62
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO:
Hiruzen could feel the headache pounding in his temples as his advisory Council gathered in his office to debrief on the coup in Kirigakure; his head of T&I department, head of his jōnin forces, head of ANBU, and Koharu and Homura, who Inoichi was still refusing to acknowledge even existed. Jiraiya was also present, looking exhausted as he slumped in place in his chair, head in his hands.
"So it's been confirmed, then?" Shikaku prodded Hiruzen's student, frowning. "The Mizukage, Karatachi Yagura, is dead?"
"Dead with his rotting corpse left hanging from the Mizukage Tower for all to see," Jiraiya confirmed without even raising his head. "The coup was a bloodbath."
"This is the Bloody Mist we're talking about," Homura pointed out. "Are we surprised?" Jiraiya snorted.
"Now you sound like Fuyuko-chan," he muttered, before sighing heavily and elaborating. "The loyalists to Yagura, they knew what was going to happen to them under the new regime. Even after Yagura's corpse was hung from the Mizukage's Tower, they still fought to the death against the rebels until they were all cut down. Even the civilians fought against the loyalists, using whatever weapons they had, including their fists and teeth."
"Kami-sama," Inoichi muttered, shaking his head slightly.
"Do we know how it started?" Shikaku pressed Jiraiya for more information.
"Everyone does," Jiraiya said grimly. "It's not a secret, I wouldn't be surprised if it's already spread all through Konoha and the other Hidden Villages. See, the rebels did something to Yagura; it caused his Jinchūriki seal to weaken enough that the Sanbi tore free of him. It killed Yagura, destroyed half the Mizukage Tower and trampled through the village before escaping into the ocean, swimming too far out and diving too deep for anyone to locate it."
"So there is a Bijuu on the loose," Koharu said warily. "I assume Kiri's new leadership already have plans to recapture the demon?"
"I think their focus is more on rebuilding their village then trying to scour the unexplored depths of the ocean to find a chakra monster who happens to thrive in the sort of underwater environments that are very unfriendly to human lungs," Jiraiya said dryly.
"If Kiri is occupied by its rebuilding efforts, then this gives us a golden opportunity to get our hands on the Sanbi," Homura said eagerly, leaning forwards slightly. "Think– if Konoha has another Jinchūriki, that would let us outnumber all the other Hidden Villages!"
"Which would be very convenient for the war that Kiri would immediately wage against us for stealing their Bijuu," Inoichi drawled, sending a disdainful look Homura's way. "And that's if we could even find it in the first place. As Jiraiya said, the ocean is the Sanbi's territory, not ours. Anyone trying to find it would be at a disadvantage from the very start."
"Enough," Hiruzen interrupted, turning back to his exhausted student. "Do we know why the Jinchūriki seal weakened?" He asked.
"No," Jiraiya shook his head, "but however it happened, there's no questioning that the rebels were responsible. The timing of the seal weakening and the rebels attacking was planned to the exact moment. It didn't happen by accident."
The office was filled with unhappy murmuring at that. "You're saying that there's someone out there who could potentially sabotage the Kyuubi's seal on the twins, killing them and freeing the Kyuubi?" Shikaku asked grimly.
"I honestly don't know," Jiraiya said, just as grim. "But I will be looking into this– it's now my top priority."
Hiruzen opened his mouth to continue questioning Jiraiya about the successful coup when an ANBU wearing a sparrow mask slipped in through his window.
Hiruzen knew that his ANBU knew better then to enter his office during a private meeting unless the matter was urgent, so he immediately turned his full attention on the shinobi. "Report," he ordered.
"Hokage-sama," the ANBU mask hid Sparrow's expression, but everyone in the room could hear the tension in their voice. "There's been a… large-scale incident in the marketplace."
"An incident?" Hiruzen repeated, feeling the stress building behind his eyes. His headache was starting to pound now. Around him, the various members of his advisory council had straightened, fixing their attention on the messenger.
"It's Uzumaki Naruto, sir," Sparrow said, almost cringing in place as they were forced to be the bearer of bad news. "He was attacked by a… well, by a mob who had heard about the Sanbi's escape. I believe they'd gotten worked up about the prospect of the Kyuubi escaping and sought to… prevent that, through any means necessary."
