Naruto 1. From A Mother

Turn Sadness to Happiness

Arc 1: Escape Iwa

Chapter 1: From a Mother

Haruno Sayuri wondered, as she stared into the dark, silent night, what had possessed her when he agreed to follow her ninja boyfriend back to Iwa and if she could go back in time, would she change it, knowing the awful future ahead.

They had met during her family's merchant caravan across the elemental nations. He was her ninja-in-dark-armor, and she his damsel in distress. The time they knew each other was short, only barely reaching a month, but their love burned brighter than a thousand suns. Right before they ended their commission of the Iwa nin, Daisuke pleaded with her to stay with him and not return to her homeland of Konoha. There was no other option but to agree—Sayuri knew the strength of her maiden's love would see her through the difficult transition to the Iwa-lifestyle, and her parents were eager to see her wed and happy. And out of the house, of course, because they wanted to begin thinking about retirement.

It didn't take much time to sign the papers that deemed her a citizen of the Rock Village, and even sooner came the wedding. Right before she left to speak her vows, Sayuri's mother had cornered her and asked if this was really what she wanted, that there was no rush to settle down.

"Of course!" Sayuri answered, delicately holding her bouquet close. "Our love is strong and true!" And just like that, Gojima Sayuri became Haruno Sayuri. Her parents left a few days later, leaving the newlyweds to their own devices.

And from those devices popped out a small bundle of squishy cooing called a baby, merely a year into their marriage. Sayuri wanted a modern name like Ako or Biiko or even Shiko, but Daisuke was set on naming her after his grandmother, whose hair color was passed onto the small child. So Sakura joined the family in their little home and all seemed well.

At least at first. Sayuri couldn't have been happier with her chuunin husband's pay, but Daisuke wanted to provide more for his family, and became jounin. At this point Sayuri had become accustomed to her husband's constant presence at the home, and hadn't expected the sudden change of mission work that came with a new rank.

"What do you mean you'll be gone for a whole month?!" she seethed over the kitchen stove, Sakura balanced strongly on her hip. The tiny five year-old watched curiously.

"I mean I'll be gone for a whole month," Daisuke replied, frustrated. "This mission is taking me outside of the borders, and travel isn't going to be quick because we're protecting civilians."

"And what am I going to do with you gone? I can't manage the store _and_ watch Sakura!" As a request from her parents, Sayuri had opened a branch of Gojima Marketing in Iwa as a side job to supplement their income.

"Then get her a babysitter." Daisuke took his daughter from Sayuri's hip and held her up. "She's not a bad kid—just request a team of genin to supervise her during the day. Iwa nin get discounts on D-rank missions, remember?" Sakura smiled at her father and welcomed him home.

"But what if they hurt her?" Sayuri hissed into the pot. "They're just kids!"

Her husband groaned. "One of my buddies a while ago took on a team. They're not fresh out of the academy, but they haven't taken on any dangerous missions yet. Recently, they botched a small delivery mission pretty badly, so my friend's looking for a way to punish them."

"And you think that I'll let you use my daughter as a punishment! Augh!" Sayuri threw a plate of vegetables into the soup. The plate would have gone in too, had Daisuke not appeared behind her.

"And I think you'll trust my judgment. I've seen the kids personally, and they're not brutes. Their teacher is my old teammate from the genin days. He's someone that I believe can protect you if something happens." Daisuke smiled bitterly when Sayuri barked out a laugh.

"The worst that could happen is someone trying to pickpocket from the store." Sighing, Sayuri leaned into the warm chest behind her, feeling the licks of that whirlwind romance that landed her here in the first place. Sakura chose that moment to burst into conversation with the soup as it bubbled over. "Fine," she said after staring into her girl's jade eyes. "Go put in the request form and I'll see how it goes."

The days that followed were eventful for the young wife. Daisuke left, and the doorbell rang. A tall, lanky man in all black stood behind a group of three nervous kids. The man was Morimoto-sensei and his three students were Rumi, Deidara, and Omaru. Rumi was blue-haired, Deidara was blond, and Omaru was a surprising orange. They filed into her home as Sayuri left to retrieve their tiny charge.

"Now, she's not a biter or screamer, but she will pull hair," the young woman said uneasily and she passed the toddler into the arms of the nearest genin, the blond one. Sayuri hoped that Sakura would be safest with a girl—Rumi kept his distance, close to the door, and Omaru, despite the masculine name, was incredibly androgynous, and she couldn't tell what gender he was. Immediately after settling into Deidara's arms, Sakura giggled and wrapped her hands into the genin's long hair, giving it a good tug.

Sayuri had to do a double take at Deidara when a deep, male voice said, "No kidding she pulls, un! Yow!" She nearly fainted when a light, girlish chuckle came from Rumi's direction.

"You're just a wimp," Rumi laughed as she—he?—took her/his very masculine frame over to Deidara and led her… _him?_... into the toy-ridden living room. Omaru followed silently, sparing only a smug glance at Sayuri's shocked expression.

Sayuri nearly jumped out of her skin when Morimoto-sensei spoke from behind her, "There's a reason why we're known as Squad Genderbender." He stalked away into the living room as well, and Sayuri caught the delighted giggling of her little baby girl coupled with Deidara's boyish grumbles.

Despite her initial reservations, the team proved to be excellent care for her child. Sakura especially took to Deidara, and preferred to sleep on his chest during naptime. The blond never minded, and took it as a chance to catch a nap as well. The rest of Squad Six-Delta, as Sayuri later learned to be their official designation number, used the quiet to help around the house and store.

At first it was only a short-term project, but as Daisuke's assignments became more frequent and longer, Sayuri found herself calling upon the team to help her out more often. Between their own short missions and babysitting duty, the wife found herself warming up to the genin; they often found tiny baked presents waiting for them after a long day.

Before long, Sakura was six and at the age to begin her own ninja training. Daisuke and she had exchanged many words late at night as their very intelligent child slept unawares, but eventually the doting mother gave up. Sakura herself had expressed an interest in the ninja arts, fueled by her caretakers' own stories about grand missions and mystical ninja magic. Her husband wouldn't let up on the matter, and she even knew that Squad Six-Delta eagerly awaited the day when they could begin helping Sakura train. Deidara _really_ wanted to share with Sakura the art of making explosives. Rumi, who turned out to be quite the gentle giant, wanted to help the tiny girl build flexibility and muscle through her family's techniques. Omaru, who belonged to a very secretive clan, couldn't think of much to impart, and instead promised to help Sakura with chakra theory.

Sayuri also expected Morimoto-sensei wanted to pass on the Dark-and-Looming technique, but there was no way she would let that happen.

Almost like her own immigration papers, Sayuri had Sakura's application papers submitted and accepted faster than she could believe.

"I'm so excited!" Sakura tittered as she ran in front of her two parents. She darted around excitedly, long pink hair tied up in a ponytail identical to the style she often saw Deidara sport. Sayuri watched on fondly, Daisuke's arm wrapped around her shoulders gently. It wasn't often he was home for long stretches, but he had specially requested this week off to spend with his family, celebrating the new ninja-in-training.

Many nights had she spent lying awake in bed, acutely aware of the cold emptiness beside her. Sayuri knew nightmares well, and feared the possibility of one day being told her husband wasn't coming home. Though they had steadily grown more apart due to his frequent missions, there was still a love she felt for him, even if it wasn't the storm it once was. Sayuri had often cried in fear, and now her small daughter was willing going toward the same fate as her husband. It was a bitter pill, and as a mother Sayuri wanted to steal them both away to safety, but understood Sakura's desire to be like her father and friends.

Daisuke squeezed his hand, letting his arm fall from her body to follow after Sakura. Sayuri took a deep breath and marched on bravely.

Sakura spent the next three years soaking all that the ninja life could offer her. Sayuri didn't know if the reason for Sakura being the number one student was her five tutors, her ridiculous literary intelligence, or her surprisingly developed chakra control. At nine years old the small pinkette was shaping up to be quite the genius, though it seemed her only weak point was her basic body strength. Despite having Rumi work with her almost every day, Sakura had only built small, defined muscles instead of the larger sustained strength the larger girl was looking for. Sayuri understood that instead of trying the same thing, Rumi changed track to focus on Sakura's flexibility, and Omaru began working with Sakura on chakra augmentation. It helped with overall performance, but from the report cards Sayuri would receive every month, it didn't save her scores, with physical capability consistently low marks.

Of course, Sayuri thought, with most Iwa-nin specializing in extreme taijutsu and Doton jutsu, Iwagakure placed a special regard on strength. In another village, Sakura might have been far overachieving.

Regardless, life was beginning to move at a much faster pace. Squad Six-Delta had returned, victorious in the Chuunin Exams hosted by Suna and all sporting new vests. This would be Sakura's last year in the academy, as unlike most villages, Iwa started their ninja young at ten. Of course, this meant that genin often stayed that way for a long time, Sayuri understood with Morimoto-sensei's help. Other villages chose to begin their genin career at twelve or thirteen, and on average promoted at fifteen. On the other hand, when his team had begun their customary babysitting so long ago, they had all only been eleven, with Deidara pulling low at ten and two months. They were all chuunin now at sixteen (fifteen and two months for their little blondie), but with an additional two years of experience as compared to other chuunin.

Morimoto-sensei had confessed to her that his team was actually a little late to the party, only because they tended to act a little recklessly on the battlefield and failed their first exam. Most Iwa genin promoted at fourteen. He predicted Sakura to be even earlier with her current promise of talent, and pegged her to be chuunin no later than thirteen, twelve at the earliest.

"Unlike a village like Konoha, which raises its few talented ninja quickly and dispenses promotions like candy to get their geniuses onto the field, Iwa prefers a more solid basic training. This results in Konoha having more higher-ranked nin than us, but also an equally high body count. Iwa has a lot of lower ranked nin, but our genin can survive for longer and the older ones are typically stronger than their chuunin."

Sayuri took solace in this knowledge. At least Sakura would be starting gently and gain a good foundation of field experience first—that might have also explained why, as compared to when she still lived in Konoha, Daisuke had still only been a chuunin when they had first met at nineteen.

Life looked pretty good for Sayuri and her little family. She was comfortable, with a caring-but-absentee husband and a beautiful-and-talented daughter. Her nightmares left her with each passing day, and she looked forward to living out her life in Iwa.

If it hadn't been for the war, that is.

A few months into Sakura's last academy year, the village of Iwa was rocked by a civil war. The outskirts of the main part of the village began a brutal assault assisted by a mysterious ally. Sayuri didn't understand why, but she knew that they lived near the center of the village, Iwakage's stronghold, and the safest place in the whole village. Refugees from the closest burgs scurried into their part of the village, ravaged and hazed by the opposing forces. Over the walls, Sayuri could see towers of smoke rise from the distance. The nights were no longer silent, with the shuffling of shinobi feet hopping over all of their roofs. She had yet to see her own husband pass by—Morimoto-sensei had dropped in at least once, and gave her a quick summary of the action outside.

The resistance was holding back decently against the rest of the Iwa nin, but their unknown enemy stressed them more than he wanted to admit. Daisuke was okay, but hadn't passed through because of his position as one of the few jounin of Iwa. Her husband had taken on a leadership position in the war effort. The chuunin-leveled Squad Six-Delta was now designated as Echo-Two, and handled most of the messenger duty from the frontlines to the Iwakage. Their strengths and ability to barrel through battlefields landed them that job, he had explained with a strained voice.

That was the first day Sayuri ever saw Morimoto-sensei cry. The taciturn statue of a man was not one to show emotion or weakness, and the woman suddenly understood the severity of their situation.

"They're going to be here soon, aren't they?" she asked quietly, glancing at her sleeping daughter. Sakura had taken residence on the couch, offering her bed to a family of three refugees. They all had sported some kind of injury, and Sakura was adamant that she was more than equipped to handle the slightly lumpy couch in the cold living room. Sayuri also suspected through mother's intuition that her daughter felt paranoid in the back corner of the house, and preferred to listen to the rustling of the resistance.

"We're trying our best," her companion whispered, his dark eyes resting on Sakura's slumbering form as well. "But it's not enough. We think our defenses are fool-proof, and suddenly everyone is dead. We don't know our other enemy, and it's literally killing us." In another surprising move for the quiet man, Sayuri found herself drawn into his arms carefully. His long arms rested heavily on her small frame, and for a moment she thought that the nin would collapse under his own weight.

