Chapter Text
Uchiha Mikoto, as a mother, is gentle, playful, and considerate.
As a mentor, however...
"Again, Sakura. Don't be so stiff. Quick on your feet, now."
She's ruthless in every sense of the word.
Stiff, she'd said. It isn't Sakura's fault this body's muscles have barely even developed.
Sakura feels the air struggle to crawl down her lungs, shaking her head to get back into focus. It's uncomfortable. Her sweat makes her hair cling to her face and her hold on the tanto somewhat painful. Not even Tsunade had ever been this strict with a five-year-old. She has half a mind to remind her mother that this is her first time training in physical combat, but she bites her tongue when she sees the look on Mikoto's face.
"Just five more minutes, dear. You can do it," she says gently with a small smile. "Now, brace yourself."
Sakura bites her lip in frustration, but she stretches her shoulders before tightening them just enough to prevent strain.
Mikoto moves faster than adult Sasuke.
Sakura had never been able to keep up with Sasuke.
The blade comes down to her right shoulder. Gritting her teeth, Sakura stops it with the edge of her own.
A sharp, metallic noise pierces through her focus, and Sakura lets out a yelp as she stumbles back. The weight of her weapon feels off by a fraction. Sakura lifts it only to see that her attempt at blocking had chipped off a noticeable section of it. She looks at her mother with wide eyes.
Mikoto stands in front of her, adjusting her grip on her tanto. "Lesson number one," she says. "Never use the edge of your blade to block - use the flat of it, like you did earlier. Though I suppose that had been a fluke."
Sakura's eyebrows draw together, and she glares at the teasing grin on her mother's face.
Apparently, Mikoto doesn't simply have a funny bone. Despite her serene demeanor, the woman has a penchant for getting under everyone's skin.
Fair, Sakura thinks as she breathes out, Sasuke had to get that from somewhere.
She puts her arms up, covering her face a little, and shifts her weight to her right foot placed behind her.
Without any warning, Mikoto shoots forward, swinging at her diagonally. Desperately ignoring her frantic heartbeat, Sakura bends her knees and sways her body to the right. She avoids the blade by a few centimeters, and she immediately moves to get to a more secure position.
"Lesson number two," Sakura hears Mikoto's voice the moment she closes her eyes to sneak a blink, and she feels her own body quiver. "Don't allow yourself to think the same way you would in a battle of only taijutsu."
The moment Sakura opens her eyes, the edge of Mikoto's blade is an inch away from her throat.
She looks down at Sakura with a strange smile, and Sakura wonders if that was pride she could see on her mother's face.
She'd failed, and spectacularly so. There's no reason to receive any positive reaction. Sakura stares at Mikoto, all while the tanto is against her throat, and she doesn't know if she's waiting for an answer.
The older Uchiha's response to the question Sakura never voices is a soft pat on the head. "That was great, dear. I knew you could handle it."
Great?
There's nothing great about not being up to standard.
As if Mikoto could read between the lines on Sakura's face alone, her mother's lips curve into a grimace, and Sakura fears that she'd been right.
"Did you know I decided on this way of teaching based off of what I've seen from your training with Dad?" she asks, her hand moving to pinch Sakura's cheek instead.
Sakura frowns at her. "What does that mean, Mother?"
Mikoto squats, bringing herself to eye level with her daughter. "Remember, Sakura," she begins slowly. "People are always watching the Uchiha. Your training with your father has shown that your skills are way above what they should be at your age."
It doesn't take much explanation to understand the underlying meaning in her words.
ROOT, Sakura thinks as she clenches her fists. She doesn't notice when a hint of red flickers in her eyes.
(Mikoto does.)
"So, I've taken it upon myself to watch over you as well," Mikoto says as she softly taps Sakura's cheek, sighing. "And I've seen how smart you are, my child, and how easily you can manipulate your chakra at will. On top of that, you move without a sound. You're not supposed to do that yet."
She messed up. Sakura knows that.
She furiously beats down the thought that it's all she's ever been the best at.
Mikoto eyes her carefully, then hums, bringing her close to press their foreheads together.
