Chapter 26
Sakura Haruno
School was cancelled for a week straight after the rally. Ecstatic when she heard the news from her parents, she grabbed her phone from her bedroom and called Sasuke. No answer.
That week, the Taka Gang hung out as usual. They went to Suigetsu’s home, hung out in the parks eating chips bought from Goro’s store. Sakura’s week was filled with fun activities and adventures with the gang.
Most of the gang. Sasuke was nowhere to be found. He wouldn’t answer his phone.
“He’s probably doing presidential stuff,” Karin said to her when Sakura expressed concern about this. The gang were all laying on the grass of Asamachi park, the biggest park in the downtown area. Lush green hills that overlook the city skyline, neighboring playgrounds, and a basketball court, the park dotted with small, dark green oak trees. The gang laid atop one of these hills, cloud watching. The park was typically busy which is why the gang never visited, but it was the middle of a weekday. Not a single soul. All that was heard were the birds, occasional car, and the swaying of the trees down below.
“What presidential stuff does he need to do,” Sakura asked. “The rally is already done.”
“Finishing touches?” Suigetsu chimed. “Last minute shit before his uncle leaves?”
“Stratocumulus clouds,” Jugo was laid on his back, holding his journal.
“Dammit, Jugo,” Karin said. “Just say how the cloud looks like, not the actual type of cloud it is.”
“I do not believe they look like anything,” Jugo responded.
“We should try going to his house,” Sakura said.
“With the president’s bodyguards crawling around? Bad idea,” Suigetsu said. “I do not ever want to get close to Tobi again. Did you know that his quirk is teleporting? Who the fuck has a teleportation quirk? He could teleport behind me and BAM! I’m dead.”
“I heard he killed 50 men by the time he was 15,” Karin said.
“Heard from who,” Sakura responded.
“… I just heard okay?”
“Karin,” Suigetsu said. “You didn’t know what the dog spirit was-,”
“Fox spirit, Suigetsu,” Sakura said.
“Right, sorry. Karin, you didn’t even know whatever-the-fuck spirit was two weeks ago or who’s Minute Uzumaki, but you know about Tobi’s history?”
“I saw it online, okay? On a forum post.”
“Our education system continually reminds us how badly it has failed us,” Jugo said, now writing in his journal.
“Poetry arc again?” Suigetsu asked.
“My interest in poetry never ended,” Jugo said. “It was a leave of absence, not a resignation.”
“Fuuuuucck, he’s back to talking like this again,” Suigetsu lazily palmed her face.
“Don’t be so mean to Jugo,” Sakura said. “At least he has interests.”
“Hey!” Suigetsu scoffed. “I have interests!”
“Like failing at football tryouts,” Jugo smiled.
“Nobody got on the team,” Suigetsu said. “… after what happened with Naruto.”
Jugo rubbed his right hand almost instinctually.
“I still don’t understand how he managed to burn me even in my rock form.”
“That’s the whatever-the-fuck spirit for ya.”
“Suigetsu, it’s fox spirit, please, it’s not that hard,” Sakura said. “Say it with me. F-O-X. Foooox. C’mon, Foooooxxx.”
“Cut it out,” Suigetsu spat.
“Cumulonimbus clouds,” Jugo pointed. At the horizon lay dark clouds coming towards them.
“Has anyone talked to Naruto since the rally,” Sakura asked.
“None of us have his number,” Karin said. “Do you?”
“Nope,” Sakura said.
“When did you learn about the types of clouds in the sky, Jugo,” Suigetsu asked.
“I was without television for a long time, so I watched the clouds.”
As the dark clouds came closer, the gang decided to head home.
Rain began to slowly come down onto the city. As Sakura rode on the bus ride home, she watched as the water pellets gather onto the bus window, covering the view of the city. The world began to darken more, and the rain became heavier when she arrived at her front door.
When she opened the door, her mother greeted her with a long hug.
“Oh honey,” her mom said. “Have you heard the news?”
*********
The next week, school opened again. Sakura was not ecstatic about returning to class. On the first day back, she decided to call Sasuke again before school. No answer.
Sakura entered the school campus and immediately went searching for Sasuke in the front yard. She looked in all the corners, and even considered if Sasuke had somehow been allowed to sit at The Pond with all the popular kids.
That’s where she spotted Ino, flirting obnoxiously with Shino. She gave loud, gross laughs at very clearly mundane words being said by Shino. Neji was seated to Shino’s left, conversating with Sai. He turned and made eye contact with Sakura for a brief second. Sakura’s heart skipped a beat and her eyes immediately darted away.
