Chapter 1
The first thing Sakura–her standard designated name for longterm covert operations, and a comfortable skin to wear now–does after she wakes up alone, in the aftereffects of the ritual it took to get her here–however butched– successfully, is to take stock of herself; no injuries, severely chakra depleted, her seal intact and her meager supplies still sealed in the scroll, having managed to survive the trip.
She breathes out a sigh of relief, this is one of the best scenarios that she could have hoped for.
She looks around, now, all she asserted before she took stock of herself was that she was alone with no shinobi or settlements nearby. The area she came back from in the future was a steep hill facing a mountain, but here and now she seems to be surrounded by trees. Probably another casualty of the many Shinobi wars that waged through and savaged the lands.
Even the tiny village that she knows was gathered at the foot of the mountain before the war destroyed it doesn't seem to have been started up yet, although she's not much of a sensor, she can see that there's not many buildings, only scattered houses at the base of the mountain here and there with no outward signs of life, although that could very much be attributed to the relatively late hour.
While she needs to go there to check, she puts it off her mind for now. She surveys the trees around her, she didn't know this area had a forest beforehand, and it doesn't really make sense for the village to have cut down something that would provide a natural defense to the area, and not even regrow the forest with the Mokuton, but any number of reasons and excuses could explain it–from having a natural path for civilians to the forest being cut down or burned long before the establishment of the village. Maybe even to the fact that Konoha wanted a clear view of the village settled in close to one of their defense--the mountain surrounding Konoha that she knows should be visible out of the thick treess forested around her.
The second option would be vastly preferable for her, the further the establishment of the village is, the best her chances are. The more of a chance she has to do more.
What she wants to do now, more than anything, is to establish where she has landed in the timeline, and find out what the political landscape looks like–who has the money and the power, and the nuance of it all.
But before all of that, she needs to rest–and to do that she needs to be sure the area is safe, mostly the forest and what lays west and north of it, for she has the small settlement and its mountain east of the surrounding forest. If she had a bit more chakra to spare, she would have dispatched a clone to do a patrol, but this will have to do.
She casts a simple genjutsu using the smallest of chakra needed to blend into the background, one used primarily in scouting, and coats her hands and feet in chakra, quickling climbing the tree and crouching on a branch. She continues until she finds the edge of the forest, and seeing the small planes similarly empty, she dares to climb the mountain that is east of where Konoha would stand and sees that no settlement appear to have formed there either; on top of the peak of the mountain she can see the planes of land that will later come to be known as The Valley of The End outside the natrual border the mountains form, undisturbed hill tops at this point in time, and feels something settle in her chest even further when she spots no sign of a building village or a project of one.
She returns after confirming the current status of Konoha, and continues with the same strategy as she circulates the entirety of the forest, mapping out the parameters and orienting herself, before encroaching further into the forest itself, noting down the animals and locations, and coming to a stop nearby a lake sitting in approximately the middle of the trees. She commits the geography into her head, and resists the urge to immediately draw a map in favor of taking out her supplies to start a makeshift shelter up in the trees.
Setting up a trap that would awaken her from anyone approaching, she immediately lays her head back, eyes closed, and enters a meditative state that will allow her to easily go to sleep.
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Sakura wakes up well rested, with the sun at its highest point in the sky bearing down on her, with only the cover of the leaves breaking up the rays.
She tilts her head back to squint at the tiny breaks between leaves letting the sunshine through, pensive.
She disables the trap, and checks her chakra to make sure that she has enough for what she's planning to do–pleased when she finds that her chakra stores are more than two thirds of the way there. Before she managed to insert herself with the Godaime and began training with Tsuande-sama, her chakra pools could be replenished with only six hours of sleep if they weren't drained dry–but only because they were much smaller than they are now.
This, more than a lot of things, is physical proof that she has changed and improved in so many ways.
And this next action will be the biggest change yet, she muses, as she condenses her chakra into one sharp scalpel, bringing it to her mouth in a downward angle.
She doesn't hesitate, holding her tongue out flatly as she scrapes off layer after layer from the soft tissue, her own blood spraying around her. She only stops to spit out mouthfuls of saliva and blood that mix together in her mouth, heaving and grunting as she holds off the pain.
No matter how much this hurts, it will never be able to compare to when she first got this seal, eight years-old and so confused.
She brings her hands up, healing chakra manifesting as she regenerates cells and puts her tongue back together, her heavy breathing echoing around her, drowning out the faint rustle of the leaves and the song of birds, before even that is covered by the sound of her own laughter–a loud and unrestrained cackle that she can't even recognise, maniacal to her own ears, and yet she cannot stop, laughter tearing from her throat until they sound more like sobs than anything.
it's only after she stops, exhausted, that she pauses and makes her mouth say– “Councilman Danzo is a traitor to the Hokage, ROOT operates under his command. I'm ROOT.”
Hearing it out of her mouth and out in the open, even with nobody here to hear, much less even comprehend what she's saying, makes her grimly satisfied and free. Whatever happens from now on, she thinks, she has already won.
And she will do everything in her power for it to stay that way.
The Konoha that she knows will never come to be, and she'll make sure of it herself.