Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sakura was thirteen, a late bloomer, when she had her first heat, marking her as an omega. Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke were in a coma after something happened. No one would tell her anything. It wasn’t a gradual thing, like how the books said it would be. It was sudden and so much cramping. She hid herself away in her bed, under the covers because she didn’t nest. Like how the books said she would be right before she experienced a heat. Her worry over her team made her forget about making a nest or it overrode her desire to make one. She couldn’t tell. All Sakura knew was that she was hot, thirsty, tired, and wanted cuddles. The rosette did sleep through a good chunk of it. When she was awake, the cramps hurt. What shocked her was that her parents were both betas. A pang of grief shot through her. Sakura tried not to think about them in her bare apartment because she did not have time nor the patience to decorate.

Both of her dead parents. She wanted to cry but didn’t. They died in the Crush. Like so many others. Not only was she dealing with the loss of her parents, selling their house (she couldn’t afford the upkeep), finding an apartment for herself, worrying about whatever happened with her team (Naruto went off with a sannin and did not tell her she heard someone else talk about it), but also being an omega. She rolled around on her bed, cuddling a pillow, wishing that someone would show up and hug her. Why was she an omega? Stupid body. Stupid issues. Her apartment did not feel safe or secure. Or warm. She felt so—Sakura wasn’t sure—vulnerable? Unsafe was a certain word.

She had no one. Parents dead. Sensei was in a coma. Her teammates were scattered. Any friends she might’ve had been as a good source to turn to, but they were away doing important things for the village. She was here. Alone and feeling useless. Like their mission in Waves. A tree could have been a better replacement than Sakura. Hiding Tazuna in a henge was a better plan that what they did. She was a stupid emotional, crybaby. Just like she was in the chūnin exam. Stupid crybaby. Who shouldn’t have passed the first round of the chūnin exams. She knew seven minutes in that they needed to cheat but didn’t.

Whatever.

So, here she was. Being a useless, emotional crybaby in her not-a-nest of a bed. Like any other omega out there in the world. Sit still and look pretty. Sakura didn’t want to be pretty. Nor useless. Or even a crybaby. She was a sissy of the highest order, and she needed to change that. Like yesterday. Or even three months ago. As she lay there, crying into her pillow, she realized that she should have gotten her head into the game from the get-go. There was no one to blame but herself. Instead of staring at Sasuke, she needed to work on her bukijutsu.

Once it was safe enough, she planned on going on heat suppressors, which might be in a year or two because her heats needed to be regular. The rosette realized that she actually knew next to nothing. Ignorance could get her, and especially her teammates, killed. Meeting the Suna siblings before the chūnin exam was proof enough of that. If they were anywhere else, that could have been instant death. At least she knew Sensei took rut suppressors; she saw the bottle during their mission to Waves, it made her feel a little bit better. Maybe that’s why he made her feel so safe. because Sensei was an alpha. A part of her wished he was here. There probably wasn’t much he could do, but his presence would be nice.

~🎃~

The first thing she noticed after her heat finally passed was that Sasuke stunk. Even as a beta. His scent was far too savory for her now sensitive nose. Kakashi-sensei’s scent was beautiful compared to Sasuke’s. Probably because he was an alpha, unlike Sasuke. When she first entered the room where they were placed, whatever crush and emotional connection she had with the raven-haired boy died right then and there. His scent made her queasy. The rosette couldn’t place what they smelled like, but she knew Sasuke was gross and Sensei’s was lovely.

Her teammates weren’t the only ones she visited in the hospital, Lee, another beta. He was friendly and kind. But he smelled off to her too. Maybe Sensei’s scent was just that good to her, that it ruined other people for her. Because there were a few nurses and hospital staff that made her feel sick. Oh well. Lee chatted about all the things that Gai ‘made him’ do with training. It was baffling.

She promised her parents, to herself, and to Konoha, that she would protect her village with everything she had. Except, Sakura was a genin, and unable to take missions outside of Konoha bound D Ranks (stuff needed to be done). Her musings during her heat still held true. The rosette needed to get better. Maybe it wasn’t too late. She wanted to catch up with her teammates. Prove to them all that she wasn’t just another ‘pretty omega.’ She just wasn’t sure how. She had no guidance.

