Heiress of Sound Country

Sakura sets the application down on the bed, swinging her legs over the side. A curtain of long black hair falls over her shoulder; she pauses, and then she turns, locking eyes with her reflection in the mirror a few feet away. Painted in the pale, soft glow of the moon, she looks like a ghost, she thinks, studying herself in the glass. This late at night, safe in the privacy of her own room, she sometimes lets her false face slip away. Besides, she’s locked the door.

It’s the real Sakura staring back at her tonight, the one that’s marred her in a monster’s image since birth. Her appearance is a stark contrast to the plain night gown she wears to bed: chalky-white skin, long, inky dark hair and golden, slit eyes framed in purple points. I am a ghost, she thinks dully, and her stomach tightens.  The ghost of a man haunting her from afar. The ghost of her father.

Sakura watches as her mouth thins and lies limp in a deflated scowl. All the traits are there, down to the broad forehead…except where extreme chakra manipulation and strength ought to be, there…isn’t. Sakura can’t do any of the things Orochimaru can—or assumes he can, based on texts she’s come across and fragments of childhood memories. That cold glare and venomous voice are burned so deeply into her psyche, she’s taken him at his word either way. Her father runs all of Sound Country for a reason, and what does his daughter do to uphold his image? She can stick to trees. She can substitute herself with logs. She can throw stars and kunai and maybe, just maybe, she’ll hit a target.  Otherwise, she’d better hope one of the boys is paying attention and comes to her aid. Sakura, in all of her glory, is the tag-along sidekick of her genin squad…and Kakashi-sensei thinks she’s ready for the next level?

The knot in her brow deepens. She can see her application through the glass as well, lying in wait beneath her window. Of course, she’s already filled it out. If there is anything Sakura excels at, it’s the written word. In another life, she’s probably a teacher, or maybe some high-profile ninja’s assistant.  As if I’d be so lucky. Sakura’s never really thought about what to do when she grows up. She’s grown up with only one real objective in mind: find an Uchiha. Befriend the Uchiha. Bring one home. Home... For the last seven years of her life, this place, this village, has been her home.  To everyone in it, she’s simply Sakura Haruno: the ordinary, pink-haired daughter of an ordinary shinobi family. Does anyone even remember she’s adopted? I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t. There’s nothing particularly memorable about the Sakura this village knows: she’s just another genin…and genin, at least ordinary ones, aspire for chunin status.

Sakura glances at the paper again. She knows Sasuke is going to apply. That’s a no-brainer. He told them early on that he’s got lethal objectives in mind, down the road. Her father would probably delight in that, but the thought makes her skin crawl, and she pushes it aside. Naruto will absolutely apply, although how well he’ll fill out the form, she can only guess. He’s so hell-bent on this whole being Hokage thing, he’d probably submit it half-finished if he has to. The thought’s almost admirable, or would be, if she hadn’t been such a stickler for rules and dedication…but is it dedication, she wonders, tugging at the ends of her hair (she can do that, she’s learned, in the privacy of her own room. No one can see her weakness behind these walls.)  What does Sakura want when this is all said and done?

Sakura’s eyes slowly trail back up to meet those of her reflection once more. Gradually (reluctantly,) she brings her hands together, moving through hand-signs with the fluid ease of muscle memory.  In a moment’s notice, her true self fades away and its aquamarine eyes that stare back at her now, Aquamarine eyes, rosy cheeks and layers and layers of vibrant pink hair.

Screaming. That’s the first thing she remembers when she reflects on her childhood. Endless, muffled screaming that carried through the four walls of her tiny room. It’s hard to picture now; there’s a musty, dingy darkness that arises whenever she tries. She used to cover her ears and burrow under her blankets – she knows because the habit carried through much of her early childhood – an innocent wish that if she simply shut out the noise, it would take the hint and eventually quiet down. A child’s mind is sweet in hindsight but small and unable to grasp the greater scope of the world around it. The screaming never stopped, and she’d had no choice but to live with it.

She shudders now, looking back; what sort of child learns to sleep through another’s dying breath (it’s not your fault, she tells herself. You didn’t know any other way). She feels no better, but it is true enough: up until her third birthday, her world was confined to those four, dingy walls. Flashes of memory suggest a trembling wet nurse would shuffle in to feed her and cloth her and tend to her general infantile needs.

There was more to it, she’d learn later on – the sort of sinister that went hand in hand with the cocktail of needles and bloodwork that left her crying for her father (ironic, she knows now, but again, she was a child). It didn’t matter either way, Orochimaru never came when she called. She wouldn’t learn what reliable meant until she met her older brother.

