outburn the sun

Sakura decided to delay approaching the settlement for today. Whether she decides to approach them tomorrow, or wait until she's gathered further intelligence outside of them, her best window is to approach them in the morning, with clothes that fit the time period and at the very least a minimum amount of knowledge on the closest village and news.

Thinking further on it cements her decision to search out the nearest village or town and establish information, a contact, and maybe a persona, depending.

She eats her rations, and drinks her water, and ponders her next moves; for the first time in forever, her actions are entirely her own to take and her life her own to shape with no intervention. If she wanted, she could simply abandon the shinobi life and live out the rest of her days farming and resting peaceful.

It's not something she particularly wants, but there's no one to stop her if she decides to do it. It's freeing, yes. But it makes her feel lost in a way, she doesn't truly know what decision or direction she wants, she knows what she logically should do. Gather intelligence to be well-informed, pick a place to settle, build up her strength so that she can be left undisturbed. The only decision she was truly able to make for herself was to approach Tsunade-sama to be taught, so she can remain visible after the team had scattered. And that had been a decision made on spite, fear, and pure grim determination. It was the best decision she had ever made, and looking back on it makes her both wistful and excited to make more decisions once again. 

What does she want? With all her heart?

For Danzo to never come close to any semblance of power. To destroy Konoha as it was, poisoned and rotted to the roots and all sickly sweet and bright in its exterior, to borrow the plant metaphor again, ugh. 

So that means being involved in the founding of Konoha in some type of way, directly or indirectly, although she imagines trying to indirectly influence it would be a very dangerous and difficult thing to achieve. More involvement with the eventual Senju-Uchiha duo and allies, however short-stacked and one-sided it eventually was.

But she can do that in any number of ways? Which way did she want to?

She's not sure so far, but she'd like to protect that little settlement with its women and small children. With this day and age, and what she knew of the Warring States, their continued survival isn't a guarantee. 

She goes to set up camp like she previously did, and lays back, looking up at the obscured sky pensively. 

She doesn't have to introduce herself as Sakura to the settlement, it occurs to her. It's not a name that exists anywhere, and there's no need to use it and all that attaches to it. 

There is nothing that attaches her to that name anymore, she realizes, no files and paperworks for an established identity, no friendships formed while in deep long-term cover, nothing. 

No one knows her, or a fictitious version of her. 

The realisation leaves her reeling. She almost wants to run away from it, amy choice, any font or action she makes, whatever name she introduces herself with, it will be hers. Only hers, and the only thing known about her throughout the surrounding lands. 

She could give herself a name, she could dye her hair, she could do… a million other things, if just for the sake of doing them. 

A name…

She remmebers Sai–sent to team 7 to watch Kakashi alongside her, ostensibly, but also to observe her. A hilarious mismatch of broken-in tools all pretending at humanity, and the only one fooled was possibly Kakashi-sensei, having spent too long pretending at humanity and ignoring his damage he couldn't see it when it was reflected back at him–and how he'd reclaimed a small bit of his assigned name, writing it as vivid instead of weapon. 

She could do that, probably. But she doesn't want to. She hates that name, for all the good that she was able to have despite it. 

So she'll just choose something else. 

If she had to name herself… she casts her mind back… Nothing to do with nature… something that means something to her…

Shishou…

She'll never see her Shishou again, nevermind how she's planning to change this timeline and implode her previous one to smithereens, there's no guarantee that she'll still be born at all, nevermind given the same name and the same upbringing to become the same person. 

So… Tsuna? Too close. And a bit childish. Tsume? No. Tsuzumi? Tsuyo? Tsuruha? Ugh, no, nothing about leaves. 

Tsunade-hime … The Senju Princess. Her only Hokage. 

Tsukihime. Tsukikage. 

The last one is so very tempting. And audacious. Both are. What right does she have to name herself a princess or a Kage? 

But she likes it, a reminder of her Shishou, and a name very far removed from anything she's ever held. One that she chose for herself, with a grand meaning and sentiment attached.

Tsukihime. That little girl in the orphanage that Danzo twisted wanted more than anything to be important and to be loved.

She's learned since then not to wait around for someone to come along and give her what she wants. She'll take it herself.

Tsukihime.

The moon visible up in the sky, pure and genuine, princess.

Tsukihime it is. 

Should she think of a family name? She never had one of hers before, not when she was an orphan, and not ever since. 

She wouldn't be tragically opposed, if it didn't affect things, but names have power in the past. Even among civilians, there's a difference between those with a family name–a history and lineage to trace--and those without. 

Above all, what Tsukihime now wants is regard, and power. 

So a family name is necessary. But what? Most family names come from the history of the family itself, farmers or merchants or scribes or even places they hail from. She could put something related to mountains, regarding this little settlement nestled between two mountains. 

