Chapter 4
Haruno Mebuki knows that Sakura is strange when she turns five and stares at her with those solemn green eyes and serious mouth.
Her little baby has never smiled, never truly given a free laugh.
Mebuki had been worried for years, quietly confiding in Kizashi who tried in vain to soothe her worries away. He never really managed to convince himself either.
So when little Sakura asks her if she’s ever had another life, Mebuki startles.
“No.” Mebuki says slowly. Her daughter’s green eyes seem to focus on something beyond her and then sharpen right back to her. “No, Sakura-chan, I haven’t—or at least, none that I remember.”
Sakura nods a little before a frown over takes her cherub face. “Do you know a woman called Haruhi Sagisō?”
Mebuki’s mouth falls open a little at the name of one of the most powerful women in shinobi history. Haruhi was renowned for her kindness, stealth, iron grip and her near-marriage to Uchiha Madara.
“She—she was,” Mebuki straightens the hem of her apron and clasps her hands behind her back tightly so Sakura doesn’t see them trembling. “Sagisō-sama was supposed to be the bride of Uchiha Madara, but she died in an unfortunate scuffle that the Senju had instigated, right on the border of what we now call Konoha.”
Her daughter—the daughter who hasn’t even really been to the library and doesn’t like meeting new people (so how can she even know the name Haruhi Sagisō?)—nods and then shuffles away, twirling a strand of curls around her slim fingers.
Mebuki just watches her leave, biting her lip in anxiety.