~🎃~

Chakra control was her best arsenal at her disposal. She was able to walk up walls, trees, and water, stay on ceilings for long periods of time, and she even figured out how to time a jump so she could make great leaps across rooftops. It required great timing to jump over several buildings. She enjoyed running across the rooftops at her top speed, which compared to others, was slow. Her only mission was to deliver the mail. People hated it, but Sakura enjoyed it. The mission was actually hard, despite it being labeled a D Rank.

When they handed her a satchel, the mail was so disorganized. So, before she went out, she organized it. To increase her speed, she used Lee’s advice and added weights as she ran across the rooftops. The one compliment she got from Gai-sensei (an omega. Yay. There was hope for her) about using chakra to boost her speed during her fight with Ino gave her a high and she wanted more of it. Only after she finished her mission ‘on time’ would she get paid. It was a stupid five p.m. deadline. Shinobi ran on a twenty-four-hour schedule, but when she put two seconds of thought into it, it made sense. Shinobi weren’t the only ones she was delivering to. After the mission, she headed to the library, grabbed whatever her rank would allow her to get, and go home to study. Sakura was right, there were large gaps in her knowledge. The Academy set her up for success by giving her a decent starting point, now she needed to follow through on her training.

That was how she spent her days. She got up at six in the morning, head to grab her satchel, or packages, organize them, and then go off and deliver them. After her mission, she’d go to the library, drop off anything that she finished (with colored coordinated notes!) and get more material to read. Get food, if she got paid, and then go home to eat and study. As a way to get better and faster, Sakura made it a personal rule, she could only get food if she could get paid from the mission. Which meant she had to finish before five p.m. If she was a minute late, no money. No money meant no food. The rosette had her own personal funds, but she refused to touch them. It was a shitty system, people learned best with positive motivation, but with Sakura and her massive fear of failure, this was good for her and her alone. She just would ensure her improvements didn’t affect her body’s ability to train for too long of a period, since humans needed proper nourishment to build muscle. Having a starving body wouldn’t help her grow as a kunoichi, nor would it help her keep the promise she made. She’ll work around her self-imposed rule, it’ll get her to think outside the box.

At some point, she got different kinds of maps of Konoha, learned far more about her village than any normal person probably should or would. Quickly learning the ins and outs of her beloved village. Sakura became familiar with every nook and cranny weren’t lost to her. She even used the underground evacuation tunnels just to help her get around. The more she traveled all over the place, the more she learned the patterns of daily life in her beloved village. She already knew that shinobi ran on a twenty-four-hour schedule, and civilians did not, what she also learned was that a lot of civilian artisans would open early or stay late just for shinobi. She learned that some civilian merchants were only open at night. She found a civilian run cafe that did not have posted hours, but she learned that it was only for shinobi. She found places that were the opposite. Shinobi run places that only catered to civilians. She got to know them, retirees, either by disability or age, who wanted a quiet life.

As days trickled by, she noticed that less people were doing the mail. She heard that it was because they were needed somewhere else. Sakura remained. A genin without a team. It felt like she was the only one who was consistent. She stuck to her personal rule anyway. If she didn’t finish, then she didn’t eat. Sakura got up earlier, organized multiple satchels, and packages, based on locations, and took off. Some of the packages were so heavy that she had to use chakra to lift them.

Sakura begun to go more days without eating. There was too much to do and not enough of her to go around. Even with the early-morning organization she got up early for and the routes and even the leaps did not help to finish the routes on time. So, she taught herself to fish. No money meant no food; she was starving and wouldn’t be able to improve herself if she had no energy. And rivers were unguarded. She struggled at first. A fishing rod was expensive even if she dipped into her savings, but if she persisted then she’d break down and get food. She needed to stick to her personal rule as much as possible, or at least reasonably modify it, like getting a fishing rod or ‘no money earned; no money spent of food.’ If she were being honest with herself, a fishing rod would only take up space, she didn’t know how to use it and the manuals did not help. If she were on a mission outside of Konoha and ran out of food, it’d be extra unnecessary stuff that was being lugged around. So, she tried catching them with her hands. She broke down in tears after spending a few hours trying to catch a fish with no success. She was getting desperate. Her stomach hurt so much, and she was getting dizzy quickly. Sakura’s mail delivery was slowed. Her chakra reserves weren’t filling up as much as they are supposed to be. After a stupid crying fit, because she was a stupid crybaby. Although, it did help ease her panic, because an idea hit her and helped ease her panic.

