determined to not be forgotten about.

“First, look for a commonality between occurrences,” she mumbled, repeating the instructions which had once been drilled into her mind. Along with an instinct for dodging flaming balls thrown at her with enough force to snap a tree in half. She closed her eyes, casting away that fond, wistful feeling that came to rest in her chest at the memory of it all. She was dead to her once-mentor, after all. Rather, she had a far more pressing matter – demons, her headaches—her eyes narrowed—and the slim possibility that there was some sort of correlation between them.

Either that or she was slowly going mad.

Shivers rolled down her spine, hairs on the back of her neck standing up on end as she paced her room, biting her lip furiously. “Think, Sakura,” she whispered to herself. “Think.” She gritted her teeth, acknowledging then that she might be making some assumptions – some leaps of logic. Yet she could always go and confirm information to test if her hypothesis was correct. “Commonalities… What am I doing right now?”

She had a headache, and if she wasn’t considering the possibilities of the supernatural she would have thought it perhaps a stress related headache… who knew that thinking about demons could be so stressful? She snorted at the thought, sighing deeply before she paused.

“Thinking about demons,” she mumbled, as if hearing the words spoken aloud might help her piece everything together that much more easily than trying to keep all her thoughts locked up in that head of hers. “The idea of Holy Magic being used on me,” she added, remembering the way she had cartwheeled over the table in an awe-inspiring feat of dexterity she hadn’t quite managed to repeat as of just yet. “Is… dark magic associated with demons?” She chewed on her lip, pain flaring in her head once more, and she decided enough was enough. There was no logical reason not to go to Ichiro and let him heal her. She wasn’t in the habit of being illogical. “I need to find brother,” she mumbled, fastening her newfound resolution to find her eldest brother and get him to heal her, sudden aversion to holy magic or no. “He can heal me…” she trailed off, shivering once more as the temperature in her room seemed to drop by about ten degrees.

Stepping towards the door, she gritted her teeth, ignoring the sudden wave of pain in her head, arm reaching for the door handle when something dripped down on her skin. Black liquid trickled down her arm, and Sakura froze for the barest of seconds before she stumbled back on instinct. Her foot caught the edge of the rug, backside landing firmly on the floor with a loud thud. Those black drops rained down, a black puddle forming in front of the door, trapping her there in her room. A space which ought to have been safe. If one ignored the black liquid which had been there in the night, and which was there right then. She swallowed thickly, staring at the black patch on the ceiling. It was as if the damp had come in, only it was black and dripping that viscous black liquid.

Something cool wrapped around her ankle, a whimper escaping her and she spotted an inky black puddle forming beneath her. “A hallucination,” she wished ever so frantically, part of her wishing she had never theorised about demons. That the inky black liquid would leave her alone. That her brother was there to see and explain whether or not she was going mad or whether a demon or some other strange creature was there in the estate.

She lunged forwards, intent on getting out of that dark puddle, a cry escaping her when her hands slipped in that black liquid. Her knee sunk down into what should have been floorboards coated with whatever that black substance was. One hand shot out, the other finding purchase in that dark puddle, intent on grabbing something which could help her pull herself out of that strange darkness which seemed to want to swallow her whole.

“Why does it always have to be the natural holy-users who are always so difficult to possess properly?” the voice was like nails scraping over metal sheets, and she froze in her frantic struggling, something in her lizard hindbrain suggesting at her to not move a muscle.

Black liquid bubbled up in front of her, a little molehill of that gelatinous black slick forming just in front of her. Wrinkles appeared on its surface, edges of black slime parting to reveal one wholly crimson eye, slitted pupil and all.

Something in her shrivelled up at the sight, breath catching in her throat as she stared at what could only be a demon. If she wasn’t somehow experiencing a bizarre, far too sensational, hallucination. Was she right? Even though the wards of the Haruno Duchy were supposed to keep them off the property…

“I suppose a baby saintess is still a saintess… and a saintess is a threat which needs to be taken care of,” it declared, and Sakura wondered if that was how she was going to die for a second time. Her teeth ground together, a hand curling into a fist. She wasn’t about to die pathetically and without a fight again. She snarled, her fist swinging out in a way which still felt far too awkward. It slammed into that slimy black face, green eyes widening when nothing happened. It’s body was liquid, part of her whispered softly, which meant it was probably rather good at absorbing impacts like her beloved punches. Tears crept into the corners of her eyes, frustration welling up within her at that, even as laughter came from the monster in front of her. “Hush now,” the thing almost seemed to purr. “It will all be over soon.”

That black liquid surged up from the puddle which was far too deep to be natural atop a hard, flat floor, vine-like tendrils curling up her neck. Her eyes widened, a choked sound escaping her as that substance forced its way down her throat, cutting off her oxygen. Green met red, panic meeting dark amusement even as a hand tried to grasp futilely at that liquid slithering down her throat.

It slid past her fingers, snaking into her mana channels, nausea curling in her gut as black spots danced in front of her eyes. She didn’t want to die. The helpless plea came to her, part of her vastly aware of just how quick her last death had been, even as the darkness came up to greet her ever so slowly and she fell into the dark puddle beneath her.

Her eyes opened slowly, tongue feeling fuzzy as she ran it over her teeth. The back of her head felt like someone had replaced her brain with densely-packed cotton wool, confusion being her most prevalent feeling as she lay there on her side. Her cheek twinged, part of her intimately aware that the impressions that the shaggy rug had left on her left cheek as she pulled herself to her hands and knees.

What had happened? Her brow furrowed, mind reaching for memories which didn’t seem to want to come as she tried to figure out exactly what had led to her lying on the floor of her room when there was a perfectly good bed a matter of feet away.

A knock came at the door. “Sister,” Ren called softly, and Sakura only stumbled to her feet, limbs feeling like blocks of lead as she staggered her way to her bedroom door. “It’s time for dinner – Ichiro sent me to come and get you.”

“Brother,” she greeted, the words feeling forced even if they didn’t sound it. He was a threat, after all. Sakura blinked, brow furrowing before something in her made her relax and smile instead. A grin which felt plastic and fake. “Shall we go?” she asked, sounding far too bubbly and cheery. It was enough to even make her brother blink in surprise.

“Sister…” he trailed off, brow furrowing. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine – no need to worry,” she declared, the words sounding alien and fake to her own ears, yet her mouth was moving on its own, the words ringing out without her say so. She tried to move her arms, tried to shove a hand on her chin so she could stop speaking and alert her brother to the intrinsic sense of wrongness she felt. Yet her hands remained by her sides, and a smile remained on her lips.

“I have never seen you this cheerful,” Ren said, eyes narrowed on her, and something in her brain started chanting threat. The part which wasn’t was silently cheering her brother on to notice that something was ever so wrong with her.

“Am I not allowed to be cheery?” the thing moving her mouth asked, even as she screamed inside and batted at whatever invisible walls were preventing her from screaming at her brother to check whether or not she was possessed. She should have done it earlier, before—

Her eyes narrowed. Before what?

“No. It is just, well, unusual,” he mumbled, and Sakura felt whatever hope she had that her brother might rescue her from the new hell she found herself trapped within dying a swift death as her feet trod the path to the dining room. “Are you not going to pepper me with questions regarding demons, sister?” he asked, tilting his head, looking at her expectantly.

The thing controlling her body smiled, her brow crinkling in confusion. “What are demons, brother?” the thing asked, sounding confused enough that it even threw her brother through a loop. Sakura only wondered on why that thing controlling her actions was acting like that. To blend in with the environment one had to act in a way which induced the least suspicion possible, and yet…

Ren laughed, the sound awkward and nervous. “Good one,” he remarked. “You almost had me fooled there for a moment…” His smile barely concealed how thrown and uncertain he was, and Sakura silently begged him to figure things out. He was smart. Whether he was intimately acquainted with the knowledge of demons and possession was another question entirely.

Mentally, she frowned. Why had her brain leapt to possession?

Pain pulsed in her head, a molehill of black inky liquid with a bulbous red eye swimming in front of her vision, even as her body continued to move calmly towards the dining room. Like a puppet on strings, only the strings were hidden within her body well enough that no one could apparently see them for what they were. Her heart sunk, part of her fearing then for what was to come, even as she wracked her brain, memories trickling in like glue as she remembered the puddle and the way that gelatinous black goop had forced its way down her throat and inside her.

She would have panicked if she could – would have clawed at her own throat as if she could somehow grasp a hold of that viscous black liquid and wrench it out from wherever inside her it had settled. Her heartbeat being the only thing which raced as she sat down at the dining room table placidly, smiling at her father and her other two brothers along with the uncle who was looking at her with his brow furrowed. Notice, she chanted in her mind, that being her sole mantra as she could only watch herself eat.

Her eyes locked with Itsuki’s blue ones, an odd sort of resonance between them as she smiled and ate her food. Not threat, that part of her whispered, and Sakura remembered those blank, white eyes her brother had – that she had in that distorted reflection of hers she’d only viewed once.

They were both possessed, she decided, mentally heaving a sigh that went unnoticed  by everyone. Her and Itsuki were possessed.

None of their family seemed to notice a thing.

She breathed out a shaky sigh, clenching and unclenching her hand as she marvelled at the ability to control her own body once more. For however long it lasted. She swallowed, tiredness eating at both her limbs and her eyes as she stared out of one of her many windows in her bedroom. The sky was speckled with numerous stars, and idly she noted the fact that she ought to learn whatever constellations there were – or other marking points the stars made. They were a good navigation tool. Not that navigation tools would help her with the precarious situation she found herself in.

Her hands fell limply to her sides, a leaden weight coming to rest in her chest as she found her body wrested from her control once more. How frustrating and terrifying it was to be a puppet on strings; a marionette only able to dance to a demon’s tune. Her teeth clenched, and Sakura could only blink at the expression she had been able to make before it vanished in the blink of an eye.

Footsteps were soft against the rug laid out on the floor, movement catching the corner of her eye as another person fell into step next to her.

Itsuki.

Together they walked, footfalls in sync, down the corridor and onto a familiar route which led to a place she was intimately familiar with. They were going to the library, she realised, only able to watch as her body and Itsuki’s plodded along unceasingly to the beat of an unknown drum. The strings of a demon nobody had realised to have settled there somehow.

Unless she was simply going mad, and yet somehow she didn’t think she was.

The reflection in the mirror caught her eye, two sets of blank, white eyes visible, and Sakura felt herself mentally shudder at that. Was Itsuki the same as her? Trapped in his own body, only able to mentally cry for help from the rest of their family. Idly, she wondered what Ichiro or Ren would do if they spotted them walking the corridors, blank white-eyed and all. She wondered what they would do in her position. She wondered if they’d be able to figure something out.

Yet they weren’t there, and they weren’t the ones possessed, and all Sakura could do was watch as she opened the door to the library and led the both of them inside.

Black puddles formed, and yet this time around there was no distinct change in the air, no creeping sense of fear rolling down her spine. Rather there was only a smile on her lips as a familiar shape rose from the gelatinous puddles, a red eye blinking open and staring at them in glee, even as she screamed all the while from within the depths of her mind.

Chapter Text

Why bother? That insidious voice whispered to her in her head as she sat in the library, reading a book on the sly about demons. She didn’t know whether that voice was real – whether it was something of her own mind’s making, or whether it was that thing inside her, affecting her in ways she hadn’t thought possible.

She didn’t know which she would prefer.

Being a puppet was bad enough on its own without whatever was inside of her quite possibly whispering to her mind as well. Yet her puppet strings only came to tug when she was around others more so than when she was alone, she had come to figure out. Though that did nothing to change the fact that those puppet strings still existed, whether she liked them or not.

“Demons feed off mana and blood,” she read aloud, heart pounding in her chest as she wondered whether or not she was being watched. Whether or not she was a ‘threat’ to the demon which had somehow slipped by the wards that were supposed to be protecting her home. Yet she didn’t understand enough about warding – didn’t understand enough of the logic of that world – to be able to work things out by herself. And by herself she was, cut off and isolated from help by her own body itself. “The main reason that humanity cannot coexist with such beings.”

Shudders ran down her spine, a familiar drop of black liquid heralding the arrival of what she presumed to be the main body of the demon. Her hairs were stood up on end, she noted, as was always the case whenever the bulk of that slime demon – or whatever its proper name was – was nearby. A sign that it was there to torment her, or whatever it was that the creature wanted from her. Was it already feeding on her mana, as the book said? She didn’t know, and it grated on her.

What do you want? She wanted to demand of that black, gelatinous blob which shouldn’t have been nearly as menacing as it was. That was, if she was at the strength she had once been at. Yet she wasn’t, and a part of her bubbled, simmered, and festered with rage. She wanted to crush that blob into nothingness, ensure that sole red eye never opened again, but it was the puppeteer and she merely the puppet who danced to its whims. The same whims that would never wish for its own self-destruction.

“Soon,” it promised, inky tendrils seeming to pet at her hair almost tenderly as she sat there on her stool, books on demons piled up next to her, and she could have sworn the thing was smiling at her – the fact it didn’t have teeth or lips not withstanding.

As quickly as that monster had come, it left, a puddle of viscous black goo vanishing into the floorboards without a sign of its passing. Part of her slumped in relief at that, the other part of her frantically wondering about what it meant by soon. Soon what? Soon she would become its dinner? Soon it would be finished with whatever it wanted there? She could only grit her teeth and fume to the best of her ability. Helplessness was not something she enjoyed feeling – not after she had grown from the genin in the Forest of Death she had once been.

The door to the library clicked open, part of her cursing at the only person it could be. Phantom strings tugged at her limbs, a smile which wasn’t of her own making curling at her lips gently, even as her eyes remained focused on the book in front of her. Demons could possess living hosts or corpses – the fresher the better, she read, feeling a familiar green-eyed stare fixing upon her and the books she had stacked up beside her.

“Sister,” Ren greeted.

“Brother,” she replied, it being something she was allowed to say. Certainly, she couldn’t beg for help – couldn’t tell someone about the demon possessing her and Itsuki or just speak about demons in general. Whatever was suppressing her free will had only – or, perhaps, could only – restrict her in certain ways barring a complete overtaking of her body. It wasn’t particularly smart in terms of acting ordinarily, at least for a human. That was why she had a sliver of hope that her brother might spot something odd and investigate.

Yet he hadn’t known her as she was for too great of a length of time, and he seemed to be treading on eggshells around her.

“I thought you said you had given up on your researching of demons,” Ren said gently, fingers drifting towards the books she had selected out, twitching as though he wished to take them off her hands.

“I wanted to read,” she answered, the familiar weight of a restriction coming to rest on her tongue as she thought of what she wanted to tell him about the reason behind her frantic interest in all things demonic.

“But why those books?” he asked, frowning as he took in the numerous titles she had absconded with from the shelves. “I thought you would have been more interested in magic… mana and its many uses.”

“Then evidently you don’t know me very well,” she said, wishing she could have said something besides that going from the crushed look on Ren’s face. Those words would only make him that much more unsure of what her brother truly knew about her. She tilted her head. Maybe whatever offshoot of that demon within her had more sense and cunning than she thought? “Why are you here, brother?”

