Title: No Legends Left

Notes: Chapter 421 featured, amidst Pain's (Madara's) attack on Konoha, a nameless little girl that Sakura saved by throwing a humongous punch into the gigantic centipede that threatened the child. This was written back then.

"Hey, you!"

It's broad daylight when she gets accosted. There are people around, but she's just walked past the small group of cops, and she spotted how they were insistently detailing her even before they called her. She didn't start walking any faster, though, hoping she'd be out of their sight before they decided to investigate her case.

She does what any normal person would do; turn around, looking surprised and a little nervous, and say, "Me, sir?"

It's not a big effort to pretend she's startled, she just widens her eyes. As for the nervousness, well, she doesn't need to fake it.

She doesn't pretend she thinks it's someone else they noticed. That'd just anger them. She doesn't attempt to run away either, she's smarter than that. It's broad daylight when they arrest her, because she's smarter than to get caught out during the night. Smarter than to be out at all during the night.

The man walking up to her wouldn't be so menacing if he wasn't a cop. She bows her head, hiding her eyes behind pale bangs. She'd be able to take him, of course – and probably the handful of colleagues that are watching from afar, their chatter interrupted.

She wouldn't even make it out of the city. They're cops, they don't need to be as good as she is; they have authority instead.

His swagger stops far enough away from her that her heart sinks in her chest. That careful distance, it's worse than a suspicion; it means that one way or another, they know what she is. It's one of the first things they teach in cop schools, or whatever place Madara has his forces of order trained.

Never get close to a ninja.

There must be more rules, because this one doesn't even begin to cover everything a ninja can do – everything she can do – but she's never had cause to guess any one of them. She'd much rather today wasn't the day she did either.

"Your papers."

Nothing strutting in his tone either.

"Y-yes! Of course..." They're here, of course, in her pocket. As if she'd ever be stupid enough to go out without them.

This time, she doubts it'll be anything near close enough to avoid being arrested, and perhaps worse, but... Her breath catches all the same while he reads them, unfolding the yellow sheet contained in her dog-eared booklet. His eyes flick between the small plastic card with her photo on it and herself.

Isn't he taking too long looking at them? Last time she was controlled, did the cop pay so much attention to her ID? Shouldn't he be asking questions by now, making small talk or finding something suspicious?

There's nothing suspicious about her papers, nothing that'd make anyone raise an eyebrow, nothing that'd mark her as anything out of the ordinary.

All her papers are fakes.

"Would you follow me? It seems like we need a verification."

"Routine," another cop adds.

She looks up, inclines her head to the side, and smiles. It's alright if it comes out shaky. "Ah, of course."

"You won't get in trouble with your boss? We can send someone to let him know where you are." It's from a third one, who speaks in a helpful tone. She assumes it's a trap, and answers with the truth.

"Ah, it's okay, I'm not working today, I was only on my way to the grocery store."

She has a part-time job as a waitress. The pay's dreadfully low, but the four of them, they've been managing so far. And she's good at it; the physical stress is nothing to a ninja, and she's friendly enough of a person. She gets on well with her boss and colleagues, the clients like her.

They've started walking toward the police station, and she's thinking.

Someone, somewhere, has alerted the cops that there are ninjas in town. More than that: someone, somewhere, has denounced her as a ninja. Someone has recognized her to be a ninja, but doesn't know her well enough to give the cops her name.

It's a shame, because it means they're going to have to move out again. They've been in this place for a little over a year, and she really likes it here. She'll have to dye and cut her hair when they move out, but that doesn't bother her as much as losing her students does.

In the past year, she's been able to teach the basics of ninjutsu to several kids. They're getting as good as taijutsu as their small stature and lack of formal, Academy training will allow them, their ninjutsu is going along fine, and she was hoping she'd be able to start on genjutsu sometime soon.

Genjutsu, when properly used, is even more useful than the two other branchs combined, but it's unfortunately also not something that can be picked up as swiftly.

It's not something people can fight or expect as easily as the rest. Genjutsu is the essence of what it means to be a ninja; it means being hidden in plain sight, it means reshaping your enemy's perceptions, it means refusing the rules that have been forged for you and making the game yours.

The legends say that those truly adept at genjutsu could force you into a raging battle even as they stayed still, that they could make the forests come alive around you or make you sleep for days. The legends have been dead for a while, but anyone should be able of quick, short genjutsu to distract your enemy when they're chasing you.

Sadly, she doesn't have the resilience or the chakra reserves to keep up a subtle veil of insignificance about her at all times – one of the most useful genjutsu of her arsenal.

She picked it up, fifteen years ago, from a woman who was the closest thing she's ever met to a genjutsu master. The woman, too, came from Konoha.

They told each other their names, for there could be no secrets between ninjas. The woman's name was Kurenai; if she hadn't had a son to worry after, Kurenai told her, she'd have offered to stay together. When she was a child, Kurenai hadn't been the type of woman that stirred her to become a ninja.