She got into the water, using her chakra to give off nonpredator feel. Essentially, matching her chakra to the fish. Some came right up to her, and with chakra on her hands, she caught two fish. Quickly, she went to the grass. With a heavy heart, she used a kunai to cut off their heads. She cried again. But she made a fire and cleaned the fish. She ate well that night since she caught and ate a total of four fish. That did not solve her mail issue. However, it got her thinking about plants that could be edible. So, she harvested some of the wild berries and dandelions, pinecones, and some katniss. She took them home and prepared them for a broth. She needed to eat more than just protein.

The next day, out of desperation, she dropped off the books at the library and went to a nearly abandoned training field and practiced making one of Naruto’s infamous shadow clones. It cut her chakra in half, and she hated it. The worst part, the further the clone moved away from her, the more it drained her pathetic reserves. She needed a way to keep up with what she had to do. Yes, she could always not follow her personal rule, but what was the point? If she couldn’t have the fortitude to do that, how could she do something else? Something far more serious—like solo missions as a higher-ranking shinobi. She had experimented with the shadow clones and realized that the more she made, the division of her chakra was split between her and the clones. So, if she made four, her chakra was cut down to a quarter. That wasn’t good. Her reserves were already pathetic. Naruto’s reserves were an ocean compared to hers. If she stuck to the water theme for comparison, Sakura’s reserves were a kiddie pool. Still, the rosette couldn’t fathom the number of clones Naruto could make and still be functional. The only good thing about making a shadow clone was that she got the memories. No matter how many she made. Although, it got her thinking about why that was. It was just chakra. Sakura went back to her apartment; the shadow clone really messed her up.

A jōnin had chased her off the training ground because it wasn’t properly reserved for her to use. Without her sensei, she couldn’t. Which made no sense to her because how can she be considered an adult as a genin, but unable to reserve training ground without a sensei? Why would they care about some abandoned one? Besides, no one was really using the training grounds, not with when it was every hands on deck for missions.

She did think about it when she was out delivering mail (the next day). How could she make a clone that could do the job assigned without her retaining the memories and (most importantly) not eat her chakra up? In the creation of the clone as well as when it parted from her person. She needed it to be durable and to make many. She was one person, delivering all Konoha’s mail, from low effort mission scrolls, heavy and light packages, personal letters, and even advertisement mail. It was a lot, and she was one person.

She stopped going to the library because she was experimenting with the idea of clones instead and trying to find a new place to train. Because Sakura was one person, the rosette often went without pay. But she caught fish. Killed the fishy, cooked them over a fire, threw them into her weird broth (that she made while she caught the fish), and ate. If she took the fish home, then she’d be tempted to get something like rice to add in some starch to her weird dinner. It had been two weeks since her first heat when she came up with the idea of clones that would fit what she wanted to do. It wasn’t actually her idea. It was Naruto’s. He kept called yin chakra ‘brainy chakra,’ which, for one was hilarious, and two he was right about it. There were the elemental releases, and there were clones of each one. But how did they come to be? Sakura really wished Sensei was awake so she could ask him.

Was she a kunoichi or not?

She could figure it out on her own.

Just like a real kunoichi.

Which, she was.

Kind of.

A terrible one, but one, nonetheless.

After her long day, she caught fish, cleaned and cooked them. And threw them into her broth, once done. As she sat there eating her fishy soup, she thought about clones and clone making. The shadow clones were pure chakra, which divided the user's chakra reserves. Make one, chakra was cut in half. Make four, it’s a quarter. Water clones were clone making but with a water release. There were other elemental clones. From what she understood, they all function similarly to the shadow clone. But the bunshin wasn’t real. It was an afterimage, one that couldn’t even take a single hit without popping. Sakura took a bite of her weird soup as she chuckled to herself at how she used it against Ino; it felt like one glance, and they’d pop. Sakura continued to eat her weird soup, at least it had calories and nutrients.