“It’s a library, dear sister,” he answered softly, gesturing to the towering bookcases around the little reading section. “Am I not allowed to come and read?”

She stared at him, willing herself not to say anything before she turned back to her book with a sigh. It didn’t seem that he would be figuring things out anytime soon. Yet she couldn’t simply wait around to be rescued. She was a source of food to the monstrous being roaming their household, and her family weren’t spared from being the exact same thing. Soon, it had promised, and Sakura had no idea what was coming her way. There was no time to wait around, she had long since decided, her brain still trying to race to figure out a solution.

Yet to do anything, she first had to be free of the thing possessing her, and she had yet to come across any clear-cut method of self-exorcising herself just yet. Anything she had already scoured seemed to require another person who had loosened their holy gate who was also aware that she had been possessed. Could Ren use holy magic? She frowned, knowing that he could definitely use water and earth. Ichiro, on the other hand, could definitely use holy magic to some degree. Whether it was enough to exorcise a demon was another question entirely. One she couldn’t ask her brother, thanks to her irritating state of being possessed.

Movement caught her eye, the seat opposite her pulled out as a stack of books on magic were levitated down on the table opposing her.

“Do you have any questions, sister?” Ren locked eyes with her across the table.

“I thought you weren’t answering them when it came to this?” she spoke, eyes darting to her stack of old-looking books. They were thick, pages having an unfamiliar weight to them, the words sometimes handwritten rather than printed. Something which pointed to it being an uncommon book, one not as mass-produced as the rest.

“Well, seeing as you’re not heeding my advice, and I can hardly ban you from the library…” he trailed off, shaking his head, and Sakura almost wanted to feel angry at the idea of her brother trying to ban her from the library – the one place she might be able to find answers. Yet she couldn’t muster the will to. A side-effect of her ongoing possession, or so she liked to think: an unending pit of exhaustion and stress. “The least I can do is ensure you are learning the correct things. There is some outdated information in those books, particularly Hikari Namikaze’s Treatise on Demonic Possession.” Green eyes narrowed. “There seems to be a very specific topic you’re going for… There’s more to demons than simply their ability to possess you and I.”

Sakura sighed softly, knowing then that a hopeful hint had gone straight over his head.

“Is this to do with those hallucinations of yours?”

Her fingers gripped the edges of the next page that much more precariously, knuckles turning bone white as those puppet strings tightened their grip on her with vengeance. “No,” she said flatly, eyes fixed upon the first line of the newest page she had turned to.

Specific demons have preferences for the host they wish to possess.

“Are you sure about that?” Ren asked, those green eyes still staring at her ever so earnestly.

As a general rule of thumb, it can be said that lower-ranking demons prefer to possess corpses; the fresher the better, whilst higher-ranking demons prefer to overtake a living host, subsuming their will wholly.

“If you’re here to read, then read,” she stated, sighing softly as those puppet strings slackened their grip on her as the conversation drifted away from the forbidden topic of demons. “I have not seen anything out of the ordinary recently, and I can be certain that I am sound of mind,” she said, musing then on the fact that she had been possessed, was, in some ways, the proof she had sorely needed to be certain of her own sanity. It was almost morbidly amusing what her standards had become.

“Very well, sister,” Ren murmured, a soft sigh escaping him then, and Sakura felt her shoulders sink in relief. Her thumb traced over the words she was reading, hairs on the back of her neck prickling under the green-eyed stare she was still being subjected to.

Anomalies, however, do exist – exceptions to every rule, so it is wise to take heed.

Nevertheless, a single demon has a single preferences, and once it has made itself known, you can be certain that it will seek out its preferred kind of host, barring all other options failing.

“Living hosts,” she mumbled under her breath, committing then, the fact that the demon she was currently possessed by undoubtedly had a preference for living hosts. Something niggled at the back of her brain at that, an idea she couldn’t quite grasp a hold of just yet.

“Something you need help with?” her brother asked, one pink brow raised in question, even as those green eyes watched her far too warily for her liking.

“No,” her mouth moved for her, and her gaze returned to her book once more, reading on and on long into the afternoon. She wasn’t allowed to ask for help, nor was she to agree to receiving it. Part of her had already grown numb to the well of frustration that churned.

“Ah, there you are.” Dark eyes fixed on her as she exited the library long after Ren had come and gone once more. “It’s almost like you’ve been avoiding me,” her uncle remarked. “Though I suppose spending some time with the other brats has been enjoyable enough – when your father hasn’t been bothering me for my opinion on those matters which have been keeping him locked up in that study for some days now.”

She glanced over at Sasori, part of her barely resisting the urge to sigh at the sight of him smirking at the blatant interest in her gaze at the mention of her father. “He’s been missing most meals besides dinner,” she said, folding her arms.

“Then perhaps you ought to bring him tea and see what the matter is,” he said. “Then again, perhaps not. They do seem to be very cautious with you right now, not that I don’t understand why.” Brown eyes glanced down the corridor.

“What exactly is going on?” she asked, folding her arms and pinning her uncle with her best stare, grateful then, that those puppet strings hadn’t tightened and started pulling just yet. She was free for the meantime, yet the feeling of those strings never left her, odd as they were to try and describe. It wasn’t like they were physical strings, after all. Otherwise she would have already cut them and freed herself.

“Demonic activity,” Sasori answered succinctly. “There have been increased reports of activity on the very fringes of the Haruno Territory. Nothing for you to concern yourself with, but there is a mystery at hand, and your father may very well soon be leaving the estate to attempt to solve the issue at its source.”

At once, the restrictions came upon her, the mention of the word demon bringing them to the very forefront of it all.

A smile which wasn’t hers curled at her lips, her eyes – the only thing she could really move right then and there – fixing on the walk ahead of them.

“Nothing to say to that?” One red brow quirked up. “I am well aware you’ve been quite frantic about the topic… until very recently, perhaps,” he murmured, one finger tapping at his chin as he side-eyed her.

“No,” she said placidly, something hope welling up behind that façade of normalcy the demon possessing her tried to wear. Would the strange Sasori of that world be able to tell? Then again, he hadn’t known her for as long as her brother’s had – as she was right then, that was.

“Curious,” Sasori remarked. “Tell me when you would like you next lesson in daggers. I have a duty to pass your mother’s teachings onto you.”

“I am quite busy,” the thing controlling her stated. “I will have to get back to you later on that much. If you will excuse me, I should be back off to my room now.” Her feet carried her away, hairs on the back of her neck prickling beneath the weight of the brown eyes she could feel boring holes into her back.

Chapter Text

Tiredness ate at her eyelids, even as she pored over the many tomes of precious knowledge in front of her. There was an answer in there somewhere to her predicament, she knew. She just had to find it and figure it all out. That was all she needed to do – an idea, a musing, which sounded ever so simple in her head. Undoubtedly the solution would be obvious in hindsight, and yet hindsight was a precarious thing which she didn’t have right then and there.

Nevertheless, a single demon has a single preference, and once it has made itself known, you can be certain that it will seek out its preferred kind of host, barring all other options failing.

The words of that book she had read however many days ago swam in the forefront of her mind, and Sakura could only wonder what connections her mind was subconsciously making. There was a key in it, she had long since figured. Something about the demon possessing her having a preference for living hosts was important, thought she didn’t know how. It wasn’t like she could die and then come back again. Her death would hardly solve anything, and it wasn’t like she wanted to die, what with the family she had mysteriously found there.

She wanted to learn more about the strange new energy running in strange new pathways within her. She wanted to claw her way back up to the levels of strength she had once had after a childhood of training, and a few years with the woman who had turned her into what she was right then and there. A fighter. A survivor. Idly, she wondered what her once-mentor looked like there. If she existed at all. Then she remembered what Sasuke was like there, and promptly wondered whether or not she really wanted to find out that much.

Her shoulders sunk, head plonking itself down on the open pages of the book as if it might let her absorb its information via osmosis.

She was tired. She was ever so tired. Was it too much to ask for some adjustment time? She had woken up in a strange place in a world unlike the one in the memories she had, and just as she had been getting to grips with that… Her hand clenched into a fist, tears of frustration biting at the corners of her eyes as she sat there, loose puppet strings and all. Idly, she wondered if that demon would drop by to torment her that much more that night.

Her father was gone – left the property to deal with demons encroaching on their lands. Her eldest brother was seemingly clueless. Her second eldest brother was just as clueless as the first. Her last brother was just as possessed as – if not more possessed than – her. Holy magic and that demon’s magic didn’t seem to mix well, or so she had come to understand, which supposedly made it harder for her to be possessed, though far from impossible as she had long since found out. It was probably why she had a sliver of control over herself, which soon vanished whenever she was around others. Whenever that demon decided to directly pull the strings rather than leaving those strings tied up in some manner.

None of that information helped her out of that situation though.

The best slice of information she had learnt was that the only way for a person to rid themselves of possession was to have a particular innate ability within the holy magic classification: that of an exorcist. Even then, they had to be highly trained in order to both trap the demon within their core and then expunge it through sending holy mana in a reverse flow – a single misstep of which could lead to negative mana reflux or occasionally death – through the holy gate back into the very core of where mana was produced and stored.

That wasn’t something she could do, and she was starting to understand that if she wanted to be rid of that possession, then she needed to think out of the box. Way outside of the box – of the logic of that world. She chewed on her lip, part of her wanting to throw the nearest book at the wall Certainly, it wouldn’t help her generate ideas, but it would probably make her feel a bit better than she did right then and there.

Familiar phantasmal strings tightened their grasp on her, a herald to the arrival of—

“Go to bed, sister,” Ichiro demanded, and she cranked her head around to glance at her eldest brother as he stood there, blissfully oblivious to the demon in their midst, and oh how she envied him for it. “If you are that tired, then you should sleep on the bed designed for that purpose – not the table. I have on good word from Ren that books make for terribly uncomfortable pillows.” He folded his arms, and Sakura felt herself begrudgingly climb to her feet. “Sleep is important. Breakthroughs in research and understanding come from a good night’s rest.”

Sakura blinked, glancing at him briefly, even as those puppet strings tugged her towards her bed. She wondered then if sleep really would prove to be the breakthrough she needed to figure out the situation unfolding around her.

“Goodnight, sister,” her eldest brother murmured. “Will you need any help falling asleep?”

“No,” she answered sharply, having known what the thing controlling her mouth would say at the idea of holy magic being used on her – even if only to help her get to bed.

Ichiro sighed softly. “You haven’t been looking very well recently, you know,” he said, and something like hope blazed in her heart then. “I… understand that things have been hard on you recently, with… well, everything that’s been going on, but I’m always here, if you need to talk about anything.”

Sakura closed her eyes, almost wishing that she could talk to him without that looming presence controlling her. It wasn’t a matter of wanting to speak to her brother, rather it was the fact that she couldn’t and no one had yet to be able to realise that much.

It wasn’t that her brothers were clueless, sans the possessed one, she realised with a startling clarity. It was the fact that they were all still adjusting to the new, slightly different her and they were still treading ever so lightly around her, not wanting to break her boundaries and scare her into running off. They wanted her there, she was reminded, something crystallising in her heart – a desire to end that demon and whatever schemes it hoped to accomplish.

She wasn’t the helpless little girl like she’d been on her first C-Rank mission, she mused, burying her face in her pillow, even as her brother’s weight left the bed and the lights clicked out.

Her eyes opened slowly, the nostalgia of the dream she’d had hitting home then as she lay there in her oversized bed, not quite ready for another day to begin. She still remembered her genin days with a vivid clarity, more so the C-turned-A-Rank mission which had set the ball rolling so to speak. The mission which had taught her so much that the academy had never truly prepared her for. The mission which had ultimately made her start to realise that greater strength was what she needed. Her fingers curled, hand turning into a fist which she lifted into the air to stare at .

Certainly, her punches packed quite a bit of power – yet she still had yet to reach the earth-shattering levels of strength she had been renowned for… in another life, that was. She closed her eyes again, breathing out, remembering the awe-shattering terror which had overtaken her when Zabuza had appeared, when he had started whispering to them of Larynx, Spine, Lungs, Liver, Jugular, Subclavian Artery, Kidneys, Heart. Watching her once sensei battle him had started to open her eyes to just how weak she was in the shinobi world. She remembered the way those needles had pierced his neck when Haku had arrived, fooling her into thinking that their enemy was dead—

Her thoughts ran to a halt, and she blinked, wondering why the memory of the false death state had her pausing so much.

Nevertheless, a single demon has a single preference, and once it has made itself known, you can be certain that it will seek out its preferred kind of host, barring all other options failing.

Sakura sat bolt upright, the thought striking her like lightning. The demon possessing her liked living hosts… so wouldn’t that mean it would leave her if it thought she were a corpse? She held her breath, throwing the covers from her legs moments later as she raced to the tall set of ornate drawers. “Please be here,” she murmured, fingers scrabbling to open the drawers to find the medical based supplies. They had acupuncture needles there, didn’t they? Drawer after drawer was pulled open, relief seeping through her when she hauled a thick bag out from its hiding place among other first aid supplies and revealed the needles hidden within. Needles that could pierce her skin, and target the three chakra points which ultimately induced the false death state.

When they discovered her, someone would remove the needles, wouldn’t they? Healing magic would likely be able to deal with the side-effects from that state. Those were the main concerns. Weren’t they? She chewed on her lip, part of her wanting nothing more than to plunge those needles into the back of her neck and get rid of those puppet strings binding her. Yet that was a tad impulsive, wasn’t it? Then again – it wasn’t like she could tell someone what her plan was. Otherwise it would know of her plan, and everything would fail.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she muttered, throwing her apprehension and worries out of the window as she grabbed a hold of those three needles and carefully lined up where she needed them to sink into her skin.

Either she acted then, or she could delay and delay and never get anything done.

Certainly, she had lost most of her physical skills and was slowly regaining them through her own efforts and hard work, but something she had never lost had been her medical knowledge. Her body had changed, but her mind hadn’t, she mused, stabbing those needles into her neck.

Her face slammed into the ground with an almighty thud, part of her musing how she could certainly have planned that out better, even as she felt her heart start to slow. Her breathing became shallow, muscles slack and unresponsive to any attempt at movement, part of her feeling locked in her body as she lay there on the floor, listening silently as the heartbeat in her chest seemed to fade out. It was strange – experiencing that false death state, and it made her wonder about the effect her mana had. Certainly, she’d read about it, but being trapped in a paralysed body and only able to watch when she should have probably rightly been unconscious was something of an interesting scenario. She wondered if the reason she didn’t feel absolutely terrified was that it had been her choice that time around.

She hadn’t had a choice when she’d been possessed, and there was something so eerily freeing about choice after too long a time spent dancing as a marionette to another’s tune.

Dimly she felt something within her moving, a surging, churning sensation. Had her gag reflex worked, then she would of undoubtedly been choking and vomiting at the sensation of something swelling up from her throat. It spilt from behind her lips; a gelatinous, black substance which seeped out across the carpet leaving nary a trace of its passing.