Hiruzen closed his eyes and bit back the groan he wanted to utter.
How could this day get any worse?
"Is Naruto injured?" Inoichi asked sharply, and Hiruzen opened his eyes again as the ANBU hesitated.
"He suffered no life-threatening injuries," Sparrow said slowly, which was of very little comfort considering the damage that could be done to a person without it being life-threatening, especially a boy with an enhanced healing factor. "But Uchiha Sasuke was with him at the time, and he doesn't… well, he doesn't heal like Uzumaki does."
And that, Hiruzen realised with a sinking feeling, was exactly how his day could get worse after all.
::
Naruto was relieved when Iruka-sensei finally ended classes for the day. The Academy was better with Chiyoko-neesan there but Mizuki-teme had figured out that she was actually trying to help Naruto and he did his best to make sure she was stuck teaching other students so he could continue sabotaging Naruto.
Honestly, if Naruto was actually attending the Academy to learn how to be a shinobi, he'd be dead-last in truth, not just on paper. Thankfully, the only reason he really went to the Academy was to make sure he was visible, so that if he disappeared he would be missed.
He wasn't really as afraid of that as he used to be, back when his sister was gone and it was like the village had forgotten she even existed. He had so many precious people now; Sansa and Sasuke and Tama-neechan and Kakashi-nii and Tenzo-nii and Gai-ojisan, and even Sansa's teammates, Chiyoko-neesan and Kabuto (Kabuto was weird. He smelled wrong and his smiles were all fake, but his Aneue liked him so Naruto accepted him but he wasn't sure if he actually liked him). His precious people would know if he disappeared. And they were actually helping him learn how to be a strong shinobi– Gai-ojisan was brutal in his training, Naruto didn't even want to think about how sore he'd be after their training sessions if it wasn't for Kurama helping him heal his aching muscles.
Gai-ojisan was a way better teacher then any of the Academy senseis, but the Academy was a "necessary evil" if he wanted to earn his hitai-ate, so Naruto dragged himself there at least three days a week to suffer through the lectures and training and tests. He was always relieved when the final bell rang and was usually first out the door, even when he was supposed to be in detention. Like he'd actually attend one of those!
Sasuke always walked back with him to their apartment. Sasuke, unlike Naruto, was always really focused in classes. Naruto usually sat next to Kiba so he wasn't distracting Sasuke. Sasuke didn't need a shield from his crazy fans anymore, so he could sit next to someone who wouldn't be disruptive the entire time like Naruto usually ended up being, even unintentionally.
The Academy was just really boring.
The shortest route from the Academy back to the Yūkaku had them cutting through one of Konoha's bigger marketplaces– it wasn't a route that Naruto took without Sasuke with him, he'd been hit with too many rotten vegetables and rocks to want to risk it. When he was with Sasuke though, the villagers seemed to content themselves with just glaring at him.
Except… as they entered the marketplace, Naruto could feel a sudden prickling on the back of his neck as people seemed to be pausing whatever it was they were doing and turning towards him and Sasuke.
There was nothing good about the looks on their faces, and the air felt tense.
"A good fox," Tama-neechan had once told Naruto, "is a clever fox." Naruto knew he wasn't book-smart. He'd never been good at focusing on or learning from the lectures and scrolls and written tests at the Academy. That didn't matter, though– not really. He might not be book smart, but he'd always had good, clever instincts. A predator's instincts, Waka-gashira had called them once, honed in equal parts by Sansa and Tama, and by the violent, angry villagers he'd spent his formative childhood year surrounded by, allowing him to be focused and aware of his surroundings and keenly tuned to the emotions of those around him.
Naruto trusted his instincts, had trusted them even when he didn't understand them, didn't understand why it was that he was so willing to let dirty, stinking strays into his lonely apartment (somehow sensing Sansa's soul behind those too-wise, too-sad eyes, even when he didn't realise it), didn't understand why he felt such a vindictive rush when using the red-burning-fire, didn't understand why he was so drawn to the song of Sasuke's chakra as it intertwined with his own.
