begonia, begonia

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/36651871.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Categories: Gen, Other
Fandom: Naruto
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Yakushi Kabuto, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi &
Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Kizashi & Haruno Mebuki &
Haruno Sakura
Characters: Orochimaru (Naruto), Namikaze Minato, Kyuubi | Nine-tails | Kurama,
Uchiha Clan, Uzumaki Kushina, Uchiha Itachi, Sarutobi Hiruzen
Additional Tags: Konohagakure | Hidden Leaf Village, No Uchiha Massacre, Hurt No
Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Politics, Japanese Mythology & Folklore,
Mentioned Orochimaru (Naruto), Haruno Sakura Has Issues, Haruno
Sakura-centric, Haruno Sakura is So Done, Haruno Sakura Needs a Hug,
Alternate Universe, Namikaze Minato Lives, Dead Uzumaki Kushina,
Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto Friendship, internalized classism,
Internalized Misogyny, Grooming, Non-Sexual Intimacy, traumatized
kids not knowing boundaries, grooming is not sexual & no underaged,
just purely psychological, Emotional Manipulation, Found Family
Language: English
Series: Part 4 of uno’thers
Collections: my heart is here
Stats: Published: 2022-01-25 Updated: 2022-07-03 Words: 30,127 Chapters:
2/?
 begonia, begonia
by unolvrs

Summary

“Of course. Don't you remember what I said, Sakura-chan?” He looks at her pitifully but
Sakura cares very little now. “The two of us, we’re the same.”

Sakura's mother is sick and it's not her fault. Nor the village's even though they could have
helped, could have done something, could have done more. Sakura's mother is sick but it's
okay, because Kabuto-san is here to help.

—Sakura, Kabuto, and fixing the balance of the world, one wrong choice at a time.

Notes

for lena!
 academy admission requirements

ACADEMY ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS

1. Love the village and hope to help preserve peace and prosperity.
2. Have a mind that will not yield, able to endure hard training and work.
3. Be healthy in mind and body.

ACT 1. BE HEALTHY IN BODY AND MIND

It is the first year of the Yondaime’s Reign when Haruno Sakura is born to Haruno Mebuki
and Kizashi, and it is also the first year of the Yondaime’s Reign when Haruno Sakura almost
dies from someone else’s birth, like many, many, many children. If Sakura was capable then,
she would have thought: “Why were so many children born this particular year? Why did so
many children and newborns die this year?” Everyone was comfortable. Too comfortable
with the peace.

Until the dreaded peace ended.

No, the aftermath of what was known as the Kyuubi Incident lasted for not a day or two, not
a week nor a month, nor a year. The aftermath of the Kyuubi Incident lasted too many years
to count: dead children, dead shinobi, dead everything, ruined infrastructures, post-war
issues, political standing in the eyes of the Daimyo of the Land of Fire, security against
foreign shinobi countries—if Sakura was capable then, she would have considered all those
things and wept for her village. Except, little Sakura’s world was not the Village nor the
blond-haired Hokage who miraculously survived the Kyuubi Incident in place of his late
wife. Little Sakura’s world was her mother and father, a somewhat knock-off version of the
Hokage and his wife, as jokingly said by their neighbors; while the Hokage had hair so bright
it almost resembled the sun, her mother’s was a sandy, dull yellow, and while the Hokage’s
wife had hair so red it burned, her father had a muted pink. A knock-off, as the jokes went,
like your career.

If Sakura was capable then, she would have thought that the sun was too bright anyway, that
red would be scaldingly hot, that those colors are not befitting of shinobi. Except, Sakura
cared for nothing more than her mother and father, beloved Haruno Mebuki and Haruno
Kizashi. Beloved Kizashi whose career ended the moment the war did, not having enough
talent to go further than being a Genin, a mere first Generation shinobi with nothing left for
him. Beloved Mebuki who is only Chuunin at name and a civilian in truth, pushing papers
until the Kyuubi Incident swept their lives. The doctor, stumbling on himself and unsure with
the diagnosis, called it Chakra Poisoning.

If Sakura was capable then, she would have noticed: why are you so unsure? Isn’t there a
cure for chakra poisoning? Why aren’t you doing anything? You’re not a medic-nin but a
civilian healer, can you not bring my mother to a medic-nin? They would know much more
about chakra poisoning. Except, Sakura could barely speak, barely blink her eyes, babbling
through spit and through tears as a baby. “There are other shinobi in need of healing,” she
would have heard if she could, “Civilians get civilian doctors,” and, “Aren’t they shino—” a
snort, “Are they even?”.

Later, as she let her head rest on her mother’s lap, a mochi in hand, and another on her
mother’s, Mebuki laughs at her questions. “Why is kaachan the only one who’s sick?” She
peers up to her mother. Everyone calls her mother’s hair too sandy, more dirty blonde than
actual blond like the Yamanaka’s or the Hokage’s but the darkness of it brings out her
mother’s green eyes, she thinks. She had seen the Hokage once in his bi-annual speech and
he was so bright that Sakura had to look away as he preached about the Will of Fire.

Mebuki’s hands feel weak under Sakura’s, bony, and frail, but Mebuki rarely acts the way she
is supposed to. She smiles as if nothing is wrong, all pearly-whites and eager. (Sakura never
noticed how painful Chakra Poisoning was. How it ruined your body from inside out, how it
tore through your nerves, and how it should have made sense that it was painful since your
life, your everything, the reason why you are even alive and kicking is utterly poisoned.
Mebuki never acted like she was in pain. Never. Mebuki always acted like everything was
okay so of course, silly, little Sakura, thought so too.) “That’s because kaachan just gave birth
then,” March to October, a wide gap, considering everything, but still too short, it seems.

Sakura sits up unconsciously, looking at her mother in despair and guilt all at once. “So it was
Sacchan’s fault?!”

Her mother is quick to appease her. Thin, bony hands pushing a piece of her bright hair to the
side, as she grins as sincerely as she can muster. “It’s not Sacchan’s fault. It’s never Sacchan’s
fault. Sacchan is a blessing. I was the happiest when you were born, Sacchan,” Mebuki
whispers to her, “But the Kyuubi’s chakra was too scary, you know. It’s not your fault,
Sacchan, it’s the Kyuubi’s.” It’s always the Kyuubi’s fault.

“The demon fox,” Sakura tries to hide her sniffle. She heard lots about the fox demon from
everyone: from her neighbors to her scarce relatives. Everyone was affected and it was the
Yondaime who risked his life for the Village. Sakura even heard that the Yondaime also has a
son and his son almost got caught in the whole mess, but thanks to the Yondaime’s power, the
Kyuubi was defeated just like that. Konohagakure’s hero: the Yellow Flash, the Thunder-God
with his fire-born princess. “But why aren’t the other kaachans sick like Sacchan’s kaachan?”

“That’s because kaachan isn’t a Ninja, Sacchan. We’re civi—”

Sakura scowls. “Kaachan isn’t a civilian! You said kaachan and touchan are strong Ninja,”
she makes a faux hand sign clumsily. She feels her cheeks become hotter when she hears a
chuckle of amusement from her mother. She pouts.

“That was before. Kaachan isn’t a Ninja anymore.”

“But you said shinobi never retire! Once a Ninja, always a Ninja—”

“That’s different—”
“How?” Sakura’s eyes are wide and curious, bright, and all flecks of green decorating her
incessant questions. Before she knows it, she is already on her mother’s lap, pestering and
clamoring for attention. Mebuki does not stop running her fingers through her hair.

Sakura patiently waits for her answer until Mebuki puts a single finger on her own lips,
almost mischievous if not for the bags under her eyes and the paleness of her lips. “It’s
classified, Sacchan.” But it’s not.

If Sakura was capable then, she would have noticed the small details about her mother. Her
mother’s smile always slipped when Sakura moved too quickly, clung too tightly, whenever
her voice would be too loud and when her mouth would babble too fast. She would have
noticed how weak her mother’s hands were. How Mebuki has always been resigned but since
when? Instead, Sakura lets herself be three years old and curious, a three-year-old whose
mother and father are the center of her world, a three-year-old who was nothing but content
with this quaint and quiet life; a normal family, first Generation shinobi parents with no
pressure to become just like them, or even if there is, nobody expects Sakura to be more than
what she is supposed to be. She dreams and dreams of probably becoming a shinobi just
because, meet the man of her dreams, settle down early and start up a merchant place like her
parents, have two to three kids, and just be content. She will be with kaachan and touchan
forever.

That is how it is supposed to be until it stops being like that, because Sakura is faced with a
dilemma at age five, smarter than other kids but normal enough for eyes to go past her
(because brains is one thing, anyone can study, anyone can work hard, and most gifted kids’
prime years is when they are single-digits anyway—what is important is drive; what is
important is ability, chakra, talent, and ambition, and of course, loyalty—Sakura has none of
those). “Your Sakura is very bright, isn’t she?” She is, she really is. But what is a bright child
supposed to do when faced with an unspoken norm? What is a bright child supposed to do
but wait in the hospital in the middle of the night, watch her mother—Chakra Poisoning can
only be cured by Medic-Nin so why—be given painkillers, watch other shinobi get
surrounded and hounded by medic-nin after medic-nin, and what is a bright child supposed
to do but watch? (Don’t say that, Sakura-chan. That’s bad, Sakura-chan. Your kaachan is
going to be okay, so don’t blame the village, okay?)

“I read in kaachan’s old books that if fixed early, Chakra Poisoning is nothing, kaachan,”
Sakura recites, arms stretched to show the page, “According to ‘Introduction to Chakra:
Myths and Realities’ by Councilwoman, Utatane Kohara-sama, Chapter 9: Chakra
Complications: Chakra Poisoning can be easily healed with Medical Ninjutsu through Chakra
Pu-ri-fi-ca-tion, but if left alone, it could get worse. It’s like normal wounds, kaachan. Like
—like you shouldn’t get them infected, and stuff.”

She creates a fantasy in her head then are there: if her mother’s sickness can only be cured by
a Medic-nin, and Medic-nin only heal shinobi, and her mother is… not a shinobi anymore,
then if Sakura becomes a Medic-nin, she can heal her mother in secret, right?

She feels a hand patting her head. She resists the urge to widen her smile, peeking through
her bangs to meet her mother’s eyes. Her heart stutters (If Sakura was capable then, she
would have looked past her kaachan’s excuses. But she was not.) “Aa,” her mother simply
states, neither negative nor positive, a neutral response for what Sakura thought to be a
groundbreaking discovery, “Our Sacchan is so smart, isn’t she?” She feels something sink
down to her stomach, a dread she cannot make out, but present in a harsh, silent, and
intrusive way. It does not leave even as she eats dinner, her mother right across her, pale and
skin tight to her bone; not even when she prepares for bed, looks at herself in the mirror, does
the feeling of dread leave. It feels disgusting on her tongue, and if Sakura was capable then,
little, little, Sakura, she would have known.

But little, little Sakura, ignores the dread, ignores the disgust, ignores the discomfort, and the
nagging at the back of her brain because little, little Sakura is little. She treats her mother’s
praise as a drive and ignores the hushed arguments of her mother and father at the back to
rush to the library. Utatane Koharu-sama used to be the teammate of the Third Hokage, she
recites in her head, and she made discoveries that fed Senju Tsunade the knowledge she
needed in order to become a capable Medic-nin. And if Utatane Koharu-sama managed to
discover so much about Chakra and Chakra Poisoning, and if only Medic-Nin are capable of
curing Chakra Poisoning, then little, little Sacchan needs to become a Medic-nin, right? If no
one is going to heal her mother because she is a civilian (but once a shinobi, always a shinobi
—right), then Sakura can be the one to do it instead.

So little, little Sakura (five years old with a strange desperation, a thirst she cannot get rid of,
an excuse to finally help, a step away from obsession because according to History of
Konohagakure, Chapter IV: Reign of the Yondaime Hokage, ‘hundreds of children aged 1-4
years old, including unborn children of the womb, perished due to Chakra Poisoning from
the Kyuubi no Kitsune. New and/or upcoming mothers are prone to Chakra Poisoning as they
are, essentially, creating a Chakra Network within their womb. They are also more prone to
Chakra Exhaustion. Though there were extensive attempts to gather the pregnant and the new
mothers, there still remained to be a severe impact on them—’; it is always the Kyuubi’s
fault) scavenges and ends up in the Konoha Library. It takes her only a minute before a
Chuunin grabs her by the back of her collar, amused and a little red, “Now, what are you
doing here?”

Sakura beams but her confidence disappears in an instant, suddenly reduced to a shy little
thing unlike the little girl whose parents praise for being such an upbeat child. The Chuunin
looks at her indulgently, “Do you need anything?” He asks patiently.

“Um,” Sakura fidgets with the edge of her shirt before giving her notepad to the Chuunin, “I
—I need books…”

“Books about what? The civilian section is—”

“No!” Sakura exclaims unconsciously. She feels stares suddenly dig on her back and her
cheeks darken in embarrassment. The Chuunin, however, remains patient and keeps a smile
on his face. He asks his question again: what books does she need? Sakura gathers all her
strength to finally stumble out the answer, pointing at the notepad. “Medical Ninjutsu a—and
Chakra.”

She cannot see the look on the Chuunin’s face. Most of her eyes are hidden behind her bangs,
after all. But she feels a hand brush some of her hair away and she cannot help but look up.
An apologetic look. Her heart sinks again, the exact same way it did whenever her mother
smiles at her. “Ojouchan—” Only her father calls her that! “—isn’t in the Academy yet,
right?” She never planned to go to the Academy. She only wanted to live forever with her
kaachan and touchan but she needs to now, does she? She nods her head to the Chuunin and
the Chuunin continues: “Ninja books are only for Ninja, and Medical Ninjutsu books are only
for Medic-nin, okay? If the ojouchan becomes a Ninja, the Ninja books can be used by the
ojouchan.”

Sakura frowns. “But that’ll take years! I have to learn now,” she feels embarrassed for
whining and complaining but she cannot help it.

“Maa, Ninja aren’t supposed to be impatient, you know. Everybody starts from the beginning
so if the ojouchan wants to read Ninja books, ojouchan needs to become a Ninja first,” the
half-lecturing tone has Sakura paling in guilt. The Chuunin notices this and quickly comforts
her with a pat on her head, “How old are you now?”

“Five,” Sakura admits.

“There you have it! Only one more year, and then after that, the rest of the Academy Years
are going to be a lot quicker. How ‘bout this? When the ojouchan becomes a Ninja, I’ll let
you borrow the books you need.”

“Really?”

“Of course!” The Chuunin ruffles her hair and some of the strands prick her. “All you need to
do is work hard, then you’ll graduate in no time!”

Work hard, Sakura bursts with excitement. She bows shortly to the Chuunin and rushes back
home All I need to do is work hard! She scavenges again; she pesters both of her parents for
their old textbooks from the Academy, even the smallest of notes, and anything to study. She
ends up with only a few, the basics of the basics: Utatane Koharu-sama’s introduction to
Chakra, another one with the History of Konohagakure no Sato, and basic geography of the
other countries. Work hard, the phrase resounds. Work hard, work hard work hard—her
mother says she is not in pain anyway, and that she is doing quite well so Sakura has lots of
time before finally becoming a Medic-nin. All she needs to do is work hard. If she works
hard, if she works just a bit more, then things will be okay.

She will become a Medic-Nin.

She will heal her kaachan.

And after that, maybe she can help other people too, like a good shinobi does.

And maybe, she can retire after and live with her kaachan and her touchan forever.

She reads Utatane Koharu-sama’s book from the cover to the back, endlessly reading it over
and over again because she has nothing else to read. She reads and reads it because that is the
only thing she can do. She recites the lines in her head for months to no end, fingers
distracted with the cat’s cradle her father taught her, telling herself that if she just works hard,
then everything will be okay. Sakura is a bright girl after all. Things like reading, studying—
all of those come easy to her. She sees it from her father’s eyes, from the way he ruffles her
hair, fingers threading through the pink strands, and from the way her mother never stops
smiling at her. “I’ll work hard for kaachan,” she promises, and her mother with her dim, dim,
dim green eyes, never stops smiling.

“Chakra is essential to even the most basic jutsu. Through various methods, the most
common of which is hand seals, chakra can be controlled and manipulated to create an effect
that would not be possible otherwise, such as walking on water, exhaling fire, or creating
illusions,” she mumbles to herself, looking up at the ceiling, “Chakra is created when two
more primal energies, known collectively as one's "stamina", are molded together. Physical
Energy is collected from each of the body's cells and can be increased through training,
stimulants, and exercise. Spiritual energy is derived from the mind's consciousness and can
be increased through studying, meditation, and experience. These two energies becoming
more powerful will in turn make the created chakra more powerful. Therefore, practicing a
technique repeatedly will build up experience, increasing one's spiritual energy, and thus
allowing more chakra to be created. As a result, the ninja is able to do that same technique
with more power. This same cycle applies for physical energy, except the ninja needs to
increase their endurance instead.”

But Medical Ninjutsu relies only on Yin-Yang Release, even Sakura knows that. The bigger
the technique, the more it relies on Yin Release, or at least that is what she understood with
the councilwoman’s book in the short snippet of Medical Ninjutsu—Senju Tsunade’s most
powerful technique relies on Yin Release but that is all it says about it (shinobi do not spill
the secrets of their technique, of course). “Yin Release is a nature transformation that exists
outside the five basic elemental natures. It uses spiritual energy to control imagination,
creating form out of nothing,” she breathes, “Yang Release is a nature transformation that
exists outside the five basic elemental natures. It uses physical energy to control vitality,
granting life to forms that have none.” Sakura repeats it over and over and over and over
again, reciting the pages of Utatane Koharu-sama’s ‘Introduction to Chakra: Myths and
Realities’ with fervor. Her father praises her, her mother smiles at her, and she is filled to the
brim with exhaustion but perseverance because—

“All you need to do is to work hard, and you’ll graduate in no time!”

—little, little Sakura is, after all, a bright, bright child—

But hard work is a privilege.

She does not know this boy’s name, only his surname. Most of the kids here are like that.
“Why are you trying so hard? Aren’t you a—” There is no place for ‘bright children’ in the
Academy when you are faced with children born from stars, born from the sun, born from the
remnants of the war that shed more than blood but also glory. Sakura is a bright, bright child
but she is not a star. She is not the sun—her hair does not glow as bright as the golden of the
Yondaime Hokage’s son, and her eyes do not burn with the same light as the Uchiha Clan’s
second son. She is bright, yes, but even light bulbs are bright. Even emergency flashlights are
bright. Even the light behind the branches is bright. Even a matchstick is bright.

Yes, little, little Sakura is a bright, bright child but she is not blinding. What is a matchstick
supposed to do when faced with the sun? When faced with a bonfire that does not die even in
the morn? Little, little Sakura is not-so-little anymore. She is seven years old and this is her
second year in the Academy, swamped with too many notes and too many exams, muscles
aching, bones creaking, and drenched in her own sweat as her head pounds violently against
its skull. She cries against her pillow because hard work is a privilege. Hard work is a
privilege she cannot have.

She entered the Academy at age six and she expected… What did she even expect? She is
surrounded by Clan Heirs and spares, and people like her who are unlit sticks in a matchbox.
The Chuunin said that if she just works hard, things will be easier but on the first day of the
Academy, she is told to run the obstacle course and she stumbles, she trips, her face becomes
stained with dirt, her pretty, pretty shirt mangled, the clan children walking around like this is
the most basic of the basic, and—she sees a child at the corner whose mother called Sakura ‘a
bright, bright child’. Sakura is on her hands and knees like the child whose mother spoke
enviously of Sakura’s brains, in the same matchbox. Sakura is a bright, bright child, but only
in this tiny, tiny matchbox.

