[Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn]

“Why,” Sakura ground out, sitting at the neat, practically unused desk within the bounds of her room, “are you staring at me like I’ve grown a second head?” Green eyes narrowed on the form of her second eldest brother who was hovering beside the door looking uncannily nervous. “More to the point – why are you here?” She folded her arms across her chest. “Ichiro said that I could self-study until my tutors were decided…”

Ren shifted on his feet. “Your memories truly have been scrambled, haven’t they?” he murmured, and Sakura felt herself stiffen. “How could you forget that your darling older brother is a very talented mage?” he asked, a note of playful ribbing injected into his voice even as he edged closer to her, eventually coming close enough to drape his arms over her from behind in some mockery of a hug. “If you want me to leave you to study by yourself – that’s fine, but magic can be rather hard to learn without a tutor, and I have plenty of free time today unlike our other beloved brothers.”

“And father is always busy,” she mumbled, shoulders sinking, even as she tried to remind herself that her Haruno Kizashi was dead to her. Or rather she was dead to the old Haruno Kizashi, and she had a new Haruno Kizashi to deal with… “Well…” Sakura tilted her head, weighing up her options. “I suppose I wouldn’t say no to an expert mage’s opinion.”

Her brother laughed, matching green eyes meeting her own as he fluttered about the chair she sat on, planting a set of thick tomes on her clean desk. They stacked up and up, reaching just above her head, and Sakura let out a long breath at the sheer amount of reading there was to do. Not that she hadn’t expected as much – it was just that, whenever magic had cropped up in novels authored by those who had no experience with chakra, magic just tended to be simple and easy to use. Not that there were many shinobi who had gone around publishing books. Perhaps if there had been, there wouldn’t have been that terrible game. If only because people had something decent, gritty, and realistic to read or watch.

“Well, before we even get to the theory, we ought to start with finding and accessing your mana core,” Ren said, pulling a seat from the other side of the room and bringing it around to place opposite her – or near enough as she pushed herself out from under the desk and shifted around. “Most of the theory can be learnt, understood, and put into practice far better once you can access that core of yours.” Her brother reached out a hand, holding it in front of her, a few inches away from touching her. “We can cover what gates are after this is done – because I’d say those are the two most important things to a mage: the mana core, and the mana gates.”

Sakura raised an eyebrow, glancing between his outstretched hand and his face. “Well,” she said. “What are you waiting for?”

“I need to place my hand over where your mana core is, and it is generally polite to ask permission before you do so,” Ren explained. “May I?”

She moved her hands away from her naval area, chakra feeling odd and unsettled there as it had ever since she had ‘woken’ up in that body. Ever since she had become ‘another’ Haruno Sakura who was quite different to who she had once been, and yet glaringly similar in some respects. Not that she wanted to muse on those similarities much.

His fingers pressed over her heart, and Sakura blinked in surprise, realising then why it was so correct and polite to ask for permission. It was probably lucky that she had a rather small chest – otherwise that move might have been a bit awkward. “You might feel something stir, and you might feel a little strange, but that’s perfectly fine and normal.” There was a pulse of something in her chest, stretching through her skin, like a child hesitantly prodding at the cheek of their baby sibling.

Yet something answered back, a strange, almost mythical force stirring in a different plane in place of her heart. With it came an unbridled sense of curiosity, as if there was a child opening their eyes for the first time and exploring the world around them. Time seemed to slip from her grasp as she sat there, a strange, unknown energy pulsing beneath her skin, constrained to a circuit akin to a circulatory system.

She could feel them within her – chakra and magic, and their oddly harmonious balance, the pathways they each followed never overlapping or interfering, a harmony of union. Her chakra was green-blue, and her magic was purple-white, the tastes she somehow associated with them varying as well yet complementary all the same. Purple-white wove through unused pathways, thin and almost clogged from years of disuse, spreading out through her body and congregating in several places which seemed to attract her magic.

“Sister,” a voice called to her from afar, and dimly, she became aware of a hand patting at her cheek. “Sister, come back,” Ren ordered.

Consciousness seemingly returned to her, the figure her brother cut swimming in and out of focus momentarily as she tried to reacclimatise herself to reality. “Ngh,” she grunted, gripping at the armrests as if they could ground her and eradicate that unsettling floaty feeling which she despised.