Naruto trusted his instincts, and he knew there was something really, really wrong in the marketplace today.
He was used to feeling the hatred of Konoha's villagers when he had to travel through the village proper to get to the Academy. He was used to their anger. He was even used to their fear. He wasn't used to the sheer terror he could practically taste in the air, stirring around him as he and Sasuke made their way through the marketplace.
Naruto knew terror. He'd caused it himself while helping Tama-neechan get answers from hardened criminals by wielding Kurama's chakra and Killing Intent against them, and he'd felt it himself, had once even literally pissed himself in terror when a shinobi who was visiting the Palace of Flowers hadn't recognised Naruto and pinned him to the ground, pushing his tongue in Naruto's mouth and his hand down Naruto's pants before Kotone-neesan had smashed a vase on his head (Tama-neechan had comforted him after that it was a physiological reaction, the tensing muscles in his abdomen squeezing his bladder as he went into fight or flight mode, but that hadn't made it any less humiliating).
Naruto knew fear. He trusted his instincts. And his instincts were telling him that there was something very, very wrong about the terror in the air around them.
"We need ta go," he hissed to Sasuke, his eyes darting around, searching for the threat, for the danger. "We need ta go now!"
"What–?" A confused Sasuke started to say, and then the first rock hit Naruto on the side of the head, a glancing blow that barely drew blood. It still hurt. Not so much physically, but the little boy inside of Naruto who wanted nothing more than the acceptance of the villagers shriveled and died just a little bit more.
"Who did that?" Sasuke demanded, whirling around, furious.
"It doesn't matter, c'mon, let's go," Naruto urged. The terror in the air was twisting into something darker, something uglier, and everything about this situation screamed danger to his instincts.
"I can't– I can't live through another rampage," a woman cried out desperately, hysterically, above the hissing, murmuring voices. "I can't! I already lost my babies, my babies–"
"We need to kill it now," a wild-eyed merchant said, his hands trembling at his sides as he stared at Naruto like he was seeing Kurama in Naruto's place.
He probably was.
"If the Sanbi got free and killed a Kage, who knows what the Kyuubi will do if it gets free," someone else said, and the angry, terrified murmurs of the crowd were getting louder and louder, and Naruto was surrounded on all sides by the sickening fear-hate-terror.
As more rocks started to be thrown, Naruto was able to bat most of them away, his eyes still darting around, looking for an escape. His heart sunk as it appeared less and less likely they'd be escaping without a fight as the villagers had started crowding closer, closing around him and Sasuke, blocking off any means of escape as more and more people joined the press of bodies.
"This is for my son, you bastard fox!" Someone snarled, and Naruto turned sharply, barely lifting his arm in time to block the hard blow from a bottle of sake swung at the back of his head. The bottle shattered against his arm, the jagged edges of the glass tearing into his skin and he hissed in pain.
Naruto's moment of distraction with the sake bottle resulted in the next several rocks hitting him in the head and chest, and amidst the pain there was a terrible, terrible fear welling up inside him. The emotions were so overwhelming around him and within him that when he heard Sasuke suddenly cry out in pain, it was without even consciously pulling on it that Kurama's fiery chakra flared under his skin, the red-red-red of it now visible at his clawed hands.
Using Kurama's chakra, however unintentionally, was a terrible mistake and Naruto knew it was a terrible mistake immediately; it was like he'd just dropped a match in a puddle of gasoline. Some of the villagers screamed and backed away. Others didn't, instead closing in tighter and using their make-shift weapons, which included glass bottles and fist-sized rocks and even a few knives, to lash out at him as Sasuke was shoved out of the circle of attackers closing tightly around Naruto.
In that moment, Naruto finally understood Sansa's fear of mobs as it felt like he was being crushed by the bodies piling onto him. He cried out at the agony of something sharp being shoved into his gut and something hard cracking against his ribs, then screamed as a heavy glass jug shattered against the side of his face, the shards digging into his right eye as burning alcohol soaked down his shirt.
All Naruto could see was red. The pain was blinding and he thrashed in place, lashing out with clawed fingers, teeth bared as Kurama's suffocating chakra flooded the marketplace.