She hears the Uchiha children talk about the training grounds in the Clan District, and
another complains about boredom. “We’ve been doing this since ages ago, Iruka-sensei, give
us more,” they complain, and complain, but Sakura is stuck on her place, unable to move as
she struggles to breathe from the last round, and the pin drops: “The only ones having a hard
time are those guys—” Sakura looks up and there it is, bright, bright, like the sun, and it sinks
so disgustingly fast. She wants to throw up. Little, little Sakura is a bright, bright child, but
what can a matchstick do to children born from the sun? “This is too easy!”

Hard work is a privilege Sakura does not have. She does not have a training ground at home,
only a small backyard she cannot freely use because of the flowers and the shrubs. She does
not have access to weapons because she belongs to a ‘civilian’ family. She does not have
someone to train and guide her because her mother is sick, Sakura has to prepare breakfast
and dinner (and let her prepare lunch during the weekends too, please, don’t push yourself,
kaachan, and touchan, you’ve been working so hard, sit still, please), and her father works
for her expensive Academy, work for her clothes, work for the kunai she is supposed to pay
for and good weapons are expensive, even more expensive for non-clan children who do not
have their own blacksmiths. Hard work is a privilege Sakura does not have. All she can do is
take down notes, ace the tests, give herself a pat on the back for beating the clan kids on
written tests, and watch them spit on her achievements when she gets tackled down to the
floor and—”Seal of Reconciliation, Sakura-chan,” she does, and her knuckles ache, her
bottom aches, her legs ache, her arms ache, her head aches, her whole body aches.

Liar, she wants to run up to the Chuunin and accuse him for lying to her, for making it seem
like everything was okay when it is clearly not.

Sakura’s classmates are too important for her to be someone—clan heirs: Yamanaka Ino,
Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji, Aburame Shino, and maybe, Hyuuga Hinata too. Clan
spares: Uchiha Sasuke and Inuzuka Kiba. And of course, no one can forget about the son of
the Yondaime Hokage, son of the hero, bright like the sun and burns like the sun too, who
throws himself to Uchiha Sasuke to pick a fight but ends up going home together afterwards
because ‘their moms used to be friends until the Yondaime’s wife died during the Kyuubi
Incident and remember the rumors about the Uchiha Clan’—Uzumaki Naruto, adapting the
surname of his mother instead of his father for ‘security’, they say, and of course, to preserve
the dying Uzumaki Clan, a clan Sakura has only seen in history books.

She tries to maintain her smile as she walks up to the front to receive her test paper from
Iruka-sensei, a genuinely nice Chuunin whom Sakura thought to be a non-clan child until she
heard about him probably being a half-Nara that one time. She never talked to him to confirm
it but she lets it be. “Another perfect score, Sakura-chan! Congratulations,” he praises her, a
contrast to his disappointed look when she trips on obstacle courses and when she lags at the
back of running laps, “Just keep working hard, and you’ll ace the Physical Exams too!”

Hard work, Sakura turns her head down in shame, Iruka calling another few students who got
perfect scores: more clan kids and of course, unsurprisingly, Uchiha Sasuke, clan spare,
rumored to be the heir of the Konoha Military Police Force while his older brother becomes
the Clan Heir instead. She walks back to her chair. If I just keep working hard then—her
cheeks flush and reddens, stuck in the bottom barrel no matter what. If only her parents
weren’t—she halts, and runs. Bad, Sakura!

She sits at the back of the playground, and she heaves. Embarrassing! What were you
thinking? You wanted to be a shinobi for your kaachan, remember? She struggles breathing
with how weak she has become. Her legs do not work like she wants them to, and neither do
her arms. Bright, bright child, but nothing compared to the sun-born. Her father says the Will
of Fire burns bright within her but all it does is scald her. Work hard, work harder, her mother
smiles (right, your kaachan!), and smiles, but she is still stuck. She is unmoving but unbound,
bright but overshadowed. Sakura works and works, and works hard. She notes everything
Iruka says from the beginning to the end, recites everything before going to bed, when she
wakes up, and curses herself when she fails.

“Okaasan, how are you feeling?” Sakura’s mother is so pale she looks transparent, her veins
the same color as her eyes, and her hair a dark, dark blonde. Sakura’s fingers interlock with
her mother. Chakra Poisoning can only be cured by Medic-nin. You cannot be a Medic-nin if
you are still an Academy Student. It becomes even harder when you are not supported by any
clan. Hard work is a privilege, and so are opportunities, it seems. Sakura is seven years old
and her chakra is still locked up and sealed, untouched. She sees Hyuuga Hinata doing chakra
exercises and sees other children jump from roof to roof while she is rooted to the ground.
Wait, said Iruka when she asked about her chakra and when she can use them, next year.
You’ll learn everything next year. And he is not lying. Her Iruka-sensei is anything but a liar,
but sometimes, he can be—“Insensitive, right?”

Sakura’s heart leaps from her chest. She scrambles away from her spot and turns around. A
boy stands right behind where her spot is, crouched down to her height and looking through
her notes from class. A metallic object glints familiarly on the boy’s forehead. A shinobi, she
thinks. Judging from his appearance, he is too young to be someone ‘big’, so he must be a
Genin, probably a fresh graduate from last year or the year before that. She tilts her head,
taking a peek of the boy’s face before he snaps his head to her direction. She flushes in
embarrassment when he gives her a handsome smile. “An Academy Student?” She nods
hesitantly. “How nostalgic! What year are you in?”

“Se—second,” Sakura answers.

The boy hums, picking up her notebook and flipping through it. Sakura heats up, torn
between approaching him to snatch her notebook away and simply leaving. She tugs her hair
to cover her face, embarrassed. “A second year student in the Academy is… seven years old,
right?” She nods again. “A seven-year-old studying so meticulously about anatomy and
tenketsu points? That’s impressive.”

She shakes her head. “No,” she mumbles, “I’m still lacking.”

“Surely not! Tenketsu Points are only usually learned by the Hyuuga Clan since they’re the
only ones who can easily make use of them. Even the Uchiha Clan don’t dabble much on
these kinds of stuff since they’re mostly mid-to-long-ranged combatants. I doubt any of the
Academy Students who aren’t Hyuuga actually try to learn more about Tenketsu Points. At
most, the Academy only breezes past it. I remember my time in the Academy and I—” The
Genin suddenly stops talking. He blinks once, then twice. His cheeks become tinted in red.
He rubs the back of his head sheepishly, looking away. “I’m sorry for rambling. It’s just that
as a Medic-nin, Tenketsu Points are—”

“You’re a Medic-nin!?” Sakura is already kneeling beside the boy’s crouched figure before
she knows it, bright-eyed and curious. She quickly realizes her actions in a beat, immediately
moving away. “I—well, Medic—Ninjutsu, they’re—I—”

The boy chuckles, a chime from the bells and a dawn from the monuments. His gray hair
makes him look dull and so do his glasses but Sakura, for some reason, easily relaxed around
him. She is usually only comfortable around her parents and she does not even have friends
in the Academy—she was once bullied by Ami and got saved by the Yamanaka heiress but
she fled before the girl could even talk to her. (She has no time for this, she thought then, and
she… she was admittedly uncomfortable around the Yamanaka heiress.) But this boy who
appeared out of nowhere, just clicked. It has only been a couple of minutes but Sakura is
strangely not overwhelmed with anxiety. “Well, I like to think I am,” admits the Genin.

He says his name is Yakushi Kabuto and that he is fourteen years old now. He graduated a
year ago and says that he will be trying for the Chuunin Exams soon. My first try, he admits
shyly, as if unconfident. He always wanted to be a Medic-nin like his late mother and no, he
did not learn it from her since she passed before he could even enter the Academy, but he
learned on his own. Becoming a Medic-nin is… harder than Sakura thought because all
graduates, unless you are a special case, end up in a three-man cell. You cannot learn Medical
Ninjutsu with them, obviously. All you can do is go to the hospital yourself and seek an
apprenticeship or if you are lucky, a Medic-nin will be the one to look for you. “I had to look
for one myself,” Kabuto says. After that, you somehow juggle your time between the
hospital’s apprenticeship and your Genin team. And right now, even after half a year of
training, all Kabuto knows how to do is heal minor wounds—Sakura slouches at this,
thinking that she finally found someone to help her with her mother.

“I,” Sakura looks down to her soft hands, calloused from trying to imitate the way the Uchiha
kids hold their kunai, “I also want to be a Medic-nin but… but it’s hard. I’m working hard
but…” Her silence reigns but Kabuto does not say anything about it. He only sits beside her,
looking like an older brother with his younger sister.
Sakura does not know how long she sits there, or how long Kabuto lets her pick at her callous
but it must have been a long, long time because at the end of the day, she finds out that
Kabuto, like Sakura, is also a bright, bright boy and wants to be like his sensei who he says
saved him when he was the most desperate. And when Kabuto pats her head as the sun sinks,
Sakura smiles. “How about this, Sakura-chan? Do you want to learn about Medical
Ninjutsu?”

Sakura’s heart flutters. “Wh—really?”

“Of course,” Kabuto pushes a strand of her hair away from her eyes, “You know, Sakura-
chan, the two of us are—”

(The best day of her life, she is sure, must be the day she first started learning Medical
Ninjutsu with Kabuto. An older brother, someone she can rely on. She reminds herself of this
as Kabuto warns her that unlocking her chakra will be very, very painful. His hand sinks
against her own and the harshness of his chakra is painful, and cruel, and so, so, so, so—it
must have been hours when she finally returned home, a solid jump to her windows, feet
laced with chakra like Kabuto taught her, his compliment on how fast she got it ringing and
resounding and so loud in her ears but at least, she is now one step closer to her goal.

The best day of her life, she is sure, must be the most painful day too. But it’s okay. It’s okay.
Because like Kabuto-san said, no pain, no gain. Sometimes, the more painful it is, the more
beautiful the reward becomes.)

ACT 2. HAVE A MIND THAT WILL NOT YIELD, ABLE TO ENDURE HARD
TRAINING AND WORK

Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, and Uzumaki Naruto under Hatake Kakashi—friend killer,
man who knows a thousand techniques, Hokage Candidate who will probably succeed the
Yondaime Hokage, S-Ranked in all of the other Hidden Villages, ‘Sharingan no Kakashi’,
failed his previous teams, former Anbu, a close acquaintance and former student of the
Yondaime. (No longer little, little) Sakura feels special for five hours. Exactly five hours,
because that is the length of time that they waited for Kakashi. She is sandwiched by the
Hokage’s son and the KMPF Chief’s son; they fight and argue as if she does not exist, and
when the Hokage’s son finally looks at her, he blushes, glances at the brightness of her hair
and beams, “Don’t worry, Sakura-chan—” Sakura wonders when they became so close for
him to address her so familiarly. But at the same time, civilians are the only ones who are
sensitive to these kinds of things. She pales in embarrassment. Such a civilian reaction of her,
her thoughts ring. “—we can leave the bastard here on his own!”

“What did you call me—”

Sakura feels special for only five hours, because that is the length of time they waited for
Kakashi, because when he finally arrives, Naruto grins at him like an old friend, and Sasuke
turns away as if embarrassed. Kakashi says he does not like them but only half-heartedly, as
if fond. Sakura feels special for only five hours. It officially ends with the introductions are
finally directed to her. Her smile is shaky but she answers politely, “I’m Sakura,” Naruto
wants to be Hokage because he is sure he can do better than his old man, and promises that
the Uzumaki name will finally sit as the Hokage and not as an afterthought, a revival of a
dead clan; Sasuke wants to be the Konoha Military Police Chief, make his clan proud, and
surpass his brother (be worthy of his attention, is unspoken), “I like cooking and reading—”
For her mom, “—and I don’t like it when—” Things become skewed, unfair, unbalanced,
everything is supposed to be balanced: the ratio of Yin-Yang in Medical Ninjutsu, the clan
children and non-clan children, the dark-colored ribbon sitting on top of her head courtesy to
Kabuto-san who pushed a strand away from her face and called her eyes pretty, ‘kaasan not
getting Medic-nin because ‘kaasan is a civilian when her Chuunin vest sits at the back of her
closet. “—things are disorganized. And as for my dream for the future, I want—” To cure
‘kaasan and pay back Kabuto-san. “—be a Medic-nin like Tsunade-sama!”

Kakashi-sensei does not flinch but his eyes focus on her strangely when he hears that. Did he
notice…? Kabuto-san said that telling everyone that she only intends to learn Medical
Ninjutsu to help her mother is a bad idea. What if you’ll end up as a flagged as a flight risk,
he worries for her. Sakura leans in when Kakashi pats her hair like he does with the other two
boys who squabble and scream. Sakura feels special for only five hours and when he lets go
of her, he tells her, “Sakura-chan will have these two idiots’ backs, right?” She stops feeling
special when he finally says they cannot pass until he tells them they can, that there will be
an exam. She stops feeling special when she tells this to Kabuto-san, worried about her little
arsenal of abilities. Kabuto-san only frowns. His eyes are unseen behind the glint of his
glasses. He hums in speculation. He gets like this sometimes. Many times.

(Like when Sakura looked at him worriedly as she accidentally killed the fish, tears bursting
from her eyes. She panics and screams, and holds Kabuto-san’s sleeve. Kabuto-san scowls at
her in disappointment. “What are you crying for?” Sometimes, Kabuto-san is as cold as ice.
He does not scald like the sun nor blinds like little matchsticks begging for a chance in the
dark. Instead, he makes Sakura shiver. He becomes annoyed. “Sakura-chan is going to be a
shinobi, right? Not a Ninja,” because ‘ninja’ is baby-talk, civilian-talk, baby-talk, less-than-
shinobi-talk, doesn’t-fit-the-bill-talk, and Sakura is not a civilian, “When you heal,” Kabuto
lifts her hand and he pushes his chakra to the fish as a demonstration. It flops and lives.
Sakura perks up. “You have to be prepared to break too.” She looks at him in aghast. The
fish becomes still.

Sakura becomes so angry that she pushes him away, small hands urging him to leave. She
shouts at him, says some things she does not mean. Kabuto-san does not move, only staring
at her. “What? Sakura-chan doesn’t want to learn anymore?” She says this is not healing.
This is killing, she insists that it is. Kabuto frowns at her, crouching in front of her and wipes
a tear away from her face. “Oh, Sakura-chan, I was kind of mean wasn't I?—” She sniffles
and nods. “But I had to do it. When you become a Genin, your sensei will also do that
because that’s what shinobi do. And if you react this way in front of your team—and I’m sure
you’re going to get clan kids in yours because you’re such a bright girl—” He holds her hand
while his other palms away the tears. “If you react this way, they’ll look down on you again,
you know…”

She cries harder because she knows. Kabuto-san can be mean sometimes but he is not a liar.
He never lies, after all. She throws her arms around him, sobbing and sobbing but still quiet.
“Sakura-chan understands why I did that, right? Would you rather do this first with your
team or with me? I’ll just teach you healing if you—” She shakes her head adamantly and
tightens her embrace around Kabuto. “No, no! Kabuto-san is okay. I was being stupid! I—I
know shinobi do these stuff but I—”

“But you thought you didn’t need to?”

She nods. “Oh, Sakura-chan,” Kabuto-san pushes her hair away from her face. “It’s okay. I’ll
help you, okay? I’ll wait for you. If you want to learn how to break, tell me, okay? After all,
the two of us are—”)

She stops feeling special when Kabuto leans back against the tree, fingers running through
her hair. The dark blue of her ribbon sits on the ground, matching the one on Kabuto’s
forehead. “I knew that Sakura-chan was going to have talented teammates but I didn’t think it
would be like this,” she groans and huffs, muttering about stupid Kakashi-sensei just
suddenly dropping this on them, “Isn’t Sakura-chan just not being treated seriously?”

“What?” She looks at him in surprise. She was special! She is in the same team as the
Hokage’s son, the KMPF Chief’s son, and the famous Hatake Kakashi. (Because suddenly,
she is more than a civilian. A civilian would never be given this kind of opportunity. Sakura
is special!) “Where did that come from…”

Kabuto smiles apologetically. “I’m just probably imagining things! You don’t need to worry
about it—”

“Kabuto-san!” Sakura puffs her cheeks.

“It’s really nothing! Now, show me your chakra scalpel again. You’re having a hard time
with it, right?” Sakura squints at him in suspicion but Kabuto continues on smiling, chuckling
sheepishly. He always does that when he is in a tight spot. She relents but his words do not
leave her head even in the day after that. As she cooks breakfast for her family, too early in
the morning that she has to scribble down ‘just heat it up, sorry, we have early training’, she
thinks and thinks: isn’t Sakura-chan just not being treated seriously? Where did he get that
from? Is it because Sasuke-kun and Naruto-kun are both clan children and have very high-
ranking fathers? But Sakura also deserves her spot in the team! She worked hard for this, and
became Top Kunoichi. And if she is not special, then why is she here? Naruto isn’t even a
Top Student! He keeps on skipping class and never passes homeworks.

Isn’t Sakura-chan just not being treated seriously? Where did Kabuto-san even get that? She
arrives to the training field, a little bummed because of her empty stomach but hours and
hours later, the bells ring, and she jumps away, along with Sasuke and Naruto, Kakashi-
sensei is late but he dangles her ticket to her mother’s cure right then and there. She sees
Sasuke whip out a Fire Ninjutsu, a fresh Genin but an Uchiha, and then she sees Naruto,
spamming clones of himself, and her heart drops, sinks, withers away. Her attempt comes in
the form of a Genjutsu and her healing is nothing compared to the others; she is barely there,
barely seen. She feels so, so embarrassed.

Sakura feels her heart stammer and thud. It is a hammer shattering her ribs, strawberry and
blood on her cheeks. She is angry, yes, very maddening red. The Genjutsu is basic at best but
Kakashi humors her as she drives her leg into his face, making the most of his ‘distracted’
demeanor. Her foot is grabbed by Kakashi-sensei. And then, as if they planned this, a natural
teamwork that makes Sakura choke on her breath, as if they have been waiting for this
moment, an unspoken plan between two boys who apparently hate each other, Naruto’s hands
glow a brilliant, brilliant blue—scalding, oh, how the light can be so scalding (unfair, it’s so
unfair; everyone’s a liar; what hard work are they talking about) and Sasuke breathes fire like
dragons from the legends and Sakura is—Kakashi jumps away, Sakura jumps away, minutes
pass, and Naruto is caught cheating, food stuffed in his cheeks. “You pass!”

Sakura does not feel like she passed. She stares at her team dead in the eyes, her chopsticks
that are about to feed Naruto returned to her bento. “You can go now—except for the two of
you, come back here,” Kakashi lectures them about using those kinds of techniques, how
they risked Sakura who was in the hands of Kakashi-sensei, that the Rasengan and the
Gokakyuu almost hit her if not for Kakashi. And somehow, the two boys find her and Naruto
lowers his head apologetically. “Sorry, Sakura-chan! It’s just that—whenever the bastard and
I would train, we kinda, always did that? Like—” His hands move around erratically. “We
throw a bait, then the enemy would get distracted, then we pull out jutsu and, like, you know?
It’s, what is it again? Like when you do something all the time you just—muscle memory!
Yeah! Wait—you’re not the bait! I just—we knew you were gonna mess—it’s not because of
you, of course! Kakashi-nii—Kakashi-sensei is just super strong! And we just—”

“I get it.”

“—unconsciously acted—oh. You do?”

“I get it. You don’t need to apologize.”