But that would mean being absolutely sure that her allegiance was there, and that the people there would back her if questioned. 

She could name herself for some type of animal? 

A name from Land of Wave would be best, to explain her hair. She knows that one of her parents must have been from there or nearby, for her hair color and her uncommon dual affinity with water. Her seal too, while not an Uzumaki invention, is something that had been very much inspired by it. So acknowledging Land of Wave is good enough to excuse any similarities or inspirations, while still far away enough from Uzushio that no one there will be expected to know her of her family, there's no known or big shinobi clans there, so no space for any misunderstandings or misplaced claimings, either. 

She should stick as close to the truth as she can then, she doesn't want to spend any more time lying about who she is, no matter how good at it she is.

She's an orphan originally from the Land of Wave, with no memory and knowledge of her parents. Her Shishou picked her up, and gave her life meaning. She was a wandering shinobi, having lost all of her family, and she took her on as an apprentice when she asked. Tsukihime avenged her, and is now looking to settle down  and build something for her where her parents were going to make something of themselves, The Land of Fire.

There, it's very much the truth, without any mention of her unpleasant years with Danzo. But this is as much of her real self as she herself knows. A short template of the facts that survived ROOT, despite everything set against it.

One that she'll make sure lives on in this time. 

She could name herself after water, then. It's common enough in Wave. Something unobtrusive and common, to be safe. But then where would the glory in that be? None of this insane plan to go to the past has been safe at all. And what Tsukihime now needs is to make a splash, a grand entrance that will make ripples across the very dimension.

Careers. Places. Not plants. Animals. Something grand enough and yet true.

What she needs … is a summons main scroll, tied to her and her line. 

That makes a big statement. And requires another insane action, one that she's more than ready to take, for the rewards it can yield. 

Tsukihime will reverse summon herself, and prove herself and her goals to whoever she appears before, and she will guarantee getting the main scroll to pass down to whoever she deems worthy. 

And then she will name herself after what she has. 

Tsukihime settles now that she's figured out her next step. Reverse summoning will require her to be well-rested and well-prepared. Her seal has lost a significant amount of chakra for the ritual it took to get here, but it's intect and well on its way to being restored. Her chakra stores are full now, but she'll need to wait a couple more days for her seal to fill up enough to satisfy her, and then she'll summon herself.

She has enough weapons in her pouch for a long single soldier battle, and she'll keep the rations so that she can last a couple of days outside her dimension, if needed. 

So what she needs to do now, is seek out the nearest actual village and gather information, but period-appropriate clothes. She'll go under henge, and gather what she needs.

When she appears as herself, she wants to be done with all preparations and as true to herself as possible. And there's no accounting for whatever physical changes singing a summoning scroll will cause her.

▪︎▪︎▪︎ 

Getting up and properly mapping out her surroundings is her next action. 

It does give Tsukihime more of a perspective of the location and geography, the location of Konoha was chosen because of its natural defenses and resources, a big lush valley surrounded by mountains with the Naka river nearby (that was later diverted to run through the village itself). The main road curves around the mountain that will eventually be the Hokage Monument overlooking the valley and hills where Konoha sits in the future. 

She'd already known about all the natural advantages her village had just by location, of course, but it gives her more of a perspective to appreciate it. She'd say it was a wonder nobody settled down here already, if she didn't know that the very same clans that claim the sight aren't the very thing scaring off any settlement and community approaching by their fervent fighting and bloodshed.

She stays away from the cliff, north of Konoha, away from where she knows the Senju and Uchiha have their compounds near and their eyes out for any threat. 

The little settlement she has her eye on is on the eastern outskirts of the future village, nestled behind a mountain that borders the village and another smaller mountain that carves it away from the roads. 

It's a good, defensive position, and also one that explains why the little village it became later on was only under the protection and banner of Konoha, but never really inside Konoha proper, even after expansions. 

Tsukihime goes east, towards the settlement and later spreads out southeast. The nearest village is nearly a day away from the settlement, and almost two days from what would be the gates of Konoha, civilian speed. She makes it there running in about four hours.

It's smaller than what Konoha was in the future, but she knows that's a matter of a boom in population and in technology and medicine, the next century is a massive improvement in civilian medicine alone, she knows. 

Still, it's a decently sized village; merchants seem to come by, bringing with them news. The civilians seem to all be wearing either kimonos or yukatas, even the farmers that wear pants wear a short yukata. 

Everyone has Fire Land coloring, dark and brown hair, with some sandy blondes thrown in. She'd already known this but her hair color will definitely stand out, and if she wants to claim to have passed through then there have to be people who remember. 

She henges herself into an unremarkable street kid, clothes ragged and hair unkempt, and people turn their eyes away without any need of genjutsu applications. 