She remembered the moment it had forced itself down her throat and possessed her originally. It brought the strangest relief to see it go as she lay there, slowly beginning to understand, perhaps, just how reckless she could be.

Yet her recklessness had paid off that time around – like her reckless decision to burst into Tsunade’s office and demand to become her apprentice had paid off ever so long ago.

She was free.

The door slammed open, and Sakura could only lie there, sprawled on the floor where she’d fallen, her face smooshed against the hard wood – and she knew that was going to leave the side of her face a bruised mess. A cost of being impulsive, it seemed. “Niece,” a familiar, demanding voice came, and she knew the minute her uncle spotted her lying there on the floor with three needles sticking out from her neck. “Ah. Well, I was just about to come and interrogate you about your peculiar behaviour as of late… I see that won’t be necessary.”

Footsteps sounded, a pair of fancy, black polished boots coming into her eyeline, and Sakura watched as Sasori knelt down beside her, dark eyes locked on the needles in her neck.

“I suppose this is all the confirmation I need to know which world your previous soul cycle was in,” he said, and her mind raced to try and figure out what that meant. “You couldn’t achieve the false death state normally since mana doesn’t have chakra points. Yet why would you inflict that upon yourself?”

Mentally, she paused at that, wondering then why her uncle knew of chakra when nobody else of that world seemed to have the slightest idea about that different energy.

“But on that topic, darling niece,” he said, carefully prying those needles out from her neck then, leaving them on the floor and plucking her limp body up. He moved over to the window then, sliding it open, and Sakura had the distinct impression that he was about to leave through a manner that most people there didn’t often use – if ever. “You’re very lucky it was me who walked in first.”

Chapter Text

There was a train of disconnected thoughts running rampant through her mind as she hung there limply, her mind still trying to process exactly what was going on. Sasori knew about chakra. The rest of her family didn’t seem to know about her apparent second source of energy. Sasori also saw windows as a viable entry and exit point. She had yet to see any of her family do the same. Though technically Sasori was her family, being her uncle and all, so why the bloody hell did he know about chakra? She swallowed – that being about all she could do with the meagre senses she had regained after those needles had been unceremoniously yanked out of her neck. Though they had been pulled out with a careful precision which hadn’t seemed to damage the skin of her neck any more than it already had been… Sakura blinked, not liking the conclusions her brain was pulling even as she found herself carried outside and a good distance into the small forest closest to the mansion on the estate.

“Hold still,” her uncle said, placing her down with a surprising amount of care for who she thought that really was. “I’m not the best when it comes to Holy Magic, so you will have to patient, darling niece,” he murmured, and Sakura only felt herself become more confused. Because if that was the Sasori from her past world – or rather the Sasori of that world who remembered his past life in her own previous life’s cycle – then wasn’t he supposed to hate her guts? Perplexed, she could only stare at him, watching as a familiar glowing light lit his palms up.

The stiffness in her muscles dissipated, a soft sigh escaping her as she lay there, propped up against a craggy tree trunk she could feel pressing into her spine as the numbness receded. “Whadafuck?” the garble of words escaped her as soon as she felt her voice box, her uncle frowning as he moved one glowing hand to her throat and all the muscles around that area.

“Care to repeat that again?” Sasori asked, and Sakura could only swallow and laugh somewhat hysterically, even as she properly regained control over her limbs and pressed herself up against the tree behind her as if it could absorb her and hide her away from the suddenly rather intimidating uncle in front of her.

“I, uh, don’t suppose you, well, um, experienced Negative Mana Reflux by any chance?” she questioned, the short burst of laughter escaping her then sounding infinitely too high-pitched to be anything other than uncomfortable.

A huff of laughter escaped him, and her uncle sat back ever so slightly. “I am the Prince of Suna, you know – at least I would hope those idiot brothers of yours would have the grace to inform you of your importance and where your bloodline comes from.” He folded his arms, sighing again. “I had several half-brothers, all of whom were vying for the king’s crown, and they were all too happy to attempt to murder me for a better shot at the throne. Naturally, they were all quite unsuccessful.”

Sakura paused for a moment, wondering if that was a yes, a no, or a I’m not telling. “So is that a yes or a no for the Negative Mana Reflux?” she queried, mouth seeming to have a mind of its own as she continued talking to the uncle who remembered his death – that she had caused – in the world before that one.

Sasori sighed like he was in pain. “That was a yes, you little twit,” he said, rubbing at his brow as his eyebrows drew together in a frown.

“And you remember me killing you?” she asked, part of her apparently having chosen to throw caution to the wind as she lay there, slowly overcoming the tingling in her muscles, wincing as the pins and needles sensations started. Though given it had taken Zabuza a good week or so to recover, she was probably doing very well. The perks of having mana and holy magic, it seemed. “Bam, wham, death, you know…” she said, trailing off as she waved her aching fist half-heartedly.

“That… is an incredibly ineloquent way to put it, but yes,” Sasori remarked, pinching the bridge of his nose in what could only be exasperation. “I remember my death, the same way you undoubtedly remember your own… who got you?” he asked, and Sakura paused then, freezing as she remembered the squeal of tyres and brakes.

“That… that doesn’t matter,” she muttered, irritation flushing through her at the memory of just how pathetically she’d died.

“Hm,” Sasori hummed, side-eyeing her curiously. “So either traumatically or embarrassingly, or perhaps both. Though I suppose it’s unlikely you’ll get over it any time soon. Most people don’t tend to be as logically orientated as I,” he said, sitting back on his heels then, still crouched in front of her, and Sakura wondered whether she should expect to be murdered anytime soon.

“Logical? Is that what we’re calling an obsession with immortality these days?” she muttered, freezing moments later as she realised her mouth was completely ignoring her survival instinct and going off on a tangent.

Yet rather than murdering her or otherwise snapping at her as she thought the old Sasori would have, the Sasori in front of her only smiled. It was a soft, gentle, utterly human thing so removed from the porcelain visage of his puppet self that it made her thoughts screech to a halt. “I have lived in this world for nigh on fifty years – which I’m told is not even half of a mage’s expected lifetime. I regained my previous cycle’s life memories at twelve… That’s almost forty years I’ve had all these memories whilst living in this strange, slightly more peaceful world,” he murmured. “If there’s one thing I learnt, it’s that time changes people when they’re in a strange environment… and the people here around us who didn’t exist – to me in the same capacity, that is – in our previous world.”

“So, uh, to get things straight,” Sakura began, peering at her uncle. “You’re not, um, planning on murdering me anytime soon? For, you know, killing you in our last soul cycle, or however they put it here?”

One red brow rose in question. “Now why would I do something like that?” he asked, looking perplexed then as he reached out, pinching her cheek between his thumb and forefinger. “I found something precious in this life… someone who was always there for me, always telling me that things weren’t bad for her when really they were. She was sweet… sweeter than I deserved, and my one goal for this life was to ensure that she could be happy.”

Sakura blinked, her brow furrowing. “Was?” she echoed, that being the one thing her brain picked up on amidst the confusion swirling within her mind as she stared at that distorted Sasori in front of her – the one who was a mere shade of the enemy she had once thought she had known. Then again, she had never truly ‘known’ him as such, only what Chiyo had told her.

“I am your uncle, darling niece. Your mother was my younger sister in this lifetime – something I was utterly oblivious to until you grew into your features just a bit. Yet that hardly changes the fact that my sister’s dying wish for me was to protect her family as best I could. And you are her precious, youngest – and only – daughter who she longed to watch grow up. Though…” he trailed off, a frown crinkling at his brow as he stared at her and she wondered if he saw her mother in her then. “Though that was something she never quite managed, and so the duty falls to me.”

A hand ruffled in her hair, and Sakura rubbed at her pinched cheek as it stung ever so slightly. “I… see,” she mumbled, struggling to get her head around the fact that Sasori only saw her as his niece.

“I highly doubt that, but I do believe we’ve gone just a bit off topic,” he said, and at her confused look he sighed deeply. “You do remember why I dragged you out into the forest, do you not?” he questioned, one finely shaped red eyebrow curving into an arc. “Chakra point paralysis – False Death State, as it was more commonly known – and you still having chakra points is something we’ll need to discuss at a later point.”

“You mean you don’t have chakra still?”

A finger flicked her on the cheek. “Focus,” Sasori reminded. “Why were you intending to fake your own death?”

“Oh,” she mumbled. “Oh no.” She grabbed her uncle by the shoulders. “There’s a demon in the house,” she explained frantically. “And I know for a fact because I think it’s a high level one and it’s been possessing me and Itsuki. It prefers living hosts, so—”

“So you went to the extreme of faking your death to expel a demon?” her uncle tilted his head, hand on his chin as he considered what she had said. “A demon, hm? That would certainly explain your strange behaviour… and the fact that you’re aware of your possession is due to you being naturally inclined for holy magic. The only thing which doesn’t add up is the fact that I know your father checks the wards of the Haruno Estate meticulously, and keeping demons out is one of those wards many purposes. So, the question here is why the wards targeting demons – or perhaps the wardstone in its entirety – went down? And how did your father and elder brother – the wardstone’s main keepers – not notice?”

“I honestly have no, uh, experience with wards… my memories of this world… are scrambled, or maybe gone for good – I don’t know,” she murmured, scratching at her head then.

“I know the wards were last checked a few weeks ago before your arrival home, going by the calendar in your father’s office, which begs the question of through what method the wards were weakened by. The usual method would be to send a demonic object or something corrupted with—” Dark eyes flickered onto her, and Sakura only blinked as she spotted Sasori’s teeth grind together, an expression of pure, undilute rage crossing his face. His hands twitched, muscles in them tensing, turning them into clawed digits. “It would appear, that I might have to go and investigate your school after all,” he muttered, and Sakura felt a shiver run down her spine – along with the thought that if Sasori went to the school, then someone would wind up dead. By poison, probably, she mused, swallowing thickly at the killing intent she could almost feel radiating from her uncle in waves.

“Why… are you so upset?”

“When this demon in the house – when it possessed you, did you feel any pain?” Sasori asked, a look of impending knowing on his face as he stared at her.

Sakura cast her mind back. “No. Not really,” she said, thinking on how it had been more discomfort as it had forced its way down her throat that time.

“I see,” he muttered, a grimace twisting his expression into something vehemently displeased. “It would seem I failed your mother…”

“You’re confusing me,” she said, a frown marring her own face as she stared right back at him. “What does my pain have anything to do with this?”

Sasori sighed – a long, deep thing, and his fingers attempted to smooth the wrinkles from his brow. “Because natural holy magic users are the antithesis of demons. It’s why you retain your consciousness and some level of awareness while being possessed.” He closed his eyes. “It also means that when a demon possesses you, it is incredibly painful. The most painful experience of a lifetime, or so I’ve been told.”

“But it wasn’t painful for me,” Sakura murmured. “Am I not a natural-born holy mage or something?”

“Oh, you are a natural-born holy mage – that I can tell you for a fact,” he said, shoulders sinking then. “But it is only the first case of possession which causes the intense pain for a holy mage – the time when that first demon reverses the cycle of mana through your body and carves its own place for itself within your core. It’s also incredibly likely for the holy mage to die in the process of this possession, or for their consciousness to be wholly subsumed during the process rather than simply being suppressed. The fact that you’re still alive… well, I suspect your body might have a rather rare and interesting constitution, darling niece. Though heading to the Holy Lands and getting tested there would be the only way to safely check that matter…”

“So… what you’re trying to say…” Words failed her, and she bit her lip, wondering what exactly she was supposed to say to that.

“I’m saying that you were once possessed before you set foot on the property,” he said. “How you expelled the demon previously, I do not know. Yet unfortunately I don’t quite think this is the most pressing of our issues…”

“No,” Sakura said, shaking her head, shoving the idea that her possession had something to do with that weird room which kept cropping up in her nightmares. “It’s not. The demon on the estate is,” she clarified, hands curling into fists at the thought of how her strength had first faltered against that demon. “That’s what we need to deal with.”

“I am keyed into the wardstone, so I can access it – and that is going to be the first place I need to check to ascertain just how bad the situation is. The wardstone’s main keepers should have felt an abnormality with the ward system they’re linked to through mana, and the fact they haven’t…”

“What does that mean?” she asked, knowing then that it was probably the most she was learning about wards and whatever exactly wardstones were in that instance.

“I don’t like this,” Sasori muttered, his face grim as he eyed the forest they were hidden within – hopefully away and out of sight of the demon. “The wards failing… your father being summoned away at this exact time… the fact that no one has noticed what can only be a high-level demon on the estate… the matter of what’s happened to you… It’s like the Kuramas all over again… and I have the strangest of feelings that this didn’t just coincidentally happen, you must understand,” he murmured, and Sakura swallowed thickly at that.

“You’re saying… that this is part of someone’s plan? Someone is plotting against… me, and my family?” she questioned, feeling her hands curl into fists, arms shaking at the thought that… that she had been tortured and possessed by a demon before, and someone had intentionally made that happen.

“I do not want to jump to conclusions, but yes – that is what it looks like from my perspective,” he explained. “As for what we need to do, well. At this point in time, I think we might have to take some drastic action,” Sasori said, eyes darting in the direction of the house. “If that demon has already possessed you, and probably at least one other of your brothers… Time is of the essence, and as much as I would love to go into the house, I think it would be best if I checked the wardstone and you went to your father’s office.”

“You want me to go into a house with a demon which knows of my existence – and the minute it realises I’m alive, it’s going to come after me to either possess me again or kill me,” she stated, feeling her heart beating frantically in her chest at the thought.

Sasori chewed on his lip. “The demon. You saw it, yes?” She nodded. “What did it look like? Solid form, or gelatinous?”

“Gelatinous,” Sakura answered. “It’s body seemed… liquid in nature.” She rubbed her throat at that, remembering the way it had forced itself within her – overpowering her and subsuming her control of her body. A familiar anger stirred its head at the memory of how weak that made her feel.

“Then it’s likely of the Controller-Manipulator Class, and they never operate alone,” he said, expression the grimmest she had seen yet. “It’s vital I secure the wardstone, because if that falls out of our control, then whatever demons are waiting at the boundary of the estate will come pouring in with the intent of devouring everything and everyone within this estate,” he explained. “It’s also vital that you reach your father’s office and pulse your mana through the white scroll hanging up on the hook – left wall as you enter.”

“And what will that do?”

“Send a distress beacon directly to the Holy Knight Division of the Holy Lands, informing them that the Haruno Estate is in distress… and then they will assemble a taskforce of Holy Knights – and hopefully a Saintess – and then activate a transportation sigil which will bring them here.”

“And then we’re saved?”

“Essentially,” Sasori said, but the expression on his face told her otherwise. “The only issue is that there’s an average response of twenty minutes from the activation of the distress beacon to the arrival of the Holy Knights. If we can manage to survive that period, then yes, we’re saved.”

She squinted at him. “Something tells me those twenty minutes won’t be particularly easy to survive.”

Sasori smiled thinly. “And you’d be correct.”