“Oh! Yeah?” Naruto grins. “I knew you’d understand! I told you she wasn’t going to be
sensitive ‘bout it, bastard!”

Sakura smiles at both of them.

She does not stop smiling through the D-Rank Missions. She does not stop smiling and
makes sure her teammates’ jokes do not get to her because she is not sensitive. She is not
sensitive like a civilian. It is not like she still keeps her bright pink and frilly clothes in her
closet just in case, or that she makes sure her lunch boxes are cute and pretty; it’s not like
that, she swears! Haruno Sakura is no longer a civilian now. She is a shinobi, and no, not a
‘ninja’ because ‘ninja’ is civilian-talk and baby-talk for shinobi. She does not smile when
Naruto dreams of saving princesses from evil warlords and dictators, and talks about how
Sakura-chan is so pretty that she looks like a princess! Kakashi is strangely indulgent to
Naruto’s behavior and teases along with him, “Sakura-chan’s a princess, huh?” Sakura
resists the annoyance when Naruto blushes, scratches his cheek, as Sasuke scoffs. He sneers
at their jokes and looks distastefully at Sakura. But she should not be sensitive. (She really,
really isn’t!) She should laugh at their jokes because she is not a civilian anymore. She is not
little, little Sakura who is a bright, bright girl. She is a shinobi. A shinobi. Not a civilian.

And she keeps this up even at home, ushering to her mother and sending warm chakra into
her system. She still has not learned about Chakra Poisoning as it is an advanced procedure
and recently, Kabuto-san’s been busy. Her mother pats her cheek. “Sakura-chan, you’ve
become so strong,” she says proudly and Sakura snuggles into her warmth, taking whatever
she can before she goes out of this home. But she is so exhausted, dragging her body, almost
annoyed when she is startled awake at her mother’s pained coughs.

“You’re going to a C-Rank mission already?” Kabuto-san is the only one who understands
her.

“Naruto-kun begged the Hokage,” which was embarrassing. Naruto may have his father’s
coloring but he looks nothing like him. It was the first time Sakura had seen the Hokage up
close but he talks to them like a father. No, idiot, she tells herself. Naruto and Sasuke are
childhood friends, and they are rivals. Their mothers were the closest of friends, and Kakashi
assisted in raising Naruto because the Hokage had little time. Naruto scorns him for this, but
blames his father’s incompetency and not his seat. I can do better than you, he vows as they
leave to prepare for the mission, Watch out, old man! I’ll be Hokage in no time! Sakura does
not think he says this because he hates the Hokage. She thinks he says this because he wants
the Hokage to rest.

Not like she cares. The Yondaime Hokage, Kabuto-san once told her, is not that good of a
man, you know. She gasped, affronted, accusing him of being a traitor jokingly but his face
became strangely serious, back to the frigid and cold-blooded Kabuto-san who digs his
fingers into her wrists and scowls when she slips up. You’ll know soon.

Kabuto hums and pushes away her hair. “I see,” he muses, “And Kakashi-senpai is going
with you?”

“Yup,” Sakura’s fingers intertwine, shyly shifting on her feet. And as if Kabuto read her
mind, he smiles at her and ruffles her hair. He leans to his touch. (Cold but at least it does not
burn.) “Good luck, Sakura-chan.”

Sakura needs more than luck though. The man she is supposed to protect sways and stumbles
like a drunkard, his scent a sting to her nose. Shinobi aren’t supposed to smell like anything
but because of this man, she’s probably going to smell like liquor by the end of the day,
Sakura clicks her tongue and at the back of her head, she ignores the nagging ‘civilians are
like that’. But she does not have time to even think more because the next thing she knows is
that enemies are bursting from the ground and Kakashi-sensei disappears in blood. Only
instincts manage to push Sakura in front of Tazuna the drunkard, her hands shaking around
her kunai as Naruto—son of the Hokage—and Sasuke—son of the KMPF—flicker out of
existence. Her knees are shaking. Kabuto-san, Kabuto-san, Kabuto-san—he was right. If this
was the first time Sakura witnessed death, or a variation of it, she would have thrown up and
cried. Kabuto-san, Kabuto-san. The air suddenly smells clinical. Kakashi appears out of
nowhere and deals with the enemies.

Naruto’s hand bleeds and Sakura, Sakura, Sakura needs to do something because right now,
she is useless. She is suddenly embarrassed, cheeks pale but rather red still, and she smiles
because she cannot shiver nor express fear because she is a shinobi now and she is not
sensitive. She is not a civilian anymore. So she smiles, praises Naruto and Sasuke, and the
blonde preens under her attention. Kakashi smiles at her the same way he always does,
watching her hands glow around Naruto’s own, poison trickling out of his skin. (Sakura
struggles but she manages. She can take away poison but never the Kyuubi’s poison in her
mother’s veins.) She smiles but does not shake. “There! All better!” Kakashi puts a hand on
her head and praises her, saying her Medical Ninjutsu is good for someone her age. All she
hears is: someone like her. She smiles. “Thanks, sensei! I worked hard!”

(Worked herself to the bone. Day and night, training and training with Kabuto-san who
ripped her chakra out of her system and forced her to kill fishes and revive them, hunt for
rabbits and choke the life out of their eyes, but he brushes her hair away from her face and
whispers how good she is, how bright she is. When she comes home, she looks down to her
mother and a part of her blames her and a part of her hates her so, so, so much. She is tired,
tired, tired, more exhausted than she has ever been. I’m tired, and she runs away, shameful.
Ungrateful, little, bright child.)

And she works hard, works even more. As the C-Rank gets upped to S-Rank, as Naruto
shoves a Rasengan to the enemy but is overpowered easily even though he is the son of the
Hokage, he should be strong! And Sasuke falls, falls, and Kakashi-sensei—Sakura stays
behind with the drunkard. And she works hard, works hard, her chakra flushed out clean
while Kakashi-sensei sleeps. This is all she can do. She cannot fight like they can (she wishes
she can but her goal is to fix her mother and leave, not be like Senju Tsunade—but isn’t it
over for her mother—she is dying after all, she was never sick; she’s just dying, not sick) and
she can only mend bones, not break them, too ashamed of herself to even go near that topic.
How civilian of you, the voice sounds like Kabuto-san: don’t you want to be more? She just
wants to fix her mother—really? She just so desperately wants to fix her mother.

(Don’t you hate her? Aren’t you tired of her? She’s the reason you’re here in the first place.
She’s the reason why you keep this up. She’s the reason why you’re so tired. Didn’t you think
of it, even once or twice? Think of what? You know, Sakura. No, I don’t. But you do. No, I—
wouldn’t it be easier if she just died?)

“Sa… Sakura-chan?”

“Kakashi-sensei! You’re awake!”

Sakura is praised for her work, for fixing up Kakashi-sensei so she decides this is a good
enough reason to ignore the way he looks at her sometimes, especially when she attempts to
heal him even more. He looks at the green glow of her hands strangely, like he can see
something that is not there. He becomes worse, surprisingly, when the enemy returns—S-
Rank Missing-nin, Momoichi Zabuza is tall and represents all the horror stories they tell
about Kirigakure. Kakashi makes sure she stays back, barks at her to stay beside the client.
(He looks at her like he does not see her, like the green glow of her hands are not hers. He is
insistent he stays back and Sakura is a shinobi, and though those who abandon the rules are
trash, the pride of being a shinobi throbs deep. She is not a civilian anymore so she stands
back, a kunai to protect herself and Tazuna.) But Sakura doubts she needs to be protected
from Momoichi Zabuza.

There is a greater beast that sits in their village. The beast destroys the unbreakable mirrors,
coils in its orange form, bubbling and burning, and Sakura remembers it as clear as day. She
remembers and she doubles to the tree, throwing up all she has eaten as she remembers—
History of Konohagakure, Chapter IV: Reign of the Yondaime Hokage, ‘hundreds of children
aged 1-4 years old, including unborn children of the womb, perished due to Chakra
Poisoning from the Kyuubi no Kitsune. New or upcoming mothers are prone to Chakra
Poisoning as they are, essentially, creating a Chakra Network within their womb. They are
also more prone to Chakra Exhaustion. Though there were extensive attempts to gather the
pregnant and the new mothers, there still remained to be a severe impact on them—’; it is
always the Kyuubi. Her mother smiles: It’s not your fault, Sakura-chan. It’s the Kyuubi’s
—”The Yondaime Hokage is not that good of a man, you know.”

Sakura feels numb as she heals Sasuke, as she heals Kakashi, as reinforcements come, all
higher-ranked than they ought to be. They cloak Naruto, and hide him, and report to Kakashi,
and Kakashi stares at her as if she is not there. She smiles, and she feels the world end a little.

ACT 3. LOVE THE VILLAGE AND HOPE TO PRESERVE THE PEACE AND
PROSPERITY

The end of the world begins like this: your name is Haruno Sakura and your mother is sick
because of the Demon Fox’ curse. Terribly sick. It could have been fixed but your mother
does not fit the bill, so you think: “Ah! I just need to be a cure kaachan on my own, then!”
You try to pick up books but the librarian frowns and ushers you away, saying that you can
come back when you fit the bill. He promises that you can if only you work hard, so you do.
Your bones break, your skin itches, your blood spills, and you smile at your mother who
sleeps in the coffin that is so comfortable that it looks like a bed. You still cannot fit the bill.
So you work harder. Maybe you just aren’t working hard enough? You wake up early in the
morning to prepare breakfast for your mother and father because they shouldn’t be doing
tasks like these! Otousan has a job and okaasan is too sick! You do the same for lunch. For
dinner. Everyday, every week, of every month. You ace your test but you still do not fit the
bill.

“Do you want my help? I can help you,” exclaims the boy, “We’re the same, after all!”

The boy holds our hand and he claws your heart out of your chest, blood pools from the in-
betweens of his fingers, your skin and bones wide open for the cavities to spill out. He
mourns with you and tilts your head to lean against his shoulder. He says he was an orphan
too, a ‘civilian’ like you. You tell him you are not a civilian because your mother and father
are shinobi—not Ninja! He offers you your own heart and it is heavy, a burden too heavy to
carry. “Right. You’re not a civilian anymore,” your hard work pays off, and pays off, and
pays off. But your body is too heavy sometimes. You are too tired, and it is not because of the
boy, but because of the coffin your mother sleeps in. (This is your fault.) You are tired, tired,
tired, until it pays off even more because your team is composed of the greatest of students.
“They still think you’re a civilian. But you’re not. Not anymore.” You work hard, work hard,
work hard, and you smile because you understand their jokes. You swear you do. You can
understand their jokes.

You swear you can.

And suddenly, their jokes sink in. The boy brushes away your crown of begonias, his eyes
bearing into yours. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul but his eyes are hidden
by mirrors and when you catch a glimpse, they are too dark for you to see. He holds you:
“It’s not your fault. It’s never your fault. It’s the Demon Fox’.” Their jokes sink in like a tidal
wave of the eastern seas, because snakes attack the honoured brother, a slithering, gigantic
figure with eyes like the boys’. And the failure to consume the honoured brother paints a
target to the liar’s dearest friend. Suddenly, their jokes sink in. It sinks so deep it engraves
itself in your bones. The whiskers and the high-collared, the bareness of the nape and the
fangs that sink in are cruel and poisonous, a stain to the existence of his perfection—their
jokes sink in, your hands clamouring and shaking, and you beg the boy: “What can I do?”
Their jokes finally sink, sink, sink in.

The end of the world appears in the form of a snake. There was a time when you heard tales
of snakes swallowing suns and moons, you are not sure which one. But the destruction has
you exhausted. There is a sand-monster that the liar’s friend is pacifying, and the liar screams
something at them all. Your hands are pale though red, red, red. “You’re a medic, right? A
Genin? Where’s your instructor? How is a Genin a Med—fuck, here, we need—” Ah, the
snake swallows the sun, consuming it whole as the Thunder-God ascends from the skies,
skewering him but the snake has eight heads and is neither dead nor alive.

Your name is Haruno Sakura and right there, as the sun gets consumed whole by the snake, as
the Will of Fire burns, you think, of all things, you think and think: if my house gets crushed
too, will I finally stop being tired?

“Would you like that, Sakura-chan?”

“Kabuto-san?”

The world mends itself, so it seems, upon the boy’s arrival. The mirror in his eyes is broken
and his dark, dark eyes are in plain view. Like the Myouken Bosatsu, he guides you to your
destination, a hand on your shoulder, and when you arrive, your body weak and your… your
everything drained, his eyes darken, if it is even possible. He tells you to wait and this is how
the world mends itself: he comes back with a corpse, dim greens and dirty yellows, a body so
heavy that it makes your knees collapse. This is how the world mends itself: “kaachan?”

The boy pushes your hair out of your face, knuckles brushing against your cheek. You lean in
unconsciously, arms shaking around the corpse. Chakra Poisoning, your name is Sakura, you
are thirteen years old—Chakra Poisoning, you are at fault. Right? The snake in the skies is
not at fault because the snake wishes to swallow the earth-god and not the sun. Matchsticks
are nothing compared to such deities. It’s not your fault, Sakura-chan. It’s never your fault.
It’s the—“Kyuubi’s fault?” The snake swallows the earth-god and the Thunder-God strikes
with the power of Kushinadahime. The Demon Fox subdues the Sand-Monster and calls it a
friend. The liar’s friend looks at the honored brother, and the palm on his neck soothes the
ache. What are you? What about you? “My fault,” if my house gets crushed too, will I finally
stop being tired. You—Sakura—you—Sakura’s entire body shakes, her—your—her breath a
stutter, a staccato of a beat unheard, your chest heaves, and the air escapes your lungs. Her
lungs. Hers. “Tired, so tired, Kabuto-san.”

It is practiced, it is known, when the boy’s hand glows, knuckles kissing your skin, strands
away from your face. This time, it is more intimate. He pries little, little Sakura’s hands away
from her mother and scoops her in his arms. “You’re bright, Sakura-chan,” he does not look
like the snake but his voice sounds like one, “When my… my mother was choosing a
surname for herself, she wanted something that would define her. I remember very little but I
remember that—Yakushi, after the ‘Yakushi Nyorai’. I’m flattered that you think so highly of
me to call me ‘Myouken Bosatsu’, but I’m Yakushi, and as the Yakushi Nyorai, I’ll fix you up,
Sakura-chan. Would you like that?”

“Fi… fix?”

“You’re going to be good as new,” the boy coos at her, “There are many things one can do
with chakra control as good as yours. That’s not something you can just train, you know.
Some people are born ahead. With control, you can easily do everything and anything you
want. Things like kekkei genkai, kekkei touta, jinchuuriki—even such things will bend for
mastery and control. Orochimaru-sama will be pleased with you.”

Her head lolls to the side, peeking unconsciously over the boy’s shoulder. The dirty yellows
and dim greens remain still. “Yamata… no Orochi?”

A chuckle, soft and fond, like the friend killer towards the Demon Fox. “Aa, you can call him
that. It’s like we’re witnessing something legendary, don’t you think so? The Ichibi to the
Kyuubi’s feet like a dog, the Yamata no Orochi battling the Sarutahiko-Ookami and Susanoo-
no-Mikoto. And there is us,” he walks, uncaring of the panic around them, “one who
borrowed the name of the Yakushi Nyorai, and one who decorates the abode of Kannon.”

She tries to move, twitching away but the boy—Kabuto, Kabuto, Kabuto-san, the-only-one-
who-understands-her-Kabuto-san—keeps a tight hold around her. She groggily looks at him
and the smile on his face is effortless. It looks genuine. The joke does not sink in this time.
She surrenders herself to it. Whenever she looks over Kabuto’s shoulders, all she sees are the
remnants of the disaster, the dim greens and the dull yellows, the scream of Demon Foxes
and Sand-Monsters, the longing between two brothers, and the storm of the Thunder-God.
Kabuto moves so smoothly like she is floating. “Kabuto-san, where are we going?” She
finally asks between the coldness of himself and the burning of the Will of Fire. The
grogginess is slowly going away and she surrenders, surrenders, gives in. Am I a traitor now?
She feels numb. Her palms cling to the boy and she does not care if she stains him with
blood, or the remains of her mother.

“Home, of course.”

“Home?—... but why?”

Kabuto stops moving and Sakura looks up at him. One of his hands brushes away a lock of
her hair and she leans in, ah. This is how the world ends, and this is how it mends itself too,
the Yakushi Nyorai who can heal everything and anything. “Of course. Didn’t you remember
what I said, Sakura-chan?” He looks at her pitifully but Sakura cares very little now. “The
two of us, we’re the same.”

Little, little Sakura is a bright, bright child, a matchstick among suns and bonfires, but the
tsuchinoko craves everything. And thus, she was consumed.

introduction to chakra: myths and realities is in reference to "energy myths and

realities: bringing science to the energy policy debate" by vaclav smil. source. (it
has bad reviews.)
susano'o-no-mikoto (須佐之男命) is the shinto god of thunder and seas. he is the
younger brother to amaterasu-oomikami (天照大御神), goddess of the sun and the
most well-known among the shinto gods, and is also the ruler of the heavens. one
of susano'o's wives is kushinadahime (櫛名田比売) who he saved from the
yamata-no-orochi (八岐大蛇).
sarutahiko-ookami (猿田毘古大神) is somewhat like the shinto god of earth,
specifically the earthly realm. referencing him to sarutobi hiruzen who, ironically,
has a monkey summon named enma (猿魔) who shares the same name as the
buddhism god of hell, enma-oo (閻魔王, king enma) in japanese, or more
commonly known as yama.
myouken bosatsu (妙見菩薩) is the buddhism deitification of the north star,
symbolizing guidance.
yakushi nyorai (薬師如来, bhaisajyaguru) is the buddhism god of medicine, also
known as the medicine master.
begonia are typically pink flowers. in hanakotoba, it means beware.
tsuchinoko (槌の子, hammer child) is a youkai that appears as a very thick snake
that looks like it just consumed something whole straight-up. for more info: link.
if i missed out on anything you are unfamiliar with, please inform me!

tumblr (for request details, q&a, etc+): link

carrd: link
discord: link

academy admission requirements

 yakushi nyorai's twelve vows
Chapter Summary

The sutra of the Master of Healing.

ACT 4. MAY ALL WHO ARE DESTITUTE OF CLOTHING OBTAIN

ATTRACTIVE GARMENTS AND VARIOUS ADORNMENTS UPON
CONCENTRATING ON MY NAME.

Dear ‘kāchan. It’s been a day since I left Konoha. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.

Sakura does not know where they are exactly but what she knows is that she will follow
Kabuto-san everywhere. Kabuto knows this too. It is impossible that he does not know
because he smiles at her whenever their eyes meet, and it is unlike the smiles that he offers to
everyone else. To him, she is special. He smiles at her like he smiles at himself; he sees
something in her that no one, not even her can see. She likes to joke that Kabuto can
strangely see more than anyone can see despite his glasses, and he jokes back to her that he
has four eyes instead of two. Their exchanges make the trip to Kabuto-san’s true home more
enjoyable but she has never been ‘special’ to anyone before. She was special to her parents
because she was their only daughter and child, but she was never special just because. Kabuto
treats her as somebody special and she does not know what to do with this. This status as
‘someone special’ is fragile—what is someone supposed to do once they are deemed special?
What does it even mean to be special? Kabuto tells her not to overthink, that Sakura is special
because she is Sakura and nothing more.

She tries to do as he says, letting him fill the silence with his stories. The travel will be too
long if we don’t do anything about it, don’t you think, Sakura-chan? So she listens to him, an
ear always ready for wherever his stories may take them: “Orochimaru-sama saved me a long
time ago,” his words vague, his point clear, “The Academy taught you about the Second
Shinobi War, didn’t they?”

