Sasuke enters her apartment with tentative ease, clutching papers from the Hokage’s office as an excuse. One too many times their team passed out on her floor, drunk on spirits and stories and would-have-beens, exit tickets for something he couldn’t quite confront yet.
“Naruto wants me to give this to you. He said - “ Of course, he’s speechless. Ripped Sakura is a common sight, but ripped Sakura working out in her underwear shouldn’t really be seen at all.
She lets go of the barbell and struts too close for his comfort. “Great, thanks for saving me a weekend trip to his dingy office.”
He needs a cold shower after this. “Wear some clothes.” He’s quick to get the door, but glances one last time for a pathetic attempt of a wave.
“These are clothes.” She grins, fully enjoying his obvious fluster. “Have a great day, Sasuke.”
He should do something about what he’s feeling.
“You can shut the door as you leave,” she adds, “or you can stay and join me.”
In which Sakura is secretly apprenticed by Tsunade (and some others) a little earlier than in canon and is trained with the purpose of infiltrating the ranks of the Akatsuki and become a spy for the hidden leaf. The training was very extreme, but acting like a true shinobi even as she severely compromises her morals with the horrible things she must do to keep her cover and build more of the organization’s trust in her is even harder. She's breaking, and she has convinced her loved ones that she’s truly betrayed them, but she’s also determined to carry on with this mission if it means contributing to the safety of Naruto and Konoha.
There were other ways Sakura would rather spend a sunny afternoon than with her great-grandfather. Usually.
Rating: G(eneral audiences)
Status: WIP, 9 chapters~ (Note: In love with this concept; Sakura being related to the founders in a whole new way, I’ve literally never read a fic like this before. You won’t regret reading this.)
Sakura Haruno in a kefta! I had to draw her after finishing the grisha verse books. Cause i know she'd would look absolutely gorgeous in a kefta. She's wearing the corporalki uniform, the embroidery should have been gray as it's the color symbol of grisha healers but i like the gold with red and sakura looks good in it. Besides, she's more than the average healer so i think it's alright to use gold.
Author's Note: As usual, unedited. And it's a little shorter than the other chapters, but I'm sure I'll fix that when I come through with the final edits. For now, just enjoy! (Woot, my November Nano Challenge to finish IOG is shaping up well!)
Estimated Time To End of Fic: 4-5 Chapters
Posted to FF.Net / Ao3 / Wattpad
Sarada’s fist connects with the wall, the power of her tightly controlled chakra surging out of her with purpose. Sweat beads upon her forehead as she concentrates all of her being on maintaining a constant force, of hitting that one spot in the wall just the right way.
Cracks spiderweb outward, tearing across the uneven stone and rippling across floor and ceiling. The solid layers of stone beneath bend and strain against the pressure exerted by her strike, and finally give.
Cracks split open, slicing through the seals upon the vortices of the ward circle on the ceiling and floor. The intricate characters vanish at the same time as the barrier is broken.
Boruto tosses a shuriken into the space once occupied by the circle, and it bounces to the ground without a scratch.
The disintegration field is turned off.
“Nice!” Boruto cries, and immediately starts toward the cage. “Alright, let’s blow this thing!” Again, wind gathers in his palm, preparing to hurl one of his vanishing projectiles, but Sarada stops him.
“Don’t just destroy it,” she says.
“What? Are you kidding me?! That’s the whole reason we came down here!”
“You can only destroy it once. What happens if the whole thing has become self-sustaining, or there’s a back-up that can only be turned off by the main computer? Then it won’t matter if you destroy this machine! Let’s try turning it off before we blow it up.”
“We don’t have time for this!”
“Actually, I think time has become completely irrelevant,” Mitsuki remarks.
“Fine. Time issues aside, I like existing. What happens if you destroy it and we get ripped apart by some kind of fallout?”
This causes Mitsuki to pause. “That makes sense. It might be, this machine acts like a giant magnet. Suddenly reversing the poles of a magnet can cause attraction and pull them together—possibly causing them to crash into each other.”
“And we don’t want anything crashing or exploding into us! What if the machine suddenly stops pushing the paradox outward? It might contract in on us. But maybe if we slowly turn it off, the damage could be lessened.”
“Even if that were the case, none of us are exactly geniuses with computers,” Boruto points out in irritation. “Without someone like Denki, we could stand here pressing buttons for ages.”
“I believe I could figure it out,” Mitsuki volunteers.
“Huh? You?”