A part of her was now jealous of her team’s nearly infinite chakra reserves. Sakura did wonder why Sensei thought he had such average reserves. Must be his sharingan. It’s probably always active. She knew nothing about the eyes or any dōjutsu, except that Sasuke unlocked the sharingan. So, she wasn’t going to touch that even with a ten-foot pole. Still, she was jealous. Stupid chakra reserves for the stupid crybaby. Sakura finished her fish soup. She wanted to study. She also wanted to train and get better. No more hiding behind her teammates and watching only their backs. Standing shoulder to shoulder. Like a real team!

But she had no way of getting there. No sensei. No real guidance. Sakura stared down at her now empty container. She was clever as she was smart. What if she used yin or yang releases and combined the bunshin to make a clone? It wasn’t an elemental nature. Jutsus that used one or the other often needed precise chakra control, like genjutsu. Maybe . . . maybe she could do that. But how? Sakura put the bowl down and performed the bunshin. The rosette put her hand through the afterimage of herself. Although, she managed to get a good hard look at herself. Damn, she was skinny. She needed more calories. And muscle.

She released the afterimage clone. Then performed the jutsu again. Getting a good feel of her chakra as it flowed through her to make the bunshin. Sakura released the clone as she walked over to the nearby tree. She walked up the trunk. Minimal chakra. It was to the point where she didn’t need to think about it. But she stood there, parallel to the ground. Feeling how her chakra was sticking her to the tree. It felt like chakra to her. She really needed to get a feel of the very thing she had near perfect control over.

“I can do this.” Sakura whispered as she closed her eyes, breathed in for four seconds, held her breath for four seconds, and then exhaled for four seconds. “I can do this.” She stood on the trunk, trying to feel her chakra. Analyzing how it moved and pulsed inside of her. Like a heartbeat. Chakra was life.

The chakra on her feet was extraordinarily minimal. Naruto had issues with staying on the tree because he wasn’t using enough chakra. One step up. Her chakra rescinded, just enough to not waste it when not in use. When her foot was on the tree, stinking to the trunk. Keeping her parallel to the hard ground, well mostly her core was aching badly. Sakura took another step, analyzing her chakra. For a moment, she was confused. Why would such little chakra keep her upright? But the more steps she took up the tree, the more she felt her chakra, she felt stupid. It was pure yin chakra that she was using. Minimal amount. She super jumped from the tree towards the river, flipping part way and landed on the rushing water. At the last second, her body switched from yin to yang and back to yin. It was such an unnoticeable change. Maybe a super sensitive sensor like the Second would be able to pick it up. She didn’t even notice, and it's her body.

But why so little? Because it's pure yin chakra. According to Naruto, it’s the sticky and brainy chakra. Sakura smiled as she made her way to shore. She can do this. The rosette pulled the yin ‘thread’ of her chakra and performed the hand signs of the bunshin. Out came a clone, that waved. Independently of Sakura, who picked up a rock and tossed it at the clone, which immediately popped. No endurance. Got it. Except, she got the memory of a rock being tossed at her by Sakura.

She did it again, but she pulled on the yang ‘thread’ of her chakra. Out popped another clone. Sakura throw a rock at it. The clone stayed. “Walk on water.” The real Sakura said.

“Okay.” The clone said and it did. But it quickly ran out of chakra and fell in. Then popped out of existence because Sakura panicked. Although, she kept no memory of it. At least the clone's memories.

“Wow. How am alive?” Sakura asked the voice in the most sarcastic tone she could muster. Sakura made the yang clone again but used just a drop of yin. “Go walk on water.” The clone nodded and walked on water. This time, it held its place. It even began to do cartwheels. Like how the real Sakura did in Waves. So, she experimented. She made another pure yin clone. “Pick something up.” It tried and immediately popped out of existence. Sakura retained the memories. She made another yin one, but this time with the tinies drop of yang. “Pick something up.” It did. “Yes!” Sakura cheered as she pumped her fists into the air. “Hey! Guys! Guess what I-” She stopped herself. Remembering that Naruto was out in the world, Sasuke and Kakashi were in a coma. There wasn’t anyone there to celebrate with her. For the first time, she felt very, very alone.