A knife strike glanced over his shoulder and he could hear the crunch of breaking bones before familiar hands, Sasuke's hands, were suddenly grabbing onto him, Sasuke having fought his way desperately through the crowd to try and reach Naruto. Naruto grasped onto Sasuke like he was a lifeline, blinded by glass and blood and pain. Someone latched onto his other arm as Sasuke tried to pull him free of the press of bodies, and that person yanked so hard that Naruto's shoulder made a popping sound before a fresh surge of excruciating pain hit. It felt as if his arm was being torn from his body, and then another set of hands grabbed his elbow and wrenched it back the wrong way hard. There was a sickening crack and Naruto couldn't help but scream again.
He thought he could hear Sasuke's voice, only for the agony to drive him under as the crush of bodies overwhelmed him once more.
That was when Sasuke screamed.
And then the world burned.
::
Sasuke couldn't think of a time when he'd ever been so terrified. Not even finding the bodies of his parents with Itachi standing over them had left him this desperate and afraid.
It had all happened so quickly; one moment he was taking in the unrest around them and uneasiness on Naruto's face as the blond urged him that they needed to go, the next he was being shoved away from Naruto, pushed back by the press of bodies that were violently tearing into his best friend with whatever objects they had on hand used as make-shift weapons.
It was only with the help of a blunted Academy kunai that Sasuke managed to shove his way back through the press of bodies, desperately shouting Naruto's name as he punched throats and used the kunai to hammer at people's heads and hands and any soft, vulnerable spots he could possibly find.
The whole time he fought, he could hear Naruto screaming.
When Sasuke reached Naruto, he wanted to scream too because Naruto's face was a bloody, swollen mess, pulpy bits of a ruined eye smeared down his cheek, bone sticking out of his arm. He grabbed Naruto, tried desperately to pull him out of the centre of the mob, only for other people to grab onto Naruto, yanking at him like they were trying to tear Naruto to pieces. Sasuke had never heard Naruto make such a terrible, wounded sound as when that man had viciously broken his elbow, bone splintering through skin.
The world spun into brilliant focus around Sasuke, and suddenly it felt as if everyone in the attacking mob of villagers was moving in slow motion. It let Sasuke jab and punch and kick, crushing windpipes and breaking knee-caps, fighting quick and dirty so he could get Naruto out of the crushing mass of bodies trying to drag them both under.
He'd nearly freed them when something struck the side of his head with such force that his vision immediately went blurry. In the moments before the pain hit, he thought he heard someone cry out his name, voice high and panicked, and then he was screaming, on the ground without even remembering how he got there, until there was too much blood gurgling in his throat and he wasn't screaming anymore, he was just choking.
There were other people screaming though. There was lots of screaming. And he could feel the burning, familiar heat of the Kyuubi's chakra blanketing in the air around him, massive and potent and overwhelming in its malevolence and fury, on a scale that Sasuke had never experienced before. He tried to open his eyes but all he saw was the blue sky and a pink blur.
"Don't die, don't die, don't die," he thought he heard someone pleading. Something pressed against his neck hard and Sasuke cried out in agony and protest, lifting weak hands to try and push the pressure away. Fingers squirmed into the wound, pushing inside his neck, and Sasuke sobbed and gagged and then his world faded blissfully to black.
::
Sakura panted, harsh panicked breaths that tore at her throat; cold sweat was plastering her hair against the back of her neck and there was– was something sliding down her forehead that she desperately wanted to wipe away, but she couldn't, she couldn't move, couldn't defend herself, couldn't do anything because she was holding Sasuke's life in her hands.
Her fingers ached and cramped, shaking minutely, even as she continued pressing hard against the terrible, tearing wound in Sasuke's neck, trying desperately to remember how long it was safe to apply direct pressure to the arteries in the neck before the risk of heart attacks or stroke from blood being obstructed from reaching his brain but not knowing any other way she could stop the bleeding. How long had she been holding Sasuke's neck closed? She wondered desperately. It felt like it had been an eternity.