“I probably ought to have warned you that some people go into a trance-like state,” he murmured, a smile pulling at his lips. “Though those few tend to turn out rather skilled in the use of magic.” A finger prodded at her forehead. “There’s hope for you yet, sister.”

Sakura frowned, peering down at her hands. “A shame I didn’t try to learn magic earlier…” she murmured. “I’m supposed to be a saintess candidate…”

Ren looked at her. “It’s not that unusual to start learning at your age – in fact, it’s better to learn at your age, or sometimes even later. Accidents happen frequently enough with older mages. I hate to think about the havoc that children, unaware of their power and potential for harm, could cause…” He tilted head, pink hair shifting with the movement, and Sakura finally noted that it was loose as opposed to the ponytail he preferred. “If you are chosen as a saintess, one due to be taken to the Holy Lands, then they would have begun teaching you how to harness your magic – or holy magic, to be specific, once you arrived there. There’s no shame in not having already learnt – though I suppose that’s a moot point, given how you’re learning now.”

“There’s an exam on magic,” Sakura muttered.

Ren shrugged. “I don’t know what anyone’s told you – but it’s mostly theory. Most people – sensible people, that is – know it’s generally better to learn magic after you’ve learnt all about the dangers. Especially when it comes to the classroom setting.”

“Hinata can already use healing magic,” she said, thinking then on how Sasuke had mentioned it being one of Hinata’s greatest beauties – that she could and would help others.

Green eyes narrowed. “I do hope she hasn’t used it on anyone,” he stated, and Sakura could only blink. “Well, unless her father has been paying a tutor, or otherwise had that child drilled in medicinal practices.”

“Uh…”

Ren sighed at that, shoulders slumping. “Healing is a delicate and complicated art, sister,” he stated, matter-of-factly. “It—”

“I know,” she muttered quietly. She knew that better than anyone, besides, perhaps, Tsunade. Yet she didn’t think Tsunade existed in that world. Or, at least, she hadn’t existed in the plot of the stupid game or in her current nearby vicinity. She had shed blood, sweat, and tears to reach the level of skill she had before. Her hands clenched, aware then that her skills in everything besides her knowledge stored away in that brain of hers had been reset.

There was no Yin Seal on her forehead. There was no other wrongly-placed game Yin Seal on her forehead either – not that she had expected as much.

“It can appear to be fine when someone unskilled and unknowing about anatomy and healing fixes a simple injury, but say someone had shattered their bone into several pieces – that, sister, is an injury which no one without the proper knowledge and skills can fix, lest they wish to make the problem worse or otherwise more painful.” Ren let out a long breath. “I shall have to tell father that he needs to ensure matters such as these are investigated…”

Sakura frowned. “He praised her for it, though,” she muttered, thinking then on how Uchiha Sasuke hailed from the Holy Lands, as Uchiha and Senju did in that strange world. “He’s from the Holy Lands, so isn’t he supposed to know better then…?”

Ren snorted. “I hate to tell you this, sister, but there is no cure for idiocy and stupidity, if this dickhead you so fell in love with happens to be afflicted…” he trailed off, a warm hand landing on her shoulder, and she took a strange sense of comfort from it. “Truly, I am glad you’ve cut ties with him. I presume it’s that Uchiha Sasuke – you never did mention his name, but he’s the only exchange student from abroad in your year…”

“Sometimes it’s scary just how much you know about my year,” she mumbled. “Even I don’t know that much, and I’m the one in and around my year group…”

“Politics,” Ren answered in a heartbeat. “If anything should happen to father and then Ichiro, then I’m next in line to inherit the Haruno Dukedom… and it’s always good to know who your allies are.”

Sakura frowned, reminded then of the phrase know thy enemy. “Do you think you could teach me about the prominent nobles of my age group… or the ones who should matter to me, then?” she asked, an uncomfortable twisting in her gut as she tried to piece things together. She was on the back foot – not knowing everything about that strange world, besides vague memories and common senses of the other ‘Haruno Sakura’. It truly was a wonder that no one had called her out for the stranger – for the imposter who she was. Yet she hadn’t – and she very much doubted it would happen. The motto of shinobi was adaptability, and infiltration was their bread and butter.