He wasn’t really her brother – not by blood. He simply showed up one day, toting gentle eyes and a friendly smile and silver hair that glistened like moonlight (at least, she imagined it did; she’d never seen the moon). “Sakura-chan,” her father said one day, pausing in a way that suggested he’d only stopped upon noticing the door was open. She’d looked up from the puzzle or doll or whatever it was she’d been playing with, peering at this boy in confusion and awe. He was a boy, likely nine or ten years old, though to a child of nearly three, that seemed so mature.

  “This is Kabuto,” her father told her, phrasing the name as if it were someone’s best kept secret. Not understanding this, she’d shyly glanced from this boy, this Kabuto, to her father, waiting for an explanation. “Kabuto will be staying with us from now on.” Again, he said it like she was supposed to understand. She doesn’t remember how she answered him. Kabuto told her later, much later, she’d mostly stared and tugged nervously on the ends of her hair (despite her age, it was already thick and hugging her shoulders). She believes that. She wouldn’t find her voice for years yet.

What she does remember is Kabuto stepping towards her. He raises a hand in greeting, his eyes, black as coal but somehow still so bright, smiling along with the corners of his mouth.

“A pleasure to meet you, Sakura-sama.” It’s one of the few times he’d ever call her that. They were family in so many ways but one; let the formalities lie unless absolutely necessary.

  “Hello,” she says quietly and after a moment of debate, lifts her hand in a brief half-wave. At three years old, even she can tell there’s something strange about this meeting. She thinks perhaps Kabuto might be a new nurse, only he doesn’t fit the type she’s seen come through her door. For one thing, his clothes are all wrong. Nurses don’t dress in black and purple.

  He also doesn’t look at her the way they do, with wary, tired eyes that dart around as if something in her room will jump out and eat them (it might – she still doesn’t know where the screaming comes from). Third and most obvious to Sakura is that Kabuto is a boy. Every nurse she’s met has always been female (Sakura wishes she could give her father courteous credit for that, but she’s grown now and understands why he cycled through so many medics: her care was a kind of purgatory between life and the operating table).

No, Kabuto is different. She doesn’t understand it yet, but she will. In just a few weeks’ time, her father stops visiting. Instead, it’s only Kabuto. This is…strange, but no less strange than her life so far. Kabuto still smiles, still looks at her with friendly eyes and talks to her like no one ever has before. She can’t put it into words just yet, but she’s never had a real conversation before. Has she? For all her father’s talk, he’s never had much to say to her (it’s usually a flurry of “how are yous” and “Don’t worries” and “Stop crying you insolent brat or I’ll make you—”) Her father said a lot with very little.

Kabuto doesn’t say much either. He asks the questions all the other grown-ups do and fusses with scrolls and checks her vitals…but he listens too, and Sakura isn’t used to this. There isn’t much to share at her age, but she appreciates it anyway. It will take a little longer to realize, but when she does at last – of course – it couldn’t be more obvious. Kabuto isn’t like her father. He isn’t like the other grown-ups either. Kabuto is a kid. A big kid, but a kid all the same. Sakura has never seen another kid before. Having one around might be fun.

__

The nurses stop visiting. At first, this happens periodically – once a day to three times a week, then so on and so forth until one day, she’s in the dark from the moment she wakes until whenever Kabuto opens her door.

“Sakura-sama,” he says, stepping into her room. “Would you like some—” He doesn’t finish; she bursts into tears, cutting him off. Sakura remembers a lot of tears in her youth. She doesn’t blame herself for it, but that day (or night) was the first time she’d cried in front of her new…what was he to her then? A doctor? A babysitter? (A friend?) She’s never had a friend before—wouldn’t know how to identify one. Looking back, reaching for this sort of friendly, sort of acquaintance as he shuffled into the room, lighting the wilted stump of a candle while awkwardly telling her not to worry, that day might have been where friendship began.

  He hands her a bowl of food and some water, then sits down outside her playpen (cage, it’s a cage) until her whimpering settles down. “It’s okay, Sakura-sama,” he says. “I’ll try to visit more often.” Sakura stays quiet for a time, nibbling on the rim of a weathered canteen. “I don’t like the dark,” she mumbles. She looks up at him, perhaps searching for a cue for whether or not this was the right thing to say. Kabuto meets her eyes for a moment, then glances away. For the first time, she sees something in his face other than casual compliance. “I don’t either.”