She wouldn't have been very impressed by most genjutsu back then, she reflects, but it's thanks to Kurenai that she's managed to call herself a ninja in the end.

Kurenai was the one to declare her a full-fledged ninja. Kurenai drew her a leaf symbol in the sand where she completed her ultimate test, and when Kurenai looked steadily at her and told her – and her son, a boy a handful years younger – that she was now a true ninja, a genin, she'd thrown herself at Kurenai.

She hugged her teacher, and cried.

Then they went their separate ways; Kurenai never wanted to settle down anywhere, and she, well, she had fallen in love with a civilian boy in one of the towns they'd gone through. She was a full-fledged ninja, almost like an adult; Kurenai let her and left with her son.

There aren't chuunin exams anymore, but she knows she's gotten better since then.

Nowhere on her papers is the name Konoha mentioned, of course. It'd be a very quick trip to Madara's capital if it was, or an even quicker death if she fought well enough that there'd be the risk she'd get away.

She has very few memories of Konoha. She'd only barely started the Academy when Konoha had fallen, two years after the first attack. All that could fled, and the village was razed.

After Konoha, the remaining ninja towns in smaller countries quickly disbanded; in Rock, the entire village disappeared within the night to avoid being massacred. Or so they say; she's pretty sure that several of her comrades over the years originally came from the Rock, because, well, they sounded much better informed about it than others, and from what she's gathered the disappearance was actually a slower process, one that had already started months before Konoha burned to the ground.

It's been over twenty years since Madara destroyed the ninja villages, but he hasn't been able to destroy the ninjas.

He'll never be able to.

As long as there are ninjas, there will be kids who'll learn of the way of the ninja, and who'll go looking for the techniques and the values that Madara wants to erase.

That's the reason why she's only scared, when the cops walk her to the police station – you can see the town's out of the way of pretty much everything by how long it takes to get to the police station; other, bigger towns have several such places, and ways of warning one another of what's happening everywhere in town. (But even in the city, it's not possible for them to control everything. There are more cops, but there are also more people; too much to be watched as closely as they should if they wanted to capture the ninjas.)

She's scared and she's worried, but she's not terrified. She won't get sent anywhere.

The ninjas have few rules. The first one is: never leave a comrade behind.

The cops make her wait in a cell for the next two hours. It's frustrating that they don't even bind her hands, though obviously it serves their purposes; if she does seals, she reveals herself as a ninja. Back before Madara went after the Hidden Villages, that wouldn't have kept anyone from bursting out of the cell and getting the hell out of there, but she's just not good enough of a ninja to do it and then live to tell the tale. Not to escape Madara's mockery of justice for a noteworthy amount of time, at least.

It's going to take the guys at least five more hours before they think her absence abnormal. Less if her boyfriend remembers that today she's not seeing her students, but she's not counting on it. He's already hard-pressed to remember important things like their anniversary or the date of next meeting with Izumo and Kotetsu's group.

She doesn't know how long the police are going to keep her in that wooden cage - wooden, if that's not an invitation she doesn't know what it is, practically every ninja she's ever met knows how conjure up fire. Except those who can't use ninjutsu and those who presumably were taught in Water Country.

Or Mist Country, she's never sure.

Her geography classes at the Academy are long past, and they've got Madara to blame for the new and simplified world politics. There are decent chances one of her comrades may have roots in that country, but he was born after the villages stopped existing, so he probably wouldn't be able to tell her himself.

In any case, the fact that they haven't started interrogating her yet means they know her comrades are going to come and rescue her.

Actually, they're more likely to pretend to be special forces agents sent from the capital and take her away. Big-ass theatrics are mostly a fire-sure way of confirming the cops' suspicion that there are ninjas in town.

Well, anyone would know that there are ninjas in town, she judges, but that's only because there are always ninjas in town.

When she was a kid, back before she started the Academy, she saw the last legend die. Tsunade sacrificed herself to protect Konoha. Without her, the village would have been defeated at that very first attack from Madara's organization.

When she was a kid, the legend was the first thing that told her of the dangers of being a ninja.

She still wanted to become a ninja, though.

That's the second rule of being a ninja: no-one can take your ninja way from you.

At least that's how she tells it to the kids she's been teaching the way of the ninja over the years, and she thinks it's a damn good rule.

Right now it means that she doesn't despair – of course she doesn't, she's a ninja – and she's prepared to leap into action should the guys' plans fail. She's seen where the cops keep their transmission tools and smashing them will only take a moment. They'd have to run away further, that's all.

She's just about starting to console herself that she's got it covered when there's a rumbling, almost deafening noise coming from outside, accompanied by vibrations so strong she has to put her hand against the wall to avoid falling. The cops outside the cell fare less well and she'd start worrying that she may have unwittingly blown her cover by displaying better-than-the-norm sense of balance if the police station's main wall wasn't suddenly smashed.