Sakura nods. “Hanzō the Salamander named Orochimaru–sama, Tsunade-sama, and Jiraiya-
sama, as the ‘Sannin’,” she recites. She knows her village’s history like the back of her hand.
She wanted to be like Senju Tsunade for the longest time despite her curious inquiries about
her not-defection. Regardless of her comments on Senju Tsunade, no one can deny that she is
still the best in her field. The Second Shinobi War introduced the Sannin to them and, in
Sakura’s opinion, destroyed it as well. While they may have accomplishments under their
belt that would make every shinobi fearful of them, it is still strange to think that all the
students of the Sandaime Hokage—the longest reigning Hokage to date and the longest
reigning Kage with the exception of, maybe, the Kage of Iwagakure—are not even in the
village. One of them completely defected, the other may as well have defected, and the last
has spent more years out of the village than inside the village, almost as if he is avoiding it.
The Village calls Sarutobi Hiruzen ‘The Professor’ for how he created the greatest team to
date and his mastery of all forms of shinobi combat, but, Sakura thought, what makes a good
shinobi? Is it their ability to kill? Their ability to follow orders? Their loyalty to their village?
She asks this to Kabuto halfway in their travels and he hums in speculation, “Their ability to
deceive, I think?” He answers.

“Deceive,” Sakura echoes. She looks around instinctively. Kabuto said there will be no
search party for her and she does not have to worry about anyone following them, nor does
she have to be sad about being forgotten. She does not have to feel anything about Konoha in
general now that she is leaving it. She tells herself that countless times but it still leaves a
sour taste in her mouth the more she does.

“That’s how shinobi began, after all,” Kabuto begins to genuinely become serious about the
topic, “Did you know? All of our accounts on the beginning of shinobi come only from
civilians.”

“Really?”

“Shinobi guard their techniques zealously. Clans stick to clans, masters to apprentices, and
most times, especially before the formation of shinobi villages, shinobi would rather die with
their techniques than pass it on. They burn their scrolls, burn everything until only rumours
about them remain,” Kabuto’s hand grazes Sakura’s cheek, pushing a lock of hair to her ear,
“So civilians wrote about them instead, calling them ‘Ninja’ instead of ‘Shinobi’. They
misread one of the few writings of shinobi back then and read the character for ‘shinobu’ as
‘nin’. And when they began writing about it, they turned it into ‘someone who conceals’.” He
writes the characters ‘忍者’ on the ground.

Sakura leans her head against her knees. “Iruka-sensei said that it’s ‘someone who endures’,”
she points out half-heartedly.

“Hm, well, how do you write ‘laughter’?”

“Laughter?”

“Yes, how do you write it?”

Sakura frowns, not understanding but obliges anyway. With the tip of her kunai, she scribbles
‘ 笑 ’ in rounded, soft strokes. Her cheeks darken in embarrassment, aware of how
characteristically she writes her characters but Kabuto does not mention this. He pointed it
out back then, when she was younger, and called it ‘cute’, and if Sakura was not training to
be a shinobi then, she would have been excited. A part of her had been but all her older
classmates wrote their characters in sharp, precise strokes, her rounded ones looking more
‘civilian’ than ever. “What character did you have to write, to write ‘warau’?” Kabuto asks
again.

“Huh?” Sakura squints and tries to write the character again. “Oh.”

“Well?”
Sakura separates the two components of the character and she is left with ‘夭’. She perks up
in realization. “Calamity,” she breathes out, “I had to write calamity.”

Kabuto suddenly stands. The night sky begins to sink in the morning sun as he offers a hand.
Sakura gladly accepts it. He neither feels cold nor warm, and neither does she. Her chakra
cycles through her body like his, maintaining a complete equilibrium just how she likes it. It
is one of the first things he taught her so she could stop shivering in the nights she spent her
time training and training. Kabuto’s image against the sky looks almost poetic, the type of
visage one will write about but if she says that, Kabuto will only laugh and say that his
appearance is much too plain for it. He tends to do that—laugh. “Orochimaru-sama has lots
of books in his library. Civilian or shinobi…” He smiles at her again. His smile never
changes whenever he gives it to her. Just like his laughter. “I’m sure you’ll find many there
that you’ll like.”

Sakura lets excitement bubble up at the pit of her stomach. Orochimaru has always been
nothing but a nightmare to scare children. Even her own father told her that if she continued
sneaking snacks at night as a child, the great snake ‘Orochimaru’ would find her and eat her
whole. The boogeyman liked to eat misbehaving children who ate too much sweets. He
adored the flavour, apparently. What she witnessed back in the village showed exactly how
terrifying the boogeyman from her childhood can be, and how true most of the stories are.
Kabuto does not deny this and Orochimaru’s monstrosity. But he also calls Orochimaru-sama
the most powerful man he has ever seen, ever had the honour to witness, and how he is so
close to a perfect being. Great people don’t have to be good, Kabuto said—look at the
previous Hokage who are regarded as saviours as they drench themselves in the blood of the
conquered; look at the Yondaime, Sakura-chan, who wanted a son so badly they risked an
entire village. Look at the Yondaime, Sakura-chan, who became a hero only when he
slaughtered a thousand Iwa-nin before anyone could blink. Look at the Yondaime, Sakura-
chan, who wanted a child and killed hundreds for it. Look at the Yondaime, Sakura-chan.
Look at him and say that he is a good man.

There are two kinds of shinobi, she realizes: one who endures, and one who conceals. It is
either one or the other. The Yondaime is someone who conceals, someone who hides,
someone who covers his mistakes so desperately he works himself to the bone and has little
time for the son who he had damned. And Orochimaru-sama is the opposite—Sakura finally
sees the boogeyman of her childhood: the boogeyman who faced off against the Yondaime
and the Sandaime at the same time, and left with a corpse, and his hands sealed, his flesh
charred, his torso gored, and yet, still stands. Orochimaru is one who endures. He endures
and endures, and even in this room resembling a throne where he is surrounded by shinobi
with murky chakra, his broken form stands the tallest and the most powerful. The boogeyman
who saved the person who saved Sakura.

Yamata-no-Orochi, she had called him—the beast with eight heads and cut down by Susanō-
no-Mikoto for eating young maidens, Yamata-no-Orochi lives and thrives.

“I was wondering what took you so long, Kabuto,” says the beast, “You didn’t bring me an
Uchiha but this?”
Sakura is not given the time to be insulted. She shuffles to herself, trying to make herself as
small as possible. Kabuto answers swiftly for her: “I was this once too,” his hand reaches
around her shoulders and he holds her against him, “Her chakra control is better than mine,
Orochimaru-sama.”

Oh! Her cheeks are bright red yet again. She will never go as far as to say that she is better
than Kabuto-san in any aspect. She just has better control because of her smaller reserves and
statistically and biologically speaking, women have better control than men. She snaps her
head up to Kabuto to protest but Kabuto, as always, smiles at her. She becomes putty under
his arms. Her eyes turn to Orochimaru once more and—he is suddenly standing right in front
of her—her breath hitches in surprise, cheeks losing its colour immediately.

Unlike Kabuto’s, Orochimaru’s hand on her cheek is frigid cold. She doubts Orochimaru
does not know how to regulate his body temperature. Perhaps his snake-like appearance
extends to his biology too? Sakura wonders if he can really swallow her whole like the stories
say he can; his breath smells like blood and every bit of the nightmare that Sakura grew up
hearing, and as he holds her, it almost feels like he can see much more of her than he is when
he is standing from afar. But not in the same way as Kabuto, never in the same way as
Kabuto. He leans close to her, nose brushing her neck and scenting her but Kabuto’s hold on
her shoulder makes her unable to move. She feels trapped above all else but she just needs to
trust Kabuto-san. Just trust Kabuto-san but there is a snake in front of Sakura, the
embodiment of boogeymen and nightmares, and warnings from her childhood. Orochimaru is
the beast who survived the Sandaime and the Yondaime, who killed the Sandaime, was this
close to destroying Konoha, and managed to successfully tear apart the already-fragile
alliance of Suna and her former village, all headed by one person, all led by a snake. No, not
just a snake but the Snake.

Nobody said that the Yamata-no-Orochi was cunning. Only that he is the embodiment of evil
and has jaws that can unlock and spread so wide that none can escape its bite. “A personal
project, Kabuto?” Orochimaru finally—finally, finally—speaks. Sakura’s knees almost
shatter under her weight.

“Perhaps,” Kabuto replies.

“Then,” Orochimaru straightens his back, gliding to his throne, “Get rid of that collar. She is
no longer a shinobi of Konoha, is she?”

Kabuto leads her away and as soon as they are alone in a room she is to call her own, he
ushers her to stand in front of his seated form. His hand grazes her cheek again but this time,
it is not to push her hair back, but to tug away the forehead protector she rarely takes off. Her
head feels bare, her shoulders lighter, and she feels—she feels—“Kabuto-san,” she breathes
out. The forehead protector falls to her open palms, nails scabbed with blood and dirt,
appearance far from the Sakura of Konohagakure, the second-generation Genin who wants
nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with her ‘kāchan and ‘tōchan. “Kabuto-san,
Kabuto-san—Kabuto-san—” She cries and falls to her knees.

She is finally here, here in the snakeden with the beast that killed the Sandaime, and
destroyed her village, here in the home of the only person who saved her and helped her, the
only person who looked at her and saw her. Here where her loyalties are more fragile than
ever, where she will do anything for her saviour even leap into the jaws of the snake that
killed the leader her people once knew. Her cheeks are pressed against his knees. His fingers
thread through her hair. “Yes, Sakura-chan?”

“Thank you,” is all she can say. She does not know what else to say. Who would she be if her
Kabuto-san did not intervene? Where is she supposed to go without her Kabuto-san? What
will she do without him? He found her, saw her, helped her, and he set her free. He did all of
those and extended a hand to her first before she did. He gave so much to her when she did
not even ask for it. “Thank you.”

“Come on, Sakura-chan,” he laughs under his breath goodnaturedly, pulling her up, “We
should get you some change of clothes. You’re all bloodied and dirty.”

Soon, her forehead protector will be shed for something new. She does not know if she will
like it or how it will feel to wear it but she shares the same thread her Kabuto-san’s clothes
are stitched from, and that is what makes everything alright.

ACT 5. MAY THOSE WHO ARE DESPERATELY FAMISHED BE GIVEN FOOD.

MAY THEY ULTIMATELY TASTE THE SUBLIME TEACHINGS.

Kabuto-san has never lied to Sakura. He may have played with truths and danced with his
words but he never lied to her. When he said they were going home, it… is not necessarily
true, but it can be true someday. Her room is small compared to the one she has at home and
this place is much more quiet than what she is used to, but the peace lulls her to comfort, and
just like Kabuto said, Orochimaru has an expansive library where books are free for her to
read. Kabuto, however, tends to not be around, but when he is, Sakura is usually by his side.

“There were originally five members of Orochimaru-sama’s bodyguard; they were never just
the ‘Sound Four’,” he answers her when she asks about them. He encourages that of her. He
says that asking means being provided answers, and when neither of them can answer, she
can just look for it herself. And when she does, she will share it with him. She is not alone,
never alone with Kabuto by her side, a hand on her cheek, and her hair out of her eyes. “The
fifth one, however, is much too ill.”

“Too ill that even Kabuto-san can’t help him?”

Kabuto does not answer. He, instead, directs this question back to her, “Can you?”

Sakura is yet to be as good as Kabuto. She doubts she can ever be as great as him but Kabuto
says the best thing about people like them—those who came from nothing, has nothing, are
nothing but what their circumstances made them to be—is that, with that nothingness, can
they become everything. She had asked after he said that, if she can become like him, and he,
in turn, said ‘yes’. Even Orochimaru-sama? Even Orochimaru-sama. Even Tsunade? Even
Tsunade. Even the Yondaime? Especially the Yondaime—she had cocked her head, in a
questioning tone. “The Yondaime was like us, Sakura-chan. He was nothing, then he became
everything he wanted to be. He entered the Academy at age nine, graduated quickly, was
saved by his teacher, and from nothing, he became the Hokage,” Namikaze Minato was just a
blond boy from an orphanage once upon a time. His hair stood out among the crowd,
knowing that such light hair was rare in the Land of Fire unless one was a Yamanaka. He did
not have a pleasant life.

“Is Orochimaru-sama like us?” She asks when the thought passed by her head again. Kabuto-
san says that speaking during chakra control exercises improves control. In battle, nobody
will stop and wait for her to finish her concentration. Healing, scalpels, chakra strings, and
intricate things like their little tricks have to be instinctive. It must come for them with just a
single thought, like a limb.

Kabuto, for the first time in a while, barks out a laugh. His laughter echoes in the grey walls
of the room; Sakura has the decency to look embarrassed. “O—oh, I,” she stammers.

“No, no,” Kabuto shakes his head, “Don’t be ashamed of asking. You didn’t do anything
wrong. I was just surprised.” It does not remove the embarrassment from Sakura’s shakes.
Her shoulders become hunched as she focuses on urging the chakra strings to come out once
again. It falls flimsily, her distraction evident with the outcome of her work. Kabuto, despite
his laughter and amusement, maintains his hold on the straw doll walking across the table.
“I’m going to ask you something in return: what similarities does the Yamata-no-Orochi have
with Yakushi Nyorai? With Kannon?”

Sakura furrows her eyebrows, “Um, none?”

“Then you have your answer,” Kabuto lets go of his strings and reaches out to touch her
hand. He massages her bones, and her fingers, relaxing her palms. Chakra surges from her
hands, reaching for the straw doll with difficulty. Sakura tilts her head, her back hitting
Kabuto’s chest, “I don’t get it. If the Yondaime is like us, then, why do you call him Susanō-
no-Mikoto?”

“He married Kushinada-hime, didn’t he?”

Sakura wonders then why Kabuto serves Orochimaru. The Otokage is not like them; Sakura
thought that Kabuto only shows favour to those he deems is his kindred but at the same time,
Orochimaru, despite all their differences, saved Kabuto. Sakura is not supposed to question
that and besides, Orochimaru allowed her to stay in his village despite arriving looking like a
Konoha-nin in everything but name. She had the forehead protector, the clothes distinctively
Konoha, the will of fire in her veins that scalds more than it warms her. Sakura wonders how
long she can be pretentious like this, how long she can be childish, calling everyone around
her the visage of gods and enlightened men, how long Kabuto will indulge her naïveté and
her name-calling. Calling someone as great as Orochimaru ‘Yamata-no-Orochi’ feels almost
like an insult though; “The Yamata-no-Orochi died because of Susanō-no-Mikoto.
Orochimaru-sama is still alive,” it does not fit, she tries to say.

Mere people like them do not fit the tales of kami and enlightened men. They can certainly
try and make it appear like that, and they can force themselves into the storyline, but Sakura
knows they can never be. No matter what name they call themselves, no matter what kind of
narrative coincidentally fits.

Kabuto’s eyes sparkle. And there it is again: that look on his face as if he sees something she
cannot see. He lets go of her hands and the suddenness of his holding on her cheeks startles
her. “Kabuto-san?”

“Clever, clever, Sakura-chan is growing up,” he smiles.

“Kabuto-san, you’re not speaking clearly again,” Sakura’s cheeks are pressed together, her
words coming out in mush, “Kabuto-san?”

Kabuto only smiles and those four eyes of his see something within her again. Sakura
remains confused as her saviour continues to speak in riddles. All she can hear, in the back of
her head, is a soft ‘clever, clever, Sakura-chan’, and a part of her grows excited.

ACT 6. MAY ALL WHO ARE PUNISHED BY THE KING BE FREED OF THEIR
TROUBLES.

Sakura is the only one brought by Kabuto in Otogakure; everyone else is brought in by
Orochimaru whom they see as someone greater than god itself. She, however, surprisingly
does not stick out like a sore thumb. There are many who seem younger than her by more
than a handful of years, others whose features contort strangely across their skin caused by
their bloodline, another with hair brighter than her own pink. Otogakure is the Village Hidden
in Sound—contradicting the more concrete naming of other villages: sand, leaves, clouds,
mist, rock, waterfall, rain. Otogakure is sandwiched between two rising canyons but even this
certain base, Kabuto says, is just one of the many other bases, and all of them have a single
similarity. The sound truly hides them.

In this base, the canyons make each noise disappear, not even reaching the heights where the
ground is supposed to be. Orochimaru-sama’s village hides in plain sight, just under the noise
of everyone else. And in this enclosure, beasts wander along with Sakura; the Sound Four is
only one of them. Each beast has their own aggression, their own tell-tales of why they are
even here in the first place with the brightness of their hair, the point of theirs, the colour of
their skin. The Sound Four, however, is no longer the Sound ‘Four’ after the attack in
Konohagakure weeks ago. The Sound ‘Five’ is reduced to Sound ‘Four’, reduced to Sound
‘Two’. Sakon and Ukon, though favoured by Kabuto in their scarce conversations about the
group because of their unique kekkei genkai, died. The late Jirōbō, in Sakura’s opinion, is the
most interesting. Sakura does not know how Orochimaru did it but according to Kabuto, he
somehow managed to combine the Rinha Clan’s ability to absorb Chakra with the Akimichi
Clan’s reliance on carbohydrates and fats for strength and made Jirōbō the way he is.

Only Tayuya and Kidōmaru remain, and Sakura only finds out about this after the second
attempt in retrieving the prized Uchiha—she does not know the details but she does know, as
it is common knowledge in the deeper insides of the compound, that Orochimaru wants
Uchiha Itachi specifically, but had to settle for Uchiha Sasuke whom he gave a seal to. This
failed spectacularly with the arrival of not one but both the Sannin at the Yondaime’s request.
Kabuto said she did not need to know more. “Why? Are you curious about your former
team?” He said it the same way he asked her, weeks ago, if she was being taken seriously by
Kakashi. She shrivelled to her own form and apologized. Kabuto, as always, pushed her hair
out of her face, “No, no. I was just asking. You can say anything you want, okay, Sakura-
chan? I’ll always be here to listen.”
The survivors of the Sound Four barely escaped the Uchiha Clan, Kidōmaru’s arms just half
of what they used to be, but thankfully still holding the severed limb for healing. Tayuya,
however, comes into the clinic, holding her mouth. Kabuto smiles at Sakura, “This is a good
practice, don’t you think, Sakura-chan?”

“Practice?” Sakura echoes.

“Uhuh,” Kabuto cares little for Tayuya’s pain as he grabs her jaw. Sakura flinches, to which
Kabuto clicks his tongue. “Sakura-chan, didn’t you say that you wanted to learn? You can’t
learn anything if you get squeamish like that. Didn’t you heal Naruto when he was poisoned
in your first C-Rank?”

“Ye–yes, but,” Sakura meets Tayuya’s angry glare. The intimidating girl does nothing against
Kabuto’s hold, even as he prolongs her pain, even as he adds to it. “She’s in pain. We should
give her pain medication if she can’t control her chakra enough to—”

Kabuto sighs. Sakura curls to herself. Without the forehead protector to keep her hair out of
her face, it shadows over her eyes. Kabuto’s sigh rings in her ears, ringing, and ringing, and
ringing. His disappointment tastes bitter on her tongue, and never has anybody’s
disappointment felt like this. Her parents were never disappointed in her. She always worked
hard. Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei’s disappointment hurt, that is true, but they did not
know her. They did not know how she spent most of her time, and they did not even know
anything about her, all things considered, but Kabuto-san knows. He knows her more than
she knows herself, and hearing him disappointed in her makes tears sting in her eyes but she
is a shinobi now, not just a normal one but one who defected and moved to a completely new
village without any legal paperwork to back her up. She squeaks out, “‘Am sorry, Kabuto-
san,” she mumbles.