Her father comes for her later that night. It’s late – she knows it by the bone-deep fatigue hugging her like a shroud (the word is unknown to her toddler mind, but looking back, it fits). Sakura rarely sleeps well. Though her eyelids droop and she’s buried in blankets, she still sees the lanky figure appear like a ghost beside her bed. At first, a chill snakes through her and she nearly screams (a gut instinct she now wishes she’d heeded in later life). Then, she hears her father’s voice and the fear barking at her throat subsides. “Did I wake you, Sakura-chan?” He asks, but it isn’t that of a concerned parent. There’s a strange, slippery urgency in his voice. She feels goose-pimples pinch her skin and her stomach tightens.

“No,” she answers, and looking back now, she’s thankful he believed her. Three is too tender an age even for the best of spies. Her father sort of smiles at her: once again, it’s missing the warmth she’s come to know as real affection.

“Good girl,” he says, and then he brings his hands together. His blood-stained hands. Her eyes dart to his, but he isn’t watching her anymore. His attention seems faraway and present all at once, casting deep shadows over his face. “Don’t worry,” he says, says it like he has so many times. His fingers begin to move, forming signs she’ll come to associate with genjutsu. Worry? She remembers thinking and this, too, is a faraway thought. What is there to worry about?

Whatever it is, she can’t recall now. The last thing she remembers is her father’s voice and a trickle-down of white feathers, lulling her into a doze.

>>There’s a gap in her memory here: a sleep spell contorts one’s perception of time, and she’s been told her father spared no expense when it came to covering his tracks. She believes it, although the thought makes her pale skin crawl like the monsters that bend to her father’s every whim. Sound Country sits far removed from the other villages: It is a place for those who don’t wish to be found, and more than a day’s journey on foot. How long then, was she left under that spell?<<

Their new home is…quiet. That’s the first thought in her mind as she lays awake at night. Her room is double the size of her old one, and while still dimly lit, she’s free to explore without restriction. She’s asked Kabuto about it once—because he’s come with them, and she’s thankful for that. He smiles politely and tells her she’s a big girl now.

“A big room for a big girl,” he says, and it makes sense in her four-year-old mind. If she remembers correctly, she was proud he saw how much she’d grown. Maybe her father would notice too. He always seemed to pay more attention to grown-ups. Not that Sakura has much frame of reference. There is a catch, though. She learns not long after, the one and only time she wound up lost in a maze of tunnels. Kabuto found her huddled under a torch, her hands over her ears and tears staining her face (the screaming never stopped, she’d learned; it simply moved further away.)

  He puts a hand on her shoulder, waiting until she lowers her arms. “Come on,” he says gently, taking her hand in his. Sakura sniffles and wipes her eyes. There’s an urgency in the air, one she’s not felt since that last night in her old room; she doesn’t question it. Some things speak for themselves. When they return to safety, Kabuto turns and locks the door behind him. He lets go of her hands, then bends at the knee so his dark eyes meet her drying gold ones.

“Sakura,” he says; it’s the first time she’s heard him say her name without the honorific. “I need you to promise me something.”

She tugs on the ends of her hair. “What is it?”

A shadow falls over Kabuto’s face and his black eyes fill with concern. “Don’t go exploring on your own. It isn’t safe.” Though only four years old, she’s able to pair those words ‘not safe’ with the scent of blood. Sakura hasn’t seen it beyond needles and scrapes and bruises, but the smell is burned so deeply in her memory, there’s probably something she’s missing.

  “Okay,” she mumbles. Kabuto’s brow furrows.

“Promise,” he says. Sakura swallows and stiffly nods.

  “I promise.”

__

She hardly sees her father at all. This isn’t really a surprise. To say he qualifies as a ‘hands off’ parent is an understatement: observing, at best, from a careful distance. She can count on one hand the time he’s taken to drop in for a casual visit, and the most affectionate he’s ever been is a polite pat on the head (she cherishes these moments now, but they will stir and fester like sores in adulthood.) Still, he is absent even by his own standards and after a little while, the first seed of resentment will plant roots.  No child likes a change in their routine, and Sakura is no different.

  She tries to tell herself that she’s getting older: she can dress and feed herself, as long as there’s something in the cupboards. If she sticks to the rooms she knows, there’s no need for a nanny at all.  She knows all of this and yet…Sakura is lonely. She wants a companion. She wants a friend (she wants a family).