But no sign of Sasuke.
The doors opened and all the kids went to their homerooms before being told to gather in the assembly hall.
Sakura and her peers took their seats in the gym. On the stage were the teachers seated and at the podium stood Asuma Sarutobi.
When the kids quieted down, Asuma began.
“Hello all,” he paused, looking awkward on the stage. His eyes looked a bit red and puffy. He looked around the hall as if he was searching the crowd for his confidence. He coughed.
“Hello everyone,” he restarted. He then said in an almost mutter, “I’m sorry, I’m not used to big crowds.” He gave an awkward chuckle.
“We- us uhm teachers -have gathered all of you here today to address some news you probably heard during the past week. Yes, our beloved principal has passed away. News regarding the reasoning for his passing will be released soon, but I am allowed to say that Hiruzen Sarutobi, our principal- my uncle, passed away shortly after the rally that was held on these campus grounds. So- uhm… we decided to dedicate this time to host a memorial in his honor, but more importantly provide how our schedule is going to work around this passing. Jiraiya and Tsunadae are no longer teaching at this school, so our biology class will be taught by Kurenai Yuhi and our school nurse will be replaced by Might Guy. Temporarily of course.
The news of Principal Sarutobi’s passing has cast a- uh dark shadow over this school. Just know your teachers are there for you in this time of need.”
*******
The following months went about normally. Sakura hung out with the Taka Gang as usual. They went to Suigetsu’s home, hung out in the parks eating ice cream bought from Goro’s store. The month was filled with normal, uneventful activities, but as the school year ramped up academically, the Taka Gang found themselves transitioning from gang to study group. It seemed whatever curriculum Jiraiya had planned for biology before he left was extremely difficult so Kurenai would try to alleviate this by allowing cheat sheets during exams. But it wasn’t enough. The material proved to be so hard that studying was still necessary to pass.
The Taka Gang went from hanging out in parks to staying after school in the library or even going to neighboring coffee shops to study. Though Biology was easily the group’s hardest class, the other classes did not give any leeway either, each having assignments, quizzes, or exams to study for. It was a workload none of them had been used.
It was a softly rainy evening. The gang were studying in a warm coffee shop when Karin said “I talked to a student a grade above us, and they said their year was not like this. In fact, apparently there’s rumors that even teachers are shocked at the curriculum.”
“You’re lying,” Suigetsu said shocked.
“Do you think it’s because Naruto was attending,” Sakura asked. “Since he’s the principal’s son or whatever. Trying to prepare him for college?”
“What an ungrateful kid,” Suigetsu said. “To have a father prepare so much for you and you murder him?”
Sarutobi’s cause of death was announced a couple of weeks prior. The announcement came via a national press conference from President Madara Uchiha himself.
The principal was killed by Naruto using Jiraiya’s help. Those two managed to kill both Principal Sarutobi and Nurse Tsunadae. After, they ran away. Naruto’s whereabouts are unknown to this day.
One thing Sakura really remembered from that press conference while watching it online was Madara offering thousands of dollars to anyone who had just information on where those two were.
Why would the president care that much about a high school principal, she thought. Shouldn’t the Asamachi police be handling this?
“By the way,” Karin said. “Who’s going to drop off Sasuke’s homework in this rain?”
“It’s not raining that hard,” Sakura said. “I’ll do it.”
“You always do it,” Karin rolled her eyes.
“It’s not like any of you guys are volunteering,” Sakura snapped.
“It’s pointless,” Suigetsu said as he typed his essay that was due yesterday. “He’s clearly not home. No one is.”
Sasuke still had not shown up to school. It had been four months since he last attended Sarutobi High School and four months since he had last answered his phone. No one had heard from him since the rally. But Sakura would still call him every morning, hoping to get through to him. Her hope only got Sasuke’s voicemail.
“The maid, Dahlia, is there to pick it up,” Sakura responded. “Why would she still pick up his homework if he wasn’t home?”
“Someone’s gotta keep the home clean,” Suigetsu said. “And if you’re dropping off a bunch of papers every other day, it’d probably make the home dirty. I bet you she just throws it away after you leave.”
After a couple more hours, the group left the coffee shop. Thankfully, the rain had stopped, but it left a thick fog that covered the dimly lit streets of Asamachi.