“I grew up surrounded by computers. And this model looks familiar. I suspect it even runs on the same operating system. I could probably find a function that allows for a slow decrease of power-levels.”
Boruto doesn’t look entirely convinced, and Sarada finds her suspicions about Mitsuki’s background swimming to the forefront of her mind just then.
We don’t have time for that conversation.
“I still think we should blow it up,” Boruto mutters, but he approaches the cage around the terminal and begins to pick the lock on it.
“We can still do that if Mitsuki doesn’t figure out another way,” Sarada insists.
The pale boy takes up a position in front of the terminal, studying the small, bright green digital characters. A beat later, his fingers begin to fly across the key-pad beneath the screen. Boruto and Sarada position themselves in front of the entrance, in case any other unwanted guests burst in on them.
Their caution seems justified when they hear the clank noise of movement on the metal scaffolding outside, growing louder and closer with every second. Sarada cracks her knuckles, the Sharingan activating so she can track whatever threat comes at them. Boruto’s fingers spark with yellow electricity, not wanting to risk the destruction on the cavern that a wind-based attack might cause.
And then the entrance darkens with the shapes of three figures, but they are not the curse-seal creatures. Mama, Konohamaru and—
“Mom?!” Boruto yelps in shock, taking in the startling figure that is his mother. Only she barely resembles her: blood has slicked her hair to her neck and head, though some effort has been made to clean up, and her clothing is likewise drenched. “What happened?! Are you okay?”
He darts forward, attack forgotten, and Sarada relaxes as well as the adults duck into the grotto with them.
“I’m fine,” Aunt Hinata insists. “There was…a bit of a mess.”
“No kidding!”
“At any rate, we’re done with all those curse marked monsters,” Konohamaru says. “So let’s hear it for small victories, hey?”
“What’s going on here?” Mama asks. “I thought you three went after Naruto and Sasuke?”
“We did,” Boruto said. “But when we got up there, that Teisoko creep had them frozen in a pocket of time! It’s like a sphere all the way around her, and if we tried to get in, we would have been frozen too!”
“So I figured it might be a better idea to stop whatever power source is allowing her to maintain that time field. Then we can free Papa and Uncle Naruto and they can deal with her and Jikken!”
“But how are you intending to stop it?” Konohamaru asks, glancing over at Mitsuki.
“I’m trying to find the proper command for a gradual shutdown, instead of a forced shutdown,” Mitsuki says.
“We’re worried doing that might cause a rebound of some kind,” Sarada explains.
“Yeah, well, I’m more worried that Jikken and Teisoko are going to make mincemeat out of Mom and Dad’s past-selves, but then I was overruled—”
“What did you say?” Mama interrupts Boruto, eyes wide in disbelief.
“Oh, yeah, your past-selves got the brilliant idea to use Teisoko’s portal opening and Old Man Kakashi’s Sharingan to stick themselves right in the middle of everything,” Boruto complains. “I don’t know what they did, but it knocked Kakashi out, and—”
“They’ll be killed!” Hinata gasps.
“Probably,” Mitsuki says, still frowning at the tiny screen. “Since everyone is still here, it hasn’t happened yet, however the odds are not favorable.”
“Then we don’t have time,” Mama says. “That machine has to stop, and it has to stop now.”
“But…” Sarada begins.
“Normally I’d agree that the careful approach is best, Sarada, but right now, every second counts. If we don’t act now, our past selves and Kakashi-sensei are dead.”
“But what I we all explode?”
“Winking out of existence quietly or in an explosion, it’s the same result. If I had to gamble on what course of action is most likely to save everyone…” Mama shakes her head. “Mitsuki, please move aside while I deal with this.”
“Yes! Aunt Sakura rocks!” Boruto cheers, while Mitsuki shrugs and moves away. Whatever happened to him during his captivity, he has recovered himself enough that his temperate and agreeable nature has returned. And more than happy to once again align himself with Boruto.
Sarada is still hesitant about the whole thing, but she lets Aunt Hinata move her and the rest of the team out of the cavern. From a safe distance, they watch as Mama strides forward and bends the bars around the computer terminal with ease. Then, she shoves her fists into the computer.
Circuits fry and crackle around her, and smoke spews from the broken terminal, but she doesn’t stop, reaching further in and parting metal and wire as if its were cottage cheese. Then with a yank, she pulls the whole thing out of the wall—along with a significant portion of thick, black metal piping.