Sakura isn’t sure when it started; some memories remain jumbled, even after years of backtracking.) At some point, she latches onto Kabuto like a lost little moth. He’s busy too, but back then he was still near enough to check in once a day. The anticipated arrival of her father, who often seemed to forget he even had a daughter, when she did hear him slithering through the long hallways, became anticipation for Kabuto. He never stayed long, not usually, but he’d talk to her or read to her and sometimes he’d bring her outside.

  She has no memory of being outdoors before that time. Obviously, she must have during the migration from her old home to Sound Country, but asleep under genjutsu hardly counts. The first time, it was night, a warm, summer night with the moon a dainty crescent and the stars twinkling like nothing she’d ever seen.  

“Quiet now,” Kabuto murmurs, letting go of her hand. “Don’t go far.” She nods, once and deliberately, waiting with a pounding heart while he opens the wrought iron gate. The night air rushes forward to greet them and Sakura audibly gasps. It’s so…so sweet and warm and light in a way she can’t even describe. How wonderful and tragic that something as simple as fresh air had such an effect on her.

  She remembers an influx of fear after that, clasping her small hands over her mouth. She glances at the older boy with wide eyes: are we in danger now? Kabuto pauses, save for his hair, tousled by the wind. He motions for her to step back and she does, watching as he peers through the opened gate.   A second passes, then another, but time is both endless and meaningless to a child; when he finally eases it closed, she has no idea how long they’ve waited in silence.

  “It’s okay,” Kabuto finally whispers, turning to her again. He smiles and just like that, she knows they’re safe. Sakura drops her arms and takes his hand when he offers again. He leads her away from the entrance and up a flight of stairs. She’s never climbed stairs before, and it takes a few uneasy steps before she gets the hang of it. When she does, her feet move of their own accord; climbing like this brings her closer to the stars, and the ever-present breeze rustling her hair like a new friend ready to play.  

  A moon-lit clearing awaits them at the top; a bed of milky sand that almost glows, and a sea of grass stretching further than the light can follow. That’s the forest, Kabuto tells her. It isn’t safe, either. She must have taken his caution to heart, because not once among those early fragments does Sakura recall venturing into the woods. That would come later, and it wouldn’t be her decision.

They visit the clearing every so often. Sakura likes the outside, she’s decided. It’s quiet and different and a kind of magic only children understand (an escape, she knows now, but advanced terms like isolation and captivity won’t enter her vocabulary for a long time yet). Sometimes they’d chase each other in the dark. Sometimes they’d watch the stars. Other times—so rare, in fact, they stood out among the fog of childhood memories—he’d teach her hand signs. Nothing elaborate, and never for combat (her father would’ve taken his head, she knew). Just a slow, simple walk through the roster: bird, horse, dog and so on. He never showed her how to put them together. She was too young to memorize them, anyway. She only remembers the incident because years later, she’d score higher than nearly all of her classmates at Konoha Academy. A strong foundation starts somewhere, right?

>>There’s another gap here, one she attributes to the clockwork repetition of her day and seamless nights playing outside. Whenever it started, Sakura knows that somewhere between trailing after him during the day and running around on a select few nights, she’d stopped calling Kabuto by name. Instead, she referred to him the way she saw him: as a close friend. As a brother. Her nii-san.

He must have taught her that word: nii-san. A little girl in isolation would have no real concept of family.  A father, certainly. A mother…well, she’d heard the term from her father’s lips, but only in passing (and only when he grew impatient with her: ‘just like your mother,’ he’d hiss whenever she’d recoil from a needle or cower in a darkened room. This, like everything else, she wouldn’t understand for years). Siblings, however, were a strange and faraway concept. Children to grow up around? Play with? Seek comfort in? How was that any difference from friendship?

Kabuto smiled at her and told her something she’d never forget: ‘Family is a blood bond, Sakura-chan. Blood is thicker than water.’ She looked up at him, her golden eyes wide and filled with confusion.

  ‘But you and I don’t share the same blood.’

  Kabuto’s smile never wavered. ‘Well,’ he told her. ‘In our case, it’s the other way around.’

The four year old’s brows came together in a knot. ‘I don’t understand.’

Kabuto smiled, and this, too, felt faraway. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, and then the moment passed; her ruffled her hair and chuckled softly. ‘Just know that I’m looking out for you, okay?’