Chapter Text

She lingered in the shadows of the treeline, swallowing thickly as she reminded herself of the task at hand: activating the distress beacon and then surviving the next twenty minutes as unscathed as possible. Easier said than done, she mused, eyeing her uncle as he stood next to her, waiting to see her off into the house before he ventured to wherever the wardstone was.

“Father’s office is up the right staircase, down the right corridor, turn left at the first intersection, and then the last doorway at the very end of that corridor, right?” Sakura quizzed, praying that she wouldn’t get lost on the way to her father’s office. That would end badly, she knew, and her life there was only just starting. She hardly wanted it to end before she had lived her life to the fullest. Before she could properly understand how that strange world had turned Sasori of the Red Sands into that strange man she called her uncle.

“Yes, and remember left wall, white scroll,” Sasori reminded pointedly, staring down at her flatly. “You were once a shinobi. You can do it.”

“And yet my chakra isn’t what it once was, and in case you forgot, the shinobi world didn’t have gelatinous demons which can rob you of your body by shoving themselves down your throat,” she hissed, glaring at the doors to her own home there. Yet home was now enemy territory, and she had a retrieval mission for a scroll.

“You’ll be fine,” Sasori grumbled, folding his arms. “Take my cloak. It will only be able to identify you by sight rather than mana, I believe – so concealing your head will give you a few more seconds at minimum.”

She took the cloak, pulling the silky black fabric over to cover her more prominent features as she mentally readied herself to sprint like her life depended on it. Probably because it did. If either of them failed, then the stakes would be raised and the danger would increase… and if she didn’t manage to signal the backup to come, then they would likely be overrun.

Her eyes narrowed. “Well then,” she mumbled. “No time like the present,” she muttered, feeling her uncle vanish from her side, and Sakura hurried towards the front door, yanking it open both as quickly and as relatively quietly as she could. No need to draw any more attention than she already would. The butler and the few maids who worked on the estate were mercifully nowhere to be found, and she wasted no time in legging it up the stairs.

Right stairs, mentally she recited the route even as she ran it, breath coming in large gasps as she sprinted headlong down the corridor, almost tripping at the sharp left turn she made. The hallways were too long, she decided then, scenery outside flashing by in the windows as she made her way towards the black doors which led to her father’s office. Her footsteps scuffed the carpet, and she almost ploughed straight into the door as it opened. Her heart leapt to her throat, relief seeping through her when she spotted the pink hair and the blue eyes so much like their father’s. “Sister?” Ichiro mumbled, stopping her with a hand on each shoulder.

“No time,” she declared, barging past him, eyes alighting on the left wall. Dread thrummed through her, heart seeming to stutter as she stared at a hook on the wall which had nothing hanging from it. “Fuck,” she muttered, because somehow she didn’t think there were spares for an emergency summons for Holy Knights.

“Sister, is everything alright?” Ichiro asked, tilting his head and blinking owlishly.

“Where is it?” she demanded.

“Where’s what?” Ichiro queried, looking exceptionally confused all of a sudden.

She raised one shaking finger to point at the empty hook on the wall. “The white scroll that’s supposed to be there!” she hissed, whisper-shouting at her brother then as panic surged through her. Her job was supposed to be a simple retrieval mission, but her information was lacking, it seemed.

Ichiro stared at the wall – at the hook – a pensive expression crossing his lips. “It shouldn’t have been moved… Nobody is allowed to do that,” he muttered, a dawning look of horror on his face. “Why—Sakura.” Blue eyes narrowed on her. “The fact you’re looking for it…”

“Uncle told me to,” she said, before she could have another Ren situation on her hands.

Blue eyes turned into flinty steel chips of ice, a glint of realisation gleaming in their frosty depths. “Sakura. Has this estate been… compromised…?” he questioned, the terror on his face giving way to something a little bit more scary and determined than that.

“Yes,” she answered succinctly, and her mind raced to figure out where that scroll could be. The demon had probably disposed of it—

“The scroll cannot be taken out of the house without an alarm going off, nor can it be destroyed by… anyone, human or other,” Ichiro informed her quickly. “We need to find it.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “We do,” she added, watching as Ichiro hurried around their father’s desk and remerged moments later with two swords. “Where would it hide it?” she muttered, pacing back and forwards ever so slightly, acutely aware that every second she wasted there was a second closer to being discovered by the demon in their midst.

“Somewhere either with more scrolls to conceal it in, or close to its nest,” Ichiro said, attaching one sword to his belt.

“So, the library,” Sakura mumbled, remembering where it had first emerged, even as she pulled her hood back up from where it had fallen. “Or… Itsuki’s bedroom,” she murmured, remembering just who it had possessed first.

“Why Itsuki…?”

“He’s… compromised,” she informed him.

“Shit,” Ichiro muttered, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “I’ll check the library, you check Itsuki’s room. I’ll show you where it is, and I’ll come back to get you either after I’ve found the scroll or determined that it’s not in the library.” His hand closed around her arm, and then they were off, hurrying through the corridors in an incredibly fast walk. She could barely remember the exact route they took through the winding hallways of the estate, mind running a mile a minute as she tried to reassure herself that things would work out.

When she had been on Team Seven, they had always found a way to make it through. She had figured a way to free herself from possession, no matter how reckless she had been. Her boys had rubbed off on her in some ways, even if she no longer could see the versions of them she’d loved and lost.

“Here,” Ichiro spoke in a low voice, stirring her from her daze, cracking the door open and putting his head in. “Itsuki’s not here,” he told her quietly, and Sakura took that as her cue to barge into the room.

It was a room as opulent as she had first found her own to be – all heavy wood furniture stained a deep, chestnut brown, walls partially lined with blue-and-gold damask print, intermixed with panelled wall of the same wood as the furniture. Large windows let enough light in to make up for the dark theme, the space large enough to fit everything in and then some. The only thing it didn’t have was a desk, unlike her own room, though Sakura supposed that meant one less place to have to search in her quest to find that blasted scroll which had gone missing.

“Go,” she hissed at her brother, hurrying over to the nearest set of drawers and pulling them open. “White scroll, white scroll,” she muttered, all but ransacking the chest of drawers and coming up empty handed. “Where would it hide it?” she whispered to herself, casting open the wardrobe and searching through there.

Clothes hung there, neat and orderly, and Sakura couldn’t quite say the same thing once she had finished rifling through the wardrobe. Yet there was still no white scroll, not even in the pockets she had frantically rifled through. She glanced around, panic growing the longer she remained there, no scroll in sight. Yet it could have been in the library, and Ichiro could be on his way back to tell her he’d found it in the library and that they had twenty minutes to survive until back up got there to exorcise whatever demon was lurking within the bounds of the Haruno Estate. Though the opposite could be just as true, and she wasn’t leaving until Ichiro returned, or until she found the scroll.

She lunged up, grabbing the top of that four-poster bedframe and pulling herself up to peer over the top of its dusty surface. She let go, having spied nothing on the top of the wardrobe the other side of the bed. Fingers pulled back the blue duvet, a quick search of the pillows revealing nothing at all, and Sakura barely resisted the urge to scream as she crouched down and peered under the bed. She blinked then, heart beating that much faster as she spotted a white scroll perched innocuously beneath that large four-poster bed. “Under the bed,” she muttered, mentally rebuking herself for not checking one of the most obvious hiding places there was.

She leant further down, having to crawl under the bed somewhat just so her fingertips could brush against that scroll. Fingers closed around it, the shadow that suddenly stretched out beneath the bed blocking her view somewhat.

Sakura blinked. Shadow?

Two feet stood in the range of her vision on the other side to her bed, and she felt a shiver roll down her spine. “Ichiro?” she tried, knowing for a fact that it wasn’t Ren standing opposite her. Fingers curled around the bottom of the bedframe, an all too familiar face coming into view. Sakura froze.

Itsuki smiled at her, dark blonde hair nearly touching the floor as he stood there, body seemingly distorted in a way which couldn’t be comfortable, his eyes neither blue nor wholly white. Two completely inky, pitch-black eyes looked at her, black veins around them stark against pale skin as the demon possessing Itsuki looked at her with her brother’s face. A smile curled at those lips, teeth baring in a mockery of a grin as it stared at her. “Oh sister,” a garbled version of her brother’s voice came, sounding far too sickly sweet. “What are you doing down there?” it asked, and Sakura only tightened her grasp on the scroll and wacked her head against the underside of the bedframe in her frantic struggle to get out of there and run.

Something cold slid around her ankles, and Sakura yelped as she found herself hauled back out from under the bed. Familiar gelatinous slime dripped from Itsuki’s arm, surging down the tendrils which had grabbed her ankles, forming a longer, larger limb which grabbed a hold of her middle with dripping finger-like digits. Her back slammed into the wall, a huff of air escaping her as she found herself pinned against the wall. The thing wearing her brother’s form strode towards her then, even as her one free hand pawed at that slimy limb, watching as whatever she tore away was swiftly repaired and replenished.

Mentally, she swore, remembering how ineffective her strikes were against that substance. Yet not everything was that gelatinous substance that time around, part of her whispered as she stared at the situation unfolding in front of her, feeling awfully detached as she watched Itsuki’s body step into striking distance. Did it have something up its sleeve, or was it underestimating her that much? Thoughts whirred behind her skull, and Sakura swallowed thickly, shifting the scroll as far away from its reach as possible. “Itsuki…” she mumbled.

“What’s the matter, sister?” Not-Itsuki asked, smiling at her still, that saccharine mocking tone still layered on thick.

“I’m really sorry about this,” she said, chakra thrumming through her leg as she looked her possessed brother dead in his pitch-black eyes.

“Come now, do you really think you can reach your brother’s conscious—”

Her leg slammed into her brother’s gut, heel digging into the mercifully solid target, shoving her brother and the demon away from her and straight into the window. Spiderwebs of fractures formed in the glass in an instant, and Sakura could only watch half-terrified that she might have just accidently killed her brother as he tumbled out of the shattered window. She stepped forwards, stopping herself a split second later as she spun on her heel and ran for the door.

Inky black slime surged up, blockading the doorway with that substance which always absorbed her blows, and Sakura felt her teeth grit together.

“Why can’t you just stop fighting and die quietly?” Itsuki’s voice came, and Sakura glanced back at the broken window, watching as spindly gunk-covered fingers pulled her brother’s injured, possessed form back onto the window ledge.

Some semblance of relief surged through her at the sight of her brother there alive, if unhealthily possessed. Then she panicked, because the demon was back and more murderous than ever. It was time she got out of there, she decided, charging towards the door, ignoring the mocking chuckle behind her. Her feet dug into the rug by the door, shifting her course at the very last minute to the unguarded stretch of wall she had been slammed into only minutes before.

Brickwork, plaster, panelling, and wallpaper gave way beneath the impact, chakra surging to the first points of impact as she dived through the wall and into the corridor in a shower of brick dust and wood chippings. Her fist was still curled around the white scroll, part of her praying that her brother was there because she had yet to master the art of moving mana in the midst of a fight – and mana was needed to send out their call for help.

Sakura wondered then what god was listening to her as she heard a familiar voice calling her name. “Sakura!” Ichiro called, eyes wide as he sprinted towards her.

Movement caught the corner of her eye, instinct making her move, even as a thin tendril of that surprisingly powerful gelatinous body slammed through the space she had occupied only moments before. It missed her by inches, stabbing into the wall opposite. Sakura swallowed, watching with wide-eyes as Ichiro hurdled over it, grabbing her and pulling her behind him.

“Ichiro?” Ren’s voice came from behind them, and Ichiro glanced behind her quickly to spy their last brother staring at them and the scene of carnage unfolding in front of them. “What’s—”

Ichiro threw the sword he was holding, grabbing the white scroll from her with his recently-freed hand, and Sakura blinked at the white light which flashed all of a sudden. It blinded her, white spots filling her vision even as she blinked rapidly to try and see once more. “Twenty minutes,” Ichiro muttered, dropping the used scroll then, drawing the sword on his belt free. “Ren. Get Sakura to safety,” he ordered, even as a familiar figure strode out of the hole she had made in the wall. Fingers dug into the wall, black eyes staring at them all like a hungry beast, and Sakura swallowed thickly.

“Sister,” Ren hissed, grabbing a hold of her shoulder and pulling her back.

“I don’t know what House you hail from,” Ichiro spoke, and Sakura found her eyes glued to her eldest brother, even as Ren started pulling her away.

“Sakura – we need to get out of—”

“But you’ll regret stealing my brother’s body,” Ichiro stated, cold as ice.

“Sister!” Ren hissed right next to her ear, and she startled at that, breaking into a run as Ren grabbed her wrist and ran towards the front of the house.

“Will Ichiro be okay?” she asked, no longer able to hear anything that was going on behind them as they ran through the corridors of their home. It was freezing, she realised numbly, breath misting in the air as the temperature rapidly dropped into something undoubtedly in the negatives. She glanced back, spying the frost spreading over the windows, eyes widening as she spotted that inky black liquid. It seeped down from the ceiling, painting the walls black, and spreading far too quickly across the floor.

Ren clicked his tongue as it all but lapped at their heels, muttering swearwords under his breath, as he pulled her around the corner, reaching the main foyer only to stop dead at the top of the stairs. “Shit,” he muttered, looking to their left and spying that same dark, gelatinous slime. It waited at the bottom of the stairs too, the foyer looking as though it were being swallowed by that darkness inch by inch.

Not for the first time, Sakura wondered just how large that demon’s body could become, even as she looked at the few surfaces still untouched – namely the foyer walls which spanned two storeys and the high ceiling above. Her eyes zeroed in on the large floor-to-ceiling windows on either side of the main door below.

“Get close,” Ren barked, pulling a few slips of paper from his pockets, the ink scrawled on them beginning to glow. “I’ll make a barrier!”

Sakura shook her head, chakra rushing to all four of her limbs. “Better idea,” she said, charging into her brother and lifting him with a grunt into a princess carry. If she had been at full strength she wouldn’t have needed chakra in her arms, yet she wasn’t and she had to make do with everything she could manage right there and then. All she could do was grit her teeth and ignore the protests of her body as she leapt onto the wall, wincing as the plaster cracked beneath her footsteps, gravity trying to pull her down into the veritable sea of that black gelatinous substance which seemed to vibrate in anger.

Black liquid surged, racing up the walls in a thin coating. Chakra thrummed to her feet, a wordless yell escaping her as she jumped for the window, Ren screeching in surprise even as they ploughed through the window in a flurry of glass shards. Warmer air hit her face as they emerged outside, gravity dragging them down to the grassy ground.

They rolled as they hit the ground, mercifully avoiding the worst of the glass shards which had come along for the ride as they came to a stop in a tangle of limbs.

“Sakura,” Ren mumbled, looking at her then with wide green eyes. “What the fuck?”

“Told you,” she muttered, wincing as she untangled herself from her brother and sat back, glancing warily at the building they had just barely made it out of. “We have a demon problem, brother.”

His shoulders slumped as he pulled himself into a seated position. “I gathered that.”