The cables within the pipe are as thick as Sarada’s thigh, and lead upward through the stone, radiating electricity and a familiar golden chakra. Once Mama yanks the computer terminal away, though, the bright energy fizzles and disappears.
Silence echoes all around them, and Sarada’s ears pop, the omnipresent hum she barely noticed before now gone.
Then, something begins to rumble.
It starts within the room where Mama continues to stand, and the ceiling starts to crack and crumble in earnest, the gap where the giant pipes were laid folding in on itself.
“Move!” Mama yells, and drops the terminal to one side, before diving from the cavern, just in time to avoid the little room collapsing in on her.
The movement doesn’t stop there, however, and before their eyes, an entire section of the rotunda begins to cave in on itself. The scaffolding they stand on churns and twists, and they are forced to make a run for it, jumping from stairs and platforms that crumble beneath their feet.
As they reach the bottom once more, stumbling over the unmoving bodies of the curse-mark creatures, the entire scaffolding disintegrates before their eyes.
Far at the top of the dome, they watch as an eerie gold light emanating from Teisoko’s grotto, winks out.
“We stopped it!” Boruto cheers.
“You think?” Sarada asks, not entirely sure.
“Your mothers are both still here,” Mitsuki points out.
Which is true, but…
It’s too quiet up top, which could mean the cavern collapsed in on itself the minute the time pocket disappeared. And while she’s sure Papa would be able to get everyone out before they got squished…
The fact that he hasn’t yet makes her worry.
“There’s a suspicious lack of mayhem for a place where both our husbands are,” Mama says. “Hinata and I will look into it. And Konohamaru—this time I mean it. Take the kids and—”
“Sarada! Watch out!”
Aunt Hinata, whose back was turned to her, suddenly whirls around and reaches out to her, alarmed. As everyone else turns to her, a hand reaches out behind her, grasping her by the neck and dragging her backward.
She can only gape as the images of her loved ones vanish in a flash of golden light.
ナルト
Itachi Uchiha is a sociopath.
That thought is the clearest one Sakura can muster just then,
She kneels, her entire body trembling from shock and pain and confusion, and her stomach is turning in on itself, and she wants to throw up, because somewhere, an entire crow just burst out of her mouth—
Her vision blurs, reality bending around her, and she thinks she can hear his voice again, chillingly soft and measured.
….Protect Sasuke…tell him…
But she can’t quite get the words into focus.
There’s no time to dwell, anyhow. Teisoko is motionless before her, staring at the body of her lackey in disbelief, and that’s probably why she hasn’t made a countermove yet.
Assets, Sakura prompts herself, trying to shock her mind back into working. What assets do I have?
None, it seems.
Sasuke lies upon the ground, staring at her in shock, unable to pull himself to his feet, whether from lack of chakra or lack of strength. Probably both. Kakashi is still unconscious, and Orochimaru is barely out of toddlerhood, scared and huddled behind her. And Naruto is gone, too, trapped in the same time bubble as his and Sasuke’s future selves.
And Teisoko is moving again.
Free of her cables, she has very little strength beyond standing, but her Sharingan remains active.
There has to be a way to distort her gaze, to get past her.
Her body is so frail—almost that of a mobile skeleton—that someone of Sakura’s relative weakness should be able to take her in a straight-up fight, even as bruised and battered as she is now. It’s the dōjutsu that adds the danger element.
Even as she considers it, her muscles throb in protest and her vision swims with black spots.
Teisoko bears her teeth at Sakura, who averts her gaze, and then looks toward Sasuke. He flinches as her ruined mouth pulls into a perversion of a smile, and then returns her attention to Sakura.
“Give me the child,” she rasps, “and I will spare you in your last moments. You can hold your love for what remains of your existence.”
There is no doubt in her voice that the end of everything is close, and it terrifies Sakura.
This is not the usual fear that hits her during a dangerous mission, the kind that can be pushed off and talked away, with the distant hope of ‘some way we’ll pull this off!’ that always lingers at the back of her mind. Truthfully, the only time she ever feels like that is when Naruto makes one of his impassioned speeches.
She flicks her eyes to where her friend if frozen now.
“My name is Naruto Uzumaki! And my future dream…is to surpass the Hokage! And so, I’m going to get the entire village to acknowledge my existence!”
But this isn’t the Forest of Death, where Team Ten and Team Gai wait in the wings to help her until her boys wake up. She is literally facing off against death on her own, with no question that she will die.
