Anime/Manga » Naruto » Persephone's Harvest
Notes: Last chapter. Super quick. Literally episode one Sakura and episode three-thousand Sakura. I've lost steam for the story so I'm just posting what I have in hopes of it being somewhat comprehensive. For curious ones: Denatsu's ex-boyfriend was a part of ROOT, she killed him for spying on the village, Danzo did what he needed to do to keep her quiet. Sakura's summoning animal Suzumebachi, the wasp queen.
Chapter: 6/6
Summary: As Hokage, Tsunade is too busy to train Sakura the way she needs. As it happens, she has a twin sister with sufficient enough skill to mentor Sakura in her place. An evil twin sister, that is. [OC. Crack taken seriously. Sakura-centric.]

o.o.o.

The first moment…

Sakura knew Naruto was loud. The sky was blue, the sun was red, and Naruto's voice was capable of reaching a frequency that could shatter eardrums. It was apart of his character. It just also happened to be completely fucking annoying; really, to unprecedented levels. By the end of their genin team years, Sakura could handle Naruto's default volume with little protesting, but after spending two and a half years apart, she was thrown right back to square one. She could not stand when he raised his voice—which was always.

She handled him shouting her name. She handled their noisy reunion, mostly because she'd missed him too much that it hadn't occurred to her to mind. Then Naruto began recounting the years of training, complete with gestures and tones of varying decibels to convey drama, and he screamed, "THAT'S WHEN THE PERVY SAGE SAID," right into Sakura's ears.

Her arm moved on its own.

"—urgh!" was the guttural sound out of her teammate's mouth. He clattered to the ground with his arms wrapped around his waist, trying to breathe. There were possibly tears in his eyes. He sounded utterly pathetic, whimpering, "Sakura-chan, whhhyyy,"

Honestly, for a second, not even Sakura could figure out why she'd delivered a solid punch to his solar plexus. "U-Uh, I'm so sorry, Naruto—"

"That was so mean!" He wailed.

Sakura still felt guilty. But she'd never dealt well with wailers. "Then you should learn to keep an inside voice, Naruto!"

"Aren't we outside?!"

"That's—I was right beside you, you didn't need to yell, alright?"

Looking utterly bewildered as he crawled back to his feet, he said, "So you punched me?" Yes. Yes, she had. And it hadn't even shut him up. Even winded, Naruto made a production of it. Her face felt uncomfortably hot; she patted his shoulder in apology, clearing her throat. "Yeesh… usually you go for the face; I'm used to bruised cheeks, Sakura. Not— why my stomach?"

"Winded opponents take longer to recover," she mumbled, scratching her cheek. "I'm, uh, really sorry for that. I don't know where that came from."

Still holding his stomach, Naruto sent her a sidelong glance full of suspicion and betrayal. "That makes two of us..."

Sakura wasn't sure how to remedy the situation. Fortuitously, that was when Tenten and Neji turned a corner and ended up on the main street. Naruto's attention cut to them without a second to spare, and instantly, his face was possessed by a maddened look of glee. It was focused solely on Neji. It was anyone's guess if he actually remembered who Tenten was. "Neji! You're here too!"

Tenten cleared her throat.

Sheepishly, Naruto added: "And Tenten too! What are you two doing?"

"I'm meeting my team..."

"Which I'm a member of, in case you forgot that as well!" said Tenten.

"...at the gates so we can train. I'm finally free, so Gai-sensei is eager to have me there," Neji answered. His entire body seemed to soften. "I didn't realise you were back, Naruto."

"Ah, it was kind of a surprise for everyone. I'm reporting to the old lady now. Why don't you get enough time?"

Sakura told him. "Neji's a jonin. He runs his own missions now so he's always busy."

"HUH?! You're a jonin already?! But last time I checked, you were still a genin!"

"Are you familiar with the concept of promotions?"

Naruto scowled. Neji was still smiling. "You're only fifteen!"

"He's a prodigy," Tenten snorted. She was still sour about the case of forgotten-identity and it showed in her tone. "Really, Naruto. Use that thick head of yours."

Flustered and off-guard, Naruto could only ask, "Who else is a jonin?!" He whirled around on Sakura. "Are you a jonin as well?"

"Shishou wouldn't let me," She huffed. "Kankuro and Neji are the only jonin in our year group. Everyone else is a chunin. Well, almost everyone—you've been gone for the last two years, so you're a genin." Naruto squawked, and she kept her fist at her side with more self-restraint than you'd think she'd need. "Ha! Guess you're still dead last, Naruto."

