[Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn]

It was a quaint little afternoon in mid-July when Ino had managed to pry her away from the bowels of the hospital and to a little coffee-and-cake shop at the junction of one of Konoha’s newest roads. There had been more and more of them cropping up, dirt roads replaced by paved ones in lieu of the growing industry of civilian trade and the popular development of cars and trucks which made moving goods far quicker and easier than by horse and cart.

“Over here, Sakura-chan!” Ino called, a large smile on her face as she waved her over to the nearest seat by the window. “I’ve already ordered for the both of us,” she declared, even as Sakura sat down ever so cautiously on the cushioned seat.

“Without waiting for me?” One pink brow raised, watching as one of her oldest friends shrugged. Sakura followed suit, figuring it was probably for the best that Ino had ordered for her. All too often people complained that she took too much time when deliberating over what pudding to have. She had a sweet tooth – problem? “Oh well, whatdya get me?” she asked, yawning then and stretching out her arms, the lingering ache and tiredness catching up to her after her extended shift at the hospital.

“A selection of three deserts, if only because I know you’re ridiculous when it comes to sugar and sweet treats,” Ino said, sipping at her coffee, and eyeing her almost judgementally over her cup.

Sakura shrugged without a hint of shame. “Whatever gets me through the day.”

“Coffee,” Ino declared.

Her face shifted, memories of the first time she had tried the bitter brew cropping up in her mind in that instant. “No thank you! Hot chocolate for me all the way,” Sakura said, leaning forwards to rest an arm on the table. “So… What’s got you so worked up this time?” she asked, having seen the tell-tale signs of Ino holding herself back from the instant she had walked through the door.

Ino paused, sighed, and fished around in her bag for something then – the same something which was soon revealed to be a game. Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn it said on the packaging, stark crimson colouring standing out amidst the other, paler colours.

“Isn’t that the game you and Hinata were joking about a few months back?” she asked, lifting the game and smiling almost nostalgically. “I couldn’t get past the first few hours of gameplay… The sight of me with long hair and drill curls was… an acquired taste.”

“Not to mention you acted nothing like yourself,” Ino added, the smile which had swiftly appeared on her face vanishing just as quickly. “I thought it was funny before…”

One pink brow rose. “Before?” Sakura questioned, picking up on the wording, eyes narrowing. “What happened?”

“I heard people talking the other day – about the game,” she said, brow furrowing as she all but glared at the obnoxious packaging. “They said that the Yin Seal is easy to get, and I know they were talking about it in the game… but it just frustrates me because I know how hard you worked to create that seal on that massive forehead of yours, and I don’t think it’s right for people to say that any variation of the Yin Seal is easy to obtain.”

Sakura blinked, a smile curving at her lips. “You’re being nice today, darling,” she said, tilting her head as she leant forwards, only to be interrupted by the arrival of their sweet treats. “It’s just a game, isn’t it?” A smile curved at her lips, even as she ate a few mouthfuls of her cake. “It’s not like it affects the real world… It’s just some artist and author’s portrayal of me and Hinata. It’s not like they know me, so why would I care about their portrayal of me in some weird game? Everyone at the hospital knows better than to think I’m some ‘evil villainess’.”

“There are idiots out there, Sakura,” Ino muttered, shaking her head. “Honestly, the amount of times I’ve heard people complaining about how ‘evil’ Sakura is, and how she gets what she deserves – it scares me,” she said, and Sakura leant out then, grabbing Ino’s hands in her own. “It’s like someone’s created this game with the sole interest of smearing your name and making everyone think that you’re some sort of evil villain, when really, you’re the complete opposite…”

“Shinobi aren’t heroes,” she mumbled darkly at that, having long since removed those rosy lenses she had once seen the world through.

“Konoha Shinobi are heroes to Konoha,” Ino said pointedly, looking at her so very flatly, never letting her forget that her dear friend was a Yamanaka. Someone designed to root out dissenters and spies and ensure Konohan loyalties stayed strong through years of service. “Besides, you’re one of the ones who saves lives.”

“Mn, I suppose you have a point,” she acknowledged, shrugging then, feeling those blue eyes lose their intensity ever so slightly.

“Mn? Seriously, Sakura?” Ino laughed. “You’ve been hanging around Sasuke far too much. Is that your version of the Uchiha Hn?” Her eyebrows quirked up and down conspiratorially. “For when you take the Uchiha name, hm?”

“Shh!” she hissed, slapping a hand over Ino’s mouth, and looking around, wondering if anyone had heard her words. “Don’t say it like it’s a sure thing… it’s, well… nothing’s set in stone.” A blush painted her cheeks, heat racing through them, and Sakura could only curse her pale complexion. She had an unfortunate tendency to lean towards the end of the tomato scale when it came to embarrassment.

“Oh, please – unlike his game self, real life Uchiha Sasuke is over the moon for you,” Ino said, pausing then at the mention of the moon then. Before the war it had been such a simple thing to speak about. Then Kaguya Ootsutsuki had come along with a sledgehammer to that. “He likes you. Nah, he loves you,” Ino purred, grinning and laughing as Sakura glared at her venomously – silently telling her to shut up or face her wrath on Training Ground Eleven.

