[Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn]

She had slipped into something of a routine as the days went by; waking up, doing her morning exercises, meeting for breakfast with the rest of her family, then attending varying classes until lunchtime came about. After lunch it was more lessons, followed by swordplay classes taught by her own father, then there was a short time for a bath, followed by dinner, and then she usually kidnapped Ren to get him to teach her about magic until the sun came to set. It was a long routine, and one which became increasingly familiar to her as the days rolled by.

Her father paused after their breakfast came to an end, ever indicative that he had something to say. Breakfast time was announcement time, she had come to learn as she lived in that house. In her household, the thought becoming less alien to her as days rolled into one.

“Is something the matter, father?” Ichiro asked, quirking one eyebrow up in question. “You look pensive.”

There was a slight pause before anyone spoke, the silence almost suffocating. “Your uncle is coming to visit, it seems,” their father stated, and Sakura watched as all three of her brothers stiffened. “It will be a week until he arrives…”

Sakura blinked in confusion. “Our uncle?” she asked, frowning at the faces all her brothers were pulling.

“Ah, yes,” her father said. “I will have to tell him of your amnesia, it seems, though I will not disclose the reasons behind it, unless you wish for me to.” He tilted his head. “Though if we told him, I have little doubt he would be able to figure out exactly who did this to you, and eliminate them with extreme prejudice…” he trailed off, a soft smile coming to curl at his lips. “He might remain distant to you, but Mebuki was his treasured younger sister, and you are all that’s left of her on this earth.”

“So Uncle Sasori is going to pay us a visit then?” Ichiro murmured, and it took Sakura a good few moments to digest those words before she spat out her water in a spray of mist.

Itsuki’s lip curled at the sight.

“Sasori?” she echoed, the memories of punching his puppet body and his heart container into smithereens vivid in her mind. “Sasori of the Red Sands?”

“Ah, so you recall uncle,” Ren said, smiling until he realised her state of abject shock wasn’t dissipating anytime soon. “Mother was a Princess of the Sands, you know. It’s why it would be one of our family considered for a political marriage, should anything disturb the relations between our countries…”

“Too much information, Ren,” Ichiro said matter-of-factly. “Though we might have to give our dear sister a reminder of our family and its lineages.”

Sakura felt a hysterical giggle warble from her lips. “That would be ideal,” she remarked, still trying to get her head around the idea that Sasori – or some alternate version of him, at the very least, was her uncle. It was a bizarre, frankly alien idea, and she didn’t have the first idea of how she was supposed to face her uncle, who was in actual fact an alternate version of one of her first kills in her previous life.

Ren frowned at her. “But if you remember who uncle is—”

“I don’t,” Sakura said flatly, quashing the urge to vomit as best as she could as she tried to picture Sasori of the Red Sands as any sort of familial figure. Though that only made her want to vomit that much more. It was a strange, utterly incomprehensible picture.

“So if you don’t actually recall uncle and who he is,” Ren murmured, “then the only reason you’d act like that is… you knew him in your previous life, then.” He nodded to himself, and Sakura could only shift on her seat, not really ready to unpack the vivid details of what she had done to Sasori of the Red Sands in her previous lifetime.

Past lives, it was seeming, were rather traumatising, and exceedingly confusing to come to terms with. More so when there were figures from her past life – alternate versions who acted in strange, bizarre ways. “I suppose you could say that,” she murmured, the familiar wave of hysteria crashing down over her head as she sat there, around the breakfast table she had so quickly become acquainted with in that life of hers there.

Itsuki tilted his head. “I take it you did not get on well with uncle in your previous life,” he said, hitting the nail ever so lightly on the head.

“He was a criminal,” she blurted out, staring at her empty plate and wondering what she was supposed to make of her uncle in that life. “And he tried to kill me…”

“Ah,” Ichiro murmured, sitting stiffly in his seat.

Ren blinked. “Oh.”