~🎃~

Come to find out, her yin and yang clones were exactly what she was looking for. Yin clones had barely any durability. One stubbed a toe, and it popped out of existence, but on the plus side, they gave Sakura excellent memories of whatever study material the real Sakura ‘threw’ at them when she was off delivering mail. Yang clones gave Sakura zero mental memories, however the more they did something, like a super jump or running, the easier it got for Sakura to do. It wasn’t a big push in physical conditioning; it just made it an itty-bitty easier to do. Her yang clones could never replace proper conditioning, but it did make it easier to truly master the lackluster skills she picked up. Whoever said that her fight against Ino wasn’t flashy had gotten under her skin.

With her yang clones, she was able to divide the work. She broke Konoha down into different sectors. The yin clones helped organize said mail, cutting what Sakura had to do down significantly. After that, she sent the clones into any given direction with their mail bag. Sakura, herself, delivered the heavier packages, and set up success for the next day. At night, she go home, grabbed the books that the clones read, and got new ones. Whatever reading she got her grubby hands on, it wasn’t much. Or high ranking. But it was enough. Filling in the gaps of her education as a civilian born kunoichi. She might accidentally stick her foot in her mouth again, and she didn’t want that to happen.

She had a routine now. Sakura would get up early, do the organizing with her clones, and send them off. She delivered the packages. Afterwards, she would turn in her mission report and get paid. Then she’d go the hospital to visit Sasuke (who had so many flowers), Sensei (who had no flowers), and Lee (he had some flowers, probably from his team). Then after her visit, she did the book exchange.

The loneliness didn’t go away when she visited Lee. He was cheerful and happy, but he wasn’t what she was looking for. She wanted a companion. At least she had a friend. Of sorts. She felt bad about what happened to him. Gai-sensei should never have approved him using the gates. But still, she visited him. When she could afford it (she refused to dip into her savings), she bought Kakashi-sensei flowers, including a glass one just to show that someone cared for him. He might never know it was from her, but at least he’ll know that someone cared. Was it because of his scent? No. Did it help? Yes. Sakura couldn’t figure out why her alpha sensei smelled so nice to her. Or what the smell was.

~🎃~

Sakura sat in her very empty one-bedroom apartment, with her back against the wall, and her flat butt on the cold wood floor. At least she had rice now. A large ten-pound bag would last her ages. She still foraged for most of her food and fished. Mom and Dad taught her to always remain within a budget. Always have savings that were worth at least three months’ rent (or a mortgage). Never splurge when she couldn’t afford it. Her father was a merchant. Some months were hard. Some months were great. She knew all too well the importance of staying within a budget. She missed her parents. Missed their laughter. Their hugs and words of encouragement. She missed Mom’s home cooking.

She had the money. But spending outside of what she earned was giving her a weird feeling inside her stomach. Anxiety, she thought it was called. It was odd. She hardly had any decorations, maybe a few nicknacks from her home. She kept her bed, her clothes, but hardly any furniture. She sold the house completely furnished. As it was. Her heart couldn’t bear to go through the house. There were pictures she did grab. All of them. They were her parents.

No clones tonight. She did her mission. Her heart couldn’t take it tonight. A break was necessary. She hoped. So, the rosette sat there. In her cold apartment, sitting on the cold floor, staring at a very blank wall. She should splurge and make a nest. A proper one. Would her parents be proud of her? Sakura hoped so. Just like how she hoped that Naruto would come home soon and how Sasuke and Sensei would wake up. Would they be happy she ended up being an omega? Yes, they would. They were always supportive of her. She missed them. All her precious people.

Even though she brought nothing to the table as a team member. She really needed to change that. She missed her team as much as she missed her parents. A tiny, innocent part of her still expected her dad to come through her door and make some cheesy dad joke. Mom would playfully slap his arm. But they won’t. Because they died. She wasn’t there to protect them. Just like how she couldn’t protect her teammates. Ever. Sakura was a very useless kunoichi. She couldn’t live up to her promise. That needed to change. But for now, she’ll sit in her cold, dark apartment.

~🎃~

Sakura found a spot. There was an abandoned house, and the grass was tall with many, many weeds. No one was around. An abandoned property. It felt like home. The place smelled like home. It smelled good.