"Morimoto-sensei?" Sayuri said quietly, bringing her hands up to his shoulder blades.

"You have two days." His voice was thick but controlled. "I can only say we'll last for two days at the most—then the wall will fall with Iwa." Sayuri felt her breath catch in her throat. True, she had thought of their side losing once or twice, but never had she actually believed it possible. She'd seen what the revolt had done to the refugees who managed to escape; there were no doubts in her mind about what would be her and Sakura's fates if they didn't escape.

"What can we do?" she whispered in a fright, green eyes wide. "They're patrolling so much no one can get out of the village walls, let alone the border. They're not letting anyone out at all!"

Morimoto-sensei hugged her tighter, and dropped his voice even lower. Sayuri, having been lectured by Sakura on ninja code, caught the jist and quieted down to match.

"Listen," it was difficult to do so, considering the almost nonexistent whisper Morimoto-sensei used, "right before the crest of the fighting, my squad is going to disappear from the frontlines to deliver a message to the Iwakage. In the midst of the confusion, two jounin are going to abandon the resistance. In a serendipitous moment, all of them are going to run through this street, and then gun it for the borders." Civilian wife and ninja sensei shared a determined look, the darkness splaying shadows across their faces. Sayuri's green eyes reflected the moonlight with an eerie sheen, while Morimoto-sensei's glinted dangerously.

"Who's to say that a mother and her child wouldn't also go out for a trip to retrieve their rations?" added Sayuri. The shinobi nodded and backed away from the young woman who had to live through too much.

"Then that would be fateful indeed." Without another word the dark shinobi left, slipping through the window with grace. Tensely, Sayuri watched his form melt into the shadows just as a pair of Iwa nin crossed overhead. The night was quiet again for a short moment. The mother watched the night outside, and was brought to her current situation, the memories coming full circle.

Would she have changed it? Out of all the ups and downs, the sleepless nights and long days, Sayuri knew she wouldn't. When she ran away with Daisuke, her heart was strong and naïve—life seemed brighter than the sun. Even as that feeling faded, Sakura appeared to dull the pain. Her lovely baby came out from all of this, and she would live through another heartbreak if it meant keeping her child.

Sayuri looked at her daughter once more, only to jump in surprise.

Sakura sat up on the couch across from her, eyes wide and just as luminous as her mother's.

"How long have you been awake?"

"Long enough," came Sakura's short reply as she shoved the blankets off her legs. Sayuri watched her child carefully, wondering how much she had heard truly. In response Sakura gazed up at her mother, intelligent jade eyes observing her. It was scarily impersonal—as the war continued and Squad Echo-Two visited her daughter, Sayuri tracked how the hope drained from her eyes to be replaced by paranoia and dread. She supposed that Sakura could infer more about the happenings outside the wall than she ever could.

Quickly, Sakura looked away and began rustling through her things. The young girl had prioritized her belongings and packed them into a rucksack, always kept nearby. She claimed it held all of her "precious" and "emergency" materials. Sayuri almost fainted when she saw her baby girl pull out a case of brand new kunai and a holster.

"Sakura…"

"Mom, I'm not dumb," Sakura interrupted, mimicking Morimoto-sensei's low volume. "I saw this coming a long time ago, but I didn't want to believe it. Iwa isn't winning this war—and the revolt will kill us." Sighing, she stared at her mother with a suffering look. "I need you to understand that the only reason I'm not out there right now is because this started right after the year began. If it had been a few more months, they could have claimed the entire class as an early graduation and sent into the field."

"They wouldn't do something like that," Sayuri tried deflecting, but it made sense. After the fifth month of their tenth year, the academy students really were considered genin—the remaining months were just for testing out the squads the sensei had guessed would work well. When they didn't, the teams that failed were rehashed out, and at last released to the world. The jounin sensei were given a balanced team that worked straight from the get-go.

"They would and can," Sakura returned, finishing the equipping of weapons. Then, she went into the hall closet and pulled out a bag similar to hers, which she handed to Sayuri. "Go and fill this with your things, Mom. Make sure you get everything you need, first—nothing perishable or fragile, unless you have to have it."

"Sakura…" Sayuri quietly spoke, sadly watching her daughter prepare for their defection. Said daughter was rummaging through the supply closet for utilities and other weapons.

Sakura turned to look at her mother. She sniffed once, and quickly brought her sleeve to her face to wipe away the wetness there. "We… We have to be strong, Mom." Her voice was weighed by emotion, deep with tears. "That's a real war out there, and anything can happen. If we don't prepare for it, we'll…" Sakura's voice caught in her throat, constricted.

In a second mother was embracing daughter. Sayuri gathered Sakura up into her arms, kneeling to meet eye-to-eye. Sakura shook but refused to let her tears spill out. Vaguely, Sayuri registered her own hands shaking.

"It's going to be okay, Sakura," she hummed, swaying the young girl back and forth as she had years ago. "We're going to make it okay. Somehow, someway." They sat in the silence of the night, like the quiet before the storm. After a long time, Sayuri released her child and stood, brushing off her pants. Sakura watched curiously. It was difficult, but the older woman managed to put on a brave grin. "I better start packing, huh?"

"Yeah." Sakura hoarsely whispered, watching her mother disappear up the stairs.

Sayuri was quick to pack. It was easy splitting up her essentials and nonessentials, but her sentimentality kept her stuck at her wall of knick-knacks. A large series of wall shelves kept the various gifts she'd been given through the years and items tied to important memories. Most of the items were heavy or fragile, completely useless—in a heartbreaking choice, Sayuri removed all the pictures from their frames, gathered the jewelry Daisuke had given her, and plucked a single tiny ceramic of Deidara's creation. Then, she steeled herself emotionally and crawled underneath her bed.

In the floor was a small, almost imperceptible trapdoor that hid an even smaller hole. Daisuke had called it their emergency stash, and had instructed her on the various items placed inside; their names flit across her memory in Daisuke's voice:

"A tanto," as she pulled out a short blade. It was heavy in her hands and glimmered in the moonlight.

"Chakra pills," from a tiny blue drawstring bag, and, "Blood pills," from a red one. These were only to boost stamina or quick healing, he had said, with the chakra pills being specifically for himself or Sakura.

"Explosive tags, smoke bombs, wire, rope." Nearly the stash was empty now, with the most important still lying at the bottom. Sayuri reached deep down and pulled out three more items.

"Half a million yen," she whispered this time, holding the stack of bills in her hands. They began saving this shortly after Daisuke's promotion at his behest. The money was to be split up and hidden in their belongings wisely.

Next came a thick cardboard tube, tied with a yellow string. "Passports to Suna." It had taken a little sneaky maneuvering on her part, but Sayuri had managed to use her status as civilian merchant to procure three passports in her family's name. Should they ever have to leave Iwa in a panic, their closest border would be Suna, to the east. From there the "Gojima" family would gain access into Suna with the intention of looking for new business opportunities.

The last bundle sent her mood even lower. It was a pristine white envelope tied to a large cardstock folder. In its time under the floorboards, the package only showed signs of its edges being crumpled. "My Konohan papers…" The folder held her original birth certificate marking her as a Konoha native, a copy of her immigration papers, and a family roster connecting her to the Leaf Village presently. The tiny white letter was a handwritten acknowledgement of her parents claiming the information to be true, and a general request for solace in Konoha's walls.

This was originally a surprise from her parents in her first year of marriage. The attached note had read, "Just in case he starts beating you! ~Your Mother". While she found it humorous, Daisuke saw it as a fail-safe for his wife, who was very pregnant at the time.

"If you ever need to run away from here," he told her seriously, "Your safest bet is Konoha. You have history there, and family. This practically guarantees you access into Konoha with a decent chance of reestablishing your residency there." At the time, Sayuri found it to be another joke from her protective husband. Now, she understood just how precious these slips of paper were.

With everything put into its rightful places, the Haruno woman found herself restless. She edged her way downstairs in the dark, the power having been cut a day ago. Sakura was waiting for her downstairs, dressed in an all brown ensemble that she recognized as a training outfit for stealth classes. Her little girl was busy plastering explosive notes to kunai, and a few of her own handmade bombs littered the floor.

"I'm going to be okay," Sakura spoke up before her mother even had a chance to take a step into the room. "I'm going to be okay." It sounded more like Sakura was convincing herself, but Sayuri knew little on how to help prep her daughter. Instead she carefully crossed the floor, moving to the couch. Not much longer, Sakura joined her, covered in clay and ink, and the two nestled into a restless sleep.

They awoke to the sound of bombs. Explosions rocked their house, the windows shaking in fear. Sayuri jumped awake, disoriented from the small quakes that shifted the ground to the point of the floorboards splintering.

"Mom, move, now!" Sakura quickly ordered, using her own weight to pull the woman to the ground. By instinct Sayuri tucked her head underneath her arms, just in time for the wall to explode inward. Shards of glass and chunks of masonry shot through the air like kunai, tearing into the opposite wall and shattering more fragile decorations. The couch managed to protect them mostly—Sayuri felt the sting of a few shallow cuts, and Sakura had a superficial wound cut across her forehead. Despite the newness of the wound, already her daughter had blood pouring down the side of her cheek.

Sakura herself looked even fiercer with the blood, as she cautiously checked over the top of the couch with grit teeth. Sayuri pulled their bags closer, holding one of them close. Her breathing had become shaky during that intense moment, and the room swayed to the side. The woman closed her eyes, focusing on pushing down the panic that gripped her body. Steadying herself with a deep breath, Sayuri waited for Sakura to give an order, who seemed to be handling herself with greater poise.

Sakura didn't have to speak, however, thanks to the young boy that barreled through the hole in the wall. "Sakura!" Deidara yelled, hanging on the rubble. He leaned into the living room from his perch, searching with desperate blue eyes for any sign of the younger girl.

"Here!" she replied. Sayuri followed her little girl as she hastily threw on her backpack and left the safety of their couch. The older woman assessed the blonde chuunin quickly—burn marks, a few cuts, and almost covered from head to toe in ash. He was panting, like he just ran a marathon. Blond and pinkette met each other in the middle of the room, sharing a quick embrace. Another explosion from close by sent them scrambling into offensive stances, mindful to keep the civilian behind them. They hacked as smoke billowed into the room, followed by the silhouette of a ninja. His uniform was a standard dark brown suit with a tan vest, but the strip of yellow that encircled his left bicep was unfamiliar to Sayuri. By the way Deidara tensed and quickly armed himself, she could infer that it was the revolt's symbol.

Before the man could take another step further, he was impaled by a flurry of curved knives. The blood shot out of him like a fountain, and the unknown ninja fell to the ground in a heap. Sayuri immediately felt relief, recognizing those weapons as her husband's signature tools. Her heart swelled as Daisuke kicked the dying—or dead—man to the side in order to slide into the room on rubble. In a moment she was by his side, fretting over the visible wounds on his body. Her husband just chuckled softly and pushed her away.

"You have to go, now," he painfully bit out. Sayuri could see him favoring his right leg, along with keeping the same arm close to his side. Daisuke's dirty blond hair was caked with blood and mud, sticking to his sweat-covered forehead. "There's a team oncoming. _He_ was just a scout." He sighed his personal deep sigh, the sign that Sayuri knew that the scales weren't tipping to their side. In fact, by the way her husband's eyes were bagged and heavy, she almost knew what was coming next. "I'm going to stay here and distract them—"

"_No_!" she cried out, stomping her foot down. The bits of window underneath her foot crunched from the force. Sayuri looked up into her husband's eyes, trying to communicate everything she needed to say and never had. Quietly, Daisuke closed his eyes and gave her a small, sad smile. "No…" Her voice caught in her throat, the beginnings of a sob gathering in her lungs.

Sakura stared into her father's face for a moment. Sayuri watched behind a wall of tears as daughter stepped up and tightly clung to her father's pant leg, face pressed into the hard muscle of his calf. Using his good hand, Daisuke gently ruffled Sakura's hair.

"I'm so proud of you," he said, looking down at his cute baby. An idea came to him, a quick brightening of his eyes that sent his good hand from Sakura's scalp to the pockets of his dirty vest. He pulled out a plain looking scroll and offered it to his daughter. She took it silently, the deep frown in her face pulling hard at her cheeks. "It's just a storage scroll, but it has something in it I always wanted you to have. Become strong for me, okay?"

"Y-yeah," replied Sakura, her voice quavering. Daisuke opened his mouth to say something else, but screams suddenly erupted from upstairs. Deidara jumped, the grip on his weapon so tight the bone could rip through skin at any point.