Her father steepled his fingers, looking physically pained as he asked the next question. “Forgive me if this is a difficult question to answer, but… was he involved in your death?”

Sakura blinked, remembering the way the puppet had smashed beneath her fingers and the satisfaction she had felt at taking out a member of the Akatsuki. The same person who was her uncle in the bizarre world she had woken up in with memories of her past life. “No. It was actually the other way around…”

“Oh,” Ichiro murmured, throat bobbling as he swallowed thickly.

“Ah,” Ren mumbled.

“I… see,” her father said, lips pursing as the room devolved into a silence so thick she could have easily cut through it with a knife. “Will you have any issues meeting with him?” he asked, one eyebrow raised as he looked directly at her.

She paused for a few moments, wondering whether she would be fine with encountering the ruthless Akatsuki member. Who wasn’t a ruthless Akatsuki member there, because the Akatsuki didn’t exist, and that was a completely different world. “I should be fine… I think,” she remarked, swallowing at the idea of what she would do when encountering her uncle. “I mean it’s not like he a criminal who poisons people…”

“Criminal, no,” Ren agreed, and everything which went unsaid made Sakura frantically take a sip of water.

“It might be best to bring him in on the know… Sasori is an intelligent man,“ her father said, chewing on his lip. “I highly doubt he would do anything malicious with this information. We are one of the most tight-knit families there are – besides, it’s not like it would do much harm to our family image, nor your own, if that’s what you worry about.”

“Uh,” Sakura mumbled. “I’ll… think about it,” she said, wondering what she was supposed to think about a man she had never met. There were no helpfully timed memories resurfacing to help her know what she was supposed to think about her mysterious uncle. Who had the same face as the man she’d killed in her previous life.

“That’s all I can ask,” he remarked. “But on another note, there will be some delay in your lessons today – the tailor has arrived. Meet them in the Green Room after breakfast—Ren, take your sister to the Green Room,” he corrected himself, undoubtedly having seen her blank face at the mention of whatever the Green Room was. Presumably a room decorated with green, Sakura mused. “Spend what you wish.”

“Oh. Okay,” Sakura murmured, wondering then what was a reasonable amount for a Duke’s Daughter to spend.

“To my knowledge, the dress you ordered last time is being delivered today,” Ichiro said matter-of-factly. “If you wish to attend your Graduation Ball, then if you have any modifications you wish, it would probably be best to deal with them soon. All dress shops and tailors are probably rather busy. It’s one of the most important events in the capital, at least for our sort of age group.”

“It’s probably the only time you’ll have to go to the capital,” Ren chimed in. “What dear brother is neglecting to mention, is that in order to properly graduate, as such, you will have to attend that ball. Though it will be a family event, and one of us will happily attend as your partner.”

“Ah,” Sakura mumbled, vaguely recalling that those sorts of balls were generally attended with fiancés and the like. To attend with one of her brothers, at her age, would probably be just a tiny bit embarrassing. As if showing how unmarriageable she was. Not that she was all that fussed about marriage right at that moment. The logic of that world was just a bit different, and her peers… She shuddered at the memory of them in her so-called condemnation. At the thought of Sasuke and how cruel he seemingly was in that world.

She paused at that, musing then on the cruelty of Uchiha Sasuke in that world and her last. It was as if their personalities had been carved from the people they had once been before they had grown up – a trait of theirs taken and twisted by the designs of some strange author.

The Uchiha Sasuke in that world was far removed from the boy-turned-man she had once loved. Just like how Sasori of the Red Sands wasn’t a criminal member of the Akatsuki. He would, probably, just have the same face. The person beneath would be vividly different, more likely than not.

It wasn’t easy to deal with, not when her heart cried out for and clung to what once had been. In a different life. A life in which she had died, and that fact was ever so hard to truly come to terms with. Who wanted to acknowledge their death? Especially when she should have been able to avoid it… Sakura shook her head, trying to rid herself of those thoughts. Thoughts which didn’t seem to want to leave her alone, longer as she spent in that odd, distorted reflection of what had once been the world she’d known and loved.