The harsh, searing burn of the malevolent red chakra shrouding Naruto as he tore through the mob of villagers felt as if it was scalding her with its touch, the Killing Intent in the air was so overwhelming that her head was spinning with it, her Inner Sakura curled up and rocking, mumbling gibberish. She could see people falling to their knees, some of them throwing up and soiling themselves. She was surprised that she hadn't.
Sakura couldn't panic, though. She couldn't fall apart. Her hands were slick with blood, she could feel Sasuke's pulse under her fingers as his heart struggled to beat while he choked and gasped for air, face a ghastly milky-grey colour as his red eyes rolled about blindly in his head. Sakura was crying, she knew she was crying, and shinobi shouldn't cry, tears were weakness, but she was just so afraid.
The side of Sasuke's head was a gory mess where the grass-cutting blade had hit him with force; the skin was pulped and bloody, bones jutting oddly, and the blood. There was so much blood. Sakura thought of how, earlier that day even, she'd giggled with Ino and Ami over how cute Sasuke's face was.
Sakura didn't think she'd ever be able to look at his face again without remembering this moment.
Shinobi in their jōnin vests and ANBU in their masks were pouring into the civilian marketplace. It was maybe only a minute or two since the mob had started attacking her classmates, but that had been long enough to almost kill Naruto and Sasuke both.
Sakura couldn't even think about it, how she had used one of her Academy kunai to punch through the gut of a farm-hand she'd once gossiped about the muscles of with Ino as they'd wandered through the once-familiar marketplace. The same farm-hand who had hacked at Sasuke's head with his grass-cutting tool when Sasuke was trying to save Naruto from the violent mob.
Sakura wanted to vomit as she remembered how she had twisted and dragged her kunai down and across the farm-hand's gut, her arm burning with the sheer effort it required, and the hot-wet gush over her wrist as soft, warm shapes bulged out to escape from the opening she had created. The farm-hand had collapsed and Sakura had dragged the screaming Sasuke back, away from the stampeding feet as that scalding, malevolent chakra exploded from Naruto in great big columns of power, shrouding him in burning red. Sakura had watched in terror as her classmate slashed and clawed at the mob until a silver-haired jōnin that Sakura didn't recognise appeared in front of him and seized into Naruto, pulling him close instead of pushing him away like Sakura's instincts were screaming at her to, one of his hands wrapping around to firmly squeeze the back of Naruto's neck.
Naruto immediately went limp in the silver-haired man's hold, and the burning columns of violent, fiery chakra seemed to sink back into his skin. Sakura could have sobbed in relief as the burning heat against her skin seemed to ease.
So distracted by the chaos and violence around her and the boy bleeding out beneath her hands in spite of her desperate attempts to keep his blood inside his body, Sakura barely even noticed the jōnin that had crouched beside her until they touched her shoulder, causing her to flinch violently. Turning from Sasuke's grey, bloodied face, his red-red-red eyes spinning and rolling in his head, Sakura looked to the serious-faced man crouched beside her. He was wearing the ugliest green jumpsuit and had the bushiest, boldest eyebrows paired with a terrible bowl cut, yet Sakura didn't think she'd ever seen a more beautiful sight.
"Can you keep the pressure on?" He asked her, his voice deep and grounding. "Can you keep it up until we get to the hospital?"
Sakura found her voice. "Yes," she choked. "Yes, I can do it."
She found herself and Sasuke scooped up into the jōnin's arms, held carefully against his broad chest. She could feel his heart thundering, he was holding them so tightly. It made her even more aware of Sasuke's sluggish pulse under her fingers as she kept her grip as firm as possible despite the slippery blood.
The man ran so fast that the world blurred around Sakura. She didn't pay attention to it, though, not like she would have at nearly any other time, too focused on keeping Sasuke alive and stopping more of his lifeblood escaping through her fingers as she kept the artery pinched closed with one hand, and applied pressure with the other.
Time skipped and blurred. A blink and they were racing over the roofs of Konoha. Another blink, and Sakura was kneeling over Sasuke on a hospital stretcher, a medic with ash-grey hair and black-rimmed glasses running hands lit green with chakra over Sasuke's head.