A hand grasps her head and fingers curl on her hair to meet her eyes. Kabuto’s beady, dark
eyes stare through her. “This is for your education, Sakura-chan. Didn’t you say—” I want to
heal my mother! “—that you wanted to be like me?” She nods quickly and finally, finally,
finally, Kabuto smiles. “Tayuya, here, is at fault if she can’t control her chakra to numb the
pain in her tongue. The other villages may consider her at Jounin-level, but can a Jounin-
level not do something as simple as this? Tayuya knows that she failed in the mission so this
is her way to punish herself. Right, Tayuya?”

Tayuya groans, blood spilling from her mouth through the cloth. She tries to glare at Kabuto
but is fruitless in doing so. She knows her position, just as Sakura knows her, so she lets
Tayuya turn her anger to Sakura instead. “De’er’ff di’,” one of the last surviving members of
Sound Four barely says, “De’er’ff.”

“See, Sakura-chan?” Kabuto beams. “I’ll be teaching you how to heal Tayuya, okay? The
tongue is just like any other muscle—” Sakura focuses on his words, watching the cold of his
chakra burn through Tayuya’s tongue. It does not regrow it. Limb regeneration is not even
taught in any textbooks. ‘Healing’ is different from ‘regeneration’. And only very little
Medic-nin can actually do that. “Now you try.”

Sakura blinks. “Try? But she’s already—” Kabuto’s hands wrap around a kunai and with one
quick slice, the healing on Tayuya’s tongue is put back into nothing. Tayuya does not even
flinch despite the sudden pain. Her eyebrows furrow and blood pours from her mouth. Sakura
gives an accusing look at Kabuto but she—Tayuya chose this, she tells herself. Just like how
she chose this, chose Otogakure, and Tayuya failed, did she not? She failed a mission
assigned to her by Orochimaru so it only makes sense—this makes sense. Kabuto said that
this was for practice. How long is Tayuya’s punishment going to last? How long will Sakura
be able to try and try? Her accusatory look melts just as Kabuto tilts Tayuya’s face to her
direction. Blood pours to the sheets. “What if I mess up? It’s my first time with this kind
of…”

“Then try again,” Kabuto encourages. He puts a hand on Sakura’s shoulder. His smile never
leaves his face. “Tayuya will be here to help you. If you fail, just try and try again. Training
with fish is hard. I would know. It’s best to get an actual human to practice with. And Tayuya
is willing.”

Right. Sakura did not have the privilege to work hard back then but here, she has everything
at her disposal. She has books to read, has a teacher to guide her as best as he can, and things
to practice with. Tayuya is—Tayuya is willing, she said so herself. Tayuya is just like her,
working hard, had nothing before this like Kabuto said about most shinobi of Otogakure.
Tayuya willingly punishes herself under Sakura’s practice because she needs it. Tayuya is in
pain because of her own mistakes. Numbing chakra is easy to control and Tayuya is already
at Jounin-level, she should know better. She has been here for more than enough years
already and survived encounters with the Uchiha Clan—right, right.

Tayuya is working hard, so Sakura needs to work hard too.

She heals Tayuya, and fails. And fails, and fails—but that is alright. Kabuto is there to guide
her and to criticize her work if she messes up. Tayuya may wince and groan every now and
then, and there may be too much blood spilling out but Kabuto says Tayuya has better
regenerative abilities than Sakura gives her credit for, and there are also blood bags around.
So she heals, and cuts. Heals, and cuts—heals, heals, heals, and cuts. On her third day, she
fixes Tayuya without a hitch. Kabuto smiles at her and calls her a prodigy, a genius, ‘will be
better than even Tsunade-sama’-kind-of-genius. She heals Tayuya, and fails a couple of times
but she succeeds nonetheless.

She smiles at Tayuya. “Thank you for the help!”

And much to Sakura’s surprise, Kabuto leaves another for her to practice on: Kidōmaru
surprisingly still has his arms severed despite the days that passed but it’s good practice. But
with the healed stump, it will be hard to attach it back—Kabuto frowns at her, “Sakura, be
creative,” he reminds and pim-pon! Sakura creates the incision, and cuts. Putting back
Kidōmaru’s arms together is much easier than she expected!

She smiles at Kidōmaru. “Thank you for the help!”

ACT 7. MAY ALL WHO ARE CAUGHT IN MARA’S NET, ENTANGLED IN

NEGATIVES VIEWS, BE CAUSED TO GAIN CORRECT VIEWS AND THUS
PRACTICE THE BODHISATTVA WAYS.
Kabuto-san reminds her that people like them only have each other and themselves to rely on.
Many people will ask for their healing but for people like them, they can only ask
themselves, especially during battle. After weeks of practicing on other injured shinobi,
Kabuto returns the question to her: “Can you do it to yourself?” And she is on the floor
before she even realizes what is going on. She is on the floor, holding her severed fingers and
her bleeding arm, looking at Kabuto in surprise. Her saviour sighs. “We were focusing too
much on healing. I forgot you’re not good at fighting.”

Sakura’s cheeks redden. “Wh—I can, I can learn,” she quickly insists, forgetting the heavy
bleeding gushing from her hands and arms. She cannot even feel the pain, much less register
it enough to numb the feeling. “I’m sorry—I was just, I—I was caught off guard. I know it’s
not an excuse—” And she repeats Kabuto’s words to her: “‘Nobody will wait for you on the
battlefield’. ‘Am sorry, Kabuto-san. I’ll do better, please don’t be—” She peers from under
her hair and Kabuto’s disappointment has long disappeared. All that is on his face is a serene
expression. His hand reaches for her again and her instincts kick in, leaning to his touch,
already knowing too well the way he pushes away a lock of her hair to her ear. “I’ll do
better.”

“You’re so smart, Sakura-chan. We can work on your fighting later, okay? For now, you need
to practice healing yourself. After we do that, we can train on something else. That way,
you’ll easily get back up when we start training on that,” Kabuto does as he promised. He
never breaks his word, after all. He watches her stand on her two feet and heal herself, and
whenever she finishes cleaning her skin off wounds, he attacks again, relentless, and ruthless,
almost cruel but Kabuto-san can never be cruel when it comes to her. She and Kabuto are the
same, and though she never familiarized herself with it, she knows this has to be ‘tough
love’. Besides, how else is she going to heal herself if she is not wounded, in the first place?

She sends numbing chakra to the pain as soon as it appears, and she heals it as best as she
can, despite the rapidly appearing wounds on other areas. Kabuto-san is too good, too good
with his chakra and his weapons, she knows, and someday, she will be like him too—she
knows she will be. The two of them are the same. They are not the type of shinobi who
‘endure’. Sakura failed to endure when it came to her mother even though she was the one
who vowed to fix her anyway. Sakura failed on many things and a shinobi who endures will
never stop when it comes to their ambition. She is also not strong enough to endure. She is
not like Orochimaru-sama, or her teammates who are the embodiment of power and what
blood can do to a shinobi. She is just Sakura with parents who are more civilian than shinobi,
and Kabuto-san is the same; the same but he has grown strong, the type of strong only
associated with shinobi who conceal and hide. She wants to be like him. She wants to be
exactly like him. If she ends up being like Kabuto-san, then she will be able to help other
children like her—stranded in a dynasty of warriors where they are forgotten and nothing but
the stepping stones of the greatness of others. If she becomes like Kabuto-san, people like her
will be able to get stronger and stand on their feet.

Maybe that is why Kabuto likes Orochimaru so much. He took in so many forgotten children
from forgotten clans, improved them, fixed them, gave them something when they had
nothing. Sakura wants to be just like them—she decides as she lies in a puddle of her own
blood. She is already pale, and has healed so many wounds so well and so quickly that no
scars are left behind. The smile on Kabuto’s lips say that he is as proud of her as she is,
maybe even more! She returns the smile. “You know, Kabuto-san,” she grows more
comfortable with her lightheadedness, “I wanted to be like the Yondaime when I was young.
He was a civilian orphan but he became the kage! It’s the best thing that’s ever happened but
—” But his son stood before Sakura, snarling like the monster who destroyed her mother
from the inside.

Kabuto hums and sits beside her. Her blood warms them both. “Most kage choose a bijū’s
vessel from their kin. It’s more common than you think, Sakura-chan,” he murmurs.

Sakura struggles turning to him, disbelief all over her face. “Th–that’s not surprising but the
Yondaime choosing his own son for it?” He sacrificed an entire village just for the chance of
having a son, and he is going to go ahead and damn the child for his selfishness? Sakura does
not understand the people who willingly bring life into this endless war; do they want their
children to suffer? Or are they simply so selfish that they are willing to make their child
endure a life in this place? “Is… is the scary one from Suna like Naruto too? Is he also a—”
Chakra monster? Devourer of children. The haunt of her dreams. The reason why her mother
died is because Sacchan, it’s not your fault. It’s never your fault. It’s the Kyuubi’s.

“It’s called the Ichibi. Sunagakure calls it ‘Shukaku’,” Kabuto mysteriously adds.

A horrified look crosses Sakura. She remembered the way it looked, the way it felt even
when it still stayed under the skin of the boy who was supposedly the son of the Kazekage. It
felt vile. It felt like the most horrifying abomination to ever grace the Land of Fire. Sakura
was never a good sensor with her little reserves but she felt the way it reached for everything
it could crawl to. And the moment the son of the Kazekage allowed it to run rampant, Sakura
threw up everything she had eaten prior. Kabuto, on the way to Otogakure, said that the
Kyuubi felt worse. “It felt worse, didn’t it, Sakura-chan? In that mission? You saw the
Kyuubi that day,” she did. She remembered the raw hate radiating from Naruto, something
she had never felt from him before. He was all sunshine and daisies until he twisted his bones
three-hundred-sixty degrees and destroyed the unbreakable mirrors with only his chakra.

Just thinking that the Sunagakure-nin named such a beast disgusted her to the core. “It has a
name?” She spills. “They named it?”

“Some say that it was named after the first person they sealed it into, a monk.”

Sakura’s disgusted look does not leave her face. Things that are named—weapons, disasters,
beasts, monsters, nightmares, people—always make whatever it is more concrete. Chakra
beasts having names—that beast that devastated Konoha like a playground and evinced her
mother into the shell of a corpse having a name repulsed her.

“Are you disgusted, Sakura?” She is. She is more than disgusted. “The Shodai of Konoha
painstakingly captured every single bijū, and offered it as a peace offering to the other
villages. There’s a book about it here, how the ‘great’ and ‘honourable’ Shodai defeated the
bijū and he—” Sakura is startled out of her thoughts when Kabuto taps her forehead, just
between the pink strands of her bangs. “—put the most powerful and the most terrifying one
inside his wife. Uzumaki Mito. Of course, many of the villages asked him: ‘Why have the
most powerful with you?’, ‘Why does Kirigakure have two and us, only one?’, ‘Why leave
Sunagakure with the weakest?’. And what answer did the Shodai have to offer? None. Why
did he even get the bijū when he wouldn’t be able to divide it equally among the villages and
justify them?”

Sakura remembers reading it in class and remembers only praise directed to Senju
Hashirama, the man who built their village from the ground, the man who put a stop to the
wars because of a pipe dream that actually came true, the man who was so powerful that
people called him ‘God of Shinobi’. But those were all that was written in class, taught in
class, enforced in class: how ‘great’ Senju Hashirama is, but great men do not become ‘good
men’. Good men are not called ‘God of Shinobi’. The books in Orochimaru’s library
however, are uncensored, so shamelessly told by civilians who ‘know little of the actual
situation’, banned in the Land of Fire but sold in its outskirts. In ‘The War after the Sengoku
Era, Vol. 1’, it accused Senju Hashirama: ‘Senju Clan Head, Senju Hashirama-dono may be
an excellent shinobi and a fearsome foe, but he was not a smart man. What smartness he
lacked, his brother, Senju Tobirama-dono, had an abundance of. But what Tobirama-dono
lacked, Hashirama-dono had. Scholars have stated, predominantly lords of the Land of Fire’s
court, that in the event that Hashirama-dono and Tobirama-dono were born as one, and not
as separate extremes of one another, Konohagakure no Sato would stand as the greatest
village to date, and wars would not have been so carelessly fought [...] the greatest blunder of
Hashirama-dono, the capturing of the Nine-Tailed Bijū would not have occurred, and the
desperation to keep each village in the same fighting level would not have been so
haphazardly done.’ It concluded then: ‘Senju Hashirama embodied what a clan needed
during the Sengoku Era. But what a village needed was not a clan head.’

He was kinder than most leaders, the book added, but ‘kindness’ meant little especially
during the First Shinobi War which he started because of the offering of the bijū. And the
Second Shinobi War followed, then the Third, and then, they are put back to square one. War
threatens to loom above them after Sunagakure’s failed attack. They are left with a dead
Kazekage, a fractured council, and three possible heirs, all barely enough to be considered
chuunin, and the strongest of them: nothing but a timebomb housing a named beast.

“They put these—those monsters in children,” Sakura exhales shakily.

The Yondaime risked everything for a child of his flesh, and damned that child forever. What
happens if Naruto dies? Where does the bijū go? Is it sealed once again? Just in a different
child? Sakura does not understand. She hates not understanding. She hates this lopsided
argument and status quo. She hates imbalance—she hates the divide. She cannot understand.
She cannot fathom what desperation the Yondaime must have gone through in order to risk
the child he risked everything for. “They put it in children because their chakra coils haven’t
matured enough,” Kabuto’s fingers dance across her arms. He stops right at her chest, giving
it a poke, then her stomach. “They can adjust easily to the chakra of the bijū. Putting it in
infants is a risk, but from what I know, the Kazekage Clan have Uzumaki blood, judging by
their red hair. And Uzumaki Naruto—his mother was one of the last recorded refugees of
Uzushiogakure—oh. That village isn’t taught in the textbooks, is it?”

Sakura grows smaller and smaller under the weight of Kabuto’s gaze. He almost seems like
the amalgamation of everything she is yet to know, and he told her, he had told her lots of
times, that if she ever had a question she would like to be answered, then all she needs is to
ask. In a world where everyone around Sakura lies, it is only Kabuto who speaks the truth.
And he has never broken a promise to her so far in all the years she has known him.
“Uzushiogakure… it’s one of the known allies of Konoha during the First and Second
Shinobi War,” she memorized her textbooks from front to back. There was no information as
to why Uzushio just suddenly ‘stopped being allies’ but there were many among the lists that
simply died off, destroyed, betrayed, and forgotten.

“There’s a rot in the leaves, Sakura-chan,” says Kabuto sadly, “especially in its roots. Even
Oshaka-sama watched hell from a lotus pond.” He holds her again, so gently she can barely
feel his touch. She leans into it, numb as a fossil. “Do you think he’ll see us there?” She feels
real, seen, and though she cannot see her reflection in Kabuto’s dark eyes, she can still see
her silhouette on his glasses. “Well, you wouldn’t need to worry, Sakura-chan. You’re kind
and clever.”

She wonders where Kabuto-san is going with. She knows she can pick apart his words easily,
ask him the right questions that she does not know how he will answer. “Oshaka-sama
watched hell from a lotus pond and saw Kandata,” one of the most famous tales in the Land
of Fire where the worship of the Enlightened Deity stood out the most, especially with the
Senju Clan’s influence. She sounds accusing, offended that Kabuto would compare them to
Kandata who did no good deed aside from sparing one spider. “We’re not Kandata. We’re
better than him.”

“You’re better than him,” Kabuto corrects her. His smile reaches his eyes and creases the
edges of his lids. “Your spider-thread will be much stronger than his.”

This conversation, Sakura realizes, will matter more next year on her birthday, when Kabuto
gifts her something more than she deserves.

ACT 8. MAY ALL SENTIENT BEINGS WHO ARE RESTRAINED BY THEIR

CIRCUMSTANCES OF BIRTH FIND A FAVOURABLE REBIRTH AND PROGRESS
TOWARDS LIBERATION.

Sakura’s relationship with Orochimaru is difficult to describe but she supposes it is a

condescending relationship’. Orochimaru’s relationship with Kabuto is even more
complicated—they have a bond that Sakura cannot discern; Orochimaru had raised Kabuto in
a way and had saved him when no one did and in turn, Kabuto became ‘loyal’ to him, or as
far as ‘loyalty’ goes. Sakura does not really ask about Orochimaru to Kabuto but it is not that
she cannot. She is just not curious about it, and whenever she does, Kabuto just answers
vaguely with more metaphors than concrete sentences. And he always has that speculative
look on his face, torn between amusement and encouragement. Sakura does not push him
further. Besides, Orochimaru does not do anything to her, does not approach her, does not
talk to her. In the rare times that they stumble upon one another, they are always accompanied
by someone else—though, there was a curious look on Orochimaru when he saw Sakura
speaking with Tayuya.

Orochimaru does not treat Sakura seriously. That part is obvious. He treats her like a pet that
Kabuto just so happened to take in, but at the same time, he is too busy fixing his arms and
himself from the fight against the Sandaime and the Yondaime. Sakura becomes an existence
he cares little for. “So that’s it?” Tayuya once asked when she approached Sakura to be fixed
up. “That’s your ‘thing’? Good chakra control?”

Sakura still feels the way her cheeks had warmed at the accusatory tone. Tayuya did not say it
demeaningly though it may seem that way. She was genuinely asking, genuinely curious;
Tayuya with her red hair and her large chakra reserves, Tayuya with her unique skill. Beside
Tayuya, Sakura almost seems like a washed up version—too pink hair and nothing special
under her belt. She has great chakra control but anybody can learn that with enough time and
practice. The problem is that nobody has the time for it. Sakura just happened to get a head
start because of her pathetic chakra reserves but a Hyuuga can easily replace her and do even
better. Kabuto says she has chakra control greater than even he does at her age, but she does
not know what that means, honestly: what can she do with this chakra control when all her
reserves give her is healing?

It is better than Orochimaru glossing over her. He does not see anything special from her
which makes sense because she really is nothing more than that smarter-than-average girl
who just happened to be lucky enough to be saved by Kabuto. “I don’t want the Cursed
Seal,” Sakura had shrugged at Tayuya, glancing at the curve of the girl’s neck where her
mark rests. Sakura’s body will not survive the Curse Seal with her body like this and her
reserves in a more pathetic state. Days like these, Sakura envies Tayuya and the fiery burn of
her hair. What does it feel like? She wonders as she is tempted to hold Tayuya’s red hair
between her fingertips. What does it feel like to have so much chakra? Kabuto-san is the only
one who understands her sentiments. He is the only one who understands being born with
nothing.

People like Tayuya, though unfortunate, have themselves to fall back into, have their stomach
to fuel, but Sakura neither has the expansive stomach nor the fuel. Only Kabuto-san knows,
and to Kabuto, she seeks comfort from: “Why didn’t Orochimaru-sama give you the Cursed
Seal?” She asks him as he beats her to the ground. A bruise forms on her cheek and it
becomes second nature to let it sink into her skin like nothing happened. She runs a hand
through her hair, huffing about when she will get the chance to dye it in a duller colour.

Kabuto’s head tilts back. “I wonder,” he shrugs. He neither lies nor tells the truth, simply
evades the question as if it was never there in the first place.

Sakura frowns. “Is it because you’re his favourite?” As if surprised by the question, Kabuto
chuckles and ruffles her hair. She lets him, nuzzling against the head for a moment before she
opens her eyes again, a stark green to a much darkened colour. “I don’t understand it,
Kabuto-san.”