Naruto put his face in his hands and proceeded to make a lot of noise. Sakura's eye twitched. "It's not a big deal," said Neji, lying.

"It's a huge deal."

"Tenten."

"What? I'm just telling it how it is. There's little independence or respect for genin in the forces, Naruto. Technically, the highest ranking mission that you're legally allowed to participate in are C-ranks." Tenten grinned and put her hand on her hip. "And I'd start shutting up now if I were you. Don't you know that loud noises trigger Sakura's murder instincts?"

Naruto put some distance between them, the stomach incident still fresh in his mind. Sakura clicked her tongue. "Oh, shut up, Tenten. Why don't you and Neji leave already? You don't want to be late to meeting your team."

"So uptight," The other girl teased. She wrapped her arm in Neji's and began to pull him along, not that there was any resistance. "Whatever~ Catch you two later! We have to meet up again, okay? You need to tell us what you've been doing all this time, Naruto. Don't think we'll forget!"

Neji nodded very respectfully as he passed. "You must promise, Naruto."

Baffled and flattered all at once, Naruto nodded so fast his head nearly fell off. "Yeah… yeah, of course! No way I'd miss it! Good luck with your training, Neji, Tenten! Say hi to Bushy Brows and Bushy Brows Sensei for me!" The duo waved as they left. Naruto watched them go with wide eyes. "Woah… I didn't realised I'd missed them until now. Who knew Tenten even talked!"

He'd never been the sharpest kunai, she supposed. And he never did have an interest in other kunoichi. Their acknowledgement meant jack to him. "Tenten talks. Tremendously and at length."

"Are you two friends? I didn't know you two were close before."

"We weren't. But then, you know, Sasuke-kun left and you followed and there wasn't really… I made some new friends, Naruto. Of course I did. I didn't just mope in my room waiting for you to come back, you know," She snorted to let him know that everything was okay, gently tapping his shoulder. He looked a bit guilty, so she smiled. "I'm fine, Naruto. Better than. Sasuke-kun betraying us hurt but I didn't let it keep me down, not for long anyways. I'm stronger than I've ever been!"

"Sakura…"

"So you can stop worrying about me, okay? I can handle myself now."

Naruto looked serious. He stared at her for a long moment, eyes roaming her face, looking for any fracture in her facade, any lie, anything that would allude to her not being entirely truthful with him. After a moment where Sakura felt like a bug under a microscope, his shoulders relaxed, and he threw his arm around her in an act more casual than their relationship had ever justified. And still, Sakura relaxed into his side. Naruto was very warm, and smelled so very familiar.

He laughed and said, "Gee, Sakura, I'm not an idiot, 'ttebayo. You've never needed me to worry about you, so why would I start now?"

Sakura covered her mouth and chuckled. What a liar. "Nothing wrong with making sure, Naruto."

Gosh, she really had missed him.

o.o.o.

...to the last

Her moment of glory was over too quickly. She'd revealed her ability, the place where most of her work had gone into for the past couple of years; the ability to use her chakra to destroy enemy coils. It was her pride and joy. And Madara just...

Madara threw her back one last time, a calculating look on his face.

When she first revealed her technique, he'd been childishly gleeful; it was something new to play with, she supposed—the fact that she could grab him and screw up his arm amused him thoroughly. It wasn't in the nature of geniuses to be satisfied for long, however, and now he was staring at her bruised body in disdain.

He harrumphed. "You need to be touching something with all five fingers, right? Otherwise your clever jutsu doesn't work." Sakura gritted her teeth. He didn't have the empathy to phrase it as a question—he was right, simply because he had never been wrong before. "So all I have to do is make sure you don't get a hold of me and I should be alright."

How did he know? How did he figure it out so fast?

"Sakura, you need to stand back."

It was the last thing she wanted to hear. Kakashi grabbed her shoulder. She could hear the sympathy in his voice. "You've done enough. It's time to let us handle things from here."

No… no… no…

"We won't let you down, Sakura-chan. Sasuke, Kakashi-sensei and I will make sure to take down this bastard for you."

She wasn't done yet. She had told him, hadn't she? That she could handle herself? Naruto wasn't just indulging her, was he?

Was he?

"Just stay out of our way."

Madara. She looked at him, took in that white face and those black eyes and that aura, that dreadful aura, and clenched all five of her fingers into a fist. Her knuckles turned to ivory.

Stand back? Let the boys handle it? No way.

