[Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn]

Disquiet.

That was one of the many names for what she was feeling, she knew, even as she sat at her desk, wondering when and how everything was going wrong. She was supposed to be blending in seamlessly to the Haruno Duke Family, and yet there she was – feeling guilty and ill for something she couldn’t have helped. It wasn’t like she had asked to wake up in a familiar yet strange skin. It wasn’t like she had asked to be offloaded on a family of a father and three brothers. It wasn’t like she had asked to somehow be inexplicably alive.

Logic dictated that she was supposed to be dead, and yet there she was, alive in a land of magic with her chakra intact. Proof she was indomitably foreign and strange. Part of her wanted nothing more than to scream and punch something. Ever was that her go-to response when she had felt out of her depth, as though she were drowning amidst a stormy sea. She wasn’t swimming, as she had mistakenly thought only the day before. She was drowning, slowly but surely, and she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to swim.

She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to live with being an imposter. She didn’t know how she was supposed to smile at people she felt she barely knew when they were her supposed blood relations. She didn’t know how to fundamentally be someone else, and she felt terrible every second she wasn’t trying to be the old Sakura that her family knew.

They didn’t know her.

A knock at the door startled her out of the rabbit hole of her thoughts, and she turned, catching sight of Ren as he let himself into her rooms with a soft smile. “Sister,” he greeted, clueless as the way that word made two sides of her brain fight against one another. “You didn’t look too well at breakfast,” he said, pulling a chair towards her, eyes lighting up as they spied her stack of textbooks. The information she had been zealously trying to learn the night before.

She wondered if she had, for some reason, woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. Or maybe stress was finally getting to her? She wasn’t sure. There wasn’t much she was sure of right then and there. “I’m fine,” she mumbled, sounding as sullen as she felt.

“Truly?” One pink brow rose.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped, folding her arms across her chest, misery and anguish taking a hold of her tongue. “If you’re here to teach me, then teach me. I don’t particularly want to be asked twenty billion questions. Since when do you care about how moody I am?” A huff escaped her.

“So you are moody?” her brother asked, a smile curling at his lips.

Idly, she wrangled with the sudden urge to scream and throttle Ren before she slammed her hands down on the desk and stood up, ready to leave.

A hand caught her elbow before she could. “I’m only teasing, sister,” he murmured, smile vanishing from his face. “Nevertheless – you wanted a lesson, so a lesson you shall receive.” He sat forwards, eyes fixed on her hands with an oddly perturbed expression. “I don’t suppose that happens often, does it?” he asked, nodding at her hands, and Sakura could only blink at the whisps of what looked like black smoke curling almost lovingly around her fingertips.

“No,” she mumbled, annoyance replaced with something like fear instead as she stared at a phenomena she had no knowledge of. “That’s never happened… before,” she said, uncertain if that was true past her incarnation into a stranger’s body. Who looked almost exactly the same, if she discounted the lack of muscles, calluses, and the excess of hair. She swallowed thickly, because her chakra was undoubtedly where it always was – contained within her, unmoving except for when she drew upon it actively. Her magic, on the other hand—well, she was only just beginning to learn about the strange new power.

“Then I am afraid your lesson might have to wait,” Ren said, looking strangely worried right then and there. “There is something I wish to check first. Though hopefully I am wrong.” He didn’t look like he thought he was wrong, and something in her gut twisted at that. “Might I access your mana core, sister darling?” he asked, and Sakura blinked and nodded, jaw clamped shut, words and questions refusing to fall from her lips as she stared into those worried green eyes.

Worried green eyes which worried for his sister, not quite who she was as the world liked to remind her that very day.

His hand rested over her heart, and she felt something slipping inside her again, a wispy sensation so akin to the time Ichiro had helped her to sleep without terrible nightmares. “Relax,” he spoke, voice gentle. “This might be slightly discomforting, but it will not hurt – though please tell me if it does, since that will mean there is a problem which needs to be addressed.”

She swallowed, struggling to find her voice for a few moments. “What are you doing?” she asked, staring at him even as he concentrated so intently.

“I am testing your mana gates, sister,” he answered, and she stiffened as she felt an odd discomfort in her chest – as if someone was pushing against something shored up tight, and yet she was a part of that something and that same someone was trying to bore their way through. The sensation came again, and again.