Smiles are infectious, and despite herself, a little one tugged at the corner of her mouth. Kabuto was all of those things, she realized. If that’s what having a brother meant, then he was right. Water held more closely together than blood. ‘Okay.’ <<

It’s during this gap that Sakura finds favor with her father again. When exactly it occurred, she has no memory; she only knows it happened because she still carries the mark on her shoulder…and she remembers the pain. Burning, blinding agony that tore through her small frame with teeth and claws and unyielding resilience. She knows she cried—she used to wake up crying several times after that, gasping for breath and shivering. Sometimes Kabuto would overhear and check on her, although how he sensed her distress, she’s never quite figured out.

“It’s alright, nay-chan,” he’d murmur, wiping away her tears. Nay-chan, he called her then—called her now, too. Right up until the end. His little sister.

Her father’s archives tell her later that the curse mark healed faster than expected. Something or other about sharing genes, although it offers little comfort in hindsight. He still fooled her into compliance. He still branded her. There’s a chance he considered her, too, before other, more suitable potential host bodies crossed his radar. The thought makes her ill, so she keeps it at bay for now. Without proof, this is all speculation. Just like much of her childhood.

__   Sakura spends her fifth year preparing for the rest of her life.  She doesn’t know it at the time (how could she? She’s barely past toddler-age). She can, however, sense that’s something’s changing. She knows the feeling like a poison that won’t leave her system no matter what she does. It’s easy to look back and point to the eye of the storm, but as a child caught in the middle of it, only one difference jumps out at her: she spends more time with her father and sees Kabuto less.

It isn’t that he’s explicitly gone anywhere. Kabuto is just…busy. According to her father at least, the rare few times she’s brave enough to ask. She knows her nii-san is busy, she’s accompanied him during medical rounds on more than one occasion. What she doesn’t understand is why he’s suddenly too busy for her. She won’t pursue the matter though; Orochimaru is still quick to anger. No time apart will ever change that.

When is it her father’s lies truly begin? Is it before she hears of Konoha? Before casting her first jutsu? There’s no way to know for sure, and Sakura’s decided ultimately, it doesn’t matter.  There was no avoiding this road. What she does remember is a fractured sense of hope and caution warring within her: her father wanted another child? A new playmate for Sakura to brighten her dismal days? She can’t believe it (she wishes she hadn’t). Orochimaru merely smiles. At the time, she mistook it for sincerity.

“That’s right, Sakura-chan. I know you’ve been lonely. Kabuto is so preoccupied these days, isn’t he?” Her eyes widen, but she can’t find the words: could it be she was wrong to doubt her father? Has he known what she’s wanted all this time?

  “What do you say, my dear? Shall we find ourselves another member for this family?”

The prickling sensation on the back of her neck tell her to be careful…but her heart, her lonely, wounded heart, clings to a dream. She’ll have another brother or a sister. She won’t be lonely anymore.

  “How…how will we do that?” Sakura asks meekly. In a flash, her father’s smile grows teeth.

  “Don’t you fret over the details. You’ll learn soon enough.”  Though his voice is warm, there’s a layer of ice behind the words. In the moment, however, Sakura hears only one thing: maybe, just maybe, this is the start of a new beginning. Maybe he’ll finally be the father he’s always wanted. It was harder to let that go than almost anything else.

Her face takes the longest to adjust to. Ironic now, considering she once longed to adopt it permanently: pink hair, seafoam eyes and a healthy complexion. No trace of Orochimaru whatsoever. That’s the idea, she knows, but it’s jarring, seeing a stranger in your own reflection. From the day she was born, she’s looked exactly like her father (wider eyes, and maybe a wider forehead, but those are the only differences).

  She’s sure she asked him why: why change her appearance so drastically, why hide it at all (and was there a way to turn it off?)  His answer was always the same: “You want to make daddy happy, don’t you?”

  She’s grown to hate that word, hate the way he said it: daddy. He’d held onto it as long as he could, wielding it like a weapon that chiseled away at her heart, twisting her bones out of shape until she buckled under his demands. At five, however, Sakura merely nods, wiping away her tears.

“Good girl,” her father answers. He pats her head like he always does and turns to leave. Then he crouches, to her level, and that complacent grin drops from his face. “You must never release the transformation,” he warns, his golden eyes sharpening like daggers. “Do you understand?”

Sakura knows better than to wilt under those eyes. She bobs her head—once and deliberate—and though her voice is small, she answers with unwavering certainty.

“Yes, father.”