~🎃~

It had been three weeks since her first heat and she noticed that she was slowly building muscles and saw a tiny increase in her speed. So, she added more weight, not a lot, but enough that it made her muscles scream. Lee didn’t know. She wanted to surprise him. Although, with her latest visit, of his own accord (seriously, she just asked about what he thought of his limited view and she was thinking of renting a movie for them to watch together), he was telling her about all the ways Gai had given his team endurance training.

That’s what she added on her slowly increasing tasks. Except she did the endurance training after she dropped the books at the library. Just so she could add more to her tiny (but ever growing) list of things she could do bukijutsu, focusing specifically on shurikenjutsu (because she didn’t need someone to help her with this) while two yin clones were studying in the background. The rosette grabbed everything she could get her hands on. Anything and everything. It did not matter to her how random everything was. Sakura wouldn’t be an idiot again. Or try not to be and stick her foot in her mouth. She might not be a politician nor an ambassador type, but she’s not stupid, and she’ll use her intelligence.

Although yesterday one of her clones did read to not overuse her chakra. It was just as bad as not engaging her chakra (she had no idea what that meant). So, she did rest last night. Despite having the itch to allow one clone to keep on working. Resting every night would probably be the best course of action. As a mild compromise, she would only use the yin clones during the day.

When she dropped off the books she finished, Sakura did seek out the information she was lacking. In the shinobi world, ignorance was not bliss. It meant death. Team Seven was lucky that their sensei was as skilled as he was. It took her an hour to actually find what she was looking for. But she read it right there in the library. ‘Not engaging with one’s chakra’ meant actively using it outside her body. Her heart felt like it exploded.

Did she fuck up? Her breathing became short. It was hard to get a good lungful. How badly did she fuck up? The room spun as she stood there. She wanted to stand side-by-side with her teammates. Her skin felt hot, but she was shivering. Shaking so badly that she dropped the book. The sounded bounced in her ears. So, she didn’t have to look at their backs as they put their lives on the line. Why couldn’t she get a good lungful? Her stomach twisted as her clothes stuck to her. How badly did she fuck up? It felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach, stealing her breath. She gasped for air. Each breath felt shallow. Even with every breath she tried to take. Her terror of her accidental fuck was not helping her additional panic of not being able to breathe properly. She tried. She really did try to keep herself calm. But it felt as though a hand of ice had reached inside her chest, piercing through her ribcage, gripping her heart like a vice. It was an unshakeable fear, one that seemed to seep into her bones. It wasn’t helping. Nothing was helping. She wanted Sensei. She wanted her mom. She wanted her dad. It was a never-ending abyss of despair. The world seemed to warp around Sakura, like a bad blanket, as though she were looking at it through a fun-house mirror. Her thoughts spiraled out of control, each one more distorted than the last, amplifying the panic that was already coursing through her veins.

When she finally got a good lungful of air, by forcing her body to do the Box Breathing technique that Iruka-sensei taught the class; she noticed that she was by herself. In the library. Shaking far more than a leaf during a hurricane. She was on the floor. No one was around. She wanted there to be someone. She wanted someone to notice her. No one would. Unless they were an alpha who just wanted her body. Because she was an omega. Not because she was funny or smart. A cute omega. Eye candy. Something to show off. Gai-sensei and Shikamaru broke the mold. They made higher ranks. They weren’t paper-nin. Pencil pushers. Even if Shikamaru really wanted to be. So, what if she might’ve screwed up. Just a weee bit. With hesitant, and a shaky hand, she grabbed the book and forced her body to remain calm as she continued reading.

According to this, since she was still in puberty, for any of the sub-genders, and just had her first heat, and only one, she still had time to fix things. Her chakra reserves might never improve in terms of volume, but she could still get her chakra to perform regular jutsu, with workarounds. Hopefully. There was time to correct herself. All she needed to do was use a significant amount of chakra outside her body. The clones and the various forms of walking were not going to cut it. Also, according to this book and Iruka-sensei, finding her native element would be a good start for learning jutsus. It'll be easier for someone to learn with their affinity.

She’ll be okay. Right?

Right?