Sakura took her usual route. She’d take the bus as close to the home as the bus route could take her and then walk 10 minutes to the mansion. Afterwards, it was 10 minutes back to the bus stop and a 20-minute bus ride home.
When she arrived at Sasuke’s home, she rang the buzzer on the front gate and waited. She tried to catch a glimpse of the mansion’s driveway. As always, one car. Probably Dahlia’s. Sakura would reflect on the times she’d been to Sasuke’s home and try to remember if she had ever seen Dahlia’s car in the driveway. It was a small, white car. Impossible to miss, right? But the driveway was always packed when she’d been to Sasuke’s home. Maybe she had missed it.
A voice came from the buzzer intercom.
“Hello,” said Dahlia through the speaker.
“Hi, this is Sakura, dropping off Sasuke’s homework.”
“Okay darling, just leave it in the mailbox like always.”
“Uh…” Sakura tried to find the right words. “I need to give something to Sasuke personally-.”
“Honey, why do you try this every other week? I’m sorry dear, but you cannot come into the mansion.”
Sakura sighed and left Sasuke’s homework in the mailbox. As she walked away, something dawned on her.
Every time she’d been there, there were bodyguards all over the home. But their cars were there too so nobody else was home besides Dahlia.
Maybe- just maybe… if she snuck in…
Sakura turned around and ran to the side of the gate. She looked around for ways to get inside but couldn’t find any. The gate was too high. Climbing was not an option.
She was going to have to jump.
She hadn’t utilized her strength quirk in a while. In fact, any quirk for that matter. But she was confident that if she used her strength to push up from her legs, she could jump over the gate.
She backed up a couple feet. She was going to build up momentum from running and then jump.
She sprinted towards the gate with all her might. Sakura wanted to make sure she would jump the gate on her first try.
But at the last second, she stopped. What was she going to do once inside? How was she going to get inside. Even if it was only Dahlia home, Sakura wasn’t sneaky enough to get inside without getting caught by her. She didn’t even know Dahlia’s quirk or even if the maid had one. This kind of plan was rushed and more importantly, immature. No thought behind it whatsoever.
Sakura walked back home defeated.
******
A couple more months passed. The winter had come and gone without Sakura even realizing it. The school’s workload became so grand that she didn’t realize how quickly the days, weeks, and now months were passing by.
The teachers finally agreed that the workload was far too much for high school freshmen so large-scale changes were made to curriculum of many classes, especially biology. Now her classes were back to normal. Biology went from lectures about researching the cure to the most incurable disease to watching a movie that had nature in it.
Asamachi’s winters were never cruel and rarely snowed. This one was no different and as spring began to peak their head again, Sakura was called into the office to have a meeting with Anko. Though she was a receptionist, since Sarutobi’s death left a lot of responsibilities to be dispersed among the staff, Anko became promoted to student counselor to help with the workload Sarutobi left behind. Though unlicensed and still in college, she seemed to do her job well, with most students appreciating the relatability she had and the more practical, updated approaches to planning for college she offered.
Exiting from the front office was Neji. Majestic as ever. He walked with purpose- so tall, so determined.
“Move child,” he said as he tried to pass her. Sakura scoffed audibly.
“I am the same age as you,” Sakura responded, unable to help herself.
Neji chuckled. “Maybe, but you’re childish mentally.”
“How do you know that?” Sakura found herself becoming angrier. Her hopes for any romance were dissipating. Neji paused in his departure, turning back to face her.
“I, like everyone else in this school, am aware of your childish temper. We all stood witness at your ridiculous, embarrassing display of violence when you punched Ino.”
It took all of her to not get giddy at the fact that Neji was already aware of Sakura’s existence.
“Aren’t you the childish one to judge me only based on one day,” Sakura snapped. “Haven’t you heard of the saying don’t judge a book by its cover?”
“Trust me, you are not a book worth reading,” Neji chuckled. “And I am not passing judgement purely on one event. You’re fencing try outs-.”
“Look, it was my first time fencing! You didn’t come out the womb knowing how to swing a sword like that.”
“It’s not a sword, woman,” Neji sighed, rubbing his forehead.
“So, which is it, am I a child or a woman?”
“You’re a childish woman!”
“And yet here you are talking with me! If I am childish, what do you have to gain from this conversation? If you’re soooo mature, then clearly this conversation is above you, but here you are! How childish can I really be if someone as mature as you wants to talk with me?”
“I-… uhm…” Neji looked stunned. His eyes darted around, searching for a response but couldn’t find one.