Not in this lifetime.

"Don't… don't you dare…" Sakura knocked herself out of her head and glared. "...underestimate me!"

She reached deep inside of herself and unleashed something which she had been gathering for years, uncorked the bottle, and felt agony as the storage seal on her heart exploded open.

From her collarbones, branch-like seals stretched out across her shoulders, going down her arms and ending in the palms of her hands. There were flowers on the branches, like cherry or plum blossoms; but more important was the chakra.

Corrosive. Poisonous. Coiled and hungry like a starved serpent. It roared out of her, calling for blood, and though it literally burned Sakura's insides, she beat the chakra down. Tamed it. Told it, 'you are mine now, do you understand that?'

It retreated back into her body, the seals along her shoulders and arms rippling like they were alive. The surprise of her comrades was palpable.

"Sakura?!"

"Oh… so you do have something new for me," Madara sounded pleased that she could further entertain him. Sage, was she going to enjoy this... "Unexpected. Fine, I'll play with you. I might even give you a good death if you're able to grab a hold of me."

Sakura's hands trembled. It took all her restraint not to allow the chakra to tear apart her coils. "I won't need to grab you, Madara."

"And what makes you think I'll let yo—what?!"

She hadn't entertained his witty reply. Sakura moved, faster than she ever had before, and reached out. Her fingertips glanced across his face, but before she could grab a hold, he kicked her across the clearing. The startlement was gone. He seemed irritated by her, like she was a fly he couldn't swat. "So the chakra makes you faster…"

"That's not all it does," Sakura murmured. Madara hissed, hand flying to his cheek. She watched in satisfaction as the skin peeled back, melting away like acid was shaving away at his face. "All I have to do is touch you!"

Next was his foot, the one he had used to kick her. It eroded just as his face had one, contaminating nearby areas. It was removed from the ankle down. Madara's surprise made way for consideration. "Hashirama's granddaughter… could it be that you're a descendent?"

Ha. Unlikely.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Sasuke, and he stared at Sakura like she was someone he was meeting for the first time.

But Kakashi was not nearly as lost. "It isn't a jutsu. Ordinarily, there are only five chakra nature types: water, earth, wind, fire, lightning. Senju Denatsu is the first ever case of someone being born with corrosive chakra."

"Like Corrosion Style?"

"Corrosion Style is the combination of fire, water and earth. Corrosive chakra isn't any of the five. It's just—acidic." Kakashi eyed the seals. "How can you harness a chakra nature, Sakura?"

"Carefully." was Sakura's reply. She didn't do it alone. Tenten to help with the sealing, Hinata with the adjustment of foreign chakra to her system, Ino with the occasional poisoned bloodstream… and Shishou to incorporate it into her fighting style. Sakura knew the value of teamwork. "And not for very long. So if you three want to wait for me to deal with him until you can deliver the final blow, it would be much appreciated."

Sometimes, Sakura thought Orochimaru would have made a better mentor for her than he was for Sasuke. Sakura struck like lightning, too quick to follow with your eyes. Madara dodged, but Sakura's style wasn't about one-punches. Her shishou's style wasn't about that. She struck again, again, again, because it wasn't about the force of a punch, but the quantity of them.

Denatsu's style was so much more effective with her chakra. Sakura was exhilarated.

Shrieking birds. Madara leaped backwards to dodge Sasuke's fist. From behind came Naruto, and the boys moved Madara away from her as the engaged in something that barely counted as taijutsu, with all the ninjutsu they were using as augmentation.

Sakura watched. Waiting. Sasuke cracked into a can of Perfect Susano'o and Naruto into his Kurama cloak. Madara had no choice but to meet them overpowered jutsu for overpowered jutsu. It was when the boys knocked Madara over that Sakura made her move. She propelled herself forward—let your rapidity be that of wind: swift, invisible, leaving no tracks—and came onto the scene as Madara began to laugh.

Her hands fit snugly around his throat. He wasn't laughing anymore.

"You—"

The chakra, all of it, roared forward and sunk its teeth into Madara's neck, into his coils. He screamed from the pain of it, whereas Sakura felt herself relax as the chakra switched vessels. Madara was powerful, but not even Hashirama himself could touch his granddaughter without the use of seals.

Madara did not have any seals.

As soon as the transfer was complete, Sakura stumbled backwards; Kakashi was behind her, caught her and carried her to where a wary Naruto and Sasuke waited.

"What did you do?" asked Naruto. He sounded horrified. "He's—screaming, Sakura-chan."