“You don’t think he’s got the hots for Hinata?” Sakura asked wryly, thinking then on the so-called protagonist of Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn. The one whose face was on the cover of the packaging, recognisable despite the animation style.

Ino burst out laughing, whacking the table accidentally as she all but doubled over. “Seriously, Sakura?” she wheezed. “You really think Sasuke would be interested in sweet, shy, Naruto-obsessed Hinata?” Ino tilted her head. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but not everyone likes the same kind of person. In my expert opinion, dear Sasuke likes an opinionated, strong woman who can crush him with her pinky finger.” Ino snorted, tucking the otome game back away into her bag. “Don’t let some game written by some bigoted fool who thinks that women should be sweet, submissive, and polite get you down.”

Sakura smiled. “Yeah,” she said, going back to devouring her cake and hot chocolate as quickly as she could before she felt a tell-tale buzz at her pager. “Ugh.”

“Already?” Ino grumbled. “Can’t they survive without you for thirty minutes?”

She grinned at that, patting Ino on the shoulder as she stood up. “Duty calls, it seems,” she said, blinking as Ino climbed to her feet, with half her cake and coffee left. “I can get there myself, you know.”

“I’ve barely seen you this last week – let me enjoy my time with you while I can,” she complained, clutching at her arm until the very last minute as they stepped through the door and onto the street.

She headed out onto the paved surface, turning then to wave at Ino. “There’s always a next time!” she declared, brow furrowing in confusion as she saw Ino’s face turn from happy to confused to shocked—

There was a squeal of brakes, a flash of lights, the sound of a body hitting the ground with a sick, wet thump, and Sakura could only spin around—and freeze as she spotted pink hair matted with blood, a crushed, malformed hand sticking out from behind a large tyre.

“SAKURA! Ino screamed, appearing beside that pink-haired body in a flash.

“Ino?” she mumbled, feeling ever so confused and offput by the situation in front of her. “I’m right” Her hand went through Ino’s body, and Sakura could only blink as she stared at the translucent visage of her hand. Her ghostly hand. “Here…” she finished off weakly, a numb, ringing in her ears as she vaguely recalled an intense sense of pain before she had wound up standing there – as a ghost of all things. The ghost of a shinobi killed by a truck. Sakura frowned, wondering then why exactly a truck had hit her before she could even react. Certainly, she had been distracted, but those sorts of vehicles had speed limits inside the city bounds—

“For Hinata!” a voice croaked from the cab, triumphant and gleeful, and Sakura could only blink as her world came crashing down around her, reality fracturing irreparably as she realised she was dead.

There was no rhyme nor reason to it, she found. One moment she had been Haruno Sakura, eighteen-year-old war veteran, and the next she was Haruno Sakura, sixteen-year-old daughter of Duke Haruno with all the memories of eighteen-year-old war veteran Haruno Sakura. The fact that it had come at a time when they—she?—was being accused and ‘punished’ for her crimes against Baron Hyuuga’s daughter, Hinata, was just her bad luck.

“Huh?” she mumbled ineloquently, the years of etiquette training as Duke Haruno’s only daughter slapping her in the face, and Sakura could only clutch at her head as she tried to figure out exactly what had happened. She had died, and then…

“You dared to bully Hinata, and for what?” A face she recognised looked at her so severely, and she could only squint, unfamiliar with that very expression being directed at her. Sasuke had occasionally smiled at her, more often seemed invariably expressionless, unless one learnt where to look. The picture of rage written on this Uchiha Sasuke’s face as he stood there, dressed in clothes which were both somehow familiar and unfamiliar, was a puzzling sight.

“Uh…” Pain throbbed in the back of her skull once more, indignity rising at the thought that it had been a truck – a truck, of all things – which had killed her. She was a war veteran for crying out loud! She should have been able to dodge the oncoming vehicle. If she had seen it or otherwise realised that she wasn’t as safe in a time of peace within her own village as she thought she had been. Her teeth sunk into her lip, tears of indignity biting at her eyes as she tried to think beyond the odd, numbing pain in her chest.

“SAKURA!”

Ino’s pained scream lingered in her ears, part of her feeling infinitely sad and sorry for herself at the lingering sense of loss she had. Eighteen year old war veteran or not – she had died. Yet she was mystifyingly alive. Confusion warred with sadness and loss—

“Do you really think tears will save you from my wrath?” the harsh voice of Uchiha Sasuke cut through her internal breakdown. “You think you can appeal to me with your womanly charms?” he demanded, and Sakura could only blink as a stirring of anger replaced the odd emptiness she felt in her heart. What sort of power trip was Uchiha Sasuke having? Why would she cry to attract a man? A man who was behaving so brutishly towards her nonetheless, she mused to herself, wincing at the tight grips she could feel around each of her arms, holding her down on her knees.

Uchiha Sasuke’s lackeys, she recalled, the memories of Haruno Sakura, daughter of a duke, coming back to her right then and there.