~🎃~

After some searching in the many different shinobi run shops that catered to shinobi and their needs, she managed to get her hands on some chakra induction paper. She went to the abandoned field, and she found out that her natural affinity was water. She really wanted Kakashi-sensei. He knew many different water jutsus. Especially after his fight with . . . Zabuza. That she witnessed both times. Sakura swallowed. Yin chakra was called the brainy chakra by Naruto for a reason! Maybe, she could—it would be a giant risk. There was a strong possibility that she could damage her brain. No one knew that she was here. She’d be reported as missing, and possibly labelled a missing nin when she didn’t report in. No one would find her body, because she’d died of dehydration, and no one would know where she went off too. Maybe Sensei could track her down. Once he woke up. But he was an elite shinobi. Konoha wouldn’t risk such an asset on another genin flak. A lot of genin fled after the Crush. She’d be another one. She hoped that Sensei liked her enough to at least try and track her down. Maybe not. He hadn’t really taught her anything.

Sakura kicked some dirt up in a dead zone of the tall grass. Was she a kunoichi or not? Being one meant danger. Being a kunoichi meant taking risks. But also, they had to be necessary risks. No unnecessary risks. Which one was this? Sakura swallowed as she kicked up more dirt. Her inner omega was screaming that this was very much a necessary risk. She sat down on the patch of dirt. This was going to be a giant risk for her own mind and body. Do or die. Just like in Waves as she taught herself how to water walk. She experimented with pure yin chakra, with her heart pounding her chest, as she sent it to her brain. Her stomach knotted onto itself as she went through her memories of Waves; specifically, the two fights between Sensei and Zabuza. Using yin chakra to calm her mind, as she continued to use the Box Breathing to calm her body, and to see through the haze of fear. With her eyes shut, she felt her eyes prickle. Sakura was extraordinarily cautious as she made her brain remember the hand signs that Zabuza used for each jutsu he had and Sensei’s. So long as he didn’t copy them from Zabuza. When she opened her eyes, it was dark out.

Great.

With her limited reserves, most of the jutsus would eat away most of it. The water clone seemed to be the best use of what she needed to do. Funnily enough, when she first made a water clone with just her chakra, it came out small, like an eight-pound cat size. She was able to let out a small cheer before her vision went spotty and she knew that her body was passing out because of chakra exhaustion.

When she awoke, probably hours later, it was still dark out, she tried again. Another mini water clone. Honestly, she had no idea what to do with the mini clone. She just needed to send it away. She released the water clone, got up, and went back to empty apartment. As she cuddled a pillow, she thought about what to do. She could send it away while she was delivering the mail.

Chapter Text

She was terrified of her own body. She was terrified of falling behind. She was already behind, but she didn’t want the gap to grow. It was like a chasm between Naruto and herself. Sasuke and Sakura might as well be the Great Divide. She couldn’t even fathom the distance between Sensei and herself. Sakura wanted to close that distance. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her teammates.

Another crying fit of feeling absolutely useless and pathetic. She was such an emotional omega. For now, she had to ‘sacrifice’ a yin clone in order to make a water clone, sending it off to do whatever. She didn’t care, so long as it was away. She added more weights, even though it didn’t feel easy with the weights she was currently using. Her yang clones were off delivering the letters, while she delivered the packages all over Konoha. She was getting faster at using her super jumps to get across Konoha. Once she finished the paid workday, she’d visit her teammates and Lee. Then she would head to that abandoned field, to keep on training with her chakra, bukijutsu, and the Water Bullet Technique. The most difficult part about it was that she didn’t train them separately, she combined these techniques. All because she was so terrified of screwing up her chakra. Even though the Water Bullet was just a trickle, and it was hard for her to pull off. In a real-life combat situation, she’d need to have endurance and use of her chakra. It was exhaustive.

Sakura knew that once she got the hang of combining it all it’d be worth the exhaustion.