Her inner self even wonders if it might not be better to agree to Teisoko’s terms. To go hold on to Sasuke for a few final moments. It would be fitting…
“I’m Sakura Haruno! What I like…I mean, who I like is… And my hobby is… My future dream is…”
Sasuke meets her eyes, furious and frustrated and trying to think around this latest obstacle. His face pulls into a snarl of defiance in the face of death, but as he meets Sakura’s gaze, there’s a momentary flicker.
He can tell what’s going through her mind, can see her temptation to give in. And he doesn’t even blame her for it because…he’s so tired. He doesn’t remember a time when he wasn’t fighting, and right now, he’s at his limit.
My name’s…Sasuke Uchiha…I have an ambition…to restore my clan…
He is bruised and bleeding and about to die, but in this one instant, that ambition is not what comes through in his gaze. All his thoughts and attention lock on her, waiting.
Sakura’s lips part in astonishment.
This is the boy she loves.
This is the person who has had her heart by inches since she was six years old, and who will always have it. And right then, in that infinitesimal short moment, she understands without question—the same way she knew she had to save Sarada before she even knew the girl was her future child—she knows that even if Sasuke doesn’t show it or properly acknowledge it himself, she has his heart, too.
And she’s not about to betray that for momentary comfort.
Sakura struggles to her feet, half-expecting muscles and bone to snap beneath her from sheer exhaustion.
“Sakura!” Sasuke bites out, an effortful warning or plea.
It doesn’t matter.
Sasuke can still save the Uchiha, and restore them…even without her.
Right now, if the choice is between both of them dying or just her, there is no choice. Maybe there’s no guarantee that Sarada’s mother has to be her, maybe Sasuke can find a chance at happiness if she succeeds.
And I would give anything to protect your happiness, she remembers saying as she moves her body into a crouch. She draws out her last cherry blossom tag. “Because you…are the person…that is most precious…to me!”
She charges Teisoko.
The emaciated woman snarls, preparing in her own way for the attack, her Sharingan the ever-present threat.
“Sakura!”
But she is already vaulting through the air, gaze fixed just below Teisoko’s eyes, concentrating all effort and awareness on trying to sense where the next assault will come from. She dodges explosions and time portals left to right, and notes with a boost of confidence that they are coming much slower now. Fast enough to dodge with relative ease.
Teisoko is weakened too, whatever threat she still possesses, and Sakura does not intend to waste that.
As she enters into Teisoko’s immediate range, the place where the ancient Uchiha has more control, Sakura throws her last bomb directly at the woman’s face and prays that despite the fifty-fifty chance she has—
Teisoko detonates the explosive with the spin of her Mangekyo Sharingan, and Sakura laughs in triumph. Caution and self-preservation thrown to the wind, she vaults directly into the path of the explosion, bursting through the flame with her right arm raised and screaming.
“SHAN-NA-ROOOOO!”
Her fist connects with Teisoko’s sternum, and she feels it shatter beneath her knuckles, the fore of her chakra rending surrounding ribs and muscle, and in that moment—
Her eyes meet Teisoko’s scarlet gaze.
The black wheel in the iris contracts in pain and rage, and Sakura knows what’s about to happen, but there’s no course-correcting now.
Sound and heat explodes around her, followed by a searing pain, and then nothing.
Sakura’s body is thrown backward from the force, and unlike the first time, when she saved Sasuke from suffering the same fate, she doesn’t get up again.
Sasuke doesn’t realise he’s screaming until the last remnants of the explosion clears the air, leaving a heavy silence within the pocket of time. Sakura’s body twitches in pain, the only indication that she’s still alive. Her entire front is a mass of blood and bone and blackened blisters; her left eye, the one that remains unruined, stares up at him emptily.
Teisoko clutches at the wall, trying to stand while glaring down at Sakura’s body. She coughs, blood drippling down her lips, and then begins to laugh, a dry and heaving sound.
“I’m…still…standing, girl,” she hisses. “And now…no one…can stop…me!”
She turns her back on the ruined remnants of Team 7, and lurches toward Orochimaru. The tiny boy is crying and scrambling, trying to push himself further into the equipment but having nowhere to go.
“You…are mine…filth!”
She reaches out a spindly hand to pull him toward her.
A flat plane of violet chakra erupts between Orochimaru and Teisoko, throwing her back before she can touch the boy. It’s a shapeless slab in the air, resembling a large human rib.