>>If he notices the ease with which she mimics his hand signs, he doesn’t say. She’s already proven to be bright beyond her years (his words, not her own). She certainly could have picked them up after a glance. It’s more likely he didn’t care, so long as it secured the transformation jutsu. The thought leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. <<

He grills her repeatedly after that. She only knows because the mantra still disrupts her now and then, marching through her mind like a twisted lullaby. Maybe it is, she thinks from time to time: she used to lie awake at night, staring into the darkness where the ceiling ought to be, wrapping her father’s instructions around herself as a means of comfort. She was looking for an Uchiha. Uchihas were important. They were powerful and all came from the same family. A clan, her father would snap, whenever she fumbled during their lessons. Sakura would wilt and curl her small hands into fists.  

“A clan,” she’d reply meekly, fighting the urge to look away; something in her gut told her doing so would not end well. She’d say no more after that, waiting until the hard lines in Orochimaru’s face smoothed over again.

“That’s better,” he’d continue with a cold little smile. “And why are clans important, Sakura-chan?”

She knew the answer to this one. “Because they have special jutsu.” “That’s right. Do you remember what I taught you about those special jutsu?” Sakura nodded (she’s sure, looking back, that her innocent naivete bled through in her reply).

“They make special friends.” Her father smiled, his thin lips peeling back above sharp teeth.

“Not just friends, my dear, but an excellent addition to this family. Just imagine it; another brother or sister to keep around. You want that, don’t you?” Her stomach rolls to think about it now: keep around and play with were two grotesquely different things. If only she knew now what she does then; at the time, she merely bobbed her head again, and probably smiled back in a small, shy way. Sakura desperately wanted another playmate. She hardly saw her nii-san anymore.

>>She asked him about it once, the final time they spoke before she left. She found Kabuto in the infirmary (lab, it was a lab, she knows that now). He was curt with her at first, probably caught in the middle of some unholy experiment, but when she shriveled in the doorway, Kabuto’s stern face melted to one of concern.

  “I’m sorry, Sakura-chan,” he said, setting down his tools (if there’s anything else questionable lying around, she can’t remember. Maybe that’s for the best). “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Kabuto continues, crouching down in front of her. “I was working.”

“I know,” Sakura says quietly. “You’re always working now.” She searches his face but finds none of the harsh creases so often seen in her father’s. If anything, he looks a little upset. Maybe guilty.

“I know,” he echoes, and with a gentle hand, carefully ruffles her hair. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen my nay-chan. You’ve grown so big. Did you cast this jutsu by yourself?”

Oh, she thinks. That’s right. He hasn’t seen her new face before. Sakura shakes her head.

“Daddy taught me. I don’t like it.”

Kabuto smiles faintly. “You’ll adjust. Think of it as wearing a costume. Remember the games we used to play outside? Like make-believe.” Make believe. She says it again out loud. Put that way, it seems more like a game than anything permanent.

“I miss you,” Sakura says suddenly, small and framed in sadness. “I wanna play like we used to.”

Kabuto’s eyes match the ache in her chest. “I miss you too. I wish things could be different.”

“Why can’t they be?” Kabuto sighs, a soft sound that rolls his shoulders forward.

  “I have too much work to do. Besides, aren’t you leaving soon?”

“Yes, but—but can’t you come with me?” She remembers looking in those black eyes for the answers she wants to hear. Sadly, Kabuto is older and wiser (and better at lying). He takes her small hands in his and gives them a squeeze. “I promise I’ll always look out for you, nay-chan. Alright?”

  Sakura’s brow furrows. “Does that mean you’re gonna go with me?”

Kabuto doesn’t answer. “It’ll be dark, soon. Let’s watch the stars one more time.”

  “Nii-san…?”

“Everything will be alright, Sakura. You can trust me. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He lets go of one hand, and with the other, leads her out of the infirmary. She used to reflect on that last part fondly; lying on the grass, practicing hand signs and watching stars dart about the sky like magic: a final memory to share before venturing off into the wide, wild world. ‘Remember this when you feel lonely, nay-chan,’ Kabuto told her. ‘No matter how far apart we are, we’re always under the same sky.’ (Sakura digs her nails into her arm until she nearly bleeds. One day, she promised herself she’d cut out his traitorous heart underneath the very same sky).

__

She remembers that last night clearly. Orochimaru woke her in the dead of night, rousing her from a heavy sleep with hushed words and an undercurrent of urgency.

  “Right now?” Sakura remembers mumbling in her half-awakened state, too tired to remember her manners.