"They're here, un!" he hissed, leaning for the closest exit subconsciously. The tender moment for the family fell apart, and Sayuri could witness the cold shelling up of her husband's emotions. Thunderous feet raced around on the ceiling, most likely searching for any other refugees hiding. Deidara skittishly kept edging for the huge hole in the wall.

Daisuke snapped into a battle position, knives suddenly filling the gaps between his fingers. Sayuri could only imagine the extreme mental control that kept him from wincing in pain. "Go!" he shouted at them, quickly dispatching the first nin to come downstairs. Deidara complied, pulling Sakura after him. Sakura kept mind of her mother, latching onto her in turn. The wife hesitated at first, trying to capture what could possibly be the last thing she saw of her husband. As they exited through the hole, Sayuri caught her husband's heart-winning grin sent to her direction. Then, concrete.

Then, the real chase began.

Sayuri never knew she could run so fast in her life. Deidara kept up the front, sending out kunai quickly. Every so often he would drop a tiny spider made of clay from the tiny mouths in his hands. Seconds later an explosion would follow, deterring any pursuers they might have attracted in their sprint. Sakura kept a tight grip on her hand, but steeled her head forward.

Sayuri wished she had the same strength as her daughter, but the older woman couldn't help but glance at their desolate surroundings. Buildings toppled to the ground, chunks of rocks pinned bodies to the rubble. Fire and smoke surrounded them as battles occurred, accompanied by the shaking customary of high-level Earth techniques. Every few steps she'd hear a moan or shriek pierce the sound of collapsing buildings—Sayuri fretted for the children of Iwa, hoping they managed to either hide well or die painlessly. Amazingly, they'd avoided any shrapnel sent over their heads.

Up until that point, at least, Sayuri thought as she doubled over in pain. She instantly clutched at her stomach, trying to not look at the long shard of metal sticking in it. It bled profusely despite the strong hands of her daughter pressed into the gash. Deidara swore loudly, reaching for something to help her. He managed to find a few bandages, and with a very painful tug, the metal was dislodged from her abdomen. Sayuri looked into the gray sky and saw stars. Meanwhile, Deidara and Sakura handled a quick wrapping job.

"I don't know how we're going to carry her," Deidara fraught, looking between Sayuri and her daughter rapidly. The woman had a high pain tolerance, but it wasn't enough to keep her moving at a steady pace. And he wasn't about to kid himself either—Sayuri and Sakura were both aware of his position as the least-muscular of his teammates. "If only Rumi was here…"

"Will I do?" said a deep voice that landed behind them with an audible crunch. Sayuri, even in the haze of pain, clearly saw the look of relief that Deidara's face fell into. Morimoto-sensei leaned over her, examining the first-aid applied to her stomach. Like her husband, the man had closed off visible emotions from the outside world. With a rough grunt, he kneeled down and curled his arms around her limp body. Sayuri tried to ignore the sense of vertigo as she was hefted above the ground.

"Morimoto-sensei, I love you, un." If the world hadn't been ending around them, the group might have laughed by the blond's admission. The dark teacher just huffed and flicked his chin forward. Deidara followed the unspoken command and took the front again. Sakura quickly copied with only a single worried glance back at her mother. Morimoto-sensei tightened his hold and began a series of long jumps after the younger ninja.

"Rumi and Omaru are waiting ahead of us at the tree line. Once we meet up, we'll head out for Suna." Deidara voiced an agreement, but Sayuri found something wrong with that plan.

"What about Daisuke?" she pushed out, putting the pain at the back of her mind. "He'll meet up with us too, right?" Morimoto-sensei was stony silent for a moment, contemplating on what to say to the injured wife.

"If he can catch up, he will also join us." Before Sayuri could whisper her thanks, he had to qualify the statement further, "But if we're there first, we will not linger. As a unit we cannot afford to hang around one area for long."

'Daisuke will be fine!' Sayuri convinced herself. The image of his sad, almost defeated smile came to the front of her memory, followed by his loving grin. 'He'll… He'll be fine…'

Another few agonizing leaps and they reached the tree line. Of course, as is to be expected in a wartime setting, nothing ended up going according to plan.

"Morimoto-sensei!" Rumi cried out roughly. There was a dark bruise curling around her neck and crawled to her collarbone. She stood over the fallen body of Omaru, protecting herself from an onslaught by a rebel ninja. Deidara jumped into action, screaming the name of his fallen comrade in agony. Together they downed the last ninja, Sayuri just then noticing the other bodies that littered the rocky ground. Sakura sped up and slid toward the squad, Morimoto-sensei following as well.

Deidara was collapsed next to Omaru's body, hands heavily trailed in the dirt. Rumi stood above, looking off to the side. Sayuri saw tears course down all their faces. Sakura was the only one able to keep herself composed, but her bright green eyes never left the pale face of her friend.

"Th-they came out of nowhere," Rumi started explaining. The damage to her throat warped her voice to a rougher, deeper tenor. Every few words she would stop to gather her emotions, but hiccups would break through her defenses. "We were waiting for you guys to arrive, bu-but then this team of rebel nins arrive-ived. O-O-Omaru and I managed to keep them away, but wo-one got through and… and…" She sobbed. Deidara growled and cursed repeatedly, his fists pounding the earth. Sakura stood still.

If Morimoto-sensei was distraught by the death of one of his students, he didn't show it outwardly. Instead, he inhaled deeply through his nose. Sayuri, from her high position, saw Omaru's battered body well. She shed a few tears in his memory, sparing a little time to recall the times he had helped her with inventories and stocking.

"What kind of reality is this?" she found herself whispering in horror as the remaining two chuunin of Squad Echo-Two gathered the shards of their souls. Almost too quickly they were moving ahead and into the forest. Right before they entered the true thickness of the forest, a huge explosion rang out behind them. All the ninja turned reflexively to the source of the sound, and Sayuri gasped in anguish. Flames higher than the walls of Iwa danced above the village, huge black plumes of smoke rising from their side of town. The smell of sulfur and burning assaulted them.

"D-Daisuke!" Sayuri screamed out, desperately trying to sit up in Morimoto-sensei's arms. The jounin kept a strong hold to keep her from aggravating her wound further, but she had already lost any strength left. She collapsed into his hold, weeping openly. Rumi, who was still emotionally sore, began to tear up as well.

Sakura, surprisingly, was the one to remedy the situation. "ENOUGH!" she shouted, stopping mid-run. Everyone stopped around her, watching the shaking of her shoulders. "Enough… If we keep this up, why are we even trying to hide? They'll hear us bawling from a mile away." She turned around to face Rumi, Morimoto-sensei, and her mother. Sayuri's heart broke as she watched the silent tears run down her daughter's face, an eerie sight considering the lack of any other emotion on her face.

"Sakura is correct," Morimoto-sensei gruffly said. "Now, we have no other choice. We must continue on, so that Omaru's and Daisuke's efforts do not go to waste. Squad Echo-Two, this is an order—reign your emotions and focus on the objective!" In a way that she assumed only ninja could do, Sayuri watched as the young shinobi before her dried their tears and steeled their hearts. They marched forward with measured steps, an aura of untouchable fury surrounding them.

The forest stood tall and dark around them, silence growing larger with every leap they took deeper in. Sayuri could faintly see harsh lines furrowed on Morimoto-sensei's face that bent shadows across his face.

"Sensei," Deidara called out, looking behind him. His blond hair whipped in the air, occasionally falling in the way of his eyes. The blue there was more like steel to the wounded woman's gaze, a tough and indestructible will.

"Are you sure about this?" their teacher replied, seriously looking at his remaining male student. Rumi gasped and looked between them, almost ready to break into tears again. Confused, Sayuri looked to her daughter, but the young trainee was closed off from the world and focused solely on her best friend, hands tightly clutched around her father's scroll.

"You can't be for real!" Rumi accused, breathing labored. "There are too many—"

"Rumi, I'm the only one that can do it," Deidara explained somberly. "You're too injured to carry Sayuri-san, and I'm not strong enough, un. You're going to need Morimoto-sensei to cross the border, and we can't afford the time to stop and stage a battle." His female teammate sniffled pitifully, but instead of snot Sayuri noticed a trail of red drip down.

They stopped running, falling to the ground. Sayuri, too lightheaded from her blood loss, had a difficult time following the conversation. Rumi was becoming emotional, and Deidara tried explaining in muffled terms how he was the only one who could do it. "I… chakra levels, un… best at causing… run away… don't… catch up, okay?" Colors began to swirl in her vision, vague smears that represented her precious people. Pink and yellow melded into one for a long hug. Blue joined in. Yellow separated and came closer, just enough so that Sayuri could make out blue dots.

"You don't have much time, un," she heard faintly, like she was underwater. "I'll do my best, sensei!" They began moving again, but the darkness crept up and stole her vision.

Some amount of time later she came back to consciousness, but her hold on the ledge was weak, slipping fast. Sakura leaned over her, face contorted in a way only small children could achieve. Tears mixed with some of the dried blood on her face, creating wet droplets that Sayuri could faintly feel on her cheeks.

"Why's it so cold?" she felt herself ask slowly. Numbly she tried turning her head to look to the side, but the effort was too much, so she sighed and relaxed her muscles. It was almost as if her body was acting on its own, her brain only computing the sensations a second later.

"Mom, hold on!" Sakura whispered, tightening her hand around Sayuri's pale fingers. Sayuri looked at her daughter and tried to call up a tiny smile. There was her beautiful baby girl, green eyes so reminiscent of her father's.

"You're so pretty, Sakura…" It was difficult to speak, her words slurring. Was she drunk or something? Her body felt like it weighed a ton. "I love you so much…" Sayuri didn't know why, but it just felt so important to tell Sakura this. "You are the best thing in my life… You're going be so strong, just like your father…" She sighed deeply. "I feel like I'm going to see him soon…"

There were two other people around her, but she could only clearly make out Sakura's pink hair. Her daughter was openly wailing on her chest, one hand pressed into her abdomen, which felt warm for some reason. They were outside, she registered vaguely. Dotting the sky, stars spread above her like tiny jewels.

"Mom, don't say stuff like that!" her daughter cried, bringing her arms to wrap around her mother. "You're going to be fine! We're almost to Suna!"

"Suna? Sunaaa…" Sayuri moaned. She felt herself slide a little further back, the shadows winding in her peripheral vision. "I love you Sakura… Be safe…"

The little girl sobbed. "I know, Mom, I love you too! Try staying awake, please! Please!" Her voice was strained by tears. Sayuri, with the little strength she could dredge up, lifted a hand to touch her daughter's wet cheeks. She could see all their memories together roll in her mind like an old movie, the sound of flapping film reels growing louder and louder in her head. A first birthday, first knee scrap, first cartwheel… Firsts and their accompanying laughter joined the noise in her head, blocking out Sakura's voice. It made her so tired, but happy, to watch her little girl grow up. Gently, she could feel her body falling backward, the darkness sucking her in. The hands that kept her anchored to the world slowly fading away.

"Sakura, I'm so tired…"

"Mom! _Mom!_"

"I'm just going to go to take a nap…"

"Mom, n-nooo…!"

Sayuri smiled softly and closed her eyes, letting all colors drain from her vision. It felt so nice to go to sleep… Humming, she thought to speak to her baby one more time.

"Wake me up in the morning, honey…"


	2. To A Daughter

Arc 1: Escape Iwa

Chapter 2: To a Daughter

Haruno Sakura wondered, as she stared into the dark, silent night, what she could have done to change everything.

Life was simple up until now. She had been born on March 28th, on a clear spring day in Iwa. Spring was an auspicious time in Iwa, as it signified the slow release of the land from winter's cold grasp. Though she did not remember much of her own infancy, her mother other told her stories of her curious nature and good behavior. A healthy baby, she was—one that liked to laugh.

To be truthful, her most stand-out memories were the ones that included Squad Six-Delta. Everything else seemed like a blur of fuzzy images surrounded by the clear movies of her and Deidara playing with her toys. She, despite being a happy child, did not have many friends back then. She was just too young to begin school, and her mother too busy with the store to bring her to the park. The team of three genin filled up a hole in her life, and remained a fixture there for days.

Sayuri faced her toward a group of four ninja. Hesitantly she handed off her child to the least threatening of the squad, the most beautiful blond-haired girl Sakura had ever seen. That hair was just like gold, and shimmered in the sunlight like fairy dust.