Sakura gave him a smug smile. She won this argument, and it was a victory over Neji of all people.
But Neji responded back with a smile of his own. An impressed smile. His face conceded his defeat and showed no anger. He gave her a quick nod and walked away. Sakura found herself perplexed by Neji’s reaction.
She entered the office. Even the office had changed since Sarutobi’s death. The colors had changed to a more blueish color scheme, rather than the bright green it used to be. Sarutobi’s office door had been removed and so too was the furniture. Inside the ex-office was a portrait of the dead principal that stood on an easel in the center of the room. Flowers used to lay all over the easel’s base but since it had been seven months since Sarutobi’s death, nobody had anymore flowers left to give. It was just an empty room with a portrait in it.
Sakura examined the portrait. She looked at the principal, smiling in the portrait, his eyes warm, his teeth white. He was almost alive.
“Sakura!” Anko said, walking toward her. “Glad to see you’ve kept yourself out of trouble since the beginning of the year. Come with me into my office.”
The two walked into Anko’s new office. The ISS room. It now housed a small, L-Shaped desk in the corner and two office chairs: one for Anko and the other for whoever she was counseling. All in all, it felt cramped and made Sakura wonder why she didn’t just use Sarutobi’s old office.
“Alright, let me get your file here,” Anko said as she looked around her desk that was covered in documents and folders. “There it is!”
The two took their seats.
“Sakura, I brought you in here today to talk about your future here at Sarutobi High and potentially your future after it. Typically, students here attend our school with something specific in mind regarding what they want to do in life. Some people want to work in accounting-.”
“What high schooler wants to be an accountant,” Sakura laughed.
Anko laughed too. “Sorry, I’m still new to this counseling shi- STUFF! Anyways, the reason I brought you here is to talk about the specific track you want to be on during your time here. When you applied for our school, your parents had written the reason for your attending was to pursue a career in the medical field. You have a healing quirk- at a good level too!”
“About that…”
“Yes?”
“I found out a couple months ago that I can only heal myself, not that I can heal others.”
“Oh interesting, we need to update that then.”
“It was during football try outs… I tried to heal Rock Lee but it didn’t work.”
“But you tried which shows a great initiative on your part.”
“Tsunadae was also a healer that could only heal herself, right? So, it shouldn’t matter right?”
“Yeah…” Anko scratched her head. “I wouldn’t describe Tsunadae as a healer. But you’re right. Anyways, I wanted to see if becoming a healer still interested you.”
“In the future?”
“What do you want to do with your life,” Anko asked.
“Uhm…. I don’t know. Don’t I have a long time to figure it out?”
“You do! Sorry- That’s an insane question to ask of someone so young. But I was looking at your grades in biology and with the insanely difficult curriculum, you ended up being in the top of your class.”
“Wait seriously? I thought I was doing as good as everyone else.”
“You don’t talk about your grades with your friends?”
“We uhm… mostly argue rather than talk… and it ain’t about grades, that’s for sure,” she gave an awkward laugh.
“They don’t sound like good friends,” Anko leaned back into her chair, looking through her report on Sakura. “If all you’re doing is arguing with them.”
Sakura thought about it. The Taka gang were her only friends right now, but as fun as it was to hangout with them, she also saw how disposable a member was. They would take any chance they could to ridicule another member. And none of them were all that concerned over Sasuke’s disappearance. It had been seven months now and no word from him. Sakura had stopped delivering homework to Sasuke’s home and not one of them decided to do it instead. Did she want to be friends with people who are so unconcerned about everything, including her?
“They’re not all bad.”
“But Sakura, your grades are quite impressive considering the workload you were given. You managed to maintain a high grade point average, and considering the changes in the curriculum now, I think it makes sense to have you in some sort of accelerated learning course.”
“But I punched someone on my first day of school.”
“Ahh, that’s just semantics. Its impressive how you managed to stay afloat while even the school’s smartest freshmen couldn’t.”
“Does that mean I’m going to be put in a class with Neji?”
“No but-…” Anko looked at Sakura with playful curiosity. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason!” Sakura’s face got red.
“Possibly. But it depends on if you want it. What I’m proposing is this: If you can keep your grades up or in fact, get them even higher by the end of the year, sophomore year you could be enrolled in our accelerated program which will not only help you graduate early but also even let you leave here with some college credits.”
“But that means I need to figure out what I want to do with my life earlier.”
“You don’t want to be a healer?”