Chapter Text

Darkness swirled behind the panes of glass still intact, and Sakura could only eye it apprehensively as she climbed back to her feet with a soft huff. “Am I allowed to say I told you so?” she asked, staring at the home she had just leapt out of and praying all the while that her eldest brother was okay in the depths of all that murky darkness.

“Not right now,” Ren grumbled, running a hand through his long hair and sighing deeply. “We have a pressing situation on our hands which requires us to work together – and not be snippy with each other. Give it twenty minutes – then scream at me to your heart’s content,” he said, hand curling around the sword that Ichiro had thrown his way before they had split off from him. “How did you run on the wall?”

Sakura folded her arms, one eyebrow raising. “We have a pressing situation on our hands, brother. There’s no time to explain,” she said like the petty creature at heart she was.

“And you are very correct,” Ren said, sighing once more and looking that much more nervous all of a sudden. “The first port of call would be the wardstone—”

“Uncle went there when I told him what was going on,” she explained succinctly. “He went to check before anything could supposedly happen. Said something about there being more demons waiting outside, since it’s likely a Controller-Manipulator Class.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go,” Ren decided, tightening his grip on the hilt of his sword, glancing towards where Sakura presumed the wardstone to lie. “It’s better if we group up… especially when we don’t know what’s already made its way onto the estate.”

“I’ve only been seeing the blob one,” she said, glancing back at the building. “The one which possessed me and Itsuki.”

“It possessed you?” Ren froze, sharp green eyes fixing on her and all Sakura could do was stare right back. “Why didn’t we hear the screams then?” he asked, something like horror and worry written across his face. “The first possession of someone with the Holy attribute…”

“It didn’t hurt,” she said flatly, wondering then why her brother had thought she’d have screamed. Though something forcing its way down her throat was probably scream-worthy… Then she remembered what Sasori had told her relating to possession of holy-attribute mana users. “At least no more than it forcing itself down my throat. It was uncomfortable… and irritating to have the control of my body stripped from me… but I’m getting off topic. Don’t we have an uncle to—Ren, why are you drawing your sword?”

Her brother scowled. “No reason. I just think I might have to pay the academy a visit after this situation is dealt with,” he muttered, something in his eyes promising murder even as he started speed-walking in the direction she thought Sasori had gone earlier.

“Because I was possessed there?” she asked, staring at Ren and the uncanny resemblance he had to their uncle all of a sudden. And wasn’t that a perturbing thought? “Uncle said… that the first possession of those naturally born with the holy attribute is the most painful thing…”

Screams echoed in her ears for a fraction of a second, and Sakura shivered all of a sudden, heart beating fast as she remembered the door with that strange sigil.

“Let’s not talk of such dark things,” Ren murmured, lips curling into a frown. “I’m keyed into the wardstone – the same as father, uncle, and Ichiro – so I’ll be able to gain us access if Uncle keyed it shut behind him.”

“So me and Itsuki are the only ones who aren’t keyed into the wardstone then?”

“Yes,” Ren answered, leading the way through a copse of trees, and Sakura eyed the flat, one-story, circular building that she thought was their destination. “Not even the butler or head maid have access. It falls upon the Duke, his heir, or the spare in the worst case… and well, we have Uncle Sasori too who’s allowed access – though we don’t go spreading that fact around because technically as a foreign dignitary he’s not supposed to have access.”

“Are the butler and head maid…?” she trailed off, glancing back in the direction they had come from.

“They’re employees of the Haruno Estate, sister dearest,” Ren said matter-of-factly. “We only hire the best, and naturally that means every worker on this estate has reasonable self-defence skills. It’s why we have less staff than, say, the royal palace.”

“That, and the Haruno Duchy is smaller than the royal palace,” she muttered, frowning then. “How’d I know that?” she mumbled, scratching at her head.

“Because evidently your subconscious mind remember more than your conscious mind does,” Ren said, pausing as they arrived outside the small, round building. “We’re here, Sakura,” he stated, swallowing thickly, and Sakura wondered what exactly what he was expecting to find behind those doors.

Cautiously, Ren grasped a hold of the handle, frowning as he pulled open the door. Almost hesitantly, he stepped inside the strange circular room made entirely of stone and mortar which had a set of stairs at its centre, leading downwards – below the ground, and Sakura didn’t need to guess that was where the wardstone lay.

Yet there was no sign of Sasori, and that fact made her hair stand on end.

Doors slammed behind them with a loud thud, and Sakura spun around as a clank of a lock sounded. “Get out, quickly!” Ren hissed, sprinting for the door, bodily slamming into it to no avail. “No, no, no…” Ren murmured under his breath, and Sakura could only blink and wonder what the bloody hell was going on before the ground dropped out on her.

It was as if someone had opened a trapdoor – a trapdoor which led to a strangely warm and wet slide. Her stomach twisted, part of her immediately knowing what the texture of the pulsing walls around her reminded her of. Flesh. She had been a medic for long enough to become intimately aware of the texture of skin – and the texture of organs, the latter being what that strange surface she was sliding down on felt like. Chakra pulsed in her hands, and Sakura only blinked as she felt that energy automatically sapped away from her hands. It didn’t stick, and so she could only fall further down that fleshy slide.

Darkness gave way to light, the solid surface beneath her feet giving way to air, and then she felt herself fall and land in a strange, mushy wall which pulled her into its surface ever so slightly. The world around her was the pulsing pink-red like Naruto’s heart. Only that wasn’t quite the right organ… “A stomach…?” she mumbled, hearing another sickly wet thump, and then Ren was stuck to the same fleshy pink-red wall as her.

“Congratulations – you aren’t blind,” a dry acerbic voice sounded, and Sakura glanced to her other side to find her uncle considerably more sunken into the living wall behind them that pulsed rhythmically.

“What the bloody hell just happened?” Sakura hissed, struggling as much as she could against the sticky, slimy wall which felt as though it were sucking her in.

“You were just swallowed by a Gluttonous Lurker – Greblin Type Seven, if you want to use the technical term. One of the Lurker-Consumer Classes,” Sasori explained with a soft sigh. “The wardstone’s been compromised. For how long, I have no idea, but this thing was lying in wait and swallowed me when I tried to access the wardstone.”

“Greblins aren’t intelligent enough to know where the best place to lie in wait is,” Ren muttered. “In fact, they tend to avoid mana-dense places like wardstones and their housings…”

“And that is why, darling nephew, we hate Controller-Manipulator Classes with a raging, burning passion,” he said flatly, and Sakura was almost hoping that her uncle would get himself out of that demon’s stomach – if only so she could watch him unleash his rage on the demon that Ichiro had last been seen battling. “It’s a cunning one, and I can only surmise that it’s at least a greater demon… though at most a Tier Three one, which is a small mercy… and the fact that it’s definitely attacked a protected area before,” he explained. “That’s the only reason I can think of how it knew to trap the wardstone.”

“Yet that’s hardly going to help us escape,” Sakura grumbled, gritting her teeth when all her movement seemed to do was make her sink into the fleshy wall by a few more centimetres.

“Greblin Types require a specific way to escape, Sakura,” Ren said, and Sakura glanced over at him to find him closing his eyes and sighing. “That is – with the assistance of a person on the outside or the outright slaying of it from, again, outside. The stomachs of Greblin Type Demons are… very resistant to attacks from inside.”

“What he means to say is that Greblin Types were typed under one grouping by their extreme ability to absorb large quantities of mana – and a Type Seven can absorb even Holy Magic which is lethal to most other demons in far smaller quantities,”  Sasori explained. “So, in other words, we’re doomed so long as we’re stuck inside its stomach.”

“If we can hold out from being digested for fifteen or so minutes, then we might be rescued,” Ren said, sounding incredibly grim. “But the absorption rate is… well, dependent on how much mana you have. Certainly uncle and I could potentially last fifteen more minutes, but… Sakura. Sister. How quickly are you sinking into the wall?”

Sakura bit her lip, swallowing as she noted the pulling feeling at her back. “Too quickly for my liking,” she murmured.

“Well, that’s to be expected,” Ren murmured, gritting his teeth. “Mana grows exponentially on your eighteenth birthday. Uncle… are you sure there’s no other way we can use to escape?” he asked, desperation seeping into his voice. “I… do not intend to see my brother without our little sister – who he entrusted to me to protect.”

Sasori scowled. “Well—Sakura.”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember I spoke to you about constitutions?” he asked, and Sakura could only side-eye him as best she could from where she was slowly being sucked into that fleshy wall. “And how I suspected that you might have a special one?”

“What of it?”

“Let’s pray I’m right, darling niece,” Sasori spoke quickly, dark eyes locked on her green ones. “I know you’ve only just begun playing around with mana, but you need to open your holy gate – but don’t push your mana out. Open the gate…”

“You can’t be serious, uncle,” Ren hissed. “You know how rare the constitution of an Exorcist is – the Holy Lands only have three!”

“And yet your sister survived possession as a human with a natural holy affinity,” their uncle shot back. “Not to mention that’s the only constitution which can absorb a Greblin from within their stomach and trap the demon within them until they can purge it… not that many know of that fact because the constitution is so rare. Cycle your mana in your core – envision the gate room and fall into it within your mind. Exorcists tend to have better visualisation and realisation of what is called the mindscape.”

“How do I do that?” she demanded, feeling panic surging in her throat because she was in a precarious situation where she might get digested in a matter of minutes. Any chakra she emitted was absorbed into that stomach, and she had little doubt her mana would experience the same fate if she exuded it as well. Not that she could work chakra and mana in tandem. Yet. Though she was getting ahead of herself with those kinds of thoughts because she had yet to master either in that body of hers.

“Usually you’d spend years meditating and manifesting your visualisation of the gate room, but we’re going to have to try and speed the process up,” Sasori informed her, pursing his lips. “Close your eyes,” he ordered, and she did as asked, knowing then that it wasn’t the time to complain or pepper her uncle with her many, many questions. “Feel the mana inside you – inside your core. Remember whoever first helped you access your mana core. Remember the feeling and colour of your mana as it came out of its gate for the first time.”

Ren had been the one to do that, she recalled with a distinct clarity, remembering the purple-white of her mana contrasting the green-blue of her chakra. Her heartbeat pulsed in her ears, fear writhing in her chest at the thought of dying again. She didn’t want to die in the stomach of a demon. Just like she hadn’t wanted to be crushed by a truck. She breathed out, desperately trying to calm herself as she was held there, even as a familiar well of spite surged within her.

It was almost like her life was flashing before her eyes, the words of her uncle and her brother fading out of her hearing as she turned her focus inwards. She reached for that purple-white—

“Not like that,” a soft, almost familiar voice whispered, and the world faded away, replaced by darkness all around her – an infinite horizon speckled with tens of thousands of stars.

Laughter echoed from behind her, joyful and free, and Sakura turned to glare at whoever was behind her. Only to stop short and stare at the strange figure dressed in plate armour which almost seemed to gleam and glimmer beneath the speckled starlight. Long pink hair which was tied back in a single ponytail shifted as the lady in front of her moved, and those familiar, piercing green eyes which met her own in a resolute gaze through stray, straggly strands of hair which fell in front of her face.

She knew that figure, and she knew that face – how could she not when she saw that reflection in every single mirror she looked into?

“This way,” the weirdly-dressed version of herself said, gesturing to the infinite darkness beneath their feet.

“Inner?” she asked, remembering that weird voice in her head – who’d been with her since the very beginning, before fading away as she had grown into herself that much more. She hadn’t heard a peep from that strange second voice who’d used to yell shannaro in her head before she’d started speaking that aloud.

The strangely-dressed version of herself only smiled. “Come on. We can’t have you dying on us so soon,” she said, holding out her hand. An offer of something she didn’t quite understand.

“Us?” she echoed, frowning at that familiar stranger who looked at her and beckoned to her.

“Can you not see them?” she asked, tilting her head and looking behind herself then, as if to show her where whatever she meant lay. Yet all Sakura could see were vague shadows with fuzzy outlines, and part of her could only wonder exactly what was supposed to be there. “Never mind. This way, silly,” that strange version of her who she decided she was going to call Inner said, grabbing her hand and pulling her down into the darkness.

She landed atop still waters with a soft splash, chakra thrumming in her feet as she stared around the space which had suddenly appeared amidst the darkness. It was a near-circular hall, or perhaps a heptagon in shape, grand and imposing, tall with ceilings impossibly high, and impossibly tall doorways set in those stone slabs of walls. There were seven doorways in that room, each door having a colour and a strange symbol drawn on it.

“Gates,” she realised with a start, even as she found herself alone in that grand room she somehow knew to be the mental realisation of her mana core. “The holy gate,” she reminded herself, her sense of urgency returning as her gaze fell upon the grand white gate. Her uncle had said that she needed to open it – and so she would, she mused, craning her head back to look at the sheer height of the gate before scolding herself.

This was within her mind – perhaps a construct of mana – which meant it was hers and hers alone to control. Didn’t it? She raced across the room, ignoring the outcrops of rock which stuck out from the lonely-looking lake in the very centre of the room she’d landed atop of. Was that the representation of her mana? Sakura could only tilt her head and abolish the thought. She needed to focus. Her life was at stake, no matter how peaceful her current surroundings seemed.

“Pull them open,” a voice whispered in her ear, warm breath brushing against her ear and making her shiver. Yet when she looked around her – the place was empty besides herself.

Though she supposed that familiar voice had a point, she mused, grabbing a hold of the two circular loops which made up the gigantic door handles. Gritting her teeth at the weight of them, she pulled back, digging her feet in as she heaved the gigantic doors open to welcome something in. She was inviting that demon in, and it would be on her own terms that time around. She was there to trap it within herself.

Yet that particular demon absorbed mana – and chakra too, it seemed – so wouldn’t inviting it into that gate room – a visualisation of her mana core… Her thoughts trailed off, and she gritted her teeth, knowing she had to trust Sasori and his words then. That would have been unthinkable weeks before, and yet her uncle as he was right then and there – she thought him trustworthy.

Sakura blinked, letting go of those door handles to instead position herself between those partially open doors to shove them open that much more. How open did they have to be to work? she wondered, chewing on her lip as she pressed her entire weight against one of those doors and shoving it backwards as best she could. Stone scraped across stone as she hefted each door open, and it took her longer than she’d have liked to stand there with that white door fully opened inwards.

“Now what?” she mumbled, frowning when a length of chain shimmered into existence, slamming against the ground with a metallic thud.

“Pull it in,” that same voice ordered, and Sakura reached down to grab a hold of that silvery chain. “Quickly.”

“Fine,” Sakura muttered, grabbing onto that chain and yanking it towards her as fast as she had once hauled Sasori’s puppet body away from old lady Chiyo. Only she wasn’t one-hundred percent certain of what was on the other end of this chain – though she was ninety percent certain it was the Type Seven demon whose stomach she’d been in only moments before. Her fingers were aching by the time the fleshy blob of a demon was hauled inside her gate, arms aching from the exertion, and part of her mused on how that was possible if that wasn’t her physical body.