'I must pull it,' she thought. Slowly, her chubby hands reached out to caress the silken locks, and then… _TUG!_

"No kidding she pulls! Yow!" Sakura gasped in surprise, staring up at her caretaker.

"You're just a wimp," Rumi joked, pushing her teammate into the playroom. Deidara sat her down, and stared at the little girl, who hadn't taken her eyes off of him yet. He tilted his head, and she followed, mouth hanging open. In an instant he flinched and embarrassedly scratched his head.

"Sorry, I forgot to put on my gloves today," he admitted. Still, the little girl kept staring. Rumi sighed, and huddled closer to Omaru, waiting for the crying. Deidara held out his hand, and the tiny mouth there grinned and stuck out a tiny tongue. "I guess I must have pinched you, my bad." Sakura didn't move or even look at the odd appendage. The three shared a look, wondering if their charge was a little on the slow side.

"…You're a _boy_!" The little girl's voice sounded so awestruck that Rumi snorted into peals of laughter. Deidara, not expecting that, chuckled to himself, rubbing his palm into his forehead. Sakura joined into the laughter, reaching out to grab the hand Deidara showed her. The blond froze as the young girl stared at it with twinkling eyes. "Hello, Mr. Mouth," she spoke to it, shaking Deidara's one hand. "It's nice to meet you. Do you talk?"

Rumi and Omaru fell over at the blush that raced up Deidara's neck and tinged his ears. To save face, he coughed and refocused on Sakura. Grinning, he took his other hand and stuck it out, palm facing the little girl. At the little girl's delighted squeal, Squad Six-Delta knew they landed themselves a winner. Instantaneously Sakura formed a close relationship with the ninja, taking to them immediately.

In fact, she would be embarrassed to admit that when her father had returned from his mission, she was less than pleased.

"What do you mean Dei-nii won't come back anymore?" Sakura huffed, crossing her arms up at her father. Daisuke, a bit stunned at the visible preference for the blond nin, was stuck in his hugging pose, arms wide open to the empty air. Sayuri laughed.

"They were only here to help out while Dad was gone," she explained slowly, edging Sakura closer to her father. "Aren't you happy Dad is back?" Their little girl just puffed her cheeks and begrudgingly accepted her father's love.

"You wound me, Sakura," Daisuke cried slowly. Sakura's expression eased, and her lip trembled.

"I love you, Daddy," the older man brightened up considerably, "but Dei-nii is more fun!" and he instantly crashed back down. Sayuri just continued to laugh.

Despite his broken heart, her father managed to work past the pain and told her stories all about his exciting mission. Her eyes, wide open, absorbed the grand gestures he used to imitate powerful jutsu and wicked combat. These tales, paired with her older friends' entertaining stories, only made her decision more concrete: become a ninja. While Sayuri hadn't been too expressive of her support, Sakura knew that her mother was just worried and wanted the best for her little girl. The shinobi in her life were much more ecstatic, finally able to influence their own little student.

"We'll have to start practicing how to throw weapons," Omaru said, his chin cradled in the arch of his hand. "And start her stamina routines." Rumi huffed.

"_I_ will take care of that, thank you!" she said daintily, easily grabbing Sakura's thin limbs and rubbing her thumbs into their muscles. Rumi hummed and moved onto the girl's legs. "Her legs are pretty strong already, but over time and practice her arms will have more impact."

"Ew, stop molesting her!" Deidara teased, taking Sakura into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck out of habit. She tried to hide it, but Sakura had an obvious preference for the blond male of the squad. Their personalities were the closest, Rumi coming a close second. Sakura and Omaru were friendly, but their orange-haired teammate spent most of his time with Sayuri. Deidara leaned in close to Sakura's ear, and whispered like it was a secret, "We all know that she's going to be Iwa's Next Best Bomb Expert!" The two shared a laugh, and Rumi growled playfully.

"Well then!" The girl tackled the pair to the ground, quickly initiating a wrestle. "The first thing to teach Sakura—don't ever listen to Deidara!"

Regardless of what the kunoichi had said, Sakura found herself under the tutelage of so many instructors she could barely count them. Though they had to wait until she officially began study at the academy to start chakra exercises, Squad Six-Delta worked her body, mind, and weapon skills. Her father took over training when he was in town, and focused on her techniques and application. However, the squad covered her most often.

Deidara managed to squeak by Rumi and begin her crash course in the fine art of art. Well, he called it that, at least—Sakura called it explosions, but tried to understand his viewpoint. The blond understood that the young pinkette had a distinct disadvantage when it came to creating the casings, as his family had developed a kekkei genkai specific to the task. So Deidara had instructed her on the basic aspects of pottery and clay. Instead of the method he used to develop bombs, Sakura would have to create each case and pack it with the correct amount of gunpowder.

"Eventually, when you have enough chakra, you'll be able to set them off without fire," he explained. To show, he took one of their tiny works that packed the power of a single firecracker, and threw it into the air. It exploded shortly after. The trick was to saturate the gunpowder with chakra, a step naturally done by his other mouths. As well as the basic of bomb-making, Deidara went over the ways to effectively use explosive tags, bombs that _didn't_ make fire, and promised to teach her at a later date the basics of clay manipulation.

Omaru took up chakra theory with her, having little else to offer—Sakura understood that the Okutsuki clan held their teachings close to the chest, and anything detailed could classify as Omaru leaking clan techniques. He was stellar anyway, she proudly told him often. The orange-haired genin made sure that she understood all facets of chakra: its use, composition, nature, and affects. Once she memorized that information, Omaru had moved onto a more complicated school of learning in the ninja world: seals and the power of paper. Though she only managed to understand the aspects that directly related to Deidara's teachings at the time, Omaru tried his best to help her understand basic countermeasures against seals.

Rumi, as the taijutsu and frontline fighter of their squad, took care of all of her physical conditioning. Rumi was part of the Hadami clan, a relatively small clan that did not have a bloodline, but instead a specialty. Founded by a group of physicians and doctors, the clan was one of the leading experts on body physiology and manipulation. They knew the tricks and quirks of the human body, and had single-handedly created the standard used to teach and test hunter-nin. Rumi, the heiress of the clan, eagerly wanted her own subject to test her knowledge on. Patiently, she and Sakura worked almost every day on her muscle density and strengthening bone. Over time, she also introduced a special focus on flexibility meant to help the young girl overcome her genetically-determined low level of sheer muscle fibers.

The most surprising source of help came from the squad's taciturn leader himself. Morimoto-sensei never really seemed like a person to Sakura, until he had begun his own regimen with her. The jounin, when she wasn't being dogged by his three students or her own father, would sit down with her and cover genjutsu. She was still too young to be taught genjutsu, but basics and dispelling was okay—something about genjutsu backfires scrambling the brains of their young academy students kept Iwa from delving into that subject until later in their career. Despite that policy, Morimoto-sensei seemed like he really wanted to teach her a specific technique, but never would speak up about it.

The days flashed by under the tutelage of her dear friends, and finally the first day of the academy began. She walked out of the house wearing a huge smile, her hair styled after Deidara's high ponytail. Her mother wanted something more stylish, but the young girl had insisted, claiming it to be "sensible" for a young kunoichi to tie her hair up, if not shear it short altogether. The minute Sakura mentioned anything about cutting her long pink hair Sayuri grabbed her hair and threw it up in an elastic band.

Other than that smug moment in her life and the occasional days she met up with Squad Six-Delta, Sakura found her academy life to be defined by two words at the same time: interesting and disappointing all at the same time. Interesting because they began lessons on ninjutsu that her friends had never talked about, and disappointing because all of her classmates were just so beneath her. It was with no small amount of pride that she looked at her report cards every few months to see her class ranking as "1," but the knowledge that amongst her peers she had no improvement to make saddened her. One of her favorite parts about learning new things was that she could work toward bettering herself, and competing with her friends on developing skills. Here, she was already clearly too prepared, but Iwa procedure outlined a full stay at the academy, no matter how gifted its students were.

She found it mildly annoying, but after hearing word of Konoha's youngest ever genius going AWOL and it being chalked up to the system's heavy expectations and his rapid raise in ranks, Sakura quieted down and accepted that she'd just have to urge her classmates to be as good as her. _She_ certainly didn't feel like going crazy anytime soon.

The years passed by. Seasons changed, punctuated by an eventful birthday here and there. Her time in the academy was slowly coming to an end, with only one final year left. She was nine, but her birthday was soon coming. Deidara hinted at something special, but that just made her blush. As young girls were wont to do, Sakura had _sortofkindof_ developed a tiny crush on the boy she could call her best friend. She thought it was almost reciprocated, if she looked beyond their five-year difference. The young girl really looked forward to her birthday, since it meant that everyone would be together again. She hadn't seen her father for a month now, and ever since Squad Six-Delta's recent promotion their mission frequency had gotten a promotion too.

The war ended that wish.

Sayuri had explained it to her in censored words, but Sakura understood a lot more than her mother wanted to acknowledge. The civil war destroying Iwa was brought on by an unhappy series of outside burgs rising up to overthrow the Iwakage and install a new one. In essence Iwagakure was like a pond after a single raindrop, with circles spreading out father than the tiny center. She lived in the center of the village, the safest section with its high walls and deeply running tunnel systems designed for escape. However, a lot of that safety went out the window when dealing with ninja raised in the same village, who had intimate knowledge of the precautions and defenses set before them. Civil war was terrifying for a ninja village, because it took civilian and shinobi life equally—it simply had to do with which side of the city you were on. And she hated to admit it, but Sakura knew that the outer rings of the village had the highest concentration of ninja. The innards had the best trained kept there to protect the weak fledgling academy students, but when it came to ninja of similar type the battles boiled down to who had the numbers or strategy.

From the ever-encroaching sounds of warfare and death, Sakura knew that numbers would win this time. Refugees that somehow escaped the madness found themselves huddled in the streets of central Iwagakure, adding to the never ending sense of activity now present in their previously quiet neighborhood. More and more wounded people poured in, and the scurrying of ninja tabi continued well into the night. Sakura gladly volunteered to relinquish her bed to a refugee family so that she could rest in the living room. It was open and had a large window with a view into the street. Being there, wide-eyed and pensive as she sat on the couch, was much better than pacing her tiny room, paranoid and shaking.

Eventually, a month into a cycle of constant tremors and nightmares, something began to change. Sakura could hear it in the night—or rather, the lack of it. It hadn't been completely silent in weeks, and yet tonight it was. Schooling her breathing into a sleeping pattern, Sakura feigned sleep to catch the conversation that marked the end of a passive war life for her and her mother.

"They're going to be here soon."

"We're doing our best."

"Morimoto-sensei?"

"You have two days." Sakura held back from the desire to gasp. Two days? Even for a civil war, this had been short compared to history's bloodied pages. What kind of weapon was the revolt packing that they could end a civil war with a major shinobi power in a little over a month?

"What can we do?"

"Listen." Sakura paid careful attention to Morimoto-sensei's plan. Squad Six-Delta had been turned into a recon squad, and would be the first to abandon the battlefield. Then her father and the Morimoto-sensei would desert under the cover of intense Earth-style techniques, which were known for kicking up tons of dirt and obscuring a battlefield, if not changing it completely. They all planned to cross paths at this point as a chance to pick up the only two civilians of their group without having to stage a huge cover up. Morimoto-sensei was probably worried about being overheard, but he wasn't using very complicated code, if any at all; most likely it was for her mother's sake than anything else.

Right after completing his mission, Morimoto-sensei left just as the sound of ninja feet ran across their roof. Suddenly, the silence of the night took on a whole new meaning for Sakura. Morimoto-sensei was adept at genjutsu, and the lack of other shinobi meant he had trapped their house in some kind of distraction jutsu, or had hidden it from their eyes. If a jounin from central Iwa, with the ability to trap an _entire_ bulding in a genjutsu without alerting the other jounin, was so worried about their survival, then there was no ignoring the real danger outside.

Steeling herself for a long night, Sakura opened her eyes and sat up on the couch. The blanket she was using pooled in her lap, leaving her chest open to the night's chill. She and her mother's green eyes met in the darkness. People said that the two Haruno women had the same irises, but her mother was adamant: Sakura inherited her eyes from her father. Daisuke's eyes twinkled when he laughed. The way her mother's eyes reflected the moonlight gave her the uncanny appearance of a cat.

"How long have you been awake?" she asked. Sakura calmed her emotions and hopped off the couch.