"I gave him my—my shishou's chakra," Sakura intoned. Her body was trembling from relief and pain. Her coils felt raw and bleeding, though such a thing was not possible. At least, not normally. "My seals… they are tied into shishou's. Because hers aren't—weren't chakra repression: they're storage seals. But instead of storing the chakra in the fucking void or something, it goes to me. It goes to my seal."

Sakura allowed herself a vicious smile.

"I've been accumulating shishou's chakra for three years."

"And you think your trick will put Madara down?" Asked Sasuke, voice dry.

Kakashi shook his head in response to Sasuke's offending doubt. "The Shodaime himself couldn't touch Denatsu when she was a child. Her chakra would have destroyed his hands. I can't imagine the damage the chakra would do to a chakra system unprepared to handle it."

Naruto made a noise of amazement. Sakura collapsed to her knees, blood pounding in her ears. Her teammate went to grab her, but she waved him away. "You can handle him. All of us, we do it together or not at all."

Naruto's grin complemented Sasuke's scoff. "Moron, we could have done it without you," The Uchiha complained. It was still the closest thing to a 'good job' she'd ever heard from him. It was almost enough to make her smile.

"If you're going to whine, do it after you land the killing blow."

The reincarnated sons charged at Madara, who was quickly regenerating his entire fucking head. Kakashi dropped to one knee, his hand a steady anchor on the back of her neck. While the boys finished the psychopathic man off with some mystical hand nonsense, Kakashi told her, very quietly: "I know I was a terrible teacher to you, but just so you know... I really am proud of you, Sakura. No less than I am of the boys."

It was silly how much it meant to her to hear him finally say it. She grabbed his hand and held it tightly while whatever poisonous chakra remained flushed itself out of her system; it must have burned him to hold her, but he squeezed her fingers tightly. "Th-Thank you, Kakashi-sensei…"

"I'm sure," he continued, "that your shishou would agree with me, if she were here."

Sakura's heart hiccupped. It was an open wound, a truth that she had been too busy to acknowledge in the midst of this war. But her shishou had died in defense of the village, her grandfather's village, and saved a great many lives doing so. In her last moments, Denatsu redefined her malicious chakra — used it to disintegrate the undead, to destroy Obito's giant wooden statue, to incapacitate Obito himself in defense of Sakura. Her shishou died after finally clawing her way into redemption, and Sakura wouldn't allow her grief to cloud how proud she was of Denatsu.

"It's a shame… she didn't grow to like you… Kaka-sensei… you would have gotten along, I think…"

Kakashi smiled indulgently. The unpleasantness between him and Denatsu was completely mutual, after all. "Save your energy, Sakura. You used a lot of chakra..."

"—not all of it," Sakura assured him, throat strained with the effort of talking. She was naturally conservative, and this chakra was the last thing she possessed of her shishou.

"You've used enough," He said, tone stern. "Rest. You've done well."

She breathed through the pain, emotional and physical, and held her sensei's hand tighter—her only sensei, the only one she had ever wanted, in spite of his copious amounts of flaws. Nobody was perfect.

Kakashi cared for her; he hadn't stopped, she knew, but all she had ever wanted from him was visceral acknowledgement that all her hard work hadn't been for nothing. And she'd finally gotten it, only for the feeling of self-satisfaction to fall short of the mark. But this wasn't disappointing. Not for Sakura.

The fact of the matter was that she'd already proven it to the most important person: her damn self. Kakashi—and everyone else who paused long enough to look upon her and realise she was more than a shrinking violet, hidden in the shadows of her team—they were just late to the party.

Sakura was a shinobi, for better or worse. Other people's opinion hardly counted towards her execution of duty. She was a bit too busy forging her own path to be concerned about them.

She closed her eyes. The burning on her torso receded into her skin, the seal on her heart growing dormant. Madara was dead, Naruto and Sasuke weren't, and she had her sensei by her side. The fatalities were lower than expected. The war… for all intents and purposes, the war was finished. Most of her friends were alive, save for Neji, whom Sakura would properly mourn as soon as she had time to breathe.

Presently, she would satisfy herself with this: Sakura was going home with all four of her boys.

She would walk in-between them, a hand on Kakashi and Naruto, a watchful eye on Sai and Sasuke. Her shoulders would brush theirs. Sakura, for the first time in her career, was confident in herself. She was no longer watching their backs.

From now on, they were equals.

And finally—fucking finally—the boys believed in that as much as she did.