Her eyes narrowed on the demon, stomach churning at the apparent size of the thing – yet it didn’t move to swallow her once more. It just lay there, in front of her closing holy gate, looking like the hybrid lovechild of a stomach and an eggplant. Yet where the stem should have been – if it had been an actual eggplant over seven times the size of her – there was a flat top with a flap which seemed to open.

A loud shriek rang out, and Sakura clapped her hands over her ears as the thing screamed all of a sudden.

“Sakura!”

Reality returned to her with a stinging cheek, and she narrowed her eyes at her uncle whose hand was far too close to her face. “Was the slap really necessary?” she grumbled, clutching at her cheek and freezing as arms wrapped around her and yanked her into a seated position.

“You’re okay….” Ren murmured, and Sakura could only blink at the glimmer of tears in his eyes. “And you actually have the constitution of an Exorcist…”

“Obviously,” Sasori remarked, climbing to his feet and looking around the large, long stone-brick room they were in warily. “Otherwise she’d be dead.”

“Wait, what?” Sakura demanded, side-eyeing her uncle then.

“I told you, darling niece. The only way to safely check if you have the constitution of an Exorcist is to go to the Holy Lands and get them to run some specific tests,” Sasori said, pulling her mind back to the conversation they’d had what felt like hours ago. She wondered then if it had even been an hour since she had found out that her uncle remembered his life as a shinobi. “The less safe way is to attempt to absorb a demon. If you live, it’s because your mana core has a specific flow which prevents demons from draining your mana from inside your core. If you die – it’s because you don’t, and the demon drains you of all your mana.”

“That’s why it was so risky—” Ren interjected.

“Yet if she hadn’t we’d still be in that stomach, and my darling niece – your sister – would likely be dead. As it is, I have some rather nasty burns on my back from its stomach acid, and I dare say yours are worse,” Sasori said, looking at her pointedly, and Sakura winced as the adrenaline started to fade from her system – the pain at her back becoming evident.

“Of course it had stomach acid,” she muttered, wincing as she felt blood running down her back, her skin feeling raw. Part of her didn’t want to look or even touch her own back. She could already see her uncle’s back; skin glistening pink and raw, little sores weeping thin trickles of blood. She could feel fluid running down her own back, and she could only grit her teeth at that.

“It dissolves the skin to pry away the main defences around the mana core – and then absorbs the mana when the prey is nothing but bone and organs, which it then expels,” Sasori explained, his words painting a gruesome picture. “It’s why in kingdoms or territories where you’ll be likelier to find Lurker-Consumer Classes, it’s generally mandated that you go out in groups of at least three.”

“We can continue the demonology lessons later, uncle,” Ren interrupted, picking up his sword from where it had fallen. “You can sense them too, can’t you?” he asked, glancing at their uncle even as a faint sheen of mana coloured his blade.

“I can,” Sasori remarked, glancing behind them at a large crystalline dome sunk into the floor. “The wards are down. Something deactivated them fully while we were busy being digested,” he said, pulling two short daggers which gleamed with a purplish light. “We have company.”

“And sister cannot use mana right now…” Ren murmured, and Sakura shot him a look.

“I can’t?”

“No – you are currently containing a demon in your mana core, so obviously you can’t push mana out of your core without providing the demon with a route of escape,” Sasori stated, even as a faint click of feet against stone echoed around the room they were inside. “Such a pity that you don’t have a handy source of energy stored in, say, your naval area,” he remarked, and Sakura felt both relief and annoyance course through her at that as her chakra surged to her fists. “Now, darling niece, on a scale of one to I could throw Uncle Sasori a kilometre, how strong are you feeling?”

Ren visibly paused. “Uncle, what kind of question is that?”

Sakura tilted her head. “I could probably manage about fifty metres as I am with the appropriate throwing technique,” she said flatly.

“Excellent, then you’ll be fine,” her uncle stated. “Now, I think it time we got out of this dreary building—”

“But the wardstone—”

“The Holy Knights can reclaim it when they get here – it’s too much of a target for us to defend. Especially seeing as we’re all mildly injured from being in that Greblin’s stomach,” Sasori said matter-of-factly. “It’s not a location that was designed with fortifications against demons – the wardstone was designed so no demons could enter in the first place, but now they have…”

“So where are we going? Or are we planning to fight out in the open for however long until those Holy Knights get their backsides over here?” Sakura asked, raising an eyebrow at her fellow former shinobi – and her uncle, not that her mind would ever stop reeling over that very fact.

“It’s simple,” Sasori said, his eyes fixed on the dark doorway – the only one in the room. “We aim for the servant’s quarters. The staff of the estate should be there, along with some medical supplies… Plus that building was first designed to be an emergency shelter in case of a disaster befalling the estate… but first—”

A foot impacted her chest, sending her skidding back a few metres – just in time for something with far, far too many legs to drop down from the ceiling where she had just been standing.

“Is that a giant centipede?” she hissed, skin crawling at the way those numerous legs clacked their pointed tips against the stone floor.

“Centipedes don’t grow that large,” Ren hissed, and she spotted the flash of a blade as her brother engaged with the latest demon to come across their ragtag group of three. “Centren Demon – Lower Demon, Tier One—”

“Sakura, punch it,” Sasori ordered. “My poisons won’t do much against it, and neither will Ren’s blade. It’s armour is more vulnerable to blunt force!”

“Ugh,” she grumbled, fist clenching, even as her stomach twisted. Yet needs were as needs must, and shinobi weren’t called upon for the nicest of jobs. “I don’t like bugs,” she said, chakra surging to all of her limbs as she danced away from its surging attack, gritting her teeth and screwing her eyes shut as she brought her fist down on where she thought its head was with an almighty squelch and a grim crunch.

Yet closing her eyes didn’t take away the pulpy texture she could feel beneath her fist, nor did it hide the way the thing squirmed and screeched beneath the heavy blow. It writhed around her arm embedded within it, numerous legs moving. Her eyes snapped open, part of her despising overly large demon bugs in that instant – despite that being the first bug-looking demon she’d encountered – as she lifted her other fist and slammed it down. She wasn’t entirely certain how many blows it took, only stopping when those unnatural numbers of legs were still.

“I hate bugs,” she muttered decisively, feeling the way her arms were painted in black, almost gelatinous blood which felt far too sticky and smelt absolutely rancid.

“Centren Demons generally travel in packs of two to seven,” Sasori informed her, looking the slightest bit glib and gleeful at that. “So I recommend we get out of here,” he said, ushering them out of the sole doorway and down the righthand corridor. “Hopefully the rest of its pack is behind us.”

Silently, Sakura prayed to whatever deity was there that it was the case, even as she ran behind her uncle and brother as they made for the stairs leading up to the exit of the wardstone area, mentally readying herself all the while for whatever lay outside that building in the depths of the estate.

Chapter Text

The apparent foyer of the wardstone’s building was remarkably quiet, Sakura noted with a growing sense of dread, even as they hurried up the stairs. Their footsteps were light – at least hers and Sasori’s were – barely audible despite the eerie quiet surrounding them. Though her footsteps were quietened mostly by chakra rather than skill, her body there not quite having had the same amount of training she’d had in another life before that one and thus lacking the muscle memory she’d once had.

“I will take point,” their uncle informed them as they reached the spot where she had been swallowed up by the Greblin Type Seven originally. “You two will keep an eye on each other and everything that might come at us from behind.”

Sakura swallowed thickly at that, a familiar nervousness welling up within her at the promised fighting ahead of them on the way to their destination. “Never forget that nervousness,” Tsunade, in another life, had warned her. “It’ll keep you alive – keep your overconfidence in your abilities from creating a chink in your own armour.” It was strange how distant that memory seemed, and it brought a familiar pang of sadness and anger for a life cut short far too soon.

“I am uncertain as to what types of demons we will be facing, so keep your guard up, both of you,” Sasori said, the look in his eye telling her that there was likely a fierce fight for survival about to go underway. “Ren – you actually have training to fight against demons, so keep your sister away from any of the particularly nasty ones, and ones that are… resistant against blunt force trauma.”

Ren blinked, a look of determination settling on his face. “I will,” he vowed solemnly.

“Right,” Sasori remarked, kicking the door open with his foot and lifting his blades ready to fight.

The air was chillier than she remembered – or maybe that was the lack of clothing on her bleeding back talking – and the hairs on the back of her neck were stood up on end as they exited the small building and into the small copse of trees they had walked past to get there originally. They had been healthy trees, the last she recalled, all dark, earthy browns and rich green leaves. Yet right then and there they looked sickly; the bark a pale beige-brown, the craggy trunks lined with black vein-like marks, and the leaves were an acrid yellow.

“Oh,” Sasori murmured, and Sakura felt her heart sink at that, even as her uncle sheathed his blades, grabbed one of them under each arm, and sprinted in the direction with the least amount of trees. She pulled her feet up, trying not to squirm uncomfortably as she heard the telltale sound of branches creaking, even as the earth beneath Sasori’s feet shifted and moved.

“Ren?” she muttered, side-eyeing him in the hopes of an explanation, even as their uncle wove around the roots which burst up through the ground, leaping up and springing off the nearest tree’s craggy trunk all the while sprinting like his life depended on it. “What—?”

“Treinin Demon,” her brother answered hurriedly. “Higher Demon, Tier One, Controller-Possessor Class. Though it only posses trees and other plants rather than Manipulators who possess humans. Very dangerous once it gains control of enough trees.”

Her thoughts strayed for a brief moment back to Yamato, remembering just how renowned the mokuton had been. “I gathered that,” she mumbled, even as she found herself being set down back on solid ground now that they were a good distance away from those sickly-looking trees. And the path of spikes which had formed in an attempt to stop them, and likely kill them before they could leave the wooded area.

“Get back in triangular formation,” Sasori ordered, drawing his blades once more, eyes fixed on the stretch of open grass that lay before them. “I can’t get us by this… horde like I got past the Treinin,” he said, and Sakura swallowed thickly as she spotted the array of demons ahead of them. They sprawled out in front of them, all around the manor, hundreds of shadowy, gelatinous, or more animal-like forms moving about with purpose in any and all directions. Some converged on the shadowed manor house she knew Ichiro was trapped within. Some charged towards the wooded areas, whilst a fraction of the number besieged a smaller, detached three-storey property which she suspected to be their destination.

“How long have we got until our backup arrives?” Sakura asked, side-eyeing her brother then in the hopes that he would declare it to be a matter of seconds.

“I haven’t exactly been timing,” Ren mumbled, looking apprehensively ahead, face pale at the sight of countless demons on their property. It was a sight, she suspected, he had never seen before – nor had he ever been expecting to see.

They were supposed to be safe there, after all, she mused bitterly; it was why her brothers hadn’t believed her when she started speaking about demons.

“The Treinin Demon will ensure nothing can come from the rear – they’re incredibly territorial, Treinins are,” Sasori spoke, once again reclaiming her attention. “So all that matters at this exact moment is ensuring that nothing flanks us as we move towards the staff quarters,” he said, laying out their game plan. Only it wasn’t a game, and the risk of death or severe injury – up to, and including possession – was quite high. “We will move and keep the Treinin to our backs – the forest to our left looks to be its territory as well, though that’s not a guarantee. Ren, you’ll mostly be in charge of keeping an eye on the forest, and ensuring we don’t stray too close to any Treinin. Sakura, you’ll be either punching things, or doing what myself or Ren tell you to,” her uncle said flatly. “Any slime-like creatures, you leave to me – blunt force is useless against those. Any demons which take the form of animals or insects or something similar are fair game for you.”

“Right,” she agreed, part of her feeling mildly rankled at being nothing more than a grunt there to punch things. Yet that was most of her skill set at that particular moment in time, besides medical knowledge, so she couldn’t quite argue on that front. Not that the edge of what was about to be a battlefield was any place to be having mundane, meaningless arguments… Letting her guard down had resulted in bright lights, a flash of pain, and waking up in a strange world where she had brothers, a strange version of her father, and the uncle who she’d killed in another life.

She wasn’t about to die again, that she vowed to herself. A familiar spite welled up within her, fingers clenching into fists as her uncle took point and started running at a reasonable pace along the outskirts of the small wood which would take them almost directly to their destination.

Ren stayed close by her side, arguably positioned on what looked to be the safer side, if one didn’t account for the sheer silence of the wood to their left. Then again, the moving herd of demons on her right-hand side all but exuded menace.

They remained unseen for approximately five seconds, a sharp hissing, clacking sound swiftly informing her that the three of them had been spotted. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end, a brief silence meeting her ears for the slightest of seconds. Then the horde closest to them moved, a mass of black, shadow-like bodies suddenly exploding with movement towards them.

Hissing sounds and the click of mandibles met her ears, snarls and ominous screams ringing out, along with the vibration through the ground as many feet and legs pounded the earth as those demons charged towards their small group of three. There were too many opponents, she realised in an instant, even as a sinking feeling of dread clawed out a place for itself in her stomach.

“Get ready,” Ren murmured, continuously glancing over to the forest, looking outright terrified at the thought of anything bursting out from between the dark, far too long shadows of the trees. “Here they come.”

“I can see that,” she muttered, heartrate ratcheting in her chest as she readied herself for the first battle since her skills had been ground back down to the bare bones of the fighter she had once been. Yet she had never fought demons before, and rare had the skirmishes been between her and wild, ravenous animals. Her opponents had always been a human shape before – and she knew the human body, and all its weak points rather well. The weak points of the closest wolf-like creature charging towards her – those she didn’t know.

Her gaze fixed on the yellowing teeth, dripping with viscous fluid, razor sharp and primed to rip into her.

Improvisation it was, she mused, baring her teeth in a snarl as she reared her fist back and struck like a viper as soon as the first of those demons came into striking range.

Black blood splattered across her face, leaving a smattering of bloody freckles painted on her cheeks, something which felt distinctly like ribs shattering beneath her fist. She felt oddly free for the first time in weeks, something inside her feeling relieved as she worked herself into a rhythm of punching and kicking, and then mixing up the entire routine. Did it say something about her that she was more familiar with battle than caring, concerned brothers? There was no time for to mull on the answer to that, let alone for her to turn around and see her uncle or her brother and how they were fairing. Instead, there were only the opponents in front of her; an unending wave, or so it looked. The numbers didn’t thin out, a wall of corpses being built up around her like a barricade, the clouds above thundering as if promising an oncoming storm – and her instincts whispered that it was no normal storm.

Something tingled on her tongue, the air charged with something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, even as the familiar scent of a battlefield met her nose and mouth each time she breathed in.

Fingers grasped at her shoulder, her arm moving instinctively to break her opponent’s hold—

“Sakura,” Ren hissed, pulling her after their uncle who was on the move once more, metal flashing as his blade moved, cutting down any enemy that dared to get too close. “Hurry. They’re working their way into a frenzy—”

A loud bang startled both of them, followed by the distinct sound of something exploding.

Sakura risked a glance towards the manor house where the sound had come from, heart in her throat as part of the roof of her home lay in tatters, even as two figures moved around in a blur. A flash of pink caught her eye, gaze fixing on the form of her eldest brother. “Ichiro,” she murmured, staring at her brother as he battled the demon who had possessed her – and was currently possessing her other brother.