“Sister,” Ren called softly, waiting by the door for her. “Are you coming?”

“Yes,” she stated, hurrying out of the room behind him, mind focusing then on her fast-approaching meeting with the tailor. The same person who she needed to get many a trouser suits from. Dresses were pretty, but there was a practicality to trousers and shorts which she missed dearly. Her hand bunched in the fabric of her dress, admiring the pale blue colour for a moment before she focused on the route they were taking to the Green Room.

“She’s inside, sister,” Ren informed her, waiting by a door to a room she hadn’t been inside just yet. “Do try your best not to freak her out.”

“Anyone who’s met me after the…” she trailed off, biting at her lip for a moment. “Well, after, has been completely and utterly freaked out.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Well, no I won’t,” she declared. “I have no idea what’s in fashion right now, but I suppose I’m not planning on going anywhere anytime soon.”

Ren tilted his head. “I suppose I do have a little time on my hands, if you aren’t adverse to my input,” he said, and Sakura only grabbed him by the wrist as she pushed the door open and ventured inside. “Why yes, sister, I would love to assist you,” her brother said snarkily, even as she found herself inside a pastel green room, with a long, flowing red dress on display in the middle of it all.

“Is this to be my dress for the ball?” she wondered, staring at the red and black styling, musing then on how she probably would’ve preferred to go for something more pastel. Red was still a favourite colour of hers, but that liking had been tempered by things which were red which she didn’t quite like. Like the Uchiha crest that world’s Sasuke wore. Like the red of her blood spilling out as she had died.

“I believe that’s the case, sister,” Ren remarked, venturing over to inspect the craftwork, plucking at the sleeves – flared lengths of red fabric attached to the shoulders with black lace. “A nice colouring too, given how you originally requested Uchiha red.”

Sakura fought the urge to grimace.

“I apologise, Lady Haruno,” the lady – the seamstress or tailor – spoke, and Sakura finally turned to face the lady who had evidently arrived to both take and give her order. “Bolts of fabric in Uchiha red are difficult to procure, so we had to choose the alternate Suna red.” The lady bowed her head, flinching ever so slightly, and Sakura could only wince at the reminder of how temperamental she was still rumoured to be.

“Probably for the best,” Sakura stated, looking at the dress then and wondering what it would be like to dance in. She swallowed at the thought, remembering the dance lessons which would be creeping up on her far too quickly after she finished making her way through the history of the empire. A subject she was quickly finishing, what with her ability to memorise basic facts. “It’s mother’s colour, then, technically,” she said, reaching out to touch the fabric which was named for where her mother had come from in that reality.

“Right you are, sister,” Ren murmured. “You might want to try it on so you can check that you still like the style, but I have little doubts it will suit you – and yet that’s not the main reason that you summoned our lovely tailor here, is it?” One pink brow rose in question, and Sakura abruptly remembered exactly why she had wanted to see the lady in front of her.

“That’s correct,” she said. “I wanted to request more clothing… my apologies, I never caught your name?”

“She is Madam Fuji, though it has been a while since she last called,” her brother said, evidently covering for the title and name for someone she had already met. “Clearly the stress of that dreadful academy took its toll.” Ren’s lip curled – and it was at times like that she could really see the similarities between him and Itsuki.

“Ah, Madam Fuji,” she greeted, smiling at the lady who looked oddly unnerved. The exact same expression many others who had met the ‘before’ Sakura had worn when interacting with her for the first time. “A pleasure to see you again. I have found myself growing to enjoy certain activities which dictate a change in wardrobe, and I was hoping you would be able to lend your expertise?” she spoke, maintaining her polite smile as best as she could in the face of sheer disbelief and shock. Aimed at her.

Something she had become far too intimately acquainted with as of late.