Sasuke’s head feels like it’s on fire, like a switch has been flipped in his brain, and whatever strength remains in his body now bleeds into his eyes. They burn, and every other cell in his body burns right along with them.
Teisoko recoils. “Susanoo…no…that can’t…be…”
She turns to Sasuke, who stumbles to his feet.
With every movement, he can feel the life leaving his body. With his chakra exhausted from the curse-seal, he thinks he might just be burning through his own life force to keep that shield—the same one his older self used—between Teisoko and Orochimaru. He has no other goal now other than to continue the protection that Sakura offered before sacrificing herself.
Sasuke can see the damage to Teisoko’s body, and if he can get to her—
Blood drains down his face from both eyes, tear tracks that mirror those of the woman before him. Sensation in his extremities disappears—toes and fingers, then calves and forearms, and he pitches to his knees.
If he has to fucking crawl he’s going to do it.
The world flickers, narrowing to dim grey shades, and he’s dying, he knows it. Sakura’s dying, Kakashi might already be dead, and Naruto is frozen in time, and Sarada…
Sarada will never exist.
He’s dying, but he’ll be damned if he isn’t taking the monster in front of him out too—
The golden wall of chakra around them ripples, once—then twice in quick succession, and then the earth begins to rumble beneath them. They shouldn’t be able to feel that, trapped in the bubble of time as they are, but the more the golden chakra begins to wane, the more the world shakes.
Crevices split into the walls beyond the time pocket, and Teisoko stumbles back against the wall where she was secured. Gravity pulls Sasuke downward, and he falls weakly onto Sakura, sprawled across her.
The world edges away, and somehow his left hand falls into her right, and he thinks now there’s nothing else, now he can sleep.
But the earth is shaking too much and the time bubble is vibrating, and he thinks he sees his future self’s fingers begin to twitch—
Searing hot, golden light pulses and then explodes outward, blanketing everything. Sasuke has the impression of a rubber band suddenly contracting in on itself, before it pulls inward, jettisoning toward Teisoko.
There’s an instant where it passes over him and he is nothing.
No sight, no sound, no movement…no sensation. He ceases to exist.
Awareness returns with a roar, and he watches as the golden band wall that passed over him slams into Teisoko, flattening her against the wall, before she falls face-down on the ground.
She doesn’t move.
And Sasuke can notice all of this because suddenly he can feel again!
There’s no pain anymore, he realises as he pushes himself up, staring at his hands. They are devoid of any bruising or telltale signs of scuffle. Turning his head to the right, he gapes at Sakura, who blinks up at him in confusion from two perfectly whole seafoam eyes. Her face is restored, and her skin no longer hands in blistered shreds.
“Sasuke?” she asks, bewildered, and his chest constricts with disbelief and respite because she is not dead. “Sasuke!”
Then she is throwing herself forward, wrapping her arms around his neck despite the awkward angle, and her grip his suffocating, but he doesn’t push her away. He’s too stunned at their wholeness, the fact they are both completely intact, so much so that even their clothing is mended. Somehow, Sasuke is wearing his high-collared blue shirt again, and Sakura’s tunic is its full length, and Naruto—
He whips his head around, watching as his teammate and their future selves stumble as if taking a wobbly step forward. They all seem mildly confused, except for Adult Sasuke, whose gaze is locked on something behind Sasuke. He discovers what when another body knocks into his, and looking down, the child Orochimaru has grabbed on to Sakura’s free arm, clutching at her like a lifeline.
In this bizarre place, she must, and Sasuke can’t even blame him for it because something in him thinks the exact same thing.
“What the hell just happened?!” Naruto demands, gazing around at the cavern that is no longer taken up by the thick, curved wall of chakra. “How’d I get here?”
“You entered the time field just as we did,” Sasuke’s future self says. “While you were in it, you were frozen, but something disrupted it and it rebounded on its creator.”
“And in the process, it appears to have returned us to the condition we were in before we encountered this paradox,” a voice adds, and they all glance over to where Kakashi is getting to his feet. There is no hint of blood in his mask, no clawing shreds across his chest from Mumyōi.
“Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto and Sakura whoop, and she lets go of Sasuke to get to her feet. Orochimaru buries his face in her hip, and despite her bemused look, she allows it.
Sasuke tamps down the inexplicable and unwanted glimmer of annoyance at that, and looks away pointedly. His gaze falls upon the still unmoving corpse of Jikken. “If time reset us all, why didn’t Jikken come back to life?”