  “Yes,” her father hisses, glancing at her with cold eyes. There’s more than ice in them now, something Sakura at the age of five didn’t recognize. She doesn’t need to, and scrambles out of bed, looking around her room. Her sleep-addled mind is slower to catch up: they’re leaving? Right now? What about her toys? Her books? What about spare clothes? She tries to ask her father, but he’s antsy and irritable and shoos her out of the room, so close on her heels he nearly tramples her.

  “You don’t need any of that,” he insists, his voice hushed but cutting like a scalpel. Sakura bites her tongue, her false green eyes swimming as they plunge into the darkness ahead. A lonely candle flickers in her father’s hand, but the pitiful flame casts long shadows on the walls that jerk and twitch in time to their every step. Like monsters on the hunt, Sakura thinks to herself: the ghost of a memory snakes across her mind with cold fingers. ‘Don’t go exploring on your own,’ Kabuto had warned her. ‘It isn’t safe.’ She remembers something else as well. She didn’t get to say goodbye.

When they step outside, Sakura’s heart crawls into her throat. The air feels…different, tonight, she remembers that very well. The looming trees, the milky grass, her old friend the moon all yield to the starless sky above, painting their surroundings in almost perfect, inky black. Sakura shivers. For the first time that evening, her step hesitates. Orochimaru notices. He always noticed when it served in his benefit.

“What’s wrong, Sakura-chan?” He asks with clipped sincerity, a cruel little smile meeting her eyes when she finally dared a glance up. She hates him for it now. In the moment, however, Sakura knew only to bite her lip and choose her words carefully.

“I don’t like the dark,” she says quietly. It wasn’t a lie—that would come later. Her father regards her for a moment. Then he kneels before her, the flame dangerously close to their faces.

  “No?” She shakes her head from side to side. Another pause. Orochimaru’s eyes gleam red in the firelight.  “We have a long journey ahead. Are you sure you’re up for it?”

Sakura recognizes the warning in her father’s voice. There’s no backing out of this. No retreating to her room, no hiding under the covers. She lets go of her lip, sucks in a small breath and answers in a small, quivering voice. “I-I can do it.” Her father’s smile splits into a nasty grin that reveals his elongated canines.

  “Good girl,” he says, and then he turns, walking straight into the unknown. “Come now, before the sun comes up.”

This arrangement doesn’t last long. Sakura knows this only because she remembers finishing the journey on her father’s back. The why of it is lost to time, but she doesn’t need a memory to figure out the reasoning. She was still so young then; even the most obedient six-year-olds will crumble under fear. Crying children draw attention, especially at night. That didn’t bode well for stealth.

  “Enough,” her father likely hissed, all but a shadow himself in the lightless forest.

  She huddles under his cloak now, daring glances over his shoulder in haphazard bursts of bravery. At least, she must have, because the wind in her hair, her heart in her ears and the black void swooping up to greet them again and again still keep her up at night (why place so much on her tiny shoulders if he always intended to carry the weight himself?)

__

Time blurs. So do their surroundings. There are no landmarks, no stars to mark their way. For all she knows, they were frozen in place, running in an endless circle until the darkness decided to swallow them up. Ha. More irony. That’s all she’s got to look forward to now. Darkness and isolation. Funny how things come full circle (except it isn’t, it isn’t funny and there are days she’d rather tear her hair out than carry the mess her father left behind).

The Hidden Leaf village is no casual walk from Sound Country; to cover that much ground in a single night meant running nearly non-stop...or her father cast another sleeping genjutsu over her. She wouldn’t put him past him. What she does remember is the way the wind sank and settled as his pace slowed, and the gradual halt in the heart of this aimlessness. Sakura’s own heart wakes up inside her chest, throwing itself against her ribs like a prisoner behind bars; the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Something is coming. She doesn’t know what, but it circles the air around them like a dense cloud now: anticipation. Fear. Trauma, although she’s never been able to fully digest that word. Trauma implies there’s a victim, and she shares too much of the blame for that.

Sakura doesn’t want to climb down from her father’s back. She doesn’t want to let go of him and she certainly doesn’t want to stand out there by herself. Alas, ‘no’ is not a part of Orochimaru’s vocabulary, and so she very carefully, very slowly, lowers one foot and then the other onto the grass. It’s cold; she remembers it because she’s never experienced the sensation outdoors. It’s so much sharper than the stale, suffocating chill she’d feel from time to time at home. Home…at home, her nii-san used to check on her, bring her an extra blanket or something warm to drink. She wonders what he’s up to now. Will they ever see each other again?

  Her father’s voice pulls her out of her thoughts, low but biting like the wind. “This is where we part, my dear. The Hidden Leaf village lies just beyond this forest.”