"Rapid and massive major carotid artery bleed," he barked out, "extensive penetrating injury to his left frontotemporal and preauricular region. Pulse rate 140 beats per minute and oxygen saturation was 80%. Active arterial bleed from the maxillary artery, anterior to the mandibular neck. Get me an endotracheal tube and group O red blood cells for immediate transfusion!"
Sakura trembled as the medic's eyes flicked up to meet hers; he appeared calm and focused, which was the opposite to how she felt; dizzy and teary and nothing like a proper shinobi should be.
"You're doing very well," the medic soothed her, "you've kept him alive; let me do the rest now." He positioned his hands, glowing green with cool healing chakra, over hers, poised over the gaping wound in Sasuke's neck. "Ready?" The medic asked.
No! Sakura wanted to scream, but instead she nodded and the medic smiled at her. "Okay," he said, "three, two, one–"
Even the brief moment where Sakura let go of the artery and moved her hands away was enough for a spray of blood to hit her in the face, and she tried not to gag as Sasuke's blood dripped into her eyes and mouth.
The medic's hands was surrounded by brilliant green as one pinched the artery and the other passed gently over the pulped, bludgeoned side of Sasuke's face.
"Multiple left side skull fractures with multiple comminuted fractures involving the zygomatic process of the left temporal bone, lateral wall of left orbit, left orbit apex, left superior orbital fissure and left optic canal, squamous part of left temporal bone, wall of sphenoid and ethmoid sinuses, and the greater and lesser wing of the sphenoid bone. Acute subarachnoid hemorrhage along the left Sylvian fissure and an acute subdural hemorrhage along the frontotemporal convexity with brain swelling," the medic listed. "Someone move the girl and get her a shock blanket. We need to take Sasuke into surgery now!"
It didn't register that 'the girl' referred to was her until Sakura was being lifted from the stretcher by the jōnin in green. For a moment, her instincts kicked in and she tried to fight, tried to kick herself free because Sasuke needed her, he needed her, he was dying–
The green jōnin crushed her to his chest, firm and secure and Sakura found herself sobbing hysterically as she clutched onto him.
"Shh, shh," the jōnin soothed, "you did it. You did it. You kept him alive. The medics will do the rest now."
"I could feel him dying," Sakura sobbed. "He was dying, and I could do nothing!"
"Then let this be a teaching moment," the green jōnin said, firm but kind. "Do not despair, Young Blossom, for you are in the springtime of your Youth; you will overcome this and you will learn how to do better. Do not let this crush your burning will!"
"And Naruto–" Sakura kept babbling, frantic and terrified as she clung to the jōnin with desperate blood-wet fingers. "He was so hurt, they kept hurting him, they wouldn't stop–"
"Naruto's safe now," the jōnin soothed, "he's been taken here to the hospital and he's been guarded by the second strongest shinobi in all of Konoha, I swear to you, he's safe."
Sakura sniffed loudly, pulling back to try and wipe away her tears with the back of her arm. It came back smeared and bloody and Sakura almost started crying again at the sight of Sasuke's blood on her. Sasuke and the farm-hand's (but she couldn't even think about him and what she'd done to him to save Sasuke's life, not right now).
"If Naruto's being guarded by the second strongest shinobi in Konoha, then who's the strongest?" She asked wetly, trying to distract herself. The jōnin smiled at her, wide and beaming.
"Why, it is I!" He proclaimed. "For I have won more challenges than my Eternal Rival who is now protecting Naruto from any harm as he is healed."
"I don't even know your name," Sakura admitted, tearing up again. The jōnin boomed out a laugh, his expression as warm as his eyes as he looked down at her.
"My name is Gai, Konoha's Mighty Green Beast," he declared. "And what is your name, Young Blossom?"
"I'm Sakura," Sakura said shyly. "Haruno Sakura."
Gai's smile widened. "And it is a true pleasure to meet you, Young Sakura– the Will of Fire burns brightly in you!"
"But I was so scared," Sakura said in a very small voice, looking down at her feet in shame. Her sandals were flecked with blood.
"And yet, even through your fear, you persevered, making you a true shinobi of Konoha!" Gai declared.