It was odd, how seamlessly those memories seemed to blend together. Unnerving, the longer she thought on it – which wasn’t for long because there was something irritating and familiar about the scene before her.

“What?” she muttered, reminding herself then that the Uchiha Sasuke in front of her was not the one she had long since fallen for. In fact, she realised with a dawning horror, he was rather reminiscent of the version of himself in that blasted game from the little she had played and the lots she had overheard about the gameplay. Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn. The same game which had made someone successfully attempt to kill her via truck. Her teeth clenched, irritation rising as she realised just how the circumstances lined up.

What sort of cosmic joke was being played on her?

“It seems Lady Sakura’s ears have gone deaf,” Sasuke stated, and Sakura felt the blush in her cheeks rise unbidden at the laughter which echoed around the hall in which he had chosen to do her condemnation. “You stand before me, accused of bullying my beloved Hinata – all to gain my attention, something a woman like you would never have. You have committed crimes, done all sorts of heinous acts in the name of your so-called love, and I shall tolerate this no longer!”

Sakura blinked, the parts of her which were the Duke’s Daughter panging with hurt, whilst the parts of her which were shinobi grew indignant. His words were callous and uncaring. Certainly as the Duke’s Daughter, she had held a fleeting, pure love for him which he had undoubtedly not reciprocated in the slightest. Yet she had pursued him nonetheless, and that, truly, was on her. That unreciprocated love had been marred by jealousy – driving her to commit actions, now with her memories as a shinobi, she was just a bit regretful of. It had been so very childish. Yet that hardly gave him the right to brush off the feelings she had and label her, ready to put her in whatever narrow-minded box he had made for her type. “Pray do tell,” she said, surprising herself with the amount of venom which lined her words, cutting off his listing of her ‘crimes’. “What is the definition of a woman like me?” she demanded, meeting the haughty grey eyes which looked down at her in disgust.

She ignored the pang in her heart at that – at the way his face reminded her of someone else, a different version of Uchiha Sasuke she had known and loved. Because the being in front of her was nothing akin to the Sasuke she had grown to care for deeply. His resemblance was only skin-deep.

“You,” he spat, glaring at her with those grey eyes which looked sorrowfully familiar and yet infinitely different. Her traitorous heart ached at that, part of her not ready to let go of the life which had been ended far too soon. “You are nothing but a shameless vixen. A venomous serpent who seeks to take that which doesn’t belong to you.”

Her eyes closed, a soft sigh escaping her as she tried to wrangle the two odd halves of herself together. The part of her which was crying inside at the harsh words of the one she had loved, and the part of her which was quietly comforting that side of her and telling it to move on. She had known of what a reciprocated love was like – or at least the bare bones of such a beginning, and as such, she knew with a certainty that the Uchiha Sasuke standing before her would never come to love her.

He had fallen for another, and that was perfectly fine.

What was not perfectly fine though, was the way he was treating her – having two of his lackeys holding her down and forcing her to bow to him.

She was a Duke’s Daughter of those lands, and he was a Duke’s Son who hailed from the Holy Lands, come to study abroad to further his horizons. He had no sway over her there, besides that which he once had over her heart. The shinobi part of her was already trying to quash the lingering remnants of that hold. “I see,” she said, wrenching her arms loose with an alarming amount of difficulty. Why was she so very weak when she had once been capable of crushing boulders with her bare fists? She blinked. Oh, she had died and that was a ‘new’ body. It was almost alarming how the two faces to her self were blending and merging together. “Have fun with your beloved then,” she declared, skirting back out of the reach of the two who had held her captive there only moments before. She wanted—no, she needed to leave, if only to get her thoughts and facts in order. “You have no sway over me, nor do you have any right to keep me here,” she told him, part of her feeling so infinitely tired then.

She wanted nothing more than to go back to her home – not the accommodation the school provided – and sleep for a decade. Or perhaps until she had adjusted to the strange phenomena which had overtaken her. Was she a shinobi war veteran who was now a Duke’s Daughter, or was she a Duke’s Daughter who had once been a shinobi war veteran? Her shoulders slumped.

“It would appear my presence has put a damper on these celebrations,” she declared, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling at the feeling of all those stares on her, the thoughts of all their names and positions making her head hurt. The Duke’s Daughter knew them, yet she wasn’t quite the same ‘Duke’s Daughter’ anymore. “Rest assured I will see myself out,” she called, her voice carrying across the hall. As it had been trained to do. “Enjoy the rest of the festivities, and do ensure there’s a toast to the happy couple!”

A smile pulled at her lips, ears tuning out the rest of the voices – especially that of Uchiha Sasuke’s – as she left the hall. The pain in the back of her head was growing unbearable, the burning need to get out of sight and go home overwhelming her as she set her sights on the carriages. The sigil of her household stood out starkly against the black of the carriage, and she stumbled towards it.

“Take me to my home,” she demanded of the carriage driver. “The Haruno’s Residence,” she clarified, cutting off any questions or complaints as she stumbled into the carriage and collapsed on the cushioned green seats with little fanfare, succumbing to the specks of blackness filling her vision.