Not that he’s complaining, but…
“He was dead,” Sasuke’s future self says simply.
“And the chakra sigil binding him to Teisoko was severed,” the future Naruto says. “That was the only thing that was keeping him reanimating. I imagine he’s been dead for a long time.”
“As for the rest of us, none of us were dead,” Future Sasuke continues. “Cells frozen in time are different from those that have expired.”
He is watching Sakura with a set to his jaw and Sasuke knows exactly what he’s feeling.
She was never dead.
He holds one hand out in front of him, calling upon his Sharingan and finding that it is no effort to do so. The strange burning sensation from earlier is gone, and he wonders for a moment if what happened to him moments earlier meant that he briefly, very briefly, possessed the same eyes as his brother.
Because of Sakura.
No, he tells himself, very firmly. It wasn’t that.
It’s not a strong denial, but it’s enough for now.
“But wait a minute,” Naruto says, frowning. “How the heck did Jikken die? One second, I was fighting him and then…bam! I’m here.”
“It was Sakura,” Future Sasuke says. “With a little help.”
She looks up in surprise. “How do you know that? You were frozen.”
“The Rinnegan allows me to see beyond time. While I was trapped, I was still aware of what was going on.” Future Sasuke scowls at them all now, before his eyes rest on Kakashi. “You were all reckless coming here. It almost killed you, and us.”
“Puh-lease, asshole,” Naruto snorts. “You’d still be a timesicle if it weren’t for us showing up.”
“Speaking of,” his future self says, “this isn’t over.”
“No, it’s not,” a cold voice interrupts, and everyone stills. The voice is new, and yet not, and when they all look over, they stare in horror at a standing Teisoko.
Only it’s not the chilling, living dead goddess they all battled until the point of death. A woman, barely out of her teens, stands before them. She looks uncomfortably like Sarada, only her eyes are slits of red anger, and her mouth is twisted into a cruel smile.
The time bubble rebounded on her as well, and instead of destroying her, it seems to have reset her to the way she once was, too.
Adult Sasuke twitches, like he’s about to move, but Teisoko’s Sharingan is back to its full power as well, and she freezes him in place once more.
“I might not be able to change time from outside my personal timeline the way I planned, but my abilities remain otherwise intact,” she sneers. “In fact, they are stronger than they ever were. All that chakra I gathered? Its in me now! And none of you will be able to stop me from going back and ending this hell of a world before it begins.”
“That’s what you think,” Adult Naruto says, and his fiery chakra flames to life.
“Oh, I do not think. I know. Because the larger paradox is retracting, too. As it builds speed, it will erase everything out of its proper temporal location,” she drawls. Her Sharingan flicks to one side, and a portal opens. She reaches into it, and then yanks her arm back, dragging a stunned Sarada back to her by the throat. “And you will all be far too busy looking for this one to escape it!”
And with a final sneer, she opens a second portal and charges toward it, yanking Sarada along with her.
つづく
Soooo. Better or worse than the Itachi-related cliffhangers?
Everyone’s been dying for mini-Sakura being badass and having mini-Sasuke actually see it, so here you go! And yes, Sasuke briefly awakened his Mangekyo Sharingan for Sakura’s sake…but since the time pocket rebounded, he was also “reset to factory settings” like everyone else. Which means his Sharingan was too :P Don’t y’all just love timey-wimey stuff?
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 22/?
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Haruno Sakura, Shiranui Genma, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto), Hatake Kakashi, Hagane Kotetsu, Kamizuki Izumo, Mitarashi Anko, Choujuurou (Naruto), Nara Shikamaru
Additional Tags: strong!Sakura, Sakura realises she shit and actually works to change it, Mild canon divergence, BAMF Sakura, mildly self-indulgent, essentially what would've happened had the manga actually recognised Sakura's talents early on, aka eventual genjutsu specialist Sakura, Fix-It, Humor, Actual mother-hen Shiranui Genma, Families of Choice, mentions of panic attacks and PTSD
Summary:
During their mission to Wave, Sakura realises how behind she is in her training and decides to do something about it. She vows to become a teammate Naruto and Sasuke can depend on, can respect, can trust to fight their battles alongside them. But Sakura has always been a paper-ninja, so her first stop for inspiration is the library where she finds unexpected help in the form of one very bored tokujo who quickly goes on to become an integral part of her life. Soon, despite the neglect of her sensei and all odds seemingly against her, Sakura's destiny begins to change.