“What don’t you understand?”

You. Sakura does not know how to string them into words. It frustrates her: her saviour that
tears her body to shreds and pieces her back so gently she can almost not feel him. Her
saviour who speaks of injustice and their similarities, yet looks at a beast like Orochimaru
with so much reverence it stops looking like so. Sakura cannot read Kabuto. She cannot feel
him, cannot see him, cannot, for the love of Oshaka-sama, understand him at all. But Sakura,
at least, knows Kabuto. Kabuto-san will never lie to her. He will lie to everyone and even to
Orochimaru-sama, but she knows that he will never lie to her. In this world, it is only her and
Kabuto. It is only them who can understand each other. So Sakura will be patient even if it
crushes her to the bone that she cannot understand the only person that matters. She, instead,
changes her question: “Does Orochimaru-sama understand? Does he know?” Kabuto’s eyes
are too dark to discern even in this light.

“There’s nothing Orochimaru-sama doesn’t know,” and what is that supposed to mean?
Kabuto always says so much but means too little. “He has eight heads, after all.” He jokes.

Sakura does not understand the relationship of Kabuto and Orochimaru, where the loyalty
lies and where it ends but she supposes it does not matter, because, when she looks up at
Kabuto, she knows what he wants to happen. She just does not know how it will become that.
How exactly, she begs to ask, is Kabuto going to kill Orochimaru?

ACT 9. MAY ALL WHO ARE ILL BE CURED UPON HEARING MY NAME.

It is a year into Otogakure and Sakura still cannot beat most of the people supposedly on her
level in sparring. She is somehow always lacking: she is too slow, too weak, too reliant on
her healing and acting like getting beaten up is alright as long as she has her healing to back
her up, too clumsy with weapons, and Tayuya even asks her straight up what Kabuto has
been teaching her. What he has been teaching her is more on healing: the intricacies of it.
With every loss, she grows more shameful to face Kabuto, and like Tayuya, she revels in the
pain of the bruises. This is my punishment. She should not heal herself—being too reliant on
healing will lead to more risks. What did Konoha teach her again? What did they say about
always losing? Get back up? Seek help from your comrades?

Sakura has no such comrades here. Tayuya may prefer her more than she prefers Kabuto but
that is it. They are not friends, much less Sakura being friends with the more elusive
members of Otogakure. Most of them have kekkei genkai too, or some form of an inheritance
from their clan. Sakura has none of that, and though she is sick of herself making excuses
after excuses, blaming and blaming the blood and the body she was born with, she cannot
help it. She wallows to herself, pressing herself against Kabuto’s side to hide her face.
Kabuto wraps an arm around her indulgently. “I can’t defeat many people too, you know,” he
tells her, “Maybe a normal way of fighting really doesn’t suit you. It never suits people like
us, Sakura-chan. We need to be more careful.”

Sakura is not made of the sun and the moon like her former teammates, or like her former
Jounin Instructor who had a legacy to uphold. Sakura is a blank slate, “And Sakura-chan, you
can use that.” Kabuto guides her fingers into seals and lets her weave what she desires—
Genjutsu Specialist, was what her records encouraged her to be. Not just Medical Ninjutsu,
but also Genjutsu, yet another specialty that relies on chakra control, but Sakura never really
looked at it. She does not have the creativity for it but Kabuto reassures her with that same
smile that makes her feel like she can do everything she wants. “It’s not about creativity
sometimes, Sakura-chan. We’re much too straightforward for that, right?” He chuckles at
their shared flaw. “What we need is precision. What makes fire ‘fire’, Sakura-chan?”

“The heat,” she answers quickly, “And the way it burns?”

“Let’s focus on the first one first: heat,” Kabuto nods at her, “What is fire made of?”
“Oxygen, heat, and fuel.” The fire triangle. Everybody knows that.

“Then,” Kabuto lulls her along. His chakra weaves and dances along the hair. She can feel the
way it throbs as her spine tingles at being pulled into his illusion. There sits a fire, neither
warm nor cold, just unfeeling. She imitates this with a gesture from him, and there, right
beside Kabuto’s fire, is her much smaller one. “The oxygen doesn’t need to be considered at
all—‘oxygen’ is already an established reality to the person you’re tricking, but fuel—it
comes from your chakra. After that, you imagine: what’s it like being burned, Sakura-chan?”
He is right. People are surprisingly wrong when they say Genjutsu requires creativity.
Creativity ruins structure and ruins what already exists. A person does not need creativity to
create illusions, though it may seem that way in a perspective or two; what it needs is
adaptation and observation. Overthinking an illusion is an unconventional way of learning
and making one, but it is what Sakura is comfortable with: oxygen, heat, and fuel. You are the
oxygen, I am the fuel, and together, we are heat. What does being burned feel like? What
does it feel like, standing before the speech of the Yondaime in the crowd as he speaks of the
Will of Fire?

What does it feel like to stand before the village’s will and be burned instead? Sakura knows
it well. So that is what she does: she becomes the fuel and together, she burns—her eyes
flicker to Kabuto and see sweat trickling from his forehead. “The Uchiha Clan’s grand
illusions are amazing but the simpler ones are the most effective; when you don’t even know
you’re in an illusion, how are you supposed to get out of it?” Sakura wins the next match, and
the match after that, and the matches that come later. She fights cowardly because that is all
she has left: her cowardice and her brain. It starts simple: her illusions weave it so that she is
just an inch away from the location her enemy sees. Sometimes, their balance is a bit off,
sometimes, their reach is much shorter than they expected, sometimes, they forget a certain
wound, sometimes, dust is thrown to their face, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, they do
not even realize it is an illusion.

Tayuya says it is stereotypical of her to be both a Genjutsu Practitioner and a Medic-nin. And
in turn, Kidōmaru grabs Tayuya by the arm and warms: “Don’t get close to her.” Sakura
watches them unblinkingly—they are two sides of the same coin, just children who do not
know where to go, so they follow someone else instead. Tayuya and Kidōmaru with
Orochimaru, and Sakura with Kabuto. Two born with strength and the other, who does not
have the privilege for it. She knows they cannot be compared. She was never experimented
on but Kabuto-san always told her to be selfish if she needs to; brings others down to drag
herself up if she so desires. Nothing else matters. No one else matters. Stop living for others,
Sakura-chan, look at what happened the last time.

She is spiraling and she is a mess—open, gaping holes in her head—Kabuto smiles at her. He
pushes away a strand of her hair, dyed into a duller color that her eyes will never be. They are
as bright as his are dark. “Let’s play more into the stereotype, Sakura-chan,” no one else
matters, “Do you remember what I said about the type of shinobi we are? About how you’re
much better than Kandata?” He unfurls his gift, and multiple eyes glare back at her.
Elongated, dark legs reach out of her as fangs grow from the beast.

The beast with a hundred eyes grins at her as much as it can with its chelicerae. It is like
Kabuto is fulfilling a promise to Sakura when it crawls up to her despite the horror on her
face. Kabuto’s grip on her arm stops her from moving away from the sickening feeling of
hairy legs crawling up to her arm. Clever, clever, Sakura-chan, she can hear his compliments
whisper to her like when Sendai was dragged into the waterfalls by the jorōgumo. And, she
comes to herself, holding the weaver of Kandata’s spider-thread, laying across her shoulders.
Its fangs clatter against each other as it attempts to speak and every inch of Sakura screams
for her to push away the spider on her shoulder. And yet, its fangs clang and its legs slither
along her neck: “So,” its voice is wrong and repugnant, sounding clearly like a monster
attempting human speech, “This is your little spider, hakase?”

Sakura fails to see Kabuto’s smile in the dim lighting. “Aa,” he confirms, “Sakura-chan, this
is Chichusuke-san of the Jōren Falls. Chichusuke-san, this is Sakura-chan.”

A summon? Sakura has never encountered a summon before. She knows Kabuto and
Orochimaru have their snake summons and her old instructor, Hatake Kakashi, had his dog
summons as well. There is also Naruto and his father’s and godfather’s toad summons, the
Uchiha Clan and Kidōmaru owns the Spider Summons, does he not? She may not know much
about the Sound Four—now Sound Duo, she corrects—but everyone in Otogakure knows
that the reason why Kidōmaru has multiple arms is because of his failed attempt in Sage
Mode with the Spiders. He was lucky that Orochimaru managed to bring enough of him back
to look humane enough. So why is Kabuto offering her the spider summon instead?
Kidōmaru must be furious. Is that why he has been acting more hostile recently?

“But what about Kidōmaru?” Sakura’s voice barely manages to come out.

Chichusuke snorts. His breath washes over Sakura’s nape and she tries not to shiver. His
fangs cackle and creak, as he answers, “Kidōmaru is a heavy-hitter. He has Kyodaigumo for
his thing. He forgets that spiders of the Jōren Falls are more than big, lumbering idiots, but
you,” he croaks, “Jōrō-sama will be pleased to meet you. Such tiny reserves. Easy to mould.”

“Jorō-sama?” Sakura echoes unconsciously. Jorō? Like the Jorōgumo of the legends? She
who enticed a woodcutter and drowned him to death? Where even is Jōren? Is that nothing
more than a tale? Like how—like how Orochimaru-sama was a subject of nightmares, told to
little children who liked to disobey their parents; and now, there is a spider on Sakura’s
shoulders, a spider from the Jōren Falls from the tales, like how now, Sakura sleeps and
bathes in the den of snakes where the eight-headed dragon lives.

Chichusuke surprisingly screeches. “It’s Jōrō! Jōrō! Not ‘Jorō’! You humans and your weak
ears!” Sakura gazes at him oddly. But don’t spiders not have ears? “Until now, everybody
still calls our Jōrō-sama that name. Disgusting! Jōrō-sama falls in love once—once! And
pesky priests try taking him away from her! You know of it, girl?—Sakura, is it? Jōrō-sama
falling for a good-for-nothing woodcutter? Ugly man, he was! Tch! Do you have a male
lover, hm? This Chichusuke will not guide you to the Falls if you have a lover!”

Sakura blushes and shakes her head vehemently. She found Sasuke attractive once but the
distance between the two of them prevailed and she had been too busy learning how to heal
(you forgot your mother, have you?) to focus on anything else, and all the ones from the
opposite sex that she has been around with is… there is Orochimaru-sama whom she never
really interacts with, Kidōmaru who apparently dislikes her a lot, Kabuto-san who she will
never even dare to see in a romantic light—Kabuto-san is more than that! He saved her,
cared for her, made her more than what she was, and gave her a home where she can actually
be herself with no burdens on her shoulders. Maybe, the few times she caught a glimpse of a
sleeping and comatosed Kimimaro in Kabuto’s clinic gave her a glimpse of his admittedly
attractive features, but aside from those people and the ones she passes by for sparring,
Sakura never really talks to boys.

She slaps her cheeks, easing away the blush. Chichusuke hums in suspicion while Kabuto
chuckles. “You don’t need to worry, Chichusuke-san, Sakura-chan’s very hardworking, and
wouldn’t let anything else distract her. Right, Sakura-chan?” She nods, eager under the praise
even when she understands little of the situation. “This is your prize, Sakura-chan. It’s been
more than a year since you came here, right? I’m sure it was hard to adjust but you improved
a lot, and did your best. Chichusuke-san will help you from now on.”

(Huh?)

Sakura feels her chest grow warm. She never asked for summons, much less the summons of
the powerful Kidōmaru who was close to becoming a Sage, but Kabuto-san offered the
Spider Summons to her! She never even asked for it, never showed any interest for it but
Kabuto was thinking of her, regardless, helping her. She does not even notice Kabuto pushing
away her hair to the back of her ear again, but she notices him leave, shyly waving him
goodbye with nothing but reverence in her eyes. She feels her heart pound against her chest
unrelentingly. Chichusuke has fallen from her shoulders but all she can feel is warmth.
“Summoning will be hard for you with those reserves,” he comments, “Come, come. I’m
bringing you to the Falls.”

“Wh—what?” Sakura straightens up. “Now? But—but—”

“But what?”

“I’m really,” everything is happening so fast. She had just met Chichusuke and though she
trusts Kabuto with everything and knows he will never intentionally bring her to harm, she
heard that getting a summoning is more delicate than that. She is supposed to be tested,
questioned, she is supposed to prove herself to those that she will tie herself to, but
Chichusuke continues to pull her along. It is not supposed to be this easy, she tries to say, it is
supposed to be harder. She does not even have the Chakra to summon Chichusuke despite his
small size, much less getting a summoning contract. “I don’t have enough Chakra for you. I
—maybe,” maybe Kabuto-san was wrong. She does not want to admit it but Kabuto has
always thought very highly of her when she does not even deserve it, even when she was a
little girl who could not even enter the Library for mere books.

Chichusuke only scoffs. “Are you saying the hakase is wrong? Or,” he hisses, “Are you
implying that the great Jōrō-sama is wrong?”

“What?! No!” Sakura quickly replies. She just learned how to do Genjutsu well enough to
win a spar, and she knows more about healing herself than fighting which is alright because
Kabuto said all that shinobi like them need to do is to survive. They do not need anything
else but that. Run away if they must, cheat if they have to. They do not have the privilege to
show off. She never thought she was going to have a summon. Ever. She did not even
consider it a possibility. Her goal since she was a child was one thing, and what happened
with that, Sacchan?—

She shakes her head. Chichusuke watches her with impatient eyes. “Come, come! Let’s not
make Jōrō-sama wait!”

Sakura may not know how it ended up this way but she does not mind. She does not get
trapped, nor does she fall into Kabuto’s web. She leaps to his web, and honestly, she really,
really does not mind, because if it is her Kabuto-san, then she does not mind. She does not
mind at all.

ACT 10. MAY ALL WHO ARE DEFORMED OR HANDICAPPED IN ANY WAY
HAVE THEIR DEFORMITIES REMOVED UPON HEARING MY NAME.

Chichusuke speaks of Jōrō-sama with reverence. He speaks of how, once, as Jōrō-sama slept
among the waterfalls, she met a woodcutter whom she fell in love with at first sight. “He was
nothing special,” Chichusuke insists, “But he was everything to our Lady.” But in the ages
before even the likes of Senju Hashirama and his father roamed, during the much earlier days
of the war between the Uchiha Clan and the Senju Clan, the Land of Fire’s belief of Oshaka-
sama was fresh, but rapid in its growth. The kami were gradually being forgotten and the
deities of the waterfalls and the creatures born from chakra were more ‘demons’ than they
were ‘kami’ to be worshipped, so the Lady asked the woodcutter to keep it a secret instead,
lest the priests are to find out. The woodcutter was dutiful and as in love with the Lady as the
Lady was to him, but he was reckless and human, and so, in a drunken night, told everyone of
his affair with the Lady. The priests arrived and drove away the Lady, calling her ‘Jorōgumo’
for how her beauty enticed the woodcutter—“A ‘whore’, they called her,” Chichusuke
grumbles, “And the woodcutter tried, but a woodcutter can only do little. Jōrō-sama is a
Jōrōgumo—a high-lady of the Jōren Falls but they sully her instead.”

Ah, Sakura’s heart clenches painfully, the same. We’re the same.

The waterfalls are deafening and she is more than neck-deep in these waters but they are the
same. Kabuto-san so carefully chose the spiders of her to give her company, to give her
friends, to introduce her to people like them. Before Jōrō-sama, she is nothing but a child,
reduced to the silly civilian girl trying to be a Ninja but cannot even be allowed in the
Library. Before Jōrō-sama—cloaked in the tumultuous thunders of the falls, Sakura sinks into
the plunge pool. Chichusuke, unable to wade inside, loses his voice and Sakura can only look
upon Jōrō-sama helplessly. “Jōrō-sama,” she calls, and her blonde hair falls to her shoulders,
dull yet so alive; her green eyes hold Sakura.

Sakura pushes Chakra to her hands despite the roughness of the waters, clumsily standing to
her two feet. The water splatters all over her, but Jōrō-sama is not even the slightest bit
drenched. She is clean and dry, warmed by the jūnihitoe that frames her delicately. “The
hakase’s little spider?” Tears sting her eyes as she hears the voice of the revered Lady.
“Come, sit with me.” She is helpless when presented to Jōrō-sama, running to the Lady like a
child to her mother. She trips and falls to the rough waters but slumps against the Lady
eventually. She is swamped and shivering but oxygen, heat, and fuel, the Lady warms her.
“Why do you cry, child?”
“You—you’re so beautiful,” Sakura does not know what else to say, “You’re the most—most
beautiful person I’ve ever seen, Jōrō-sama. How can—how, why—you’re so—” She wonders
upon the Lady’s sandy blonde hair and dark green eyes: if she had succeeded, if she had not
prayed for her home’s destruction, if the world was kinder to her, if the land was much
gentler, if the Yondaime had not begged for a child of flesh, if the tailed-beasts never existed,
then would her mother have looked like this? Full of life, health along the softness of her
cheek, and eyes full of affection. “I’m sorry. I forgot—I forgot about you—I was guilty. I, I, I
didn’t want to remember, so I—”

“Oh, child, who do you see when you see me?”

“Kaachan,” she confesses and kneels to the Lady. She confesses her sin, the need to leave
and run away, the anger for the village that raised her on her knee, the frustration to her
mother, the disbelief of her airheaded father, the confines of the team that will never
remember her. She is bright, bright Sakura—the clever, clever child who knew too little for
this world. “Kaachan, it’s all Sacchan’s fault. All mine,” she weeps into the Lady’s robes.

“Oh, child, it is never your fault,” says the Lady, it’s always the Kyuubi's fault. Never
Sacchan. “The hakase was right to bring you here. Did you know? It was his Master that
brought the other one here as well. They always bring us the loneliest children. Now, Sakura-
chan, show me. Who do you see?”

Jōrō-sama brings Sakura’s palm to her womb and it sinks in. Sakura is elbow-deep in Jōrō-
sama’s guts and blood, holding something soft and delicate, and Jōrō-sama whispers to her
again, red, lively, voice whispering to her: “Who do you see? Go on,” she scavenges through
skin and bone, and with a tight grip, she falls from Jōrō-sama’s hold, barely catching among
the rushing waterfalls. “Aa, from Kidōmaru came Kyodaigumo. What of you, Sakura-chan?
Who weaves your threads?”

Jōrō-sama’s legs bleed into the waters, spreading the murky red colour along the waterfalls.
Sakura holds the twin spiders born from Jōrō-sama. “Nikkōgumo and Gakkōgumo,” her hair
sticks to her forehead as she smiles genuinely.

Dear ‘kaachan, did you know? Nikkōgumo and Gakkōgumo twitch in her arms—it is often
misunderstood that Medical Ninjutsu primarily needs Yin Chakra. But Yin Chakra is only
one thing. Everyone’s bodies are composed of Yin-Yang Chakra, and when one heals, they
need to carefully thread the Yin Chakra and Yang Chakra together. It is a painstaking process
that needs years to learn and Chakra Control so carefully manipulated that not a single
mistake can be made. Dear ‘kaachan, did you know? I like the balance of things: the ratio of
Yin-Yang in Medical Ninjutsu, the clan children and non-clan children, the dark-colored
ribbon sitting on top of her head courtesy to Kabuto-san who pushed a strand away from her
face and called her eyes pretty, ‘kaasan not getting Medic-nin because ‘kaasan is a civilian
when her Chuunin vest sits at the back of her closet—Nikkōgumo and Gakkōgumo who sit
beside the statues of Yakushi Nyorai is the Land of Fire’s Temple, who sit beside
Fukūkenjaku Kannon, the sun and the moon. Dear ‘kaachan, I like the balance of things, so I
hate it. I hate it when things become skewed, unfair, unbalanced, everything is supposed to be
balanced.