"Really?" Sakura whispered. Gai's face softened, and he placed a large, calloused hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently.
"Really, truly," he promised her solemnly. "Now, tell me, who do you most want to be with right now?"
"I…" Sakura trailed off, before saying plaintively, "I want my mama." She couldn't help the babyish name that slipped out, because suddenly all she wanted was Haruno Mebuki's arms wrapped around her, the familiar scent of her cherry blossom perfume flooding her senses.
"Tell me where to find her and we shall go there at once!" Declared Gai, giving her an enthusiastic double thumbs up.
"But Sasuke– Naruto–" she tried to protest, seized by the sudden fear of what would happen to them if she left, if she wasn't here to help them. Gai's face gentled again.
"Your dedication to your comrades gives you great credit, Young Blossom," he told her, making Sakura blush slightly despite herself. "An important part about being a shinobi, however, is also knowing when you must take care of yourself."
Sakura looked down at herself, at her blood-soaked hands, at the spray of red that stained her qipao, the dirt on her leggings where she had been kneeling. Her hair was stuck to the back of her neck and she thought her face must look an absolute fright, covered in smeared blood as it was.
"Is there somewhere I can clean up a bit first?" She asked Gai. "I don't want to scare my mother."
"Of course!" Gai beamed down at her, and Sakura smiled shyly back up at him.
"Thank you, Gai-san," she told him. "For everything. If you hadn't come…" Sakura couldn't help her shudder as she remembered being back there on that street, holding Sasuke's life in her hands while that malevolent chakra burned red and furious in the air, the stench of the disemboweled farm-hand stinking up the air.
"Do not linger on the what ifs, Young Blossom," Gai told her, gentle but firm. "That will only ever dim the springtime of your Youth. Focus instead on the victories you have achieved today– you have saved a comrade's life, and helped to protect another comrade from unjust harm. You did so well, Sakura."
Sakura couldn't help it. She started to cry again, but Gai seemed to understand that these were tears of relief.
Her parents were both home when she and Gai arrived there, though her frantic father looked as if he was preparing to leave, no doubt to search for her considering how late she was and Sakura didn't doubt that word would have spread about Konoha like wildfire about the mob in the marketplace.
Sakura thought that both Kizashi and Mebuki almost had heart attacks when they saw her being escorted home by a jōnin, in addition to being dressed in the over-large pair of hospital scrubs that Gai found for her while she was scrubbing the dried, tacky blood off her face and hands and wringing it out of her hair. Sakura took one look at her parents before she started crying again, stumbling forwards into her mother's arms, which swooped around her to hug her tightly as if she was never going to let go of Sakura again.
It was nearly two hours later, after Sakura had spent a long time crying in her mother's arms before taking a proper shower and changing into fresh, clean clothes with absolutely no blood on them, that she returned to the living room. Gai was long gone but Sakura was surprised to see her parents were not waiting alone.
Her aunt Ayaka was sitting in their living room, looking as elegant as she always did, in addition to a girl that Sakura had only ever gotten glimpses of when the girl met Naruto and Sasuke at the Academy, though she had certainly been a topic of conversation in the Haruno household.
Uzumaki Fuyuko, clad in a black dress that appeared to be fashioned out of leather fish scales, layered to form a sort of armored bodice over her torso, her brilliant red hair styled intricately in several braids woven together in a thick crown around her head, smiled at Sakura, her teeth sharp and white.
"Hello Sakura," she said. "I've heard a lot about you."
Oh, thought Sakura faintly. She hadn't been expecting this at all.
::
Notes:
Bit of a strange crossover, I know, but I was reading a Naruto fanfiction the other day that made me angry-sad and I thought "oh my god, he really needs someone on his side" and for some reason, I thought of Sansa Stark, because she would ace the village politics and also I can just see her being really scornful of Konoha because it's so young and that amuses me. Sansa isn't going to become a kunoichi in the usual sense of a Naruto fan-fiction, because there's more to being a BAMF then being a child soldier, but Konoha had better watch out, because she's not about to let them get away with, well, anything when it comes to her new, precious brother.