Not that she was trying to be sneaky and akin to the personality of the one who had come before her. She wondered then, on whether it was possible to accidently infiltrate something.

“You only have to ask, sister,” Ren said kindly, a soft smile curling on his lips.

“Sister,” she mumbled.

“Even if your memories are scrambled from your fever, the fact that you are my sister will never change,” he told her, looking her in the eye determinedly. “You’ve forgotten the Haruno Motto too, haven’t you?” he murmured, patting her head then, and strangely enough it didn’t feel demeaning. “Family first.”

Sakura blinked, staring at her brother, a sudden realisation coming to her, even as her brother continued talking – continued tutoring her in the ways of magic. She recognised his appearance then – from before she had woken beneath stranger stars. A artist’s impression of him had been one of the figures pictured on the cover of [Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn]. Sakura felt as though she had thrown up in her mouth as she realised that her brother was a capture target.

“It’s kinda traditional – don’t you think – to have one of the Villainess’ family members as a capture target…”

She wondered if her brother had betrayed her in the route of a game which no longer existed, if only because it was seemingly in existence around them. A finger prodded at her cheek, Ren’s bright face oblivious to the dark thoughts which had been swirling in her mind. “You weren’t listening to a single thing I said, were you?”

“Uh. No?”

Ren huffed. “At least you’re honest about it. Whatever happened to the times where you would bluster and try to pretend that you could do no wrong…” His fingers fiddled with her hair, seemingly weaving a small plait out of habit. There was something ever so grounding and relaxing about her brother doing her hair for her.

“I… grew up,” she mumbled, lies slipping from her lips ever so easily. The Haruno Sakura hadn’t quite grown up, rather she had been merged and almost subsumed by a alternate version of Haruno Sakura. She leant into the touch ever so slightly, part of her wondering then what her old life would have been like if she’d had brothers. Would they have been chewed up and spat out by the shinobi system? Would they have become healers, fighters, infiltrators…? A soft laugh escaped her, even as she idly listened to her brother as he spoke to her of mana gates and mentalscapes.

“There are seven mana gates,” he said, flipping open one of the books he’d brought for her perusal. “Each corresponds to one of the seven elements of magic.” He pointed to the symbols arranged in a heptagon. “Often you might notice opposing elements which are situated opposite one another – for instance, the top and bottom gates, which are light – or holy – and dark respectively. When magic is pushed through that particular gate it… I suppose the best way to explain it is like seasoning in cooking. When magic is pushed through a gate it acquires a… flavour which is unique to each gate, and those ‘flavours’ allow you to accomplish different tasks – whether it be lighting a fire or increasing the temperature of the air around you through using the flame mana gate, or summoning lightning through using the lightning mana gate.”

“Everyone has all of those gates, don’t they?” Sakura asked, peering at the diagram, preferring to focus on knowledge rather than her thoughts and feelings.

“I get where you’re going with that thought, sister, and let me explain – you have a tendency for holy magic because your holy mana gate is naturally loosened, meaning you don’t have to train for a long period of time to force that gate open as such. I was naturally inclined to earth and water because of my gates,” her brother added, smiling smugly. “Two loosened gates are a rare phenomena though, so don’t feel too disappointed, sister darling.”

“I wasn’t,” she stated flatly, rolling her eyes at her brother and his antics.

“Sure, sure,” her brother said in a tone of voice which said he really didn’t believe her. “Now let me finish explaining to you to fundamentals of magic before you go for your afternoon nap.”

“I don’t need an afternoon nap,” Sakura grumbled.

Ren looked at her flatly. “I will set Ichiro on you if you don’t.”

“Ugh,” she grumbled, remembering how only the day before her eldest brother had hovered over her, insisting that she rest because she ‘was still recovering’. It was, in part, why she was focusing on non-physical attributes to improve. Like magic, chakra, and her knowledge of that familiar-unfamiliar world.

Ren smiled smugly, like the cat who got the cream, knowing he had won that argument, and never before had Sakura wanted to punch him in his perfectly straight teeth as much as she did in that instant.