Dear Kabuto-san.
“Sakura-chan! How was it?”

Sakura laughs and embraces him, accompanied by the stirring Nikkōgumo and Gakkōgumo.
Kabuto returns her laughter, commenting how unfortunate it is that Jōrō-sama only accepts
women and children under her care as her summoners. He shakes his head, pouting. It looks
strange on him, the look of innocence when it is the mask he wears most frequently. “Ne, ne,”
Sakura smiles sheepishly, “Did you know, Kabuto-san? Nikkō and Gakkō are the bodhisattva
of the sun and the moon. Has Kabuto-san been to the temple in the Land of Fire?” He does
not answer. She does not need him to. “Sometimes, they’re with Aizen Myō-ō. But most of
the time, they’re with Yakushi Nyorai and Fukūkenjaku Kannon.”

Suddenly, there is clarity in Kabuto’s eyes, a satisfaction that was not present seconds before.
He looks proud as he reaches for Sakura and holds her face. His eyes have never looked so
bright before. “Sakura-chan,” Kabuto returns her enthusiasm, “Did you know? Blind people
run to Nikkō, and the sick go to Gakkō. Will you show them to me?”

Dear Kabuto-san.

She never understood why Kandata refused to share the spider thread. Climbing to the Pure
Lands alone seemed so lonely, after all, so with Nikkō to her right, and Gakkō to her left, she
will weave a stronger thread. Only then will she be like Kabuto-san.

“I have someone to introduce to you, Sakura-chan.”

ACT 11. MAY ALL BEINGS BE AIDED TO FOLLOW THE PRECEPTS OF MORAL
CONDUCT. AFTER HEARING MY NAME, THOSE WHO HAVE BROKEN THE
PRECEPTS WILL BE AIDED TO REGAIN THEIR PURITY AND PREVENTED
FROM SINKING INTO A WOESOME PATH OF EXISTENCE.

Karin of the Uzumaki Clan is not necessarily ‘Uzumaki Karin’ but that does not really matter.
Whether or not she calls herself ‘Uzumaki Karin’ or just ‘Karin’, she still has red hair,
Chakra that puts most Jounin to shame, and the Kagura Shingan—she could have been a
great shinobi in Kusagakure if only misfortune did not follow her like a plague. Her mother
was very kind, yet another factor that led to her death, saying that they were lucky that
Kusagakure took them in without any fuss, but only for what her mother called ‘a small
exchange’ and ‘it could be worse, Karin’. It could really be worse though, she knows. At
least Kusagakure did not sell their bodies but, now that she thinks about it, it may as well be
that way. Of course, Otogakure is no better but at least, here in Otogakure, service is
rewarded.

When Orochimaru picked Karin up, she was not stupid enough to believe that Orochimaru
was doing so for free. Orochimaru needed her—needed an Uzumaki with her particular skill-
set, and Orochimaru is a surprisingly fair person despite the rumours. Karin, after a year of
service, is a step away from becoming a full-fledged warden of sorts in one of the hideouts;
Orochimaru knows she will never betray him and he knows it is not because of loyalty but
because of safety. It is safer to serve under the apex predator than to be its enemy, after all, so
she stays still, watches, does her job, and in exchange, no harm comes to her. She is worth
more alive than she is dead, and just like that, Karin survives. Sometimes, she thinks of how
long this is going to go on. Orochimaru, after all, technically, kind of, lives forever as long as
he switches from one body to another. Is Karin going to end up eternally serving Orochimaru
too? Knowing her lifespan as an Uzumaki, that will be a ridiculously long, long time.

Well, it is better serving under Orochimaru than that slimy bastard Kabuto. At least with
Orochimaru, she knows what to expect. He is a straightforward master despite what his
snake-like appearance may say but Kabuto plays with words, acting exactly like the spy
everybody knows he is supposed to be. She can never get a read on him, Shingan or not.
Medic-nin always get on her nerves. Those people have such precise control over their
Chakra that they do not even let their hold on it waver on stressful occasions. So what did
Karin expect from Haruno Sakura? A Kabuto 2.0, definitely.

She hears her name a lot: Haruno Sakura.

Haruno Sakura—picked up from Konohagakure during the attack by Kabuto who spent years
in the village. Orochimaru calls her a ‘pet’ to Kabuto but keeps a careful eye on her
regardless. Tayuya calls her too soft for Otogakure. Kidōmaru dislikes her for some reason.
Karin never really talked to them ever but their Chakra screams their emotions so much that
she does not need to. Haruno Sakura is so obviously being manipulated by Kabuto it makes
Karin roll her eyes. The girl follows Kabuto like a lost puppy, brightens whenever she gets a
compliment, dims when she thinks Kabuto will be disappointed at her, and Karin finds it so
annoying. Everyone sees it clearly. Kabuto and his new ‘apprentice—slash—pet’.

Apprentice—slash—pet who is the first person who holds Karin’s scarred arms tenderly. She
turns Karin’s arm around and Karin instinctively snatches it away, glaring at her in
scepticism. Haruno Sakura (slash, apprentice, slash, pet) brushes her glowing hands against
her arms and her Chakra is so warm, so gentle, so delicate, that Karin feels so, so, so, terribly
vulnerable. “Kabuto-san didn’t heal these?” The girl frowns in disappointment.

Karin feels obliged to answer: “He never… never, uh, bit me,” Kabuto only inspects her and
studies her. He has no need for the Chakra, apparently. Karin never really understood Kabuto.
All he wants from her is her regeneration but not the bite-through-regeneration. He wants
more than that, clearly, seeing that he sent his pet to her. “What are you doing?”

Sakura raises an eyebrow. “Healing you,” before Karin can retort, a spider comes crawling up
from Sakura’s back. Karin jumps back, realizing that this is the other signature she felt.
“Don’t worry. This is just Nikkō. He’s the reason why Kabuto-san ended up here. He
exhausted me too much. But don’t worry! He can help with the healing.”

“A spider that can heal,” Karin deadpans. She saw what Kidōmaru’s summon can do and it
definitely cannot heal.

“Kidōmaru’s Kyodaigumo is different from Nikkō. They’re from different families,” Sakura
squints at Karin’s bitemarks. Embarrassment floods her instantly. She tries to pry her arm
away but cannot find the strength to do so. “Your wounds are… they’re—” Barbaric?
Forcefully extracting Chakra like she does is ‘barbaric’, in lack of better terms. Karin has
heard what every Medic-nin can say about her scars. Wounds caused by Chakra are vastly
different from normal types of wounds. “Let’s work hard, okay, Nikkō?” The young spider on
the pet’s shoulder coos.
And the cycle repeats.

Sakura has the most pathetic Chakra in Otogakure, her reserves well-controlled but not even
a mere speck in the vastness of most shinobi in this place and it is not a surprise that she
frequents Karin more than most people. Rumours have it that she gained a summon from
Kabuto (and Kidōmaru), and it is proving to be more taxing on her than she had expected, so
she needs a steady supply of Chakra. Luckily, Karin is just one bite away but Sakura takes
only little of her most of the time, her little reserves only granting her so much, even as it
steadily grows with the constant overuse. Karin knows her job in Otogakure aside from being
a soon-to-be warden of one of the hideouts. Do her job and in exchange, she gets safety, a
steady ‘high-paying job’, with all things considered, but Sakura’s eyes shine differently when
her teeth sink into her skin. She always uses what she takes to heal the mark she leaves on
Karin, and slowly but surely, she heals the others too.

Karin was only saved a handful of times by someone. Most of them from her mother, the
other incident from the Chuunin Exams, tucked away nicely in her heart and treasured within
the cage of her ribs, forever remembered and cherished. But not even those memories are as
kind as this one. She remembers the dark eyes and the glare of her saviour from the exams,
and her mother’s pained smiles as she reassures her everything is going to be okay when she
is dragging both of them to their deaths, but Sakura’s chakra is so open, so warm, so kind,
that it crushes her from inside-out. She feels kind, genuine, awfully soft. Tayuya was right
when she spoke of Sakura’s gentleness. It is a stick in the mud here in Otogakure. “You don’t
have to do this,” Karin huffs but her chest, nonetheless, expands with emotions she cannot
even describe one-by-one.

Sakura’s head tilts along with her little summon, both confused. “I took from you. It’s only
fair I give you something back in return,” she chuckles, and with a swipe of her hand, a glow
from her palms, her bite fades into Karin’s skin. The spot looks as good as new. “Did you
know, Karin-chan? I really hate it when things are skewed. Medical Ninjutsu is all about
balance, you know? It deals with the balance of Yin Chakra and Yang Chakra. One wrong
move, and everything goes wrong. It’s fascinating—how things can be fixed with balance.”

“Is that why you’re with Kabuto?” Karin cannot help but ask. She knows she must look
desperate right now, imploring and pleading. Her fingers have wrapped around Sakura’s wrist
and she does not even know it. All she knows is the heaving of her chest and how warmly
Sakura treats her. “You said he—that he picked you up and saved you. Is this you repaying
him?”

Sakura blinks, surprised. She unexpectedly chuckles. “It looks that way, doesn’t it?” She
looks down to Karin’s hold on her and gently puts her own hand on Karin’s; her cheeks
mirror her hair violently, bright red and flushed. “I’m not repaying Kabuto-san even though I
owe everything to him. We’re just helping each other. He’s more than a debt to me—”

“Do you love him?” Karin blurts out. She already started embarrassingly so why not just
continue? “Like, romantically? Do you like-like him—that way—do you—” She is
embarrassed even more when Sakura laughs.

“Of course I love him, Karin-chan,” she crumbles, “But treating this as ‘romantic’ is an
insult, I think. I don’t see Kabuto-san that way. He’s my saviour. It would be weird to see him
like that, you know.”

“Oh.”

“Yup. Can I look at your back this time? You said there are lots of bites there, right?”

“Right, yeah.”

Sometimes, Karin scours through Sakura’s Chakra. There must be something wrong about
her, she tells herself. No one is this—this, this—this. There must be a stain somewhere, a
glaring hole that does not fit in the equation and she searches, and searches, and searches, and
from Kidōmaru, she finds the mistake: a dog to Kabuto. Once, many times, Sakura cuts and
cuts through flesh and bone under the pretence of ‘practice’ but Tayuya calls it her own
‘punishment’. Kidōmaru spoke of the pain and the detachment in Sakura’s eyes as she tried to
piece flesh by flesh together methodologically. Sakura has no idea what is wrong, her source
of compass is this thing she calls her ‘balance’. And Karin finally sees it with her own eyes,
and yet, she finds herself not caring.

She will let Sakura take from her over and over again if it means she can taste her Chakra
against her skin once more. Go ahead, she perks up whenever she sees a bob of pink
wandering in the room, go ahead. Take from me if you want. Take everything if you wish. And
Karin feels shameful to admit but she finds comfort in Sakura’s exhaustion. An exhausted
Sakura means that she needs more Chakra, means that she will visit her in this lonesome part
of the hideout stranded in the middle of nowhere. “You look tired,” Karin tries to say, rubbing
the part of her arm that Sakura healed.

Sakura slouches. (Pretty, cherry blossom hair.) “Kabuto-san and I are trying to work out
what’s wrong with Kimimaro. His biology’s just so different, and we don’t even have
anything about their family at all. Kirigakure wiped them out completely. It really doesn’t
help that we can’t find any members of the Kaguya Clan either. It has to have something to
do with his kekkei genkai but it’s constantly active… if we can somehow make it stop while
keeping him—...” she rambles, sighing. Karin is not as booksmart as Sakura who can recite
most of what she reads but she is smart enough in a way that matters. She is cunning and
quick with her head, but everything slows down with Sakura, it seems. She makes her feel
vulnerable, naked, gooey, and melted.

Half-heartedly, she offers, “Maybe Fūinjutsu?”

“But Fūinjutsu is—” Sakura gasps and turns excitedly to Karin with a brazen smile. “You’re
right! It won’t be a ‘cure’, no, not at all, but it can be a—...” She trails off and Karin is left
stunned, staring at her retreating figure. Her name is stuck in Karin’s throat.

Karin hears about Kimimaro again a year later from the hallways first before she hears it
from Sakura. Much like most of the rumours had theorized, it was Kimimaro’s kekkei genkai
that was the cause of his illness. Of course, none dared to speak of it. Everyone knows that
the only reason why Kimimaro is not dead for his weakness is because of how precious his
kekkei genkai is, and without that, he is nothing more than a pawn for Orochimaru,
unfavoured, unnoticed, unblinking, and invisible to their shared Lord. So when Sakura comes
to visit Karin early in the year—the first month with winter still holding the both of them—
with a handprint on her wrist, it does not take Karin a while to realize what had happened.
Sakura tells her regardless. “His illness was caused by his kekkei genkai so we,” sealed the
Mark that made his control over himself volatile, that which bound him to the Lord he holds
in the highest regard, and sealed his kekkei genkai which did him more harm than good, the
only reason why his Lord even keeps him.

There is a price for everything. There is always a price for everything. Karin and her safety
for the bites that litter across her arms and the children she watches sit along Kabuto’s
operation table, Karin and keeping Sakura in exchange for watching her chase after Kabuto’s
shadow—and now Kimimaro. Kimimaro and the disappearance of the reason why he is alive.

Karin does not know the details of how they made Kimimaro ‘alright enough’ to walk but she
knows it burdens Sakura. It burdens her and burdens her until she disappears for days, until
those days wrinkle into months. Until those months are put into a halt and Karin sees Sakura
again—her chest inflates and engorges, pushing against the ribs of and its curves—Karin
smiles for once in the months Sakura does not visit her and she beams: “Saku—” Her smile
drops. A shadow lingers behind Sakura, a shadow with the grey of corpses, and the strength
of a hundred shinobi. “—ra…”

A burden chases after Sakura. His name is Kimimaro.

ACT 12. MAY ALL BEINGS BE SHOWN THE PATH OF ENLIGHTENMENT AND
MAY ADHERENTS TO THE SRAVAKA OR PRATYEKABUDDHA PATHS
BECOME ESTABLISHED IN MAHAYANA PRACTICES.

There is an art in taking life.

And an even more delicate art in taking a life for someone else.

She wonders how long this was meticulously planned, how long it took for loyalty to be
replaced by ambition, if there was even loyalty in the first place. Maybe, in a way, this is why
we’re the same. She is cradled in the arms of the trees and the kisses of leaves too far away
for her to reciprocate and she had asked, once, to whom, she forgets; does the Will of Fire not
burn the forest her village is built in? The Will of Fire continues to burn brightly in each and
every shinobi of Konohagakure, and they cater to that forest fire. Sakura felt the smoulder of
fire and was scarred by it. “Maybe, in a way,” she is no large enemy, no overwhelming force,
nor is she anything but the trees that decorate Kannon’s home, “This is why we’re the same.”

This time, it is Sakura who offers something to Kabuto. There are no sun-consuming snakes
and no war raging behind them. They are in a cave, in a bedroom, in an isolation for the sick,
and in Sakura’s arms, lays the offering. She mirrors Kabuto. There is an art in taking life, and
an even more delicate art in taking life for someone else. It resembles an offering though
barbaric in nature. They are the bastards and that is what they do: they defile. “Did he
know?” The snake’s corpse is heavy, no pain ever felt, no alarm, for Sakura is no threat, no
large enemy, no overwhelming force, no beast that lies in wait for a prey. Sakura is simply
Sakura. She sits along the wall, resting with the cobwebs and the silence. She is not a
‘shinobi’, but a ‘shinobi’. She does not endure. She cannot endure like Orochimaru and his
endless search for an immortality that will never answer him. She can only hide herself,
conceal herself. That is how people like her and Kabuto are the same—what kekkei genkai do
you have? What clan do you serve? What village will honour you? Who will remember you?

She drops the body in front of him. Kabuto does not freeze like she had but there is a
peculiarity in his eyes. “Are you ever going to tell me why you need Orochimaru-sama’s
body?” She asks. She feels lacking to admit that she cannot read Kabuto.

It does not feel like she killed the bogeyman of every child’s nightmares. It feels like a cheat,
which it truly is. Sakura is not threatening, nor is she powerful. She just is. Orochimaru does
not find her a threat. Barely enough does with her wiry bones and her being Kabuto’s tail.
There is a delicate art in taking life, she thinks, looking down to her hands. She does not have
ostentatious techniques and only knows very little Nature Transformation Techniques. It will
eat her up too much and will only hold her back unnecessarily. It’s not in your nature,
Sakura-chan, Kabuto had joked. But what she has and takes pride in, is her subtlety. Kabuto
complimented her for it months ago, before she turned sixteen and had to rush every small
thing: “You would make a good assassin,” an assassin does not need flashy techniques, and
everybody underestimates what Medical Ninjutsu can do, but Sakura shook her head. She
does not want to kill unnecessarily and she does not want to be someone who can ‘only’ kill.
She is a Medic-Nin first and foremost, learning how to protect herself and to protect others,
guiding others like how she was guided to a better path.

Kabuto is right: it is not in her nature. She does not like unnecessary deaths and taking away
from people who have families at home, especially ones with no Clan, no kekkei genkai to
back them up. People like them, people like Sakura and Kabuto need all the help they can
get.

Kimimaro stands close, guilt clouds his face. Kabuto reaches for Sakura and tucks her hair
behind her ear. His eyes are too dark to see anything else behind them. “Hm, not now,” he
admits, ever elusive, but never a liar to her.

What is loyalty? What does it mean to be loyal? What does it mean to relish in the corpse of
the arms that cradled you? Sometimes, Sakura still visits Jōrō-sama just to catch a glimpse of
the figure of her mother and the crinkle of her eyes as she smiles. She once begged Jōrō-sama
to hold her like she had held the corpse of her mother, like how Kabuto-san offered it to her
feet and gave her a new path to follow, like how her mother nursed her to her breasts.
Otogakure is nothing to Kabuto as Konohagakure is nothing to Sakura; Orochimaru and
Haruno Mebuki are more complex than they are. But they were both… ‘everything’, and
now, they are nothing. Kabuto’s hand is still on her cheek, unyielding and and unwavering,
and nothing else matters other than that, “This makes us more alike, huh,” he does not say it
out loud, but Sakura hears it loud and clear.

The bogeyman is dead and someone reaches for Sakura’s hands as Kabuto leaves with the
corpse. Kimimaro’s eyes brim with unshed tears—he is guilty but he knows what he had to
do, what he had to allow to happen. This is his new path. Sakura will save him like Kabuto
did to her. This is her offering to Kimimaro and to Kabuto, one to repay, and the other to
welcome. “Does this make us similar too?” He asks.

He looks like he is pleading for her to say ‘yes’.

Sakura reaches for Kimimaro’s nape, and comfortingly threads her fingers in his hair. “Now,
we are.”

ACT 13. BY MY LIMITLESS INSIGHT AND MEANS, MAY I ENABLE ALL

BEINGS TO OBTAIN THE NECESSITIES OF LIFE.

Kakashi had students once—not including the ones he rejected and failed.

He had students.

Uzumaki Naruto has taken an unlikely path: healing under Senju Tsunade. Kakashi witnessed
Naruto train the fox in his stomach and his horrendous Chakra Control with many people
supporting him. The Yondaime assists him to tame the beast that is sealed within him, the
Raikage of Kumogakure surprisingly allowing his younger brother, a Jinchūriki, to assist
them. Tsunade and Jiraiya are, as always, there for the ‘just in case something goes wrong’.
Despite Jiraiya’s offer to teach Naruto like he did his father, Naruto had declined, scratched
the back of his head, and said: “I can probably help more people if I learn how to heal.
Wasn’t your—” He turned to Tsunade. “—granny like that too?” A Jinchūriki, an Uzumaki,
and the host of the Kyūbi all at once, healing.