She learns that the train railway to the capital now reaches the next town, after their Lord has made significant growth to the town by his successful trade agreement, and that the textile trade is booming there; merchants coming in with more elaborate styles and expensive fabrics. She comes across only two merchants with shinobi guards, one that looks like an Inuzuka, and the other a sandy blonde that she can't quite place–there's a chance it's a Senju. She notes what they're wearing, normal period-typical clothes with armor on top, and gives both of them a wide range. 

Tsukime doesn't steal anything in this village, knowing that the news will spread more than she likes, and might be traced back to something she’s seen wearing later on. She goes to the nearby larger town, it's not that far; half a day if she went by civilian speed, and a two hour run with chakra. She can make it back

Sneaking into a larger town full of civilians is easy, she doesn't go anywhere near merchants, who have an inventory count and will be on the lookout for thieves. Instead she goes to the more rich areas of the town, and sorts through the laundry there, before turning her head to stored clothing that seems to have been left and forgotten, she steals three yukata, one in a light green color, another in yellow, and another in pink, and with that she assures herself that she has three outfits. She spreads it out across different households, so that no one suspects anything nefarious. All of them are long, and cotton, which is what she should have expected from well-off civilian women's clothes. She'll just steal some fabric or cut these off to make a shorter version she can wear with pants herself. She has more than one pair of pants to switch so that she doesn't need to steal any, but all her tops are distinctly not from this era.

She's tempted to get one kimono, just in case she needs a formal outfit suddenly, but kimonos are on the expensive side, and no one can forget a kimono they have, unless she goes to steal from nobles or royalty. 

Sneaking in during what appears to be tea time also provides her with some time to steal a bit of snacks from the kitchen, and listen in on the gossip–the first thing she notes is that the dialect hasn't changed that much, this is more in line with how the civilian council and the older generation talks, a bit old-fashioned but nothing she can't understand or replicate. It's not that different from the village she visited before either, if just a bit more formal. She also listens for the news, it's nothing terribly secret or confidential, but it reveals more on where she is in the timeline–they're gossiping about the current Daimyo and the fact that he still has not named an heir, almost into his third decade of ruling. His main wife has no children, but he has children from his concubines, and a not-insignificant faction are rallying behind the middle child, the third born–Ikkyu Masakune, a cheerful child of a high end courtesan, and a successful business man who has started several successful trades with the Land of Wave, and the Land of Tea, successfully introducing more vegetation and produce and driving them away from the dry seasons that negatively impact the food stores of the land. Most of the people are in agreement for his appointment, he has already proven the capability of caring for his people and ensuring they thrive--the agreements and trades have only been in place for three years now yet everyone has been feeling the difference. (Tsukihime can imagine, just the two places she's been have been feeling the effects of new wealth trickling in–merchants coming in, railways being established and extended. The political and economical landscape itself is ripe for change as it is.)

Tsukihime knows this man as the future Daimyo, who will acknowledge the established treaty and alliance of the shinobi clans started by the Uchiha and Senju, and in into grant them a military rule answering directly to the Daimyo in return for the rights of the surrounding lands other than the clan compounds, financial funding for the village, noble titles granted to the Uchiha and Senju, and rights to tax the inhabitants of the established village. It was what made Konoha Konoha. 

It had also been a political move that had launched Konoha much faster and vaster than initially thought, and had given civilians the peace of mind to start living alongside shinobi–something that had never happened before and also bolstred Konoha's economy–and yet it had also granted the Daimyo far more power and security than he'd had before, further cementing him at the top. 

Ikkyu Masakune–from what Tsukihime can remember-had been Daimyo for a small number of years when the peace treaty had been established and the settlement had started. No more than four years, when he had made the biggest decision of his political career that would go on to change the political landscape forevermore.

So, she'd had a base for her timeline now. She needed to keep an eye on the appointment of the Daimyo, but even if he were to be appointed anytime soon, she'd have no less than five years ahead of her to plan. A reasonably spacious time. 

▪︎▪︎▪︎ 

She goes out into the market with new stuff, her loot stuffed in a leather bag stolen from a messy son of a merchant, and less doubts. Her mind is whirling full of unrealised ideas, and she hurriedly pickpockets three men of their coin, using it to buy a sewing kit, fitting travel boots, and a couple of drinks at the pub, which she drinks at in the guise of a tired man, with food to keep her stomach full and her hands far away from her much needed rations.

The buzz has her relaxed and feeling optimistic, and she picks up speed to go back to her shelter in the little forested area near the little settlement, body spent and mind full of thoughts.

She's made much progress, seen and felt to her, and her biggest change yet is coming though it might be reserved to her, it's the one she's most excited for. 

She sleeps with her mind on plans for the future.