"I'm not rushing you, dear." Her whispered words reach the depths of Sakura's bones. "You have Mom and Dad with you. Itachi can help protect you, too. But I want to make sure to teach you everything I can so that you can defend yourself, no matter how young you are."
Age has never kept anyone safe - not in this world, not in the war.
At that moment, when her mother pulls away, Sakura realizes she had forgotten something extremely important in the time she'd spent complacently worrying about her own circumstances.
The Uchiha massacre.
-----
Sakura had never properly interacted with Sasuke's family when they were still alive, and was too busy dealing with the bullying at school to pay attention to younger Sasuke.
It was only in their graduating year that she had developed an obsession over the boy who always stayed quiet in one corner, a dark look perpetually in his eyes. Perhaps that's what had drawn her to him. Or maybe she simply felt inadequate on her own and earning the affection of the most popular yet unfeeling person in the class would make it feel like she had actually been worth something.
Sakura no longer remembers how it had felt like.
Now, watching as her older twin brother spews fire by the lake, she recalls the event that had driven him to lose whatever warmth he had in him.
Every single one of his family members, gone, with their blood dripping from the hands of his own brother.
Sakura hadn't ever had the chance to talk to Itachi before his death, and therefore has no information on how this came to be, aside from that time Naruto had slipped and mentioned that the Uchiha massacre had been orchestrated by the Hidden Leaf leaders at the time.
As Sakura plays with the leaf in her hands, an image passes unbidden by her eyes.
Her father and mother, with presence warm like sunshine—dark clothes stained with red, cold, wet, and only ever real in her memories.
Her heels dig into the dirt, unnoticed.
"Sakura!"
Sakura looks up to see Sasuke skipping towards her with huge smile on his face. "Yes?"
He skids to a stop, and he shakes, as if struggling to contain himself. "Did you see? Dad said I made a fireball as big as Nii-san when he was my age!"
Blinking, Sakura nods. "You did well..." She hesitates, but continues with some difficulty. "Nii-san."
The grin that stretches her brother's lips overlaps with the well-worn smirk of the Sasuke she'd known once upon a time.
"Yeah!"
Sakura struggles to understand the weight of family in her heart.
In her past life, her parents had been entirely absent, and their negligible presence hadn't changed anything after their death.
In this life...
Sakura thinks she'll try to change the course of fate, no matter how unpredictable it is.
She owes them at least this much, for loving her the way they do.
Just this once.
---
"Children, can you guess where we're going today?"
Sasuke jumps in place, his eyes shining. "Where, mom?"
Sakura simply looks at Mikoto, a foreboding feeling in her chest.
Mikoto catches the suspicious look she sends her way and returns it with a nonchalant smile.
"To the playground!"
For the first time in a long time, Sakura wishes the ground would eat her alive.
"That," she starts, wanting to protest, but she finds herself at a loss for words. "That... sounds nice."
Sakura wonders if it's just her or if there's actually triumpant grin etched on her mother's face as they head to the nearby playground.
The memories slowly play out in her mind when she takes in the sight of the children playing. A few of them were using the seesaw, the others laughing as they attempt to chase one another on the monkey bars. She used to go here often, but she'd stopped after one particularly bad day with other kids. It'd been hard to come back after they'd pulled at her hair and called her names.
Sakura doesn't notice that she'd started pursing her lips until Sasuke taps her shoulder. She turns to him and pauses when she saw the worry in his eyes.
"Are you okay, Sakura?" Her twin brother asks, eyebrows furrowed.
Unsure what to say, she simply nods and pats his head. She turns to Mikoto, who continues to watch them fondly. Sakura barely stops herself from making a face. She's still not quite used to having this much attention on her.
"Mother," she calls out. "Can I go to the swing and play alone for a while?"
Mikoto hums. "Go ahead, dear. Your brother and I will be right here."
"Mhm."
Despite Sasuke's silence, Sakura could feel his gaze trailing after her as she walked to the swing.
The sudden urge to be alone and sit there hadn't been because of anything particularly deep.
She simply missed Naruto a little.
As she walks, Sakura keeps her eyes trained on her feet. For some reason, she can't bring herself to raise her head and look at the other children.
Perhaps it's the fear of seeing ghosts of the people she used to know like the back of her hand.
