Chapter TWENTY FIVE

'So you are unaware of how exactly you are supposed to accomplish the task you readily offered to complete yourself.'

Sakura wondered if making people feel stupid was an Uchiha trait, or if Madara had trained himself in such arts.

Yagura always told her being with Izuna made him feel like a genius, so perhaps it was not passed down all its clan members. Sasuke was still a boy, but Itachi was someone she thought was kind of cool, so perhaps it was an older brother thing? But then, what of Hashirama and Tobirama? It was not to say the older Senju wasn't smart, but Tobirama definitely showcased it better.

Beside her, Madara sighed. If he had been anyone else, she was sure he would have kicked his feet up onto the table in front of him. But he wasn't, so he appeared to settle for stoically folding his arms as he sat.

Sakura turned back to her book. She frowned. "This is useless."

'I highly doubt you will find anything relatively useful in fairytales.'

Sakura half-closed her book and looked at the blurb. "A tale about two brothers journeying to look for a lost body," she read. "It sounds useful. I'm just working with the soul, not the body."

'It might be helpful,' Madara muttered. 'if you were going out on a journey into the unknown to look for your body while living in a suit of armour with your older brother-'

Sakura slammed the book shut. "I get it."

'Can ghosts die?'

Sakura frowned at Izuna. "Why?" She asked warily.

'Well, the problem with ghosts is that they can't enter the Yomi right? When a spirit dies, they're forcefully booted back. Maybe killing a ghost would force them to enter the Yomi?'

"The problem is that they are held back here. Sure, they're held back, but clearing the reason they're here should get rid of both problems." Sakura frowned in thought. "That, and I have no idea. Can you kill a ghost?"

'Should we try it out?'

"No."

'Why don't we kill Hatake?'

Sakura froze and felt the sudden urge to put down the kunai she had been sharpening. "What?"

Yagura shrugged. He leaned back, his arms crossed behind his head, as though he were lying down on something midair. 'Hatake is what's rooting his father in this realm, right? Then if we get rid of him, technically the ghost should be free?'

"Not necessarily," Sakura said. "Human emotions are strong enough to hold back ghosts not their own from finding rest. Strong enough emotions might pass on into death. I actually don't know, though." She sighed. "I'm sure none of my clanmates had to resort to something like that."

Yagura let out a hum. 'First time for everything.'

"I can't kill him, by the way. Just saying."

'You just go find him.' Yagura crossed his arms, a smirk on his face. 'I'll do the actual killing.'

"I don't want to risk my place, as well as that of the clan, within the village walls for murdering a man."

Yagura sighed. 'I guess it's not worth it,' he relented. 'Especially not for a man with daddy issues.'

'Maybe I can go talk to him. He'll probably be willing to tell us how to help him.'

"If he knew, I doubt he'd still be here." Sakura put down her rush and inspected the seal she had drawn. "Besides, ghosts can't talk."

'He can sign?' Hashirama said. 'I don't think the hand signs have changed since my time.'

Sakura frowned in thought, but then shook her head. "Ghosts aren't like spirits," she explained. "I have no idea what the inside of their heads are like, but I've heard they have problems even stringing thoughts together."

Hashirama looked upset at that. 'Does whatever is holding back weigh them down so much that they're broken inside?'

Sakura paused. She bit her lip. "Not broken," she said firmly. "Because they recover. They can become normal again. Something...something is misplaced, and it's our job to find it and help them put themselves back together again."

'Do your archives not hold records?'

Sakura shook her head. "I've looked," she said. "I'm the heir and the Reaper child, so there really isn't much I don't have access to, but there's nothing. If there are records, I don't think they're stored in the archives. Maybe in files by my father's desk."

Tobirama has his arms crossed. 'Do you not have access to those?'

"I'm not allowed into his room."

'Clan rule?'

"An 'I-don't-like-my-room-being-messy rule.'"

Sakura let out a long, deep sigh and dropped her head onto the table. She was half tempted to slam her forehead against the wood but decided against it.

Rin hovered over, looking both amused and sympathetic. 'No progress?'

Sakura nodded.

'There are too many rules regarding this,' Yagura said.

'We're going into this blind. We should be allowed to experiment,' Izuna agreed.

'Wow, look at you being all buddy buddy and backing each other up,' Hashirama said happily.

Sakura doubted the man was being sarcastic, but it almost sounded as though he were.

"Are there set rules?" Madara asked.

'Killing Hatake is not a matter of rules,' Tobirama said. 'It is a matter of morals.'

'We're shinobi,' Izuna retorted. 'We kill as a living.'

'Killing a living man to help his dead father, who committed suicide when said man was a kid and has been held back by his grudge and bitterness ever since, is probably not going to work as a statement in court,' Tobirama snapped.

'Why don't you ask someone?' Rin asked gently.

Sakura did not look up, but she could feel the dirty glares the other spirits shot the sensible girl with the reasonable suggestion.

Uh...hi? Hello? Long-time no see...yeah.

Darque: So, sorry. I kind of hit a wall of this one, and I began spending a lot of time drawing...and yeah.

Raven: The thought of a plotline maybe emerging scared us off.

Darque: But we're back? I've been doing stuff, actually. Uni started, and I upload fanart on Tumblr ( Darquedeath4444).

Raven: We're also cleaning up this story, mostly grammar, spelling, stuff like that.

Darque: We're only a few chapters in but hopefully we'll catch up soon.

Raven: There's also a discord ( /dNYU2kV), though at this moment in time it's mostly story update alerts and the occasional preview for upcoming stories.

Darque: Again, sorry, and hopefully the next update won't be too far off...

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