“Does this have something to do with that black stuff around my hands?” she questioned, already knowing the answer long before her brother nodded in assent.

“That it does,” he said, and that was when white light seemed to pulse beneath her skin, the sensation of blockage not there, leaving the mana to circulate around her body before dissipating. “That was your holy gate,” he explained, and then it was back to that uncomfortable pushing-blocking sensation.

Until there came that black mist, dark lines spreading beneath her skin as her brother’s mana pushed against what could only be another mana gate. A smile curled at her lips. “So I do have another naturally loosened gate,” she murmured, expecting Ren to look at her, smile, and confirm that much.

He didn’t.

Instead his eyes opened slowly, and they shone with rage. “Who?” he demanded, green eyes blazing like miniature suns. “Who hurt you?” he questioned, fingers gripping ever so gently at either side of her head, as if his hands could pry the information he was asking for from her brain. Was there a magic which could do just that? She didn’t know. All she knew was that her brother was angry, and she didn’t have the slightest idea of why that was the case.

“What are you talking about?” She blinked, hating the note of fear she could hear in her own voice.

Evidently her brother heard it too. Ren sighed deeply, fingers losing their grip on her as he stared down at her, green eyes seeming ever so old and defeated in that instant. “Amnesia,” he muttered under his breath. “Of course… Why didn’t we see the signs earlier? It’s obvious, now I think about it – that sickness. So it happened rather recently—”

“Ren?” she whispered. “What—What’s going on?” she asked, not liking being left in the dark. Like she felt she might as well have been since she had woke up there in a strange body, in a strange world with strange yet familiar faces dotted here and there.

“We can discuss this at dinner, I think,” he said, stepping back as if to retreat.

Sakura stood, chair scraping against the floor. “What’s going on?” she demanded once more, making a grab for him and blinking when she found herself pulled into a warm chest. A chin dug into her hair, and she despised being as short as she was in that instant.

“Dinner,” Ren murmured. “I need to inform father of this development so… appropriate measures can be taken.”

She blinked, and then her brother was out of the door, and she was left with the ghost of a warm hug haunting her as she stood there, dumbfounded and very much confused. A huff escaped her, and she sat back down on her chair, legs feeling as though they might as well have been kicked out from under her.

She didn’t understand that place or anyone there in the slightest.

She hated that fact, like she hated the fact she was a glorified skin-snatcher.

Dinner came around far too quickly, and Sakura felt as though a black hole might as well have been growing in the pit of her stomach. Anxiety ate away at her, and she could feel it nibbling on her gut as she forced herself to move towards the room where all her family members awaited her. Her eyes remained fixed to the floor, joys of magic long since spent as more of her brain decided to tick over the dilemma of her existence. What was she even doing there? That was the question which she knew would haunt her forevermore, and somehow she doubted she would ever be getting her answers. A smile curled at her lips, tempered by the bitterness of the day.

The door to the dining room creaked open, and she could only swallow, throat as dry as the desert as she met the four gazes which looked back at her with an alarming amount of solemness. “Sakura,” her father greeted, and hesitantly, she looked between him and the seat left free at Ren’s side. “Come. Sit. There are some things we need to discuss, but they can wait until we’ve eaten,” he said, and she stiffened, noting then that none of the maids were there in the room. It was only family. Her stomach roiled at the thought. How could she call them family? Her fingers twitched, curling momentarily into claws, as if they could scratch away at the feeling of being a complete and utter imposter.

She sat down, pondering on the mood at the table, subdued as it was, the silence around them damning and daunting, only broken by the sound of metal scraping against plate as they ate. She ate as much as she could, sickened as she felt, and then she could only wait for what felt like judgement. Her fork and knife made a light clink as she set them down, revulsion bubbling in her belly as it had been simmering for the entire day.

“Sister,” it was Ren who began the long awaited, long dreaded conversation. “How familiar are you with the term Negative Mana Reflux?”

She blinked. “What?” Her brow furrowed, mind well aware of what the term reflux meant.

Ren smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I figured you’d probably never heard of it before… It’s not a very common occurrence, but there is one undeniable, unique symptom of it.” He closed his eyes. “I can only be grateful you have another of them: partial amnesia.”