"Long enough," she answered shortly. Sakura looked up at her mother, closing herself off from the woman—the academy often stressed that personal attachments could cloud your judgment during battles, and Sakura needed to keep her head clear. Sayuri, she was keenly aware, was not able to protect herself. Even if she hadn't graduated, Sakura knew it was her responsibility as the closest thing to a shinobi in that house to protect her weak mother. Her father once told her it was her responsibility to keep an eye out for the woman, who often overlooked the darker aspects of ninja life. Especially after hearing harrowing details from a shaken Deidara, who spoke of civilians ripped to pieces or displayed as a sign of the revolt's presence, Sakura understood just how much Sayuri would need protection.

The little academy student reached for her backpack. Following standard academy procedure for preparing for emergency situations, Sakura had created her own panic bag. If she ever had to leave the house suddenly, she could count on this bag having all her essentials; all it needed afterword was just a few of her more sentimental gifts, which she had stored inside right after choosing to move out of her room. Reaching inside it, she found the compartment she desired—the weapons pouch. Carefully she extracted a case of her weapons and released the clasps. Her mother gasped at the rows of new kunai and shuriken. A holster was also included, a nice durable leather pouch she could strap to anything by tightening a tiny buckle. Ignoring the horrified look her mother was sending the metal, Sakura slipped the holster on her thigh and crammed it with as many weapons as possible.

"Sakura…" her mother began, but Sakura was too high-strung to deal with it.

"Mom, I'm not dumb. I saw this coming a long time ago." It was true, but her childishness kept her from believing it fully. In essence, that tiny piece of hope left in her probably kept the young girl from giving up entirely. Sakura looked at her mother, disappointed by her unwillingness to accept that her daughter really was entering this kind of world. "I need you to understand that the only reason I'm not out there right now is because this started right after the year began."

Her mother tried to deny it. "They wouldn't do something like that!" But Sakura might have been the only one to really comprehend how _close_ she was to ending up on the battlefield. The last part of the year was just a grace period to work out kinks in team selection. As the top kunoichi of the class, her position would have been simple to place, which meant that even if Iwa had graduated them early, she would have been sent out first while the lagging students were buffed up a little more. Sakura had already guessed that, with the two other highest-rated students, they would be stationed as a relief squad. They'd have an even more dangerous job than a recon squad—their job would be to help at the frontlines with administering basic healing, restocking supplies, and setting up traps around the main base. She would have constant contact with the enemy, and their tiny stature and lack of experience made them easy pickings.

"They would and can," she growled. Iwa, even with all the praise her father and Morimoto-sensei gave the system, would still easily send out their weakest ninja against a foe they could not beat, just for the use of slowing them down by a matter of minutes. Sakura wasn't blind to the stubborn nature of the Iwakage—if Morimoto-sensei said they were going to lose, he meant it. At least their leader could come out of his fort to negotiate terms with the rebellion, to minimize their losses. But no—the Iwakage refused to do anything, preferring an all-or-nothing mentality. He'd get them all killed, his village destroyed, and his head on a pike, all for what?

'Some kind of pride,' thought Sakura as she got up to find a bag for her mother. She dug in the closet for a second before her hands felt the durable fabric. Handing it to her mother, she ordered, "Go and fill this with your things, Mom. Make sure you get everything you need, first—nothing perishable or fragile, unless you have to have it." Finding that it was easier ignore her raging emotions while working, Sakura busied herself in the supply closet again. Her mother whispered her name sadly.

The way her mother had sounded so lost just struck something in the young ninja. She could feel the telltale prickling at the corners of her eyes, followed by a burning sensation. "We… We have to be strong, Mom." Sakura sniffed pitifully and hurried to wipe her face. She needed to be strong enough for both of them! If not… "That's a real war out there, and anything can happen. If we don't prepare for it, we'll…" Sakura tried to not flinch back when Sayuri rushed to embrace her daughter.

The physical touch made her want to just curl up and hide away in her mother's arms, turn her face away from the war literally outside her door. She shook, her mother trying hard to mask her own fear. Sakura willed herself to contain her tears, knowing that the minute she let them fall meant defeat.

"It's going to be okay, Sakura," her mother uttered to her gently, swaying in a slow motion. Inwardly, Sakura tried her hardest to keep herself from pushing the woman off of her. While she wanted to be coddled, she had absolutely no view of the window. She was pinned down, unable to react fast enough to anything that might put them in danger. At the same time, another part of her clutched onto her mother's scent desperately. "We're going to make it okay. Somehow, someway." They sat in the silence. Sakura calmed her haggard breathing, trying to open her senses. There were no ninja in the immediate area, all probably holed up near the wall for a final push against the rebellion. If Morimoto-sensei wasn't exaggerating, then they'd be mowed down effortlessly.

'I don't want to die,' she whispered to herself. Her mother was so warm, so soft. They didn't deserve to be in this place. 'I don't want _anyone_ to die.'

All too soon Sayuri pulled away from Sakura. She stood, knees creaking as they straightened. With false bravado she looked down at her little girl and grinned. "I better start packing, huh?" Sakura nodded solemnly, doing her best to forget that feeling of comfort. It would only distract her when the fighting came closer.

"Yeah." Sayuri ascended the stairs, stepping carefully to not creak the floorboards. Sakura stared after her for a moment, lost in a lack of thought. Abruptly she rose, turning away from the closet and deigning it pointless. The girl hurried herself into her backpack, pulling out a wrapped bundle. Pulling the twine quickly, the paper gave way and her own little bombs rolled out. In the darkness they looked like tiny marbles running away.

While she still wasn't perfect, Deidara had declared her passable and thus allowed to use explosives offensively. Sakura now had the ability to channel her chakra correctly into the gunpowder, so fuses became irrelevant. The bigger ones were more difficult for her to handle, but it was just a matter of building up the chakra to control them. Clay manipulation, on the other hand, was still a work in progress. It required more chakra than she currently could muster, and the finesse needed to achieve elemental chakra was still a little out of her reach. Deidara said it probably would be that way until she was genin for a few more years because her coils still had a little more maturing to do before elemental tricks were available.

She didn't feel comfortable until she had a tiny bag of bombs added to the belt of her outfit. She'd been dressed in the same brown pants and shirt since yesterday, feeling naked and unprotected in her regular clothes.

Before discarding the wrapping Sakura slipped free her explosive notes. While it was generally frowned upon for academy students to own them, Sakura found a way around actually purchasing them. With a little coordination between Deidara and Omaru, they taught her the basics of making her own notes. It wasn't too difficult, since she had memorized the seal array on common explosive notes, but it was modifying them that proved tricky. So far she had managed to figure out how to replace a seal so that she could store different powders in them, creating flash tags and gas notes. Anything else just made her paper burst into flames when she channeled some chakra into them.

Grabbing a kunai, she lifted it to the light. Its sides reflected the little light in the room, almost matching the dark night sky. Her grip was firm and she summoned her courage. In a couple days she may be forced to end a life with this knife, to mortally wound someone to protect her precious people. Death was the way of the ninja—in order to carry out their missions or defend their villages, someone had to die on the other side. At that exact moment there were people dying to save their beloved village.

She began wrapping the handle with her explosive note when she heard her mother's footsteps. "I'm going to be okay," Sakura said to herself more than her mother. She was going to be okay with hurting someone, if it meant that she and her family could live another day. She was okay with killing for peace. "I'm going to be okay." Her mother didn't comment, instead heading to sit on the couch. After preparing a few more kunai, she joined Sayuri. Her eyes slowly closed, suddenly exhausted. She and her mother fell asleep.

Sakura was up far earlier than her mother. The chakra blasting off in their village almost choked her. The ground shook, and she could hear their fine china rattling in its cabinet. There was a high-pitched whistling, and suddenly a huge blast. Sayuri jumped awake, looking like a deer. Sakura could hear another whistle, this time closer. Gasping, she rolled off the couch and fisted her mother's shirt.

"Mom, move, now!" Sakura yelled, pulling her mother to the floor. A second later an explosion tore out a hole in the wall, sending wreckage everywhere. The girl could feel a bit of glass drag across her forehead, the wound inflicted so quickly it barely hurt. She didn't even think it had hit her until blood started to drip down her face. Sakura had to blink constantly to keep it from getting in her eye. She glanced at Sayuri and breathed in relief at the relative wellbeing of her mother.

Gulping, Sakura ground her teeth and looked above the couch for any sign of another ninja. The swirling dust obscured the hole heavily, like a thick fog. She almost cried when a familiar shadow jumped before her.

"Sakura!" Deidara called out. He was standing on the rubble of the hole, using a piece of concrete as leverage to swing around. The pink-haired girl was quick to scramble out from behind the couch.

"Here!" she replied cheerfully. She grabbed her backpack and swung it onto her shoulders. Other than some superficial damage, her best friend was unharmed. There was a nasty burn on his neck that would later scar, but it was small. Sakura felt herself catapult into Deidara's arms, happiness flooding her when his long arms surrounded her. It was a just a quick squeeze, but the contact assured the two that both were alive and well. She always knew it in the back of her mind, but the war cemented it: life, like a candle flame, was delicate and snuffed easily. One wrong move, one bad injury, and that was it.

An explosion sent them jumping into battle stances, breathing heavily and staring out into the billowing smoke. Slowly Sakura could see a shape appear through the curtain of dust, a much larger and masculine form. She grit her teeth as a rebel ninja materialized before them, dressed in a uniform that hid all distinctive features. Deidara armed himself beside her.

'Okay, he's coming closer. This is an enemy, another shinobi that will not hesitate to kill us,' Sakura coached herself mentally, everything moving in slow motion. 'If we don't kill him first, he will kill us. There is no mercy. This is an enemy. You can't choke. You can't freeze.' The sound of the nin's footstep was like a drum. Sakura gulped and reached down for a knife, pupils dilating to capture more details. Her chakra churned within her, eager to be used. Another step.

'Don't choke. Don't freeze. Don't die.' Sakura inhaled deeply and squeezed her muscles tight, coiled like a viper. Time almost stopped completely, the two young ninja preparing to take down their foe.

…All for nothing. Before any of them could react, the rebel was struck down by her father's signature weapons. The curved knives sailed through the air, their circular motion allowing them to either dig into the ninja's flesh or shred it to pieces. Sakura, mystified by the ribbons of blood squirting into the air, didn't even register her father's form.

"You have to go, now." Sakura jumped out of her daze, quickly looking at Daisuke. He was worse for the wear—she could see him favoring one side and hunching over to alleviate some internal pain. Her father didn't look like his usual composed self, caked in blood and dirt as it were. "There's a team oncoming. _He_ was just a scout." Instantly Sakura fell back into that cold place, her mantra quietly buzzing at the back of her mind. Her mother kept trying to prod the man, worry painting her features.

The moment her father mentioned staying behind, Sakura instantly knew how this would end. Her mother could cry and refuse it, but the jounin standing in the middle of the room was serious. The rebels would easily overpower one wounded jounin, one green chuunin, and technically two civilians. If they didn't go now, there was no going at all. But if they left without some distraction, they wouldn't get very far. The brave man that was her father had to make a difficult and heroic choice to protect what was most important to him. Sakura looked up into her father's green eyes as her mother bawled.

Memories of piggy-backs and ice cream cones, high swings and quiet afternoons came to Sakura, her most favorite times with her father. He was hurt and dirty, but that man in her recollections was here in front of her, for what she distinctly knew to be the last time. The next time she would see him, it would be at a headstone.

She couldn't help it when her legs carried her to Daisuke's side, or when her arms reached out to clutch at his pants. His large hand came upon her head, rubbing soothing circles into her hair.

"I'm so proud of you." Sakura stubbornly kept her eyes dry as a desert. Her father's eyes scanned her face, memorizing every detail of his daughter's face to recall as he died. He hummed as something came to him, reaching into a vest pocket. He pulled out a surprisingly clean scroll only marred by constant use. Sakura accepted it delicately, frowning at the memento her father was leaving her. "It's just a storage scroll, but it has something in it I always wanted you to have. Become strong for me, okay?"

All she wanted to do was run with him. Sakura wanted to go back in time, back to a place of peace and happiness and smiles and sunshine, where her family was healthy and whole, and her friends laughed and played with her. She wanted to go back to a place where her teachers praised her and her classmates looked on jealously. War was tearing everything apart, leaving her with nothing but a scroll and fond memories.