Nobody could say ‘no’. Well, Tsunade declined first. She has no need for someone who has
more possibility to poison the person they are healing than actually heal them, and Naruto
was twelve then. He was twelve with wide eyes and mourning written all over his face.

He needed a lot of genius work and training to even get close to getting the Chakra Control
required for someone even allowed to learn how to heal. But Naruto was desperate more than
ever, fearful of his power, and nobody could say ‘no’ when he could not even utter a small
name, a name Kakashi cannot even speak himself. He worked, and worked, and poisoned
more fish than healed them, begged and pleaded for more time and he, like his father, like his
mother, like the Uzumaki Clan before him, and Uzumaki Mito whose Chakra Reserves
exceed Tsunade, succeeded. Uzumaki Naruto, Kakashi had guffawed in disbelief, Kushina-
san, if you can see your son now… a healer of all things, when everybody thought he would
be like any other Jinchūriki.

There is also Uchiha Sasuke… Kakashi’s student. Not ‘student’, but ‘student-student’.

Just say ‘apprentice’, Bakashi—fine, his apprentice.

Kakashi taking in Sasuke as his apprentice riled up more political complications than he likes
to but the apprenticeship made him go hand-in-hand with the Uchiha Clan, and just like that,
the Uchiha Clan shut up a little about the eye on his socket.

“Me? Aren’t you going with your brother?” Which was a stupid question because everyone
knows, whatever tension the Uchiha Clan with the village after the Kyūbi Attack, was
somewhat resolved when the Yondaime announced a simple fact: the Uchiha Clan built
Konohagakure from the ground with the Senju Clan. Once upon a time, an Uchiha and a
Senju dreamed of peace and thus Konohagakure was formed: don’t you think it’s time an
Uchiha sat in the seat of the Hokage? Itachi is well-loved outside of his Clan, called the ‘nice
one’, the ‘good one’, ‘the guy who doesn’t glare at us’, and it is clear that, though he loves
his Clan like most Uchiha do, he still holds the Village the closest to his heart. It is why
Uchiha Fugaku even allowed it to happen. That, and he loves his eldest son, no matter how
else it may look.

Political difficulties: check, check, check. Training the future head of the Uchiha Clan? More
complicated than Kakashi likes to admit but Sasuke was as desperate as Naruto, even said
‘please, I need this’.

Kakashi had students. One left to change what he was destined to become, and the other put
down his pride for a greater cause.

“There’s actually another one,” he admits, crouching in front of the stone. He does not know
how to tell this one, how to describe what had happened because it was—“She was a good
kid. I just messed up.” He does not finish this story too, like last week, the week before that,
the past few years in which he was ashamed to tell Obito what actually happened, how he
failed, how he could have done more but was shrouded and blinded by his past to focus on
the present.

She reminded me of—

He already knew, of course, that his student’s mother was sick—basic information that can be
found in the files and they had a brief house visit as well but only her father was there to
greet them. Her mother was still bedridden which is why his student wanted nothing more
than to become a Medic-nin but, the father laughed shyly, exhausted, “It’s really hard to
become one nowadays, huh?” Kakashi knew, of course. He has always known. He is Hatake
Kakashi after all, and he takes the information he gets about his students very seriously, but,
Kakashi looked at her during the exams, flanked between two childhood friends who call
themselves rivals, bright blond and the other, the dark colour of an Uchiha, and when she said
she wanted to be a Medic-nin with that bright smile on her face, Kakashi just—

A crushed house, two corpses, and library books taken the day the children became Genin.
Kakashi is at fault. He knows he is. This is not even him trying to steer the blame to himself
because he knows he is at fault. He had known, and did nothing, all because of his hypocrisy.
Didn’t you say, Bakashi, that shinobi aren’t allowed to feel emotions? But he inhales his fears
and exhales his sentiments.

Kakashi had students. Not one, not two. Not just Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke, but
three students. Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruno Sakura.

Haruno Sakura’s status: missing in action. Presumed dead. Perhaps in the captivity of
Orochimaru because on the same day Konoha was crushed, orphanages were raided and
many Genin died, bodies either ravaged beyond recognition or gone for what is assumed to
be for experimentation purposes. Orochimaru was smart to only take the Genin who will
never be noticed, who will never be looked for. The perfect victim to hit the Yondaime right
where it hurt but also safe enough that nothing will be done about it, and that is exactly what
happened—nobody looked for them (her), and the disbelief on Naruto’s face will forever be
scarred in Kakashi’s mind. “Just like that? You’re not—you’re not going to look for her? She
was our teammate, our friend!” Nobody looked for her. There were no parents who would
complain and spread rumours about the Village’s lack of action, and with everybody busy
with reparations from the attack and training more shinobi to be churned out with all the
death, nobody really noticed.

Haruno Sakura did not have friends. She was friendly, yes, and talked to people a lot, was
extroverted enough that people knew her, but she did not have friends. She was too busy and
too preoccupied with the fast track of becoming a Medic-nin for her mother.She apparently
had a favourite book, the History of Konohagakure. She also had a favourite page.

Chapter IV: The Reign of the Yondaime Hokage, “hundreds of children aged 1-4 years old,
including unborn children of the womb, perished due to Chakra Poisoning from the Kyuubi
no Kitsune. New or upcoming mothers are prone to Chakra Poisoning as they are,
essentially, creating a Chakra Network within their womb. They are also more prone to
Chakra Exhaustion. Though there were extensive attempts to gather the pregnant and the new
mothers, there still remained to be a severe impact on them.”

Kakashi almost threw up when he first saw it, now that he thinks about it. His hypocrisy and
his choice to turn a blind eye in everything that mattered are chasing after him, and he can do
nothing about it. All he does, instead, is mourn, as if it change things.

He walks up to his friends’ grave for the hundredth time this month and crouches. He tries
again: “I had students once. Not including the ones I failed and rejected—”

He mourns, mourns, and mourns.

“I had three.”

ACT 14. MAY MY BODY BE LIKE PURE RADIANT LAPIS LAZULI, WITH A
RADIANCE MORE BRILLIANT THAN THE SUN AND MOON, ILLUMINATING
ALL WHO TRAVEL IN DARKNESS, ENABLING THEM TO TREAD UPON THEIR
PATHS.

Otogakure is more of an organization than it is a village. Sakura was never told of the other
hideouts but Karin is willing to share while Kimimaro speaks of wanting to look for a friend,
the first thing he has ever asked of her since the incident. He is silent but Kabuto reassures
her that he will come around soon. The thing with Kimimaro is still complicated but he is
indebted to her, but not after attempting to kill for taking away the only thing Orochimaru
needed of him. He had been so angry, so distraught, willing to die than be nothing to the man
who saved him, but how did Kabuto comfort Sakura again? How did he comfort her when
she inadvertently became the reason why her mother and father had died? Right. He held her
and gave her a new purpose, gave her a new path, regardless of all of her flaws and her
lacking.

Sakura held Kimimaro just as Kabuto did, her hand rubbing his nape comfortingly. He was
reduced to nothing, after all: he cannot use his kekkei genkai unless his wishes to go back to
the body that may as well have been a corpse, and he lost the only thing that made him part
of Orochimaru, the seal. He is no longer Kimimaro of the Kaguya Clan, nor is he Kimimaro
of the Sound ‘Five’. He is just Kimimaro, with above-average skills, but as ‘nothing’ as
Sakura and Kabuto are. Karin is different. Karin will never understand what being nothing is
with her kekkei genkai and the Uzumaki name associated to herself despite her sufferings—
Sakura and Kimimaro are similar, just as Kabuto and Sakura are, and in a way, Sakura and
Karin are as well. Sakura promises to save them, give them hope and guide them like what
Kabuto did to her.

And if Kimimaro wants to save a friend too, then Sakura will oblige, because that is the
reason why she became a Medic-nin in the first place: for her mother. And now that her
mother is gone, she can find other people like her who have less than what they need to help.
Jōrō-sama will be proud, truly, and when she will see her again, she will dress in the likes of
Haruno Mebuki and she will smile at her as if she was never sick in the first place, and then,
she will embrace her, offer her kind words, and let her run free. Like a mother. Like the Lady
whom the people shunned. She will introduce Jōrō-sama to her new friends as well:
Kimimaro who is lost, Karin who is unsure, and perhaps, even Kimimaro’s friend. Maybe
Tayuya too.

“But what do you want?”

Sakura turns to Karin, confused. She puts down the documents detailing the other locations
of Orochimaru’s experiments, curious if she can find anything worth learning. “Like, what
are you going to do now?” Karin asks again. “Orochimaru-sama is dead, and Kabuto is…
whatever he’s doing, it’s—” She cuts herself off. “Do you want to… you can’t take on a
village, you know.”

“Huh?” Sakura fully focuses her attention entirely on Karin.

“I mean,” Karin sighs and ruffles her own hair in annoyance, “It’s Konoha. They have the
Sannin, and even though the Sandaime is dead, the Yondaime is still around. And there’s
Hatake Kakashi too, and the Uchiha Clan—they have so many clans with kekkei genkai, and
their Jinchūriki too, and Uchiha Itachi, and—even if Kimimaro is around, he can’t even use
his kekkei genkai, and you just—you can’t beat a village. Oto doesn’t have enough people
too…”

Sakura cannot help the laughter that stumbles out her throat. Karin gives her an embarrassed
look. “I don’t want to destroy Konoha, Karin,” she shakes her head. But she is flattered Karin
will be with her even then.

No, she has no plans on destroying Konoha. The root of this imbalance is not just because of
a village or even a structure of wood and homes. Kabuto spoke of it once: the root, the rot,
the source of the disgust that drives Konoha to cover it with ‘being the nice village’. Konoha
is not at fault. Konoha was created for peace, for shinobi and civilians to co-exist and live
without war. Everything just went downhill because of one thing. That singular phenomena
that created the rot and destroyed what Konoha stood for. “Karin,” she smiles, “What do you
think is a world without the bijū like?”

Karin slouches. “You… you can’t kill a bijū.”

It is never Sacchan’s fault. It’s not her fault. Nor the village’s even though they could have
helped, could have done something, could have done more. The bijuu cannot be killed, but
something more could be done.

Sakura feels arms wrap around her from behind. Karin’s body is warmer than the average
person, brought by the burning of her large reserves. Sakura knows Karin is just trying to
give her comfort. She appreciates the gesture but the warmth of her body burns her more than
it warms her, but Sakura does not tell her this, and neither does she tell Karin the numbness
her embrace gives her. She smiles, instead, laughing under her breath and turns around to
push a lock of hair to the back of Karin’s ear. “I’m okay, Karin-chan,” she soothes, “Thank
you.”

(Karin does not understand Sakura’s smile until, weeks later, a masked man comes into one
of Otogakure’s bases with Kabuto, and to Sakura, Kabuto asks: “What do you think of
meeting your old friends?” Karin despises Kabuto with all her heart and if she can, she will
pull his heart from his chest and give it to Sakura but there is nothing she can do. None at all.
For now, she will follow Sakura to the edge of the world if she must. And maybe, she will let
that burden Kimimaro tag along.)

ACT 15. MAY A RADIANT LIGHT BLAZE FORTH FROM MY BODY AFTER
ENLIGHTENMENT, BRIGHTENING COUNTLESS REALMS, AND MAY ALL
BEINGS HAVE PERFECT PHYSICAL FORM, IDENTICAL TO MY OWN.

Dear ‘kāchan,

It’s your daughter. Sakura. Sacchan. Whatever you prefer to call me.

There are lots of things I want to tell you but I guess the first thing I should do is apologize. It
was not your fault and not ‘touchan’s, but I still ended up blaming you for everything. I was
the one who decided to take on the burden, not you, but you said so yourself—it’s not my
fault. It never was our fault. Maybe it was the Village’s, and maybe it was the Yondaime’s, but
it was the Kyūbi that did all of this. Ever since I left Konoha, I’ve learned many things. I
think I learned too many things, to be honest.

There are things I wished that I never learned. Did you know, ‘kāchan? The Yondaime wasn’t
the Yondaime that you knew he was. Maybe you did. You always said that you saw the
Yondaime and his wife passing by every now and then in that ramen shop before he replaced
the Sandaime. You must have seen his wife when he was pregnant, and you must have known
she was the Jinchūriki. Was it common knowledge then? Or was it hidden like Naruto’s.
Speaking of Naruto, I heard a couple of things about him. He chose Senju Tsunade to be his
Master instead of Jiraiya-sama. Kabuto-san’s contacts said he wants to be the next Uzumaki
Mito while Sasuke moved on to be Kakashi-san’s apprentice.

The politics about that situation is more fragile, though. Tsunade-sama makes sense since she
has Uzumaki blood but the Uchiha Clan has always hated Kakashi-san, right? Konoha is
changing, ‘kāchan, and I don’t think it’s for the best. There are rumours that an Uchiha will
become the next Hokage. That means Sasuke will become the Head of his Clan, and Naruto
will become the Head of his. So many things are changing, ‘kāchan, and if an Uchiha ends up
seated as the Hokage, things will get worse for people like us, won’t it? At least the Yondaime
somewhat understood—and he could have continued to understand if only he proved true to
his position as the Hokage.

I’m sorry, ‘kāchan. This was my first letter to you but I’m doing nothing but complain. I just
miss you so much. I’m sorry I wanted you dead. I’m sorry I wasn’t a good daughter. I’m
sorry.

I hope you know that I’m doing alright. Kabuto-san is taking care of me and teaching me so
many things. Things I don’t want to know, things I don’t want to know. He says there is no
such thing as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ knowledge. There is only ‘knowledge’, and what you choose
to do with it. And I want to use this to help people, ‘kāchan, just like how I promised to heal
you. I also managed to help Kimimaro-kun. He was terminally ill for some time but Kabuto-
san and I healed him, in a way. We’re still looking for more ways to fully cure him of his
diseases, but you will like him, I’m sure of it. He’s very well-mannered and soft-spoken. I also
have another friend, Karin-chan. She’s an Uzumaki like Naruto, but at the same time, nothing
like him too. She always tries her best but she doesn’t like Kabuto-san that much.

We’re on our way to find Kimimaro-kun’s friend now. He said his name is ‘Jūgo’ and he has a
unique kekkei genkai too. Kimimaro-kun hopes that I can help his friend too. I’ll do my best
on that.

Otogakure is rotting, ‘kāchan, but not as bad as Konoha. Oto came from Konoha, after all.
But don’t worry, ‘kāchan. Your daughter is doing her best to fix everything. Someday, I’ll be
like Kabuto-san too, and help more people. And one day, we’ll meet each other again. For
now, please find peace in the Pure Lands. Your daughter will continue to do her best for us.

Your daughter,
Sakura.

But ‘kāchan, to be honest, there’s something wrong about Kabuto-san. It’s almost as if he’s
like—

the titles of each arc is from yakushi nyorai's twelve vows, though written in the
opposite numbering:
1. May a radiant light blaze forth from my body after enlightenment,
brightening countless realms, and may all beings have perfect physical form,
identical to my own.
2. May my body be like pure radiant lapis lazuli, with a radiance more brilliant
than the sun and moon, illuminating all who travel in darkness, enabling
them to tread upon their paths.
3. By my limitless insight and means, may I enable all beings to obtain the
necessities of life.
4. May all beings be shown the path of enlightenment and may adherents to the
sravaka or pratyekabuddha paths become established in Mahayana
practices.
5. May all beings be aided to follow the precepts of moral conduct. After
hearing my name, those who have broken the precepts will be aided to
 regain their purity and prevented from sinking to a woesome path of
existence.
6. May all who are deformed or handicapped in any way have their deformities
removed upon hearing my name.
7. May all who are ill be cured upon hearing my name.
8. May all sentient beings who are restrained by their circumstances of birth
find a favourable rebirth and progress towards Liberation.
9. May all who are caught in Mara's net, entangled in negative views, be
caused to gain correct views and thus practice the Bodhisattva Way.
10. May all who are punished by the king be freed of their troubles.
11. May those who are desperately famished be given food. May they ultimately
taste the sublime Teachings.
12. May all who are destitute of clothes obtain attractive garments and various
adornments upon concentrating on my name.
shinobi is written as 「忍」 while ninja is written as 「忍者」canonically, both
terms are used interchangeably and everything detailed above are purely
headcanons. the character 「忍」 can be read in kunyomi/japanese reading as
‘shino(bu)’ while the onyomi/chinese reading is ‘nin’. the ‘ja’ in ‘ninja’ means
person.
the character 「忍」 can mean the following: endure, conceal, spy, and
sneak
「笑」literally means laugh. it can be read as both ‘wara(u)’ and ‘e(mu)’ for its
kunyomi, ‘shō’ for its onyomi, and ‘emi’ for its nanori/how you would read a
character if used as a name. said character has the character 「夭」 in it, read as
‘waka(i)’, ‘wakajini’, and ‘wazawai’ in kunyomi, ‘yō’, ‘ō’, and ‘ka’ for onyomi. it
means early death and calamity.
the jorōgumo (女郎蜘蛛, jorougumo) is a yōkai that is said to have the ability to
shapeshift into a beautiful woman. it has many tales under it's name. a notable
characteristic of the kanji composing jorōgumo is the usage of of 「女郎」 which
is one of the many terms for prostitute. the address chichusuke and sakura use for
jōrō-sama is written as 「上臈様」 which is a term used for noblewomen and
court ladies.
the jōren falls (常連の滝, jouren no taki) is a waterfall in izu city, shizuoka
prefecture. it’s known for the tale of the jorōgumo in which a woodcutter fell
in love with a mysterious woman in the waterfalls and though discouraged
by everyone and a monk because he was growing weak with every visit, he
still begged for the approval to marry the jorōgumo to the mountain tengu.
after being denied, he went to the waterfalls and disappeared.
sendai has another tale about the jorōgumo. a voice is said to be heard saying
“clever, clever” or 「賢い賢い」where the kashikobuchi or clever abuss is.
the jorōgumo of kashikobuchi is worshipped there.
oshakasama (お釈迦様) is literally buddha or shakyamuno.
in the spider’s thread (蜘蛛の糸, kumo no ito) by akutagawa ryūnosuke, the
story revolves around a criminal in hell whom shakyamuni decided to give a
chance to enter the pure lands after finding out that kandata, the criminal,
spared a single spider. he then dropped down a spider thread that kandata
 can climb on up to the pure lands. after realizing that many other people
tried to climb along the thread, kandata thrashed and kicked around,
snapping the thread. shakyamuni watched this all unfold from a lotus pond.
hakase (博士) literally means doctor among other things.
chichusuke (蜘蛛付) is based on ‘tsuchigumo’ (土蜘蛛), a spider yōkai. the last
two characters here both mean spider and can be read as ‘chi’ and ‘chu' separately.
‘–suke’ is a common name usually for boys.
jūnihitoe (十二単) is a twelve-layered kimono worn by courtladies and
noblewomen.
nikkō (日光) and gakkō (月光) are the bodhisattva of sunlight and moonlight
respectively. they are usually seen accompanying yakushi nyorai as a triad and
other times, fukūkenjaku kannon (不空羂索), which is a statue of the bodhisattva
kannon with a rope that can catch straying souls and give them salvation.
nikkō and gakkō also accompany aizen myō-ō, the bodhisattva of love,
sometimes too.

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yakushi nyorai's twelve vows

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