Sakura frowned. “You’re grateful I have amnesia?” she echoed, staring at her brother and wondering what exactly that was supposed to mean. Her stomach twisted once more, nausea coming back around to bite with greater vigour. “What does that mean?”

Ren’s hands clenched, knuckles turning bone white. “You have not learnt enough about Mana Gates to understand why your condition is… abnormal,” he said, and Sakura felt her face shutter at that. Abnormal was one word to describe what she was. “I told you I have multiple mana gates loosened, and I will tell you this, sister, only compatible gates are found naturally loosened. Water and wind… water and earth… never water and fire, and the like. Never holy and dark.” Ren closed his eyes. “There are times though, when a mana gate can be forcefully ‘loosened’, so to speak. Through great trauma, often both physical and mental, and not necessarily directly after the event.” A shaky breath escaped him, even as he forged on, their father closing his eyes, solemn and serious as the room had been the entire time. “This phenomenon is known as Negative Mana Reflux, since your mana seems to reverse its flow and travel through the opposite mana gate to that which it’s supposed to.”

“Your sickness and your desperation to come home,” Ichiro spoke, blue eyes fixed upon her, feeling as if they were boring into her very soul. “The way everything seems unfamiliar, thanks to your memory losses. We should be grateful that there weren’t any other issues, like you gaining memories.”

The words rang around in her brain, and Sakura stared at him, his words taking far too long to sink into her brain as she sat there at the table, dumbfounded—because they undoubtedly thought she had been tortured or something of the like. She hadn’t. At least, not in her memories, and neither had there been mention of the villainess being tortured in the game either. So obviously they were completely and utterly—

“I understand this might come as a shock to you—” Ren began, but her lips were already moving, what Ichiro had spoken about finally sinking in.

“What do you mean about gaining memories?” she demanded, something like fear reaching up to close her heart in its iron grip.

Ichiro blinked, brow furrowing as he looked at her, as if weighing up what that information meant to her. “Evidently you don’t remember pondering over it when you were younger, but there’s some weight to Lord Namikaze’s Theories on Reincarnation, thanks to this phenomena, though there are plenty who question his theories.”

Her fingers went slack, heart thudding so very audibly in her chest as she sat there, the word reincarnation ringing about in her head. “Reincarnation?” she parroted, mind feeling numb and blank. “Gained memories?” Her hands fell into her lap, and she tried her best to conceal the shaking.

Her best wasn’t good enough.

“Lord Namikaze, a few generations ago, that is, experienced the phenomena of Negative Mana Reflux,” Ren explained, his eyes burning her skin as he stared at her shaking hands. She wished it would stop beneath his gaze, but the spasms only grew that much harder to control. “He claimed to have gained memories of another life which could have only been his own, and he described those memories – in particular that of his previous self’s death – in such depth that some could only believe him. Hence his exploration into the idea of reincarnation and previous and future lives came to be. Not that it pertains to the situation—” he paused, green eyes narrowing. “Oh, but it does, doesn’t it, sister?”

Her fingers twitched, fear twisting within her stomach as she sat there, wishing she could shrink into her chair and vanish.

“Did you remember a death of your previous self?” he asked, and Sakura felt something inside her fracture at the unwieldy question which somehow managed to push on all of her sore spots.

Her hands slammed down on the table, plates jumping and rattling at the movement. Black smoke-like whisps curled around her hands and wrists, mana swirling within her as she did, moving not accord to thought as she stood there, chair clattering to the ground behind her. “Shut up,” she muttered, the word previous rattling about in her head like an echo which would never fade. “Previous?” she hissed, watching as her fingers cracked the table, a phantom of the strength she had once had. Yet how could she call it a strength from a previous life when she was alive and breathing then? When she was the dominant personality? “I’m not dead!” Her fingers curled in the fabric of the shirt she wore, clutching as the space above where her heart beat – irrevocable proof that she was alive and well. She wasn’t a remnant of the past, a relic to be remembered. “I’m not!” She met the blue eyes across the table which stared at her, confusion and a dawning realisation burning in that gaze. “I’m…” she trailed off, energy leaving her as she stumbled back from the cracks left in the table. “Alive…”

“Sister…” Ren breathed, green eyes staring at her as everyone seemed to be doing those days.