Sakura lets out a breath and sits on the swing, pushing her weight backwards.
It's a good day, with the sun shining down on the clean streets of the Hidden Leaf. It's almost always a good day in the village, though. When it rained, parents often told their kids that it was a warning from the gods that something had gone wrong—a bad omen.
Sakura's pulled out of her thoughts when she sees a familiar tuft of pink hair.
Her grip on the chains on the swing tightens enough that it hurts.
Haruno Sakura.
Of course—of course, she still exists, and she's... just not her, anymore.
She's not who she was, not the same person who was on a team with the two biggest troublemakers of their year, not the same girl who'd frozen when something had to count, not the same girl who'd never been able to keep up.
Sakura doesn't know how to process her emotions. She never did, never had the time for it.
Most times, she'd push it down under the rug, and go on with her life.
This time, as the crippling hollowness in her guts threatens to consume her, Sakura takes several deep breaths, and the last one—
"Sakura?"
She looks up and meets lilac eyes filled with recognition they shouldn't have.
"Haruno... Sakura?"
The last one—Sakura keeps close to her chest.
------
Mikoto has three children.
Itachi, who is composed, gentle, and has a heart of gold. Sasuke, who seems to be painted in all the colors of the rainbow. Finally, Sakura, with hair of pastel pink painted with the monochrome shade of gray.
Her eldest expresses his love in silence, with care. Mikoto can't even begin to count the times she'd gone to the kitchen to wash dishes, only to see that it had already been cleaned spotless.
Sasuke is the most vocal when it comes to his feelings. He cries when he's sad, gets red in the face when embarrassed, amd shines brighter than all the stars in the night sky when he's happy. It's very cute that he's an open book and every inch the child that he is, Mikoto thinks. After all, not everyone in this world could grow up with eyes like Sasuke's—acceptably naïve, though not foolish.
Sakura, Mikoto figures, is the strangest one of the bunch. This pink-haired daughter of hers keeps too much to herself, knows too much. She doesn't speak often, and her emotions are kept frozen beneath the steel of her eyes.
Funnily enough, Mikoto finds it the easiest to talk to Sakura, as if they're closer in age than it shows on the surface.
(Mikoto thinks it wouldn't be strange if that is the case.)
As the wife of the clan head, Mikoto has a lot of worries. One of them includes her children, and how they stand out too much to keep under wraps. Itachi, who graduated at the top of his class at seven years old, and became chunin shortly thereafter. Sasuke, whose chakra reserves exceed both of his siblings' and works hard enough to burn himself out every single day.
And then Sakura, her only daughter and the one expected to become a prodigy better than her eldest. The amount of migraines Mikoto's had whenever she heard the clan elders talk about when Sakura would awaken her sharingan can't be counted by her hands.
Although, Mikoto has a premonition that it won't be long now.
Silently, whenever she thinks about how Sakura would be the perfect Uchiha, she shoves the thought in the depths of her heart with the fear the comes alongside it.
Often, Mikoto frets over the sense of isolation seemingly ingrained in Sakura's bones. Sasuke, despite being her twin, has no inkling of the thoughts that go through his sister's brain. Itachi is not present enough to have a grasp of her behavior, and both Mikoto and Fugaku can feel her actively keeping them at arm's length.
It's not hard to figure out when the child insists on calling them "mother" and "father", then acts like a soldier during training. Mikoto still feels proud of the shock on her face when she'd suddenly attacked her and declared it as her lesson plan.
(Mikoto didn't have a lesson plan.)
Now, as she carefully watches her daughter stand up from the swing and embrace the Hyuuga's heir, Mikoto doesn't quite know if she should add this to the list of her worries.
"Sasuke," Mikoto pauses, trying to find words. "Does your sister know that child?"
Sasuke shakes his head. "No, mom, but Sakura says a lot of things in her sleep."
Mikoto looks down at him. He scratches his head. "She mentions... I think, names? There's Ino, Naruto... Hinata... And there are a lot of other ones, too."
When she hears the name Naruto, the lively smile of a long lost friend paints itself well within the confines of her mind.
"I see."
Mikoto doesn't like being proven wrong.
But this once, just this once, she wouldn't have minded if she was.