She remembers the shock that hits her. The dread that pools down to her toes. He was going to leave her? Here? Right now?

  “But I don’t want—"

“Don’t what?” Orochimaru snaps. “Don’t want a new playmate? Did I hear incorrectly, before?”

  “N-No…” Confusion burns her face and guilt gnaws at her stomach when she’s accused of lying. Sakura didn’t lie. She was a good girl. A big girl. Sakura meekly tugs at her hair, her eyes wide and frozen ahead, terrified to look away in case her father sees it through the darkness.

  Silence passes between them. When Sakura begins sniffling, Orochimaru speaks again.

  “There there,” he says, patting her head as though she were a wounded animal instead of his daughter. “There’s no need to cry. This will be over before you know it, alright?”

She can’t tell if he’s warning her or offering comfort.

  “Alright?” Her father asks again, and there it is, that careful teetering on the edge of a blade.

  “Okay,” Sakura says quietly.

  “Good girl,” he says, and then he takes her by the shoulder, pointing her in what must be the right direction. She flinches—she remembers this clearly—and a voice she’ll come to know as her instincts begs her to run, go back, stay with me, I don’t want to be left alone—

Her father’s voice in her ear yanks her out of her thoughts. “Sakura-chan? One more thing. You are not to return to Sound Country without an Uchiha. Do you understand?”

She doesn’t, not really (how could she at that age?) But she wants to be grown up, to be trusted the way her father trusts Kabuto. To be depended on the way her father depends on him. She hears him shuffling again, then a brush of hair that isn’t her own against her cheek. Her father leans in close and when he speaks next his voice sounds like a snake’s. Her blood chills with his parting words: “If you fail me, I’m afraid I’ll have to kill you.”

I’ll have to kill you. She wasn’t familiar with the word itself, but she knew the feeling, knew that tone of voice. It was the same one he’d hissed when the nurses drew her blood. The same one that barked over her desperate attempts to claw out her curse marked when it first formed. A tone that rattled her very core and urged her still-developing instincts to stay quiet and stay small and whatever you do, don’t you dare disobey him. What kind of monster imprints that on one so young?

The terror sinks deep into her bones and will remain that way for the next eight years. It follows her like a second shadow through her time at the academy, chasing her day in and out long after she graduated to Genin status. If she stands still long enough, she can still hear it, creeping around the corner like an echo of too many mistakes, too many bridges burned.

Sakura remembers how hard she tried not to cry that night. How hard she tried to be brave. She listened as her father’s footsteps faded and disappeared. Was he watching from nearby? Waiting, as always, to see if she’d mess up? Probably. The bastard always needed to be in control. A tight line forms between her lips. He likely followed her to the gates as well, congratulating himself when Haruno Kizashi heard her whimpering. By a cruel twist of fate, the man who would ultimately welcome her into his family behaved more like a father than the one who gave her life.

  A shame it hadn’t mattered in the end. Once a snake, always so and like it or not, a snake can’t hide under cherry blossoms forever. No matter how badly she once longed to. Kabuto was wrong: in the end, water mopped up without a trace. It was blood that stained indefinitely. She’d been stained since birth, marred by the sins of a man committed long before her time. Konoha hadn’t forgotten that. Neither had Kabuto.

When Orochimaru breathed his last, she’d expected her nii-san to stay, help her find her way forward, build a new foundation and keep Sound Country from collapsing. She owed it to them, the shinobi who’d carved a life for themselves at her father’s side. No matter what they’d done (what he’d made them do) they deserved a chance to start anew. Kabuto didn’t see it that way. He didn’t care. Her dear brother, her caretaker and only friend for so so long proved himself to be every bit the traitor she once so despised in herself. I should have known better, she told herself, tells herself every time his eyes—his true eyes, pale and haunting and no longer hidden behind layers of lies and jutsu—burned into the back of her brain. This wasn’t his home. She wasn’t…she wasn’t his family. Kabuto could walk away, leave this place and everyone in it without a second thought.

  Sakura wasn’t so fortunate. She’d grown up in these hallways; her childhood bedroom still sat at the other end of the complex, a little dusty, but otherwise untouched by time. This place formed the essence of her very core, and no matter how hard she’d tried to separate herself over the years, that would never change. Besides, she knew long before she’d received word of his death that Orochimaru’s daughter would never be welcomed in Konoha. She’d be put on trial—exiled or worse and what would she do then? How could she explain the mark this place had left (literally in some cases) on her?