"Y-yeah." She hated how weak she sounded. Her father opened his mouth to say something else, but snapped his jaw shut when screams broke the silence. Deidara, who had been idly standing by and the tragedy unfolded, jumped a foot in the air and hissed.

'Those were from upstairs!' she panicked, turning around quickly to watch the stairwell. Deidara nervously looked around and grabbed Sakura, ready to bolt at a moment's notice. Sakura kept her eyes trained on the stairs, trying to ignore her mother's emotional goodbye. She ignored the stray thought that flit across her mind, 'Will I ever get to cry over this?'

The door upstairs exploded into shards of wood, the revolting ninja spilling out like rats. Daisuke slipped back into his own dark place, wasting no time in cutting out the jugular of the nearest enemy. "Go!" Sakura latched onto her mother as Deidara started to move, keeping her face forward. She would only remember her father by the way he stood as a human shield, using his entire body despite how badly it must have hurt. Her father was so many things that she could only aspire to be. Deidara lunged forward, and just like that, they were sprinting in the streets, leaving the most important man in their lives as a sacrifice.

Her mother was faring surprisingly well, Sakura acknowledged, knowing that traversing the uneven and constantly shaking terrain was difficult even for her. Explosions followed them on all sides as the rebellion crawled forward. Shards of metal and the occasional weapon flew through the air, Deidara doing his best to deflect them while simultaneously dropping little gifts for any pursuers. Sakura wanted to help, but both of her hands were occupied. She could feel one or two little rocks tear into the skin of her ankles. Other than the mild irritation and the mind-numbingly constant presence of fear, Sakura thought that things were finally looking up.

Of course that meant that things had to instantly go to hell the minute she thought that, Sakura raged as her mother crumpled to the ground in pain. Trying to distance the wounded woman from the title of "mother", Sakura mechanically started dressing the wound. The metal poking from the civilian's abdomen was sharp and jagged, most likely deep enough to damage an organ or two. The blood poured forth, coating Sakura's small hands as Deidara focused on the removal of the bar. The woman's head lolled back the second it dislodged from her stomach with a loud sucking sound. The two ninja did their best, but field medicine wasn't going to cut it for long.

Deidara glanced between her stony face and the woman's pale pallor. Beads of sweat formed at his brow as his brain worked overtime. "I don't know how we're going to carry her… If only Rumi were here…" Sakura just stared, unable to come up with anything.

Yet again, a jounin came to their rescue. Morimoto-sensei's arrival was like a gift from the gods.

"Morimoto-sensei, I love you, un." Deidara could have collapsed from his relief if Sakura hadn't been there to press an elbow in his side. Morimoto-sensei simply hummed and looked forward, his student knowing his code well enough to get the message to take point. Sakura followed closely, risking a single glance at her pale mother. The woman was breathing in short bursts tempered by pain, and one of her arms hung limply in the air. Her green glazed eyes stared at the sky, focused on nothing. A sharp turn later and she was staring at Deidara's stiff back, determinately jumping behind him.

The three of them moved in unison, jumping over sharp debris and fire. Morimoto-sensei spoke up as they drew closer to the edges of the battlefield.

"Rumi and Omaru are waiting ahead of us at the tree line. Once we meet up, we'll head out for Suna."

Deidara groaned, his adrenaline wearing out his body. "Great."

Sakura kept her attention at the front, trying to ignore the desperate argument her mother was numbly waging with the jounin that held her. Her father—there was no surviving for a man in that situation. What did she expect? Sakura swallowed thickly, her grasp deadly strong on her father's scroll. Hope was something they had no business trying to hold on to, at this point. Their home was in ruins, loved ones dead, and government collapsed at their feet.

For a brief moment, she hated her ailing mother. She hated her for being civilian, for not understanding, for daring to let her tears fall. But the moment passed quickly as they came upon yet another scene of grief at the treeline.

Rumi fought against two rebel nin by herself, firmly dug in over the body of Omaru. As she defended against their taijutsu with a kunai, she noticed their arrival. "Morimoto-sensei!" she cried out, lashing at the nearest enemy. Deidara's breath left him in an audible whoosh.

"Omaru..." he whispered, slowing in his run. Sakura watched his muscles load like springs, his body sharpen into a blade fueled by anguish. "OMARU!" He sprang forward, and with his added power the two members of Squad Echo-Two quickly beat down the rebels. Around them laid the other rebels Rumi had downed, blood streaking their battleground.

Sakura witnessed their hearts shrink and decay away as they looked at Omaru's lifeless corpse, his face turned away from her. She could see a nasty gash on his neck through his hair, and she easily pinned it as the fatal wound. Rumi was damaged in multiple ways as well, but it appeared mostly superficial. Sakura came closer, unable to tear her eyes away from her fallen friend. She and Omaru had never been the closest, but something was undeniably different now. It wasn't completely solid, but she could feel the ghosting of a hole in her safety net, like her back was unguarded. It was an eerie, troublesome feeling that threatened to break her careful mask of apathy.

"Th-they came out of nowhere. We were waiting for you guys to arrive, bu-but then this team of rebel nins arrive-ived. O-O-Omaru and I managed to keep them away, but wo-one got through and… and…" Rumi's words tumbled out, her sobbing punctuating each word. Deidara couldn't control his emotions, feeling too many things at once. Anger, sadness, grief, guilt—he lacked the proper way to express them all, so he went to the easiest path: physical aggression. He pounded the ground with his fists, imagining the faces of all the Iwa nin he had killed today.

"Team," Morimoto-sensei hushed, his voice more hollow than his expression. Deidara and Rumi didn't need much else, and slowly pried themselves away from their best friend's body, reluctant to leave him. Finally Deidara and Rumi shared a pained look. Rumi nodded, sucking in her lower lip. Deidara, trying to stifle his tears, reached into his pocket for a bit of gunpowder. He tossed it into the air and used his chakra to light it, sending tiny sparkles into the air. They drifted slowly down, and with each dying spark a flame bloomed to life on Omaru's body. Sakura watched every moment of the hasty funeral, searing it into her memory. This was what war did to you. It stripped you of your life and love, leaving nothing but burning husks and broken souls.

Without coming to terms completely, the group was again moving into the forest. Rumi limped slightly from a wound, but otherwise held up well enough. Deidara, always the point man, kept his face high and wet eyes open. Just as they hid the thicker forest line, an explosion rocked the ground, making everyone turn around in a shock. Sakura witnessed a fireball rise into the air like a phoenix right over the area her home was in. Her mother cried out in terror, coherent enough in her pain to pieces the puzzle together.

"DAISUKE!" she wailed as the flames danced across town, hazing everything they has grown to know and cherish. The smoke blacked out the night sky, reflecting the embers burning below. Her mother struggled to sit higher, but fell back down in Morimoto-sensei's arms in a heap, bereft of any residual strength. She cried outright, strong and deeply pained. Rumi, still emotionally unsound, also became worked up. Sakura let the fire burn into her retinas, trying to not trip up running sideways.

And that was it. The final goodbye. Iwa was no more. If they had ever dreamed of returning, those aspirations went up in smoke with that fireball. All around her her life was falling apart, her friends ripping at the seams, her family dropping off one by one. It was just too much for her to handle—everyone was crying! They were too loud, too noticeable—nothing was going right and everything was spiraling into a nosedive into the ground in hellfire...!

"ENOUGH!" Sakura bellowed, unable to keep her silence any longer. Her body shook with emotion, trying to contain the rage and despair all at once. She stopped running to look her companions in the eyes, her own threatening to spill over in tears. She knew her face was pulled as neutrally as possible, but the tears rolled down like soldiers marching to their deaths. "Enough… If we keep this up, why are we even trying to hide? They'll hear us bawling from a mile away." She clutched her scroll to her chest like a lifeline. This was too much for her to take on. She was only nine! Nine, homeless, and lost. Sakura nearly wanted to lie down and let the flames take her.

Morimoto-sensei apparently realized the derailed situation and brought his mind back into perspective. He coolly began giving orders again, sending their group into movement yet again. "We must continue on, so that Omaru's and Daisuke's efforts do not go to waste," he said, leading them into the dark forest stretching out before them. The ninja latched onto their emotions and smothered all of them, only allowing an iron will drive them forward. Sakura finally let out a breath, and wiped away her tears.

They continued on for about fifteen more minutes before Deidara broke the silence. He turned around so that he was twisted at the waist, skillfully still running in a straight line. "Sensei." Sakura watched Deidara raptly, her stomach dropping like a dead weight. There was something terrible going to happen.

"Are you sure about this?" the older man asked, his eyes searching Deidara's soul. Rumi caught on and began to nearly break down again—confused, Sakura reached out with her senses, trying to figure out what just was happening.

With a startled gasp she came across four other chakra signatures, all following their trail. Sakura let her gaze pierce Deidara's blue eyes, trying to discern his reasoning. No... Not Deidara!

Rumi voiced Sakura's personal thoughts. "You can't be for real! There are too many—" The older girl wasn't ready to just let go of her other teammate like this, not when Omaru had been ripped from their clutches so violently.

Deidara did his best to explain calmly why this was the only course of action. Being the only decently fit and available person on the team, he had the best skillset to throw them off the trail. Rumi wasn't hearing any of it and shook her head repeatedly, her nose beginning to bleed. In order to continue talking, the group fell from the tree branches and landed to the ground, standing in a circle.

"I have the highest chakra levels right now," he said, holding up his hands, which stuck out their tongues. I'm the best at causing distractions, so you guys can run away safely. Don't worry—I'll catch up, okay? It's a promise between teammates, Rumi!" Rumi's breath caught pitifully. Deidara looked at Sakura, his gaze softening at her stony expression.

"Deidara," Sakura muttered, her hands shaking. She couldn't say anything much else in her rollercoaster of emotions. Deidara just smiled charmingly and opened his arms, welcoming Sakura's tiny trembling form. He held her close, trying to keep his own hands from shaking too badly. Rumi joined in the hug, just as desperate for some assurance. They stayed like that for a moment they all desperately wished to last forever. Deidara was the first to release them, however, and he marched up to his sensei. He gazed down at the civilian he had tried to protect all this time, worried at her dazed expression.

"You don't have much time, un," he said, cocky determination masking any anticipation he felt. "I'll do my best, sensei!" Morimoto-sensei nodded at his student, and he reorganized them into a new formation with him at the front, flanked behind by the two girls. Deidara stood behind them, standing strongly, smirking all the while. Sakura looked behind her as they jumped into the forest. She stared at the backs in front of her and realized she had forgotten something.

"Wait!" she yelled, falling from the branches again. Thankfully Deidara hadn't leaped away yet, and looked at her questioningly.

"Sakura, if you don't leave now, you'll make me change my mind—" he began to tease right as the younger girl jumped up and kissed him on the mouth, wrapping her arms around his neck. Deidara's eyes shot open in shock, and on instinct brought his arms up to hold Sakura. The pinkette held herself there for a few seconds before hiding her burning face into the crook of Deidara's neck.

"I like you, you know!" she whispered harshly, struggling to keep her tears inside. "You better come back, understand! Now that you know, you can't not come back!" She hesitantly pulled away, letting Deidara see her incredibly red face. His cheeks were dusted pink too, and only darkened further by the loud, feminine gasp from the trees.

The blond pulled his lips into a goofy grin and squeezed Sakura around the waist, winking at her. "You know it, babe. What kind of knight would I be if I never came back to see the princess?" He let her go, and Sakura's feet met the ground.

"A terrible one," she muttered angrily, and turned around again. Sakura couldn't keep her scowl for long though and sent Deidara a shaky smile, trying to quell the whisperings of the chances of his survival that flit across her mind. "Don't disappoint me, Deidara." She jumped into the trees, ignoring how Rumi hawkishly watched her with a tiny grin. Deidara just laughed below, and the crunching of leaves signaled his departure.

"We need to go," Morimoto-sensei intoned, gesturing to the unconscious woman in his arms. Instantly their somewhat good mood was gone, and the trio resumed their monotonous tree running to Suna. Sakura prayed for Deidara, prayed for her mother, prayed for herself—this was their final stretch. She wouldn't dare begin to hope, but she could begin to prepare herself for it. They ran for an hour and a half before the ground started to show signs of a sandier consistency—another twenty and they were making large leaps between the sparse trees before they had to stop entirely as they thinned out to mere bushes. The desert stretched out before them, and the desert wind blew over them. Morimoto-sensei set a course southwest of their current position, straight for Suna's capital. Suna was a dangerous place to be in, but it's capital offered more sanctuary than their own home did right then.