That answered the question of where the youngest of her three older brothers had ended up… Her teeth ground together audibly, part of her remembering in an instant what it felt like to be possessed; a meat puppet used for the demon pulling the strings.

Ichiro looked similarly enraged at the visage of their brother used to fight against them – or, rather, him. His blade glowed a bright white, parrying the sword wreathed in darkness clutched in Itsuki’s hands. Metal clashed on metal, the sounds ringing across the field of demons as they moved around at a rapid pace, white light burning any and all of her foes who dared to sidle too close to the battle between brothers. Holy magic, something whispered to her, even as that light almost blinded her.

Ichiro was there outside of their home which had been encased in swirling darkness. Her brother was relatively okay, barring a few cuts and grazes on his face which bled a startling red. Yet he had been battling for a considerable length of time against a foe that was considerably stronger than him. She knew what exhaustion looked like, and she’d seen Kakashi-sensei once push himself to the point of unconsciousness. Sakura didn’t like the fact that she was spying the same signs in her brother.

Fangs grazed her arm, fist moving to slam the latest of her own enemies away, even as the shallow grazes twinged along with the weeping skin of her back. They couldn’t hold on for much longer, that she knew deep down, instinct whispering to her that their backup had to arrive soon, otherwise she didn’t think all of them would be making it out. If any of them made it out at all…

A yelp made her vision tunnel, Ren’s fingers losing purchase on her shoulder as she dived in the opposite direction. She grimaced, eyeing the sword sliced through Ichiro’s shoulder, rivulets of bright red blood dripping down her brother’s arm. Itsuki’s face twisted into a sick grin, the demon commandeering his body undoubtedly spotting the chink in her brother’s defence.

Chakra thrummed in her feet, toes digging into fur, skin, and whatever else those demons were made from as she ran over the top of them in a desperate, frantic struggle to reach her eldest brother.

She remembered then, in that instant, a flood of childhood memories returning to her without so much as a by your leave. They came fast, flashing before her eyes, bringing with them a pang in her chest that felt awfully tight all of a sudden. She remembered Ichiro cheering her on when she showed off the fruits of her etiquette lessons. She remembered his exasperated sigh when she added yet another box of shoes to his arms whilst they were out shopping. She remembered him escorting her to her first tea party when father had been snowed under with work, his presence reassuring and strong.

Her teeth bared in a snarl, chakra thrumming through her legs as she willed herself to make it in time to stop Itsuki’s warped hand from carving into her brother’s chest. He was her brother, and she wasn’t about to lose him when she had only just started to get to know him properly.

Feet dug into solid ground, leaving imprints in their wake as she threw herself the last few metres—

“Sakura!” Ichiro hissed, eyes wide, and she could only freeze mid-leap, far too committed to her attempted tackle to realise the fact the demon had long since clocked her approach.

Rookie mistake, part of her mused numbly, as she watched that familiar slimy construct turn to lash out against her instead.

She couldn’t dodge in midair—

White flashed in the corner of her vision, an arm closing around the small of her back and pulling. A slender blade glowing with a harsh bluish light slammed into Itsuki’s side, the flat of the blade making impact and sending him sprawling backwards. A face she had only seen a handful of times in cracked, flaking flesh appeared in her peripheral, and Sakura could only blink in the split second she had to take in the visage of the Second Hokage’s counterpart moving past her before she was being hauled away alongside Ichiro in a blur of movement.

“Thank the Goddess,” Ichiro whispered, the words reaching her despite the chaos surrounding them, even as they were both whisked away from the epicentre of the fight.

Her head turned, eyes narrowing on their rescuer, only able to spot long black hair tied back in a sleek ponytail and the white robes embroidered with crests that undoubtedly signified the lands from which those knights had come. “Let’s get you both to the safe zone Mito set up,” their rescuer said, more to himself than anybody else or so Sakura suspected.

She had barely a second to spy a face which looked exceedingly alike to Uchiha Sasuke’s before they had been deposited on white, glowing ground and summarily left in the care of one Uzumaki Mito, or so Sakura recognised a once-legendary figure from a life so distant to that one. For one, Mito didn’t look that much older than Ichiro, her hair a vibrant red as opposed to the grey it had been in the few full-colour photos Konoha had of the wife of the First Hokage. “Huh,” Sakura mumbled, blinking as Ren and Sasori were swiftly deposited in the circle of earth which was lit by glowing sigils that were presumably keeping them safe. “We did it?” the words came out as more of a question, and her uncle only glanced at her briefly before snorting quietly.

“So it would seem,” Sasori replied, humming under his breath as he surveyed the world beyond the safe zone that Uzumaki Mito had apparently had a hand in setting up. “Now I think it’s time we stopped worrying and start treating all of our wounds,” he said, looking at her pointedly, and Sakura jolted back to awareness at that, scowling as she realised she still had yet to keep a fish alive outside of water in that world. Or rather, she had yet to try, what with everything that had been going on besides that… Still, chakra control was more of an innate skill, that could be refined to a point, meaning that she could see to the more basic of her wounds even without extensive practice—

“What happened to all of you?” Ichiro demanded, Itsuki’s sword off to one side, even as his hand glowed with a pale white light while he held it to his stab wound.

“Greblin Type Seven,” their uncle answered succinctly.

Ichiro visibly winced. “Wait…” Ichiro frowned, eyes darting then around each of their injuries, even as his hand lowered from his shoulder. “All three of you have injuries which line up with being in a Greblin’s stomach…”

“Ah,” Sasori said, turning then to Uzumaki Mito in a clear attempt to put a stopper in that conversation. “Saintess Mito,” he greeted the lady who had been watching the four of them with mild interest. “I believe both one of my nephews and my darling niece will be requiring the services of demonic expulsion. An exorcism, if you will,” their uncle explained, waving one hand in her general direction.

Mito tilted her head, the two sealing tags falling from either bun on the side of her head shifting with the motion. “Tobirama will see to expelling the demon occupying the body of your nephew. But your niece does not show signs of being possessed,” she said flatly, black eyes meeting her green ones for the briefest of instances before returning to their uncle.

“That would be because she has the same constitution as yourself,” Sasori explained, inclining his head towards her. “We found out the hard way in the Greblin’s stomach, you see.”

“Uncle!” Ichiro hissed, eyes darting to Ren who flinched. “Ren—”

“That was reckless,” Uzumaki Mito said, cutting off anything that Ichiro could have started screeching about, and Sakura could only grit her teeth at the sudden attention and ire that fact had drawn.

“We didn’t exactly have much of a choice,” she said, fighting the urge to bare her teeth and defend the decision she had made. Not that she’d really known about the risk of death – nor had it really mattered, what with the fact she would have died either way. “I would have been absorbed by now if we hadn’t…”

“You aren’t even a student of the Holy Lands yet,” Mito declared, utterly certain of her every word – a feat that Sakura found herself mildly jealous of. “You bear no sigil that connects you to us… and yet you managed to contain a Greblin Type Seven in a highly pressured environment without knowing whether or not you would perish from it.” She stepped towards her then, and Sakura swallowed with apprehension.

Was she about to be barred from ever setting foot on the Holy Lands for fear of her reckless stupidity infecting others?

“It takes years to properly grasp the concept of visualisation – or it does for most normal people,” Mito continued, leaning down to grasp her chin, the telltale rush beneath her skin informing her that mana was being used on her. “You are but a child, albeit one on the cusp of adulthood. You have no training in visualisation. Only the Holy Lands teach it, or rather, only they teach it well.” Mana flooded her core, the familiar touch of holy magic making her shiver ever so slightly, breath escaping in a sharp exhale, even as a feeling of sickness welled up within her. “Which makes this situation decidedly abnormal.”

Sakura felt her eyes widen, Mito stepping back – undoubtedly knowing what was about to happen – before she could throw up on her clean white boots. It was a pitch black liquid that she vomited, the sludgy, thick, syrup-like sick coating her mouth on the way up and out. A rancid taste met her tongue, and she gagged on it then, a whimper escaping her when another large globule of that black liquid came up and was promptly expelled from her body. She lost count of how many times her stomach heaved, the puddle of vomit constantly expanding as she added to it, and shrinking as that inky fluid was burned away by those white sigils drawn onto the ground.

“Sister,” Ichiro murmured, his touch light against her back as he rubbed small circles on it. “Do you want some water?” he asked, offering a flask out to her – somehow unharmed by the fight he’d been in for the past twenty minutes. “I can’t imagine that tasted pleasant.”

“Surprisingly enough, no,” she muttered, taking the flask from his waiting hand, swishing water around her mouth a few times before spitting it out to take another gulp. “Thanks,” she mumbled, passing the flask back, mouth and stomach feeling marginally better.

“You are the Harunos, specifically the Haruno Duchy of the Leaves, yes?” Mito spoke, ending her brief reprieve from the strange conversation. The one where she was undoubtedly designated as abnormal.

“That would be us, yes,” Ichiro said, cutting Ren off before he could get a word out. “You have my thanks, Saintess Mito, for responding to our call for aid so swiftly,” he continued, all pomp and grace lining his voice.

“And you have our thanks for expunging that demon from our sister,” Ren chipped in, blinking then as a familiar black-haired man reappeared within that circle, carrying Itsuki that time. Sakura watched him curiously, eyeing him as he set her brother down carefully on the ground besides her and Ren both.

“One Tier Three Greater Demon exorcised,” the man whose face resembled Sasuke’s so spoke, a remarkably un-Sasuke-like smile curving at his lips. It was remarkably smug and full of satisfaction tinged with pride.

“Tobirama did most of the legwork,” Mito stated, one red brow curving up, and Sakura could only wonder if Mito and Tobirama were the revered figures there that they had been in her life before that one. “Besides, you both know that Hashirama dealt with the majority of the demons whilst you were both busy rescuing the Harunos, the Prince of the Sands, and dealing with that Controller-Manipulator Type.”

Sakura blinked, glancing over at Ren as he sucked in a sharp gasp of air – and immediately started choking. “You okay?” she dared to ask, tuning out the conversation of the Holy Knight and the Saintess.

“I’m fine,” Ren murmured. “I just wasn’t expecting to see so many important figures of the Holy Lands here… usually there’d just be ten, well, normal Holy Knights dispatched to a distress beacon like ours…”

“You do remember that I have no idea who they are, don’t you?” she stated, eyebrow raised at her brother then, even as Ichiro was drawn into the Holy Knight’s conversation, leaving them both to watch over their unconscious brother.

“Ah, yes. Of course,” Ren said, leaning over Itsuki then and smoothing the hair back from his forehead. “They’re renowned across the kingdoms, if only for how talented they all are, even at their relatively young ages,” he began explaining, and Sakura paid attention, keeping an eye on the Saintess all the while. She was still a Saintess Candidate and everything that entailed right there and then. Not that she had the slightest idea of what it really meant to be a candidate. “They all have at least some roots in Konoha, too, which is why they are so well known to us rather than, say, Uncle Sasori.”

Sakura inclined her head, gesturing for him to go on, even as a more relaxed air seemed to settle over them – and a quick glance outside of the thin barrier of white light surrounding them was telling of how those demons had been utterly decimated by a total of three Holy Knights and a Saintess. Jealousy and hunger stirred inside her then, even as she remembered the teeth and claws which had been at her throat less than ten minutes ago. How she wished she could have decimated that horde of demons by herself… Yet she didn’t have the strength just yet.

That would change, she vowed to herself, even as she turned to Ren and listened to him extol the virtues of those legendary figures – who were just as legendary there as they had been previously to her, or so she was coming to understand.

Chapter Text

There were a number of facts she came to learn over the course of the next several hours; one of which being that somehow her room was the most intact and the only habitable one of the bedrooms after Ichiro and a possessed Itsuki had torn up a vast majority of the rest of the manor. Arguably, the more important fact she’d learnt was that Itsuki snored like a chainsaw, which was likely the reason why she woke up in an irritable mood that very morning.

At least she’d had an entire mattress to herself, what with her brothers insisting that it was only proper that she slept on her own bed in her own room, she mused, even as she wondered how the Holy Knights, and their beloved Saintess, had slept, camped overnight on their estate as they had elected to. Idly, she wondered exactly what the Holy Lands were like – there was, after all, a slim likelihood that she would end up venturing there one day soon, or maybe further in the future.

Yet the Holy Lands were hardly the main concern right then and there. The Haruno Estate had been utterly wrecked in the course of a single day, or, rather, a matter of hours, if that. Her home there had nearly been destroyed, and she might as well have nearly died.

The cooks and a vast majority of the estate staff had survived, which had thankfully meant they had breakfast cooked for them. It was a luxury she had become quite used to over the past few weeks. Sakura blinked, part of her registering just how short of a time she had remembered spending in that world.

Time had passed by so quick, ever since she had… remembered her past life, or so everyone was constantly reminding her, and part of her was almost terrified by that fact.

Life was fleeting, part of her mused, even as her brain chose that moment to remember broken bones and tire squeals. She breathed out then, willing her thoughts to move on from the memory. It was in the past right then and there, and she had the present to focus on. Sakura shook her head, drawing herself from her thoughts as Ren waved a hand in front of her face.

“What?” she grumbled, glaring at Itsuki then as her brother yawned and murmured about what a good night’s sleep he’d had.

“It shouldn’t be for much longer,” Ren mumbled, noting where her stare had ended up.

“I could feel his snores through the floorboards,” she muttered in response to that, dragging a hand through her hair and scowling then.

“It’s just until another of the rooms are fixed. Our butler has already made arrangements with the craftsmen for repairs. He’s efficient, that one,” Ren said, filling her with a glimmer of hope then for some peaceful nights ahead.

“We should hurry and get ready to face the day,” Ichiro chimed in, looking between them both severely – telling of the fact that he was still at odds with Ren for letting her nearly die after his explicit instructions otherwise. Not that he could logically blame him, Sakura mused, casting a stern side-eye at her brother, but then emotions were nothing but illogical half the time. “We will need to assist the Holy Knights with whatever they need… I suspect there’s a reason, or perhaps a few, that they have stayed rather than returning to the Holy Lands.”

“What reason?” she asked automatically, curiosity running unchecked then as she yawned and wrapped herself up in her dressing gown. It was going to be a pyjama morning, part of her had already decided, uncaring of whether she would happen to see any of the alternate-founders. She was in the comfort of her own home right there and then.

If anyone gave her any odd looks, then she had a slipper and a well of spite with which to beat them with.

“Think, sister,” Ichiro said, his face grave, even as he stirred her from her violent fantasy of beating someone up with just a rubber-soled slipper. “Why did those demons attack our estate, do you suppose?” he questioned, and Sakura felt her brow furrow at that. “It was a planned attack, or so I’d wager, and with planning comes motive and reasoning.”

“But how did they get inside in the first place?” she mumbled, frowning as she remembered the wardstone she had visited with her uncle and her brother. Albeit there had been no time to properly inspect the building containing their estate’s demon defences, but Sasori had told her of what it did. And how its defences had fully shut down whilst they’d been in the Greblin’s stomach. She tilted her head then, wondering if she’d ever get the chance to learn more about the demons that plagued that land.