Something else snapped within her at that accursed title. “I’m not your fucking sister!” she screamed, hands clenching in the fabric of her clothes. She didn’t know how to be a sister. That was reserved for the girl who was supposed to be there, living in her rightful place which she had usurped. “What don’t you get about that?” she begged, cold realisation that everything might as well have been tumbling down at that point. It was surprising what taking over someone’s life and being addressed as them rather than her could do, she mused almost hysterically as she turned on her heel and ran.

Feet pounded the ground, breath coming in gasps as she ran to a place she didn’t know. They knew. That meant they wouldn’t chase her. She was just an imposter, after all. She was just a different Haruno Sakura who had no place there. She didn’t even want to be there, resemblant of the game which had killed her as that world was.

There was a reason she hadn’t been recommended to go on infiltration missions, it seemed, and she was discovering just why.

She cast open the doors leading to outside, the moon high in the sky above, breath misting in the air as she ran and ran until she could run no more. Her foot rolled over a stray branch of one of the many trees which covered the lands of the Haruno Estate, pain throbbing from her ankle and up her leg as she went sprawling face down in the dirt. A place which was undoubtedly where the real duke’s daughter would never have been. Fitting that she was there instead then, she thought to herself with a harsh snort.

Pulling herself to her hands and knees, she tested out her ankle, muttering curses under her breath when it wouldn’t take her weight. Sprained, she decided, pulling off her shoe and swearing yet again. How was she supposed to go anywhere with a busted ankle? Her eyes glanced back towards the mansion she had once thought of as home in the early and late days of her sickness. Before the remnants of the duke’s daughter had been overridden by her.

“Where exactly do you think you’re going?”

Sakura blinked, despising her general lack of fitness and abysmal running abilities in that instant as Ichiro towered over her, arms folded. “Away, because you know – I’m not your sister…”

Ichiro sighed, crouching down in a single second, gripping her chin and looking her right in the eyes. “You know, even if you have some extra memories rattling around in that empty head of yours, even if your original memories have been subsumed by them, that hardly changes the fact that you’re my sister. Now and forever, darling sister,” he said flatly. “I appreciate this might be terrifying and confusing for you, but the fact that you seem to have the memories and personality of a previous iteration of yourself – that doesn’t change a single thing in my eyes.”

“Is all it takes occupying the body of a relative to make them as such?” she demanded, eyes narrowing as she locked her jaw and glared at him mulishly.

“Don’t call it occupying a body,” Ichiro chastised. “This is you. Ren told you about reincarnation. A cycle of the soul, and your soul remains unchanged. All that has happened is that you regained memories of your previous soul cycle. It doesn’t change your place as the sole adored daughter of the Haruno Family. You seem to be labouring under the delusion that you’ve possessed someone, and can you trust me when I say that is something completely different.”

“He’s right, you know,” Ren said, stepping around the tree whose roots she had fallen over. “You claim to be different, but does that not mean you don’t quite know the ‘other’ Sakura, do to speak.” She nodded at that, words refusing to come to her lips as she sat there. “So can you not trust that we do? And trust us when we say that you and her are one and the same – you simply have a few extra memories, and a shift in personality… and all of that is simply a part of growing up, isn’t it?”

Sakura blinked, not really having an answer to that. All she knew was that they thought she and the duke’s daughter were one and the same. They didn’t think she was an imposter, and they were the ones who knew their sister best.

“Now,” Ichiro said, reaching down. “I think it time you came back inside and had that ankle of yours tended to.”

She stiffened, realising what was about to happen. “I swear, if you bloody princess carry me back inside—”

Ichiro chuckled, and Sakura could only scowl, confusion and annoyance swirling as she was lifted up in the hated princess carry. “You – the memories you have now – there weren’t any brothers in them, were there?”

“How did you know?”

A smile curled at his lips. “Otherwise you would have already understood that we would never abandon you, new memories or no.” The words seemed to ring in the air for a few moments, and his smile turned into a grin. “Well, that, and the fact that I’d be answering your earlier statement with an in fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he said, and Sakura blinked, confusion still being the most prevalent thing she felt as she was carried back to the Haruno Household, still a welcomed and beloved member.