Anko’s words rang in her head again. What did she want to do with her life?
“I don’t know…”
“You have some time to figure it out, girl! Don’t stress,” Anko leaned forward and patted Sakura on the head. Sakura found it weird because seated, they were the same height.
As she exited the front office, Sakura thought about her first day of school. Her only goal was to romance Neji and how intricate her plan was. But there wasn’t any thought on her future, what she wanted to do after high school, or hell, even in it academically. She thought about how she saw Ino at the pond talking with Shino. Her obnoxious laugh. She looked ridiculous next to Shino, a boy whom she initially did not give a generous assessment of.
Is that what I want to do with my life, Sakura thought. Look ridiculous just to romance Neji? Or any boy for that matter?
She remembered how she was so quick to punch Ino and how she embarrassed herself in front of the whole school with her childish temper. In that moment, she felt victorious. She had shut Ino up and gotten revenge for the girl’s harsh words. But she hadn’t thought about the crowd that surrounded them. How everyone snickered at the two’s fighting. The eyes that watched her. That examined her. Judged her.
Eyes that concluded she was a child. Immature. Temperamental.
Her giddiness from being recognized by Neji repulsed her. To be known purely because of a childish temper made anxiety spin all around within her.
I’m in high school now, not elementary school! I’m too old to be this immature! Everyone around me thinks this way! What am I supposed to do with my life if I’m this childish person?!
When she arrived at her next class, the anxiety was overflowing. Opening the classroom door and seeing all the eyes of students already seated staring at her somehow made her already terrible anxiety worse. She wanted to collapse right then and there. Melt into nothingness. She wanted to scream stop looking at me! And then run out of the room after.
“Could you take your seat, child,” Kakashi said. “You’re interrupting my lecture.”
********
The next morning, Sakura woke up extra early. The moon was still up in the sky, the crickets still chirping. Not even the birds were awake yet.
But she was awake and ready. She put on her sweats and headphones and walked out the front door.
She jogged throughout her neighborhood and found it eerie how empty and lifeless everything was. How am I the only one jogging right now, she thought. Sakura continued anyway and kept jogging for about a mile. She made sure the route she jogged would loop back to her home. Once she was back, Sakura went into her garage. She looked around for anything heavy but not too heavy. She settled on some big bags of unopened fertilizer her dad kept for his garden. She grabbed them and then lifted them up over her head until bringing them back down. Though the first time she did this was easy, on the 20th repetition, she found herself exhausted. The last repetition she let the bag drop to the floor, making a loud BANG against the ground.
Sakura’s last item to do before getting ready for school was the easiest physically but was easily the scariest. From the kitchen she grabbed a knife.
You’ve got to learn how to heal yourself faster, she thought. It’s just a cut. A small, tiny cut.
Her right hand held the knife’s hilt. Her left?
Her left hand could not keep still. As much as her mind told it to calm down, her hand refused. The shaky hand hesitantly grabbed the blade and slowly tightened its grip. She quickly pulled the knife, slicing deep into her left palm. Blood poured out from her hand and dripped onto the floor below. She rushed towards the kitchen counter and grabbed paper towels to prevent blood getting everywhere. Once the wound was covered, she started a stopwatch timer on her phone and concentrated on her left hand.
She had never healed herself before. Intentionally at least, Sakura was sure that there were probably many times she had healed herself when she was younger but hadn’t realized it. She thought about how she utilized her strength quirk. It felt instinctual and not requiring that much concentration to use. How much strength she used to say throw a ball came down to how much effort she wanted to put into throwing the ball. Would the same instinct kick in for her healing?
She concentrated hard onto her hand, trying to ignore the sharp, stinging pain she had gotten from the knife. Sakura found herself thinking for a couple of seconds about healing and then immediately only thinking about the pain. After a minute passed, the pain dwindled. This prompted her to remove the make-shift paper towel bandage.
Across the palm of her left hand was a purplish scar. Once the paper towels were completely removed, the color changed to a bright red. She felt the scar and realized it wasn’t a scar at all. It wasn’t bumpy but soft- softer than the rest of her palm. It was new skin. Skin that hadn’t been through any wear or tear. Skin that hadn’t been exposed to sunlight to darken a tad bit. She examined her palm with great wonder, constantly rubbing it or poking it with her fingers.
After she cleaned up the mess her blood had made, she went ahead and got ready for school. As she was about to leave, she received a text on her phone.
It was Sasuke.