Cautious of the weather, Morimoto-sensei tried to keep them traveling with the wind rather than against its buffeting force. They traveled the landscape for some time before he suddenly veered off course, heading straight for a rock formation that provided some protecting from the wind. Sakura and Rumi shared a look and followed obediently, arriving to the cave just as he laid out Sayuri on the stone floor. He struck a match and lit a nearby bush, providing some measly light.

Sakura took in her mother's condition, her somewhat neutral feeling falling right back into the sullen and broken tone it had been for the most of the night. The woman's skin tone had faded into an ashen tone, her veins pronounced and running deep blue. Her muscles weren't doing anything—leaving her mother as complete dead weight. Her breaths, small and quiet, grew shorter with each inhale. Her wound had stopped flowing blood, but that could just mean that she had run out of blood to bleed.

"Mom?" she called out to the wind hoarsely, reaching out a hand to touch her mother. Her father's scroll had been stashed in her pack upon entering the desert to protect it. The prone woman didn't respond, and Sakura began shaking her in earnest, panic setting in. "Mom! Mom, come on! No, not now, please!"

Rumi and Morimoto-sensei shared a look and stepped back, giving Sakura and her mother some room. The pink haired girl frantically did everything she could to rouse the woman—shaking, pinching, hitting, yelling, even slapping—but nothing worked. Tearfully Sakura let her hands fall to her lap, and allowed herself to cry over her mother's body. "Mom..."

With a faint moan, Sayuri stirred and settled into the sand, her eyes blearily opening to the world. Sakura gasped and leaned over, her tears pittering onto her mother's cheeks.

"Why's it so cold...?" she murmured, slowly looking around. Her strength was fading fast, and Sakura could watch as her muscles gave out one by one. She reached out and grabbed one of Sayuri's hands, trying to give the woman some sensation.

"Mom, hold on!" she cried, squeezing tightly. Her mother just weakly looked up and attempted to smile.

"Yerr so pretty, Sak'ra..." Sayuri slurred heavily, her tongue heavy. With wide eyes Sakura held on to her mother's every word, trying to latch onto her dying flame. "Love you... s'much... yerr the most important thing... inma life..." Each word was a new struggle, a new sob from Sakura's chest. They had come so close... So close!

"Mom..."

Sayuri looked up to the sky and sighed peacefully. "Yerr gonn be strong, jus like... father... I... I feel like... I'mma see im soon..."

Sakura felt her heart twinge and she shook her head, "Mom, don't say stuff like that! You're going to be fine! We're almost to Suna!" Sakura broke down and clutched her mother in her arms, alarmed at how cold the woman's skin was, how feeble she felt.

"Sunaaaaa?" Sayuri asked, no longer comprehensive. Her eyes circled around to Sakura's face and she moaned. "I lah... you... Beee ss... saaafe..." She sighed and closed her eyes. "So... tired..."

"Mom! _Mom!_" Sayuri reached up, hand shaking to gently touch Sakura's cheek before it fell to the ground lifelessly. Sakura stared like she had been stung viciously.

"Jus... gonn take... nap..."

"Mom, n-nooo…!" Sakura cried as her mother faded away before her eyes. Sayuri smiled gently and let out a final breath.

"Wake me... inth... morn'n... honey..."

With that final whisper Haruno Sayuri left the world of the living, her daughter bent over in melancholy. Rumi and Morimoto-sensei come closer to take Sakura by the shoulders. The young girl let them move her, and fell into an autopilot mode, just letting Rumi walk her around. Morimoto-sensei waited until Rumi was around the corner of the rock formation before he made sure the woman was dead, feeling her neck for any pulse. Not finding any, he stood up resolutely and lit a matchbox, dropping it onto the woman's body gently. The flames quickly found sustenance and grew quickly, eating the woman away.

The jounin sensei grabbed up the bags and met with the two girls at the mouth of the rock formation, where Rumi was rubbing comforting circles into Sakura's hunched back. The smell of burning flesh was slowly filling the air, making his eyes water. Yes, definitely.

"We're going to keep moving," he told them, slinging two bags over his shoulder and dropping two before the younger nin. "The day temperatures aren't suitable for travel in the desert, so we need to cover as much distance as possible right now." Rumi looked up at him and shook her head.

"But what about Deidara?" she asked quietly, unable to bring forth any more strong emotions. Sakura's head snapped up, and she bored her green eyes into Morimoto-sensei's stretched face.

"We can't leave without Deidara!" she hissed, grabbing her bag and holding it to her chest like a lifeline. "He promised... He's coming back! He will!" Sakura buried her face into her backpack, muttering Deidara's name like a mantra. The jounin looked at her and then at the distant smoke, his lips pulled into a taut line.

"We'll wait for another hour, but that's it. If Deidara doesn't come, he knows that we're heading for Suna and then Konoha—he'll be able to meet up with us then."

Sakura quieted up as her acknowledgment of his decision, and Rumi gave him a thankful smile. She wasn't prepared to leave this desert without her only other teammate with them. Now that they had some time, the boyish chuunin reached into her backpack and pulled out some medicinal tools, intent on performing some first aid to keep them going. She started with the young pinkette first, trying to work around the near catatonic state she was in. The little girl was lifeless, and Rumi wished with all her heart that she would eventually perk up—

Because if she didn't the kunoichi didn't know how they'd both last in this desert, emotionally broken and numb.

* * *

shh i know everything about canon is messed up but

i dont care lol


	3. Suna

Arc 1: Escape Iwa

Chapter 3: Suna

Deidara never came.

The thought haunted Sakura for the duration of their desert travel. Her best friend hadn't shown up at their meeting spot after Morimoto-sensei's allotted hour, and the group of three harrowed nin reluctantly forged onward. Sakura herself had been bereft of all emotion since their abandonment of her mother's pile of ashes, unable to call forth anything after the night's tumultuous events. Her heart weighed heavily in her chest, dragging down and crushing her lungs. She didn't want to eat anything. She didn't want to talk to anyone. Rumi had attempted to reach out, but the pinkette remained stoic as they dashed through the night desert.

When they stopped at a cave to avoid the desert sun, Sakura's dreams terrorized her mentally, and eventually after many attempts of falling into fitful slumber, she didn't want to sleep either. Morimoto-sensei kept a diligent watch for any straggling rebel shinobi despite their distance from Iwa's border. Rumi slept well only after pinching herself in the neck multiple times to forcefully render herself unconscious. She had once tried for Sakura, but the younger girl had only experienced a nightmare that she was unable to wake up from.

They traveled in silence, unwilling to talk about anything related to the last hours of war. The desert was empty at night, but they all still jumped at any kind of noise, paranoia yet to leave their veins. Thankfully, Suna's capital was closer to Iwa than it was Konoha, so in a day and a half they were almost at its walls.

Morimoto-sensei stopped them before they got too close in order to prepare for their entry into the village. He took out Sayuri's passports, and handed them out. He only had to look at Rumi once before she nodded and henged her injured body into a tired looking Haruno Sayuri. Morimoto-sensei took on the guise of Haruno Daisuke with a few added injuries. Suna wouldn't be open to fleeing nuke-nin from Iwa, but a merchant family escaping their war-torn home as refugees? Harmless and simple.

Sakura stared at everything but her companions' forms, her hands trembling too much already. It was easiest to stare at the sandy ground and follow the footsteps rather than her dead parents' backs.

They resorted to walking up to the gates to upkeep their civilian appearance, using their existing fatigue to strengthen the illusion.

The guards took them in with sympathetic eyes, gently asking for their identification before allowing them entrance and directing them to the Kazekage's tower. Morimoto-sensei thanked them, his voice pitched just like Daisuke's. Sakura ignored the twinge of her chest and continued onward, hoping her ragged appearance was enough to draw pity from the Suna citizens.

The jounin led them to a large, square building painted in Kaze's customary blue tones, the Suna hitae-ate symbol displayed proudly on the front. The receptionist welcomed them brightly to the building, her fresh clothing and clean hair making the ninja girls jealous.

"Welcome to the Kazekage Tower! May I ask what your business is?" she chirped with a smile, apparently ignoring their dirty bodies. Morimoto-sensei stepped up and bowed slightly, offered the perky woman their papers.

"We're refugee merchants from Iwa," he explained in Daisuke's hoarse voice, carefully displaying just enough pain to back up the story. "I would be grateful if the Kazekage allowed us to rest a day within his walls, and then let us on our way." The receptionist gasped in sympathy and pointed him toward a hallway to his left.

"You poor people! Please, take that hallway, and look for the room labeled 'Civilian Affairs' and ask for a man named Koichi. He'll be able to stamp your visas and secure you a place for the night." She returned Sayuri's paperwork and stole a glance at the three of their bodies, beaten and scarred. The receptionist threatened to tear up and brought a tissue to her face. "Please, take it easy. Your daughter can wait in the children's playroom if she'd like."

Rumi looked down and smiled at Sakura with her mother's face, and wordlessly the pinkette jumped out of the chair and raced toward the only colorful room in her sight, unable to deal with the emotions that stirred within her. The playroom was standard for younger kids, though Sakura would be hard-pressed to find anything of worth here. Still, not wanting to ruin any kind of charade they were putting up, she plopped down her bones by some crayons and paper.

After a moment of staring, she picked up the closest crayon and started to sketch out shapes of buildings toppling to the ground, fire coursing through them. It was the only picture that came to her mind freely. Once her canvas had been filled with destruction, she moved it to the side and took another piece, continuing her expression of the horrors she had seen. And another. And another.

The drawings kept coming from her tiny hands in a manic fashion, Sakura's eyes glued to the paper as color brought life again to her family's deaths. She might have been breathing heavily, or sweating—she didn't feel okay anymore.

Someone stepped up from behind her, looming over her shoulder. Sakura didn't turn to look at this person, and ground the red crayon into the fire that ate Omaru's body.

"What?" she whispered, the only thing she could manage to convey. Her fervor slowed down as the final touches came to the picture, and she mechanically added the sketch to her scattered collection of memories. The person behind her did not reply and did not move. Sakura, not feeling like being a civil girl anymore, squeezed the red crayon in her grip until it snapped in two. She hunched over Omaru's burning, the crayon falling from her fingers.

The stranger spoke up in a young, but male voice—gritty, like the sand. "Why are you drawing these things?" Sakura tilted her head to see the young boy out of her peripherals; he was a lanky red haired boy with blackened eyes, dressed in some comfortable black clothes suited to the desert. _Love_ stood proudly on his forehead in deep red.

Gaara stared down at the young girl, unblinking. She was war-torn from head to toe—dirty and ashen, her clothes were ripped and stained with blood and mud. She herself suffered from many outward injuries that had healed over, but he could still see the flecks of blood that had been swept up from her forehead and into her hair from a long cut. Her green eyes observed him without emotion, and to him, they looked hollow and tired.

She looked like him on bad days.

"Because they're the only things I can think about," she replied in monotone. Gaara looked over the multitude of drawings the girl had produced, all scenes of varying bloodshed or destruction. Buildings collapsing, brightly colored people lying down or wounded, explosions, fires—Gaara felt something in him twitch as he observed the girl and her artwork.

The pink haired girl turned to look at him, her sunken eyes ringed with bruises that mirrored his own. "What do you want?" she asked. Her pink hair fell in her face, escaped from its ponytail in tangled strands. Gaara frowned and glared at the girl, crossing his arms.

"I do whatever I want," he answered. His eyes narrowed and he did his best to stand taller over her. "Answer me. Why are you here?" The girl just sighed deeply and turned back to her canvas.

"I'm waiting for my... parents," she explained. Her voice was thin and exhausted. "We're refugees from Iwa. We decided to make a stop in Suna to gather ourselves." Gaara's nonexistent eyebrow quirked in interest, but he didn't say anything more. The clock on the wall ticked the seconds away as the two stayed exactly where they were, neither of the two haunted children willing to leave their perches.

After a few silent minutes, Gaara decided to ask some more question he wanted to have answers to. "What's your na—"

"Sakura!" 'Sayuri' called from the hallway, waving to the younger girl. Gaara ignored the anger he felt from being interrupted when he saw Sakura flinch bodily before forcing her legs to support her weight. She looked everywhere but the woman with pink hair, gaze distant. "Our business is finished now. Let's go get some rest, dear." He curiously watched as the young girl named Sakura dragged herself behind the two people who appeared to be her parents, staring at the floor the whole while.