All she can do is stare.

A humongous- whitish- thing is moving where the wall stood a moment ago. It looks like the flesh of some disproportionate creature, but that's not even the whole of it, because the thing is moving away and now she can hear shouts over the noise of bits of wall crumbling. All around, the cops are like her, frozen in amazement.

"Damn it- get him! Both of you, don't let him get away!"

It's a female voice, rather young, imperious, raging.

The impact has unhinged the door of her cell, and by the time the voice has stopped hollering, she's already out and running, and the funny thing is that the cops are doing exactly the same and no-one is trying to stop her, they're all too-

They don't get farther than the crumbling walls of the police station, because she's the first to slip out.

She thrusts chakra down the boulders as she does, so they collapse behind her, blocking the access. She and her friends will be long gone by the time the cops unseal the entry.

Outside, well, outside it's worse, in a way that makes her giddy.

Outside it's like a gigantic torn-up playground. There are less buildings standing than fragments of walls everywhere, and the vegetables of the local street merchant have been thrown all the way down the street – what's left of it. It's lucky it's an area where there are mostly offices, because she can hardly imagine the disaster it'd be for small merchants if their stores were demolished that way.

In the middle of it all – well, in the middle, more like on top of the destruction – there's a giant slug with someone on its back, wrecking happy havoc.

It's like her childhood come true again.

The figure on the back of the slug is yelling.

"Dammit, you two, I told you to get him, not play with him! Naruto, if you don't kick his ass in two seconds flat-"

"You'll what, Sakura-chan? Cut me off?"

The retort comes in the shape of a blinding yellow-haired flash that erupts suddenly from the left. Even from two dozens of meters away, she's blinded by the force of his grin.

"NARUTO!"

The silhouette jumps down the slug, somewhat less gracefully than you'd expect, sending chips of ground and walls and stone flying, and now she can see the woman.

Her heart skips a beat

Pink hair.

The woman has pink hair.

And that name, Sakura...

She feels her knees giving under her.

She recognizes that person; of course she does. Every ninja alive knows of her – of them – but to her, that woman is special. Without her, she'd never have become a ninja. Without her, she wouldn't even be alive today.

She remembers how that woman, then a girl, saved her.

She remembers running away from the centipede, and tripping and falling, and sheer terror as the monstrous beast got closer to her – and then the girl, smashing the monster with a simple punch. Her kind smile when she knelt and healed her wound. She remembers every word the girl said.

She remembers knowing, in that instant, she would become a ninja.

And now her idol, looking not a day over twenty, is standing a stone's throw away and threatening her blond friend with physical violence.

It's a scene she did not expect to see ever again in her lifetime.

The emotion blocks her throat, fills her up, freezes her on the spot. She can't speak, she can't call, overwhelmed by the sudden apparition of, god, her childhood.

That's what being a ninja is about, a voice whispers in her mind, and she agrees, she agrees.

"Ignore him, Sakura," says a cooler voice. It carries clearly over the distance, though it's not shouting the way the two others are. "He's trying to rile you up."

She follows the sound of the voice. A man has emerged from the top of a nearby building, one of the rare to be still standing, the light of the sun in his back; when she squints her eyes, batting the tears away, she can make out a tall, elegant frame, black-haired, pale-skinned. His face is tilted down toward the other two.

"You, focus!"

"Yeah, bastard, it's your fault he's getting away!"

The nonchalance vanishes from the other man's lean frame.

"My fault?" he growls. "You're the one who tipped him off with your ridiculous verbal tic!"

"WHAAAT?! I'm not the one who—oww!"

Standing over the bent form of her wheezing comrade, the kunoichi cracks her knuckles. Then she whips toward the other man, all business again.

"Sasuke, which way did he go?"

"North," the man answers without hesitating.

She nods, grabs the blond man's shoulder and shakes him. "Naruto, we're going." Her tone is far less aggressive than her actions would indicate.

Her hand stays on his shoulder when he coughs again, once, twice, then he straightens up. His smile looks a little strained, but good-natured.

"Okay," he says, taking a deep breath. "I'm good. Sasuke, lead the way."

"And go easy on the Chidori until we got him," Sakura adds. Then, looking up at the giant slug who's been patiently waiting the end of her mistress' antics, "You can go, Katsuyu. I don't think we're going to need you again, thanks for protecting us from the explosion."

"It was nothing," the slug says in that oddly rounded voice she remembers so well.

The black-haired man is dashing from the top of the building before the summon creature is done dispelling.

She hears one of the two grumble something about a show-off, and then Sakura Haruno and Naruto Uzumaki are running behind their teammate.

From behind her, there are sounds like the cops are about to get the rocks out of the way for good, so she gathers chakra in her feet and jumps away, quickly slinking away between the wreckage.

She has a huge grin pulling the corners of her lips all the while. When she finds her comrades, before they leave town for good, she's got a tale to tell.

After all, not all legends are dead.