She glanced at her hands, fingers curling into semblances of fists as she mulled over how much stronger she would need to become. Next time – if there ever was a next time, despite her hoping otherwise – she would be the one to clear an estate and have the bodies of her enemies lined up neatly and all ready to be disposed of by the time the Holy Knights arrived.

“Until the Holy Knights and the Saintess finish their investigation, we can’t be sure,” Ichiro said, chewing on his lip then, even as they shuffled out of the door behind Ren – who looked altogether far too zombie-like at that current moment in time.

Sakura blinked, the horror movies she had occasionally watched an entire lifetime ago alongside her teammates, more often than not, coming to the forefront of her mind, along with the plaguing thought—“Ichiro, brother,” she spoke, grabbing her brother’s attention before she could dissuade herself otherwise. “Are there any type of undead demons?” she questioned, wondering then if zombies actually existed in that world.

“Are you talking about demons who posses corpses, like lower class manipulator demons, or are you referring to the reanimation of corpses as such?" her brother questioned, arching one delicate eyebrow then as he glanced her way.

She squinted at him. “There’s a difference?” she questioned, part of her swallowing at the thought of corpses trudging around, demanding brains as sustenance. Had the zombie films she’d watched somehow come to life in her reality there? She tilted her head, staring at her brother intently until he caved and gave her the answer she wanted.

Ichiro frowned, a familiar expression settling onto his face as he started to worry. “Has someone been speaking to you of necromancy?” he questioned, brow furrowing then. “That is… a particularly repugnant brand of magic, and an old one as well. Not a topic to go into before breakfast, I would recommend.”

“So they do exist?” she demanded, raising an eyebrow.

“They are not technically classified as demons as such,” Ichiro said, looking incredibly putout by her refusal to drop the subject when he had all but stated to. “Reanimated corpses fall under a forbidden branch of dark magic. I can teach you about the history of that – it’s quite interesting, you know, and it contributed towards a stigma against dark magic for a time—”

“That’s not a pre-breakfast topic either,” Ren muttered, interrupting their brother before he could go on a tangent, concealing a yawn behind his hand all the while. “I’m too tired to talk history right now,” he grumbled, side-eyeing Itsuki as he whistled merrily on the way to the dining room.

Ichiro hummed under his breath, looking rather disappointed by the lacking interest in history. “Well, anyway,” he said, turning then to their brother who had been most affected by the demonic incursion. “Are you sure you’ve recovered enough, Itsuki?” he questioned, frowning at the smile that their brother wore.

“I’m fine,” he remarked, and Sakura found herself squinting at him and the almost hollow look there was to him.

“It’s perfectly fine if you haven’t,” Ichiro reminded, evidently having cottoned on to the fact that Itsuki was lying through his teeth. Or rather, Itsuki hadn’t fooled any of them into thinking he was fine in the first place, no matter how nice of a rest he’d had.

Sakura felt her teeth grind together at the reminder of just how loudly he snored. Yet she’d have her room back to herself sooner rather than later from the sounds of things… She breathed out then, a soft sigh escaping her as she glanced at the youngest of her brothers there.

“You were possessed,” she pointed out, still entirely unaware as to what the supposed recovery schedule of someone who’d been possessed was. Somehow she doubted that her own experience was particularly common; after all, she had holy magic, and that was seemingly a whole different kettle of fish when it came to possession.

“And?” Itsuki questioned, the false smile slipping from his lips quick enough to give her whiplash.

“Ah… you were unconscious for most of yesterday… and during the time you’ve been possessed, so you wouldn’t be aware; she was possessed as well,” Ren said, and Sakura felt his eyes on her there, blue eyes searching. “I’d recommend you both speak with each other about it,” he remarked, brow furrowing. “Neither myself or Ichiro have much experience with the aftermath of possession.”

“So we’re supposed to bond over this experience, or something?” she questioned, feeling her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “Does shared trauma really bring people together?” she mumbled, touching her throat then, remembering the feeling of that demon forcing its way down and into her. Her gaze met her brother’s confused one, even as the mild urge to cause mischief rose in her. “Did it deepthroat you too?” she asked, enjoying the sound of Ichiro choking on his own spit then, even as Ren snorted in a mixture of shock and amusement.

Itsuki only stared at her, a bemused expression on his face as he looked at her as though she were some sort of rare creature he’d stumbled across in the middle of a desert. He squinted at her then, seeming incredibly hesitant as his lips parted. “Why… would you phrase it like that?” he questioned, hand going to his own throat.

“Sakura,” Ichiro butted in, seeming then as if he were about to get into a conversation about exactly what was appropriate to say.

“Well…” she tilted her head, ignoring her eldest brother as she remembered the wave of helplessness she had felt when that demon had taken control of her. “It violated our minds… our bodies… and made us puppets, didn’t it?”

Itsuki only grunted in agreement to that statement.

She glanced down at her hands then, clenching them into fists. “I’m going to get stronger,” she said matter-of-factly, a smile curling at her lips that was more teeth and threat than anything else. “And beat the ever-loving shit out of every demon that crosses my path,” she stated, feeling a little more at ease as the first thing that came out of Ichiro’s mouth was—

“Language,” Ichiro grumbled, looking utterly fed-up by that point.

“You’re fighting a losing battle there, and you know it,” Ren muttered, and Sakura could only snicker at that.

“Let’s hurry up and get to breakfast,” Itsuki mumbled, brushing past them all then in a rush to get to the dining room.

Sakura dogged his footsteps, part of her curious as to what other parts of the estate were looking like. Part of her almost wanted to see one Uzumaki Mito again, even if she was currently far too underdressed for that matter. Part of her almost wanted to ask her if she knew anyone by the name of Uzumaki Naruto. She closed her eyes, breathing out a sigh even as Itsuki cast the doors to the dining room open.

“You certainly took your time,” their uncle spoke, looking eerily immaculate as he sat there, steaming teacup in hand.

“Can you blame us?” Ichiro questioned, a delicate brow raising at that.

Sakura tuned them out, attention drawn to the massive hole blown in the wall and the faint clattering of workmen outside. It was almost funny to part of her, that her home had been intact only the day before. Everything could change so quickly, part of her mused, ignoring the sound of screeching tyres that haunted her mind whenever she dared to think about herself and her thoughts for too long.

“—outside,” Sasori said, even as she blinked in confusion.

“What’s outside?” she asked, glancing then at the hustle and bustle through the conveniently positioned hole in the wall. Part of her was ever so grateful to have grabbed her dressing gown before heading down for breakfast, even as the sharp morning air nipped at her nose.

Her uncle only sighed. “As I just said, the Saintess and those three knights are outside – and they’re searching for something,” he explained, looking put out at having to repeat his words.

“Then perhaps we ought to assist them,” Ichiro said matter-of-factly. “Whilst Father is away, we are the only ones who can assist them… especially if whatever they are seeking is within the treasury.” His finger tapped his lip, eyes darting over to their newest window even as the maids and other servants of the Haruno Duchy arrived with breakfast for the five of them.

It was almost exactly the same as the breakfast of the morning before, and Sakura let herself be lulled into that eerie sense of normalcy as life returned to some semblance of familiarity within the Haruno Duchy.

The sunlight was bright, telling of the approach of the heat of summer, warmer winds starting to drift up from Suna. Sakura supposed that was something to be grateful for, what with how holey their home now was. Rain would only make the repairs go that much slower. Silently, she prayed the rain and winds would hold off for another week at least. With how quickly the repairs were taking place, she didn’t think it would take more than that to have at least the outer shell of the buildings all shored up once more. What gods in that world was she supposed to pray to in order to prevent that? Her brow furrowed at that, and she made a mental note to research that information when she got the chance.

Somehow she doubted the Saintess and those Holy Knights would look favourably on her having no idea of their religion… more so when she was supposed to be some sort of candidate to go to those lands… Sakura pursed her lips, wondering then when the small little details would stop throwing her off. She wondered if she’d ever stop hearing the squeal of tires and the gut-wrenching sound of her once-best friend screaming her name.

Scowling, she pushed herself to her feet, mentally deciding it was time for her to wander and try to take her mind off of things. Training could come later, once her thoughts had cleared. Or, if she couldn’t take her mind off of things, then she could train to the point of exhaustion and then fall asleep and probably not have any nightmares… She tilted her head, the idea having a veil of familiarity to it, and idly she wondered just who had given her those ideas of how to empty her mind. It was far too unhealthy of a method to have come from Ino.

Her teeth ground together at the thought of her best friend. “Happy thoughts,” she muttered like the mantra it was turning into. “Happy thoughts…”

She laced up her boots, hurrying out of her room and down the stairs, dressed only in a simple cream-coloured tunic, with a set of beige trousers to keep her legs from burning beneath the harsh rays of the sun. It was her preferred outfit for exercising in, what with the limited amount of fabrics available in that place.

Yet that was perhaps the consequence of the difference in threats there in that place. Shinobi had, after all, tended to prioritise freedom of movement to outmanoeuvre their enemies. Knights – which were seemingly as commonplace as shinobi in that world – prioritised standing their ground and fighting with heavy armour. There was no current pressing need for better fabrics that didn’t provide protection like there was for better, sturdier armour… and that might explain why the stretchy, quick-drying fabrics she was used to didn’t yet exist… Sakura tilted her head, humming under her breath as her brain ticked over those thoughts.

There was so much for her to learn, and part of her thought that she just didn’t have enough time on her hands.

“What exactly has you so lost in thought?”

Sakura blinked, her frazzled brain taking a moment to register her uncle stood in front of her. His arms were folded across his chest, the pale white of the sleeves a harsh contrast with the damasked red covering his torso. “Everything, these days,” she answered after a few moments of awkward staring.

“Then simplify it down,” Sasori said with that cutting logic of his. “Your luck is a funny thing, and I have the strangest of feelings that this”—he gestured at the estate around them—“is only the beginning.”

Her eyes narrowed, heart thudding in her chest as her ears caught a strange murmured chant in the wind. “What do you mean?” she asked, brow furrowing because yes, her luck was an abysmal thing—and yet… She swallowed thickly, a familiar unease settling into her bones themselves.

One perfectly-shaped red brow rose. “Do I look like a seer or a prophet?”

“They exist?”

Her uncle pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing away his exasperation. “That hardly matters right now.” He stepped forwards, finger poking her smack bang in the centre of her forehead. “What matters right now is getting stronger – at least for you. You’re pitiably weak compared to… well, before,” he said, and Sakura felt her shoulders hunch in on themselves.

He was right, after all.

She was pitiably weak in comparison to her past life, and she had the strangest of feelings that her enemies in that life would only grow stronger and stronger. But she didn’t have any enemies yet… did she? Her eyebrows knotted together, her mind ticking over the information she did know—

“Come with me,” Sasori ordered, his tone leaving no room for arguments.

Her feet were moving without a second thought, trailing behind her uncle as he led her through the gardens of the estate to a place she knew fairly well by that point in time. The training grounds. They were still intact, barely looking as though they had been touched by the devastation which had befallen the rest of the estate.

There were traces of black blood here and there, scattered in the dirt and sand, and a few claw marks on the walls, but other than that it was fine. That place was, perhaps, the only part of the estate that she could linger in and pretend that the day prior hadn’t happened.

It was also incredibly empty, what with how everyone else was apparently otherwise occupied. She had almost expected to see Itsuki there, working off his frustrations, but he was obviously elsewhere. Then again, she mused, she didn’t exactly know how Itsuki usually dealt with frustration and stress… She swallowed thickly, wondering when they would next be able to share a meal together. Ichiro had, after all, skipped their light luncheon only an hour before – too busy guiding the Holy Knights and the Saintess around their estate. Ren was holed up in the library, researching Barrier Sigils.

“Sorry, Sister,” had been his words when she had hunted him down in the interim between breakfast and lunch. “I won’t have time to talk you through this right now… the estate is too vulnerable. I need to help Ichiro with shoring up our defences.”

Her lips pursed, remembering the trace amounts of red she had seen beneath his nose, his handkerchief evidently having missed a few spots.

“Are we going to train?” she asked, tilting her head as she glanced around.

“Indeed,” he answered, throwing a wooden sword her way that she just about caught. “We are.”

“We’re sparring?” she questioned, staring at the training sword in her grasp. “Not with daggers this time?”

“You have more practice with the sword,” Sasori said, holding up two wooden daggers. “It will give you a longer reach – you wouldn’t last ten seconds against me with a pair of daggers. Not without a severe handicap at the very least. I’m hoping you’ll at least last twenty seconds with the sword.”

Sakura winced, part of her reminding herself that her uncle had years on her in that world. Years in which he’d trained himself, so it was only natural that he’d be stronger… She chewed on her lip, tightening her grip on her training sword and lunging forwards.

The impact rattled through her hands, wood colliding with wood as he blocked her strike with a practiced ease.

Then suddenly she was on the back foot.

Her uncle was fast – she had known that much from the few sessions when he had taught her how to use those same style of daggers that were currently being wielded against her in a terrifyingly proficient fashion. Yet the aim of the game wasn’t to win, she reminded herself, blocking as many blows as she could with her meagre skill in swordplay.

“You’re letting me control the pace of this fight,” her uncle declared, not sounding the slightest bit out of breath as he all but danced around her.

She grit her teeth, gearing up for her next swing, wooden sword arcing out towards him and deflecting smoothly off his own training dagger.

The next thing she knew was her training sword flying out of her hands to clatter against the paving stone some five metres away and she was on her backside staring up at her uncle in confusion.

“Dammit,” she hissed, fingers shaking from the impact.

“Get up,” Sasori demanded, wooden daggers still levelled towards her threateningly. “This fight isn’t over.”

Sakura blinked, confusion twisting her expression into something utterly befuddled. “But you disarmed me?”

“And so might your enemies,” he said, making her blood run cold at the thought. “Then what will you do?” her uncle questioned. “Just lie on your back and let them kill you?” He tilted his head. “You’re trying to play by this world’s logic when you don’t need to. You have chakra, unlike me, and that means you don’t have to start completely anew. Play to your strengths, niece. Build yourself back up from the ground up, and don’t neglect what you already know…”

She blinked again, wondering just when she’d pinned everything on the sword – when exactly she had started separating fist fighting from sword fighting – it wasn’t like she’d needed a blade yesterday. Or, rather, no one trusted her skill to give her a live blade… Yet even if she was learning the sword, that hardly gave her reason to neglect her fists.

Those had seen her through plenty of fights by themselves – they had seen her through yesterday.

Clambering back to her feet, she scowled, part of her acknowledging then that maybe she was trying to learn too many new things at once… and maybe, just maybe, those bright, shiny new topics and skills to learn had blinded her from the rusty skills she needed to polish off… Her hands came up in a fighting stance, fingers curled into fists, chakra thrumming beneath her skin comfortingly as she stood there, ready to start round two of that particular spar. “Bring it.”