As they rounded the corner and disappeared, Gaara turned his attention to the table before him. He reached down and scooped up Sakura's pictures, and for a reason he couldn't quite understand himself, folded them up and tucked them into his pocket.

**These are good images of war**, the demon in his mind chuckled, forcefully bringing illusions of the scenes to life in Gaara's sight. People ran and screamed in pain as ninja in brown uniforms and armbands marched through the town, mercilessly striking down the people in Sakura's drawings. **Too good! Too good! We need more like this, brat, more blood!** Gaara winced and forced the Shukaku back into his cage.

'I'm the only one who controls this body,' he growled at the spirit before turning on his heel and stepping out of the playroom, intent on finding some small animals.

* * *

Sakura stared into the rather plain hotel room they had been allowed. Rumi and Morimoto-sensei had not dropped their henge in the supposed safety of the room—Rumi had quietly explained to her that it was entirely possible that they were being watched for any kind of suspicious activity.

It was slightly infuriating that their legitimate paperwork hadn't been enough, but Sakura supposed rationally that any spy would have decent forgeries, and that it wasn't enough to trust them by their story alone. Actually, it was a very convenient story for someone to worm their way into Suna—if one of the authorities saw anything out of place, it might have just enough sway to get them to take the three into custody...

Sakura shivered and threw herself onto the bed face-first. They had nothing to worry about at all, she convinced herself. They really were innocent refugees—true, they were technically missing-nin at this point, but the rules had to be bent a little during civil war, right?

"Right." She inhaled the musty smell of the sheets, letting the warmth of Suna seep into her bones. She was tired in every way, but she couldn't get to sleep. Something inside her churned every time she closed her eyes.

Rumi walked out of the bathroom, a towel gently patting her hair dry. Sakura rolled over to look at the opposite wall, fiercely opposed to seeing either of her companions. Seeing the ghosts of her parents gave her unbridled fury that caused tears to well up. Neither of the older ninja said anything about her behavior however, and tried their best to walk behind or flanking the young girl.

"What now?" Rumi asked softly. The bed squeaked as she sat on it. Morimoto-sensei moved away from her perch by the window and went to their pile of packs. After searching their pockets, he came up with a small handful of bills.

"We need to check our supplies and restock on anything important." The jounin handed Rumi a portion of the money after counting it. "I'd like you to find us some cloaks for this weather, so that we can travel in the day as well." Rumi nodded and pushed herself off the bed—Sakura realized she must have dressed in the bathroom already, since the other girl had only picked up a backpack and left. Morimoto-sensei stood quietly at the foot of her bed, his fake green eyes intently searching her stony expression.

"I'm not leaving," Sakura announced, determined to remain focused on the wall. She wanted to glare at it, but the facial motion wouldn't come, leaving her emotionless.

Morimoto-sensei vocalized a sound of acceptance and quickly took his leave as well. Sakura waited until his footsteps echoed into silence, and then laid still for another five minutes. After she couldn't feel anyone moving around nearby, she rolled onto her back and grabbed the pillow, pressing it into her face. Alone in the hotel room, Sakura wept into the cushion freely.

She stayed there until she was gasping from her sobs. Sakura hiccuped and sat up in her bed, gently wiping away and stray tears on her cheeks. She suddenly keenly felt the dirt and grime caked on her body—avoiding touching her skin, the young girl slunk to the bathroom, where she peeled off her clothes and let them slop onto the tiled floor. She stared at her bruised body in the mirror, finally seeing herself for the first time in days.

Sakura Haruno was a wreck, a shell of a happy girl who had to witness too much too soon. Her eyes, surrounded by deep purple smudges, lost any glint in them, instead staring back flatly. Her skin tone had gone ashen and clammy with the occasional deposit of dirt in her joints. She had a noticeable slump and her knees knocked inward, unsteady with so much change. Her hair, once one of her most prized features, hung limply and stuck to her dirty cheeks, dyed with dried blood and dust.

She turned away quickly, unable to take the terrible sight much longer. She clambered into the bathtub as her eyes began to sting again, visions of her mother's failing body and father's injured form assaulting her thoughts. Shakily she reached for the water knob and turned the head on full blast, ignoring how the water scalded her with its heat. Her foot squeaked and slid as the residue on her body melted off her skin, sending her slipping into the wall. Physically weak from her constant travel and lack of a decent meal, Sakura was unable to catch herself and collapsed in the bath. Thankfully it was just large enough to hold her crumpled form; Sakura found herself crying out again, the emptiness and soreness of her body dragging out more negative emotions inside her. She tried to sit up, but her body wouldn't respond to her desires—the pink haired orphan was left to cry in the bathtub, the shower slowly cleansing her filthy form with burning water.

* * *

Sakura stared at the ceiling of her room. The moon cast shadows through her window, and all was quiet. Rumi and Morimoto-sensei slept in their own beds, so tired they obviously didn't feel the chakra signature above their room—which wouldn't be odd in reality, since they were on the top floor in a hotel in a shinobi village—but this signature had sat above her for a half hour already. The paranoia that ruled her so strongly a few days ago threatened to take hold of her again, making her throat close up in a panic.

'Stop that!' she yelled at herself, willing her emotions to calm. 'It's just a Suna nin. I'll go and check it out for myself.' No Iwa hunter nin would follow them all the way here, just to sit pretty on a roof, she convinced herself as she opened their window quietly. Even with the small squeak the wood made, Morimoto-sensei did not rise.

Sakura peaked her head out of the window, craning her neck to look up. Her building was a rectangle in shape, so no matter how far she leaned, she wouldn't be able to see the roof or its visitor. With a quick glance to make sure there were no Suna eyes nearby, she swung out of the window and stuck to the side of the building.

Using her chakra to climb the wall wasn't difficult at all—most of the buildings in Suna were made with clay and sunbaked mud. Deidara had started her on Doton manipulation before the war, and combined with her natural chakra control, Sakura felt confident in her ability to not fall and die. All she had to do was shimmy up enough to see whoever was up on the roof...

Sakura peaked her head over and jumped when she saw the red haired boy from earlier staring back at her with eerily glowing green eyes. He was sitting casually, an arm tossed over a bent leg. He flicked his head at her as a command to come over. Not thinking that annoying a Suna nin would be a good thing for some Iwa runaways, Sakura obediently pulled herself over the ledge and sat across from the stranger.

"Gaara," he said shortly.

"Gaara? Your name?" she asked quietly, folding her legs comfortably. Gaara nodded and looked up at the night sky, the moon illuminating his face. Sakura joined him for a moment before the small annoyance born from her insomnia flourished into anger at Gaara's lack of reaction. "What do you want?" she hissed, looking down from the sky to glare at the boy.

Gaara just looked at her with a nonchalant eye, before calmly returning to the stars above. "Your name."

Sakura, already having dealt with taciturn and testy older nin who felt that their past experiences were enough to make them better than full sentences, huffed and ground her molars. "Haruno Sakura, now leave." She heard the faint noise of slithering, like sand falling in an hourglass. Her leg tickled, and she was mildly surprised to see sand wrapping itself like a snake around the appendage. Elemental manipulation was a very common skill in areas like Suna and Iwa, where the very earth was used as a medium. She should have expected there to be Suna nin with an affinity for Doton so precise it applied to sand.

"You will not speak to me like that," Gaara told her. By clenching his fist the sand tightened up, rubbing Sakura's leg painfully. Sakura warily regarded the trail of sand that connected her leg to Gaara's large gourd.

"That's a lot of chakra in that sand," she muttered, trying to relax herself. She wanted to go back inside, where she didn't have to deal with pushy boys. Even though she was suffering from a lack of sleep, she wanted to try to regain some energy before their departure tomorrow.

"You can feel it?" Gaara asked, still not deeming her good enough to look at as opposed to the night sky. Sakura regarded him with half hooded eyes. She only looked more tired and worn with that expression.

"Of course. I would have broken your hold by now if it wasn't so saturated," Sakura stated matter-of-factly, shifting so that her legs were spread out in front of her. The sand followed. "Can you tell me what you want from me? I want to go back to bed."

Gaara scoffed. "You aren't sleeping." Whether he meant in general or tonight, Sakura didn't know. His arrogance bothered her to no end. She wasn't one to easily be controlled, especially since she usually acted as class leader at the Academy.

"..." Sakura kept silent. She figured he would lose interest and leave her alone eventually, so she might as well enjoy the view. She flopped over and used an arm as a pillow, elevating her head just enough to see the rest of Suna sprawled out before her. The night chill was pleasant compared to its usual freeze, and a combination of the moon and lamplights lit up the village just enough to make a lovely picture.

'Deidara would've like this view,' she thought. She was tired of feeling sad, so she tried focusing on how she missed him instead. Refusal to believe her best friend was dead kept her heart afloat in the sea of deep sorrow. It annoyed her how easily she could feel her mood darken and thoughts turn, when she tried her best to focus on other things. It just happened that everything reminded her of _something—_a memory, a laugh, a face.

'And now I'm sad again.' Sakura frustratedly flipped herself over on her back to stare at the sky. It flashed red for a moment in her eyes, smoke and embers flying in the air. She rubbed her eyes hard enough to make them water.

"Why are you not trying to escape?" Gaara's voice caught her attention. While she was still incensed at his attitude, Sakura was glad to have a distraction from her thoughts.

"Why bother?" she asked up to the sky, not bothering to see if the boy was looking at her or not. It was returning the favor. "It's not like I have anything to do."

"I can kill you right now." He wasn't threatening her or anything, just making a statement. Sakura glanced at him to see his face directed at her. Vindictively she turned her head away and shrugged.

"I'm sure you could. But I don't think you will."

"Why won't I?" he growled. "I am, after all, Suna's killing machine." Sakura smirked to herself and laced her hands over her stomach, ignoring how the sand began to shift over her shin like sandpaper.

"And I just got out of a war zone where my family died and my village burst into flames, running away from the very people I thought I could trust with my life." Sakura struck Gaara with a hard look. "Not even a demon could make me flinch right now."

Gaara recoiled, his typically neutral face showing signs of shock. Sakura was confused as to why he looked so affronted, but decided that it ultimately didn't concern her. The sand slowly slipped away, and Sakura sat up to lean over her legs, gently massaging them to bring back feeling.

Gaara studied the girl in front of him, amazed that she was confident enough to completely turn away and show her back to him. Did she not value her life? How did she even know about the Ichibi? Shukaku stirred in his consciousness. Anger flared at the young girl, who appeared so infallible even in a similar situation to his—unthinking, he struck out at her exposed neck quicker than she could react. The pink haired girl was knocked clean out and slumped awkwardly on her side. He stared at her body for a second before furrowing his eyebrows.

He was not a slave to the Shukaku's anger, he told himself, and picked her body up roughly. It was surprisingly light, even though her arms felt trained. Not finding enough energy to care about her physical capabilities, Gaara summoned his sand to create a ledge by her window and tossed her on the empty bed. Her face looked toward him, just as haunted as his own.

**You should kill them all**, whispered the demon in his ear. **They aren't from Suna, so who would care? That Sakura completely dismissed you like a bug, you worthless boy.** **Teach her a lesson!**

'Shut up!' he hissed. Impulsively he commanded his sand to the girl's arm, ready to crush it—but something else brushed his mind and slowly drew him away from the demon's influences. As its bloodlust receded from his mind, Gaara thought of his and Sakura's words.

"We are alike, Mother," he whispered to his sand. "But when I needed love, what she needs is..." After a moment of consideration Gaara drew back his sand to the girl's hand and carefully enacted a similar scar to his own, burrowing deep and saturating the wound with the bloody sand. "...Life." After the sand settled Gaara fled, closing the window behind him.

'I am the controller, and this is my power,' he told the demon, setting a course for his unwelcoming home. 'You do not decide who I kill.'

**We shall see about that, you brat!** Gaara shut out the demon's shrieking voice and the night fell silent once more.

* * *

Sakura walked behind her two disguised companions, her sight diligently glued to the ground as usual.

"What's wrong, Sakura?" Rumi asked her in her mother's smooth voice. Sakura twitched and looked down at her wrapped hand.

"Nothing," she answered, letting her thoughts of a blood-haired boy and his strange behavior consume her thoughts, the brand he left her burning slightly in her skin.

* * *

_***I'd just like to clarify that no, this does not mean Gaara has 'marked' or 'claimed' Sakura in any way. This is not that kind of fic._

_Thank you for sticking with me and my terrible schedule._


End file.