~🎃~

On the fourth week of her teammates being in a coma and Naruto off in the world, Sakura felt like she was banging her head against a wall. This feeling was probably because of her inner omega. Her voice was small, a whisper, so her instincts were just as pathetic. She needed to close the gap. She won’t allow her omega status to slow her down. She forced her body to produce seven yang clones, three yin clones, and one water clone. It was off running around Konoha. The memories of its adventures were blurry; she should fix that. But not right now. As days passed, the migraine that it produced lessoned. She was worried that if she tried to make any more, she’d go into ‘sudden chakra shock.’ One of the yin clones read about it and knew the signs. She was tittering on the edges of pushing herself too hard and having that happen.

Was she doing too much? Possibly. Was she trying to make sure she was getting better? Yes. She needed to get faster. Maybe the shunshin would help? Would that help engage with her chakra? She wasn’t sure. Jutsus and katas and anything else were so guarded that it was nearly impossible to learn without a sensei. It was why she risked giving herself brain damage and trying to remember what Zabuza had done.

It was the middle of the fourth week, as Sakura was delivering a package to a jōnin, their friend had performed the shunshin, and Sakura was able to witness the jutsu up close. She was able to catch the hand sign used. One: tiger. The rosette swallowed and continued with her day.

When she ‘got off’ her shift, and after her nightly visit to the hospital (at this point, she knew all the nurses) instead of practicing her bukijutsu, she worked out how to do the shunshin. The first time she did it, she ran into a tree and broke her nose. After resetting her nose, she sent yang chakra to sooth the pain. She got up. And tried again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Sakura kept at it. She wanted to get it right. It didn’t matter how many times she had to break her nose, her face even, to get it right. The rosette used more chakra than she had before; she didn’t just run into another tree, her body slammed into the trunk, and she flopped onto the ground. She groaned loudly as her body ached from the blunt force trauma. She was going to keep her promise. She was going to stand shoulder to shoulder with her teammates. Just because she was an omega, it did not mean she was going to not achieve her goals. Her inner omega purred. To be strong. Capable. No one’s eye candy. Sakura rolled over, coughed up some blood, and with shaky legs, she stood up. Sakura was a kunoichi. She wore the hitai-ate with pride. She didn’t bother wiping the dirt off her.

Nothing was going to stop her from doing what she wanted to do. Protect her family, her pack. Protect her precious people. Protect Konoha. She’s smart, she’ll figure it out. Like she always had done in the past. Even though the scenery was completely different, the field with the abandoned house reminded her of the Forest of Death and her fight against the Oto nin. She performed the Kawarimi, back-to-back, and fought hard. It wasn’t enough. She still had to be saved. A frown and then a growl. She was nobody’s princess to be rescued. With the Kawarimi, she didn’t need to think about it because the jutsu just swapped places with a log relatively the users body size and mass. With the shunshing, it didn’t seem like that was the case. Breath in. Breath out. She imagined herself on the other side of the field, she performed the shunshin. Landing was awkward; she didn’t hit a tree, but she did stumble over her own feet and fell to the ground. She did it!

Again, with shaky legs, she stood up. She imagined herself on the top of the house and performed the jutsu. She was there, still her landing sucked. The roof was shaky. Like her legs. So, she thought of herself on the ground, and once more, performed the jutsu. Okay, I can do this. Except, it took her breath away and the world spun. Laying down on the ground, it felt nice. As she stared at the twinkling night sky, Sakura thought about her parents, and how they taught her the constellations. She wondered what they smelled like now that her sense of smell skyrocketed to the moon, that was waning. Probably like home. Sakura thought about her mom’s home cooked meals and her dad’s silly ‘dad jokes’ and how they were so supportive of her and her aspirations of being a kunoichi. They didn’t mind that she was taking a path so different from their own.

“Don’t worry about us and what you picked. We’re happy that you chose this path.” Her dad said while he passed the salt over to Mom.

“Although, you did choose one of the most difficult paths to take.” Mom said. It sounded like she was proud of her rather than dismissing her dreams, which made her tummy feel like there were butterflies inside of it.

“We want you to be happy, healthy, and loved.” Her dad ruffled her hair as he spoke. “The shinobi life is extraordinary hard and cruel, however, but shinobi love the deepest and the purest.”

“It’s why they fight so hard for the village and her people.” Her mom continued.

“I want to be one of those shinobi.” Sakura may be nine, but she knew what she wanted. “I want to protect the people of this village.”

“That is why support you and your goals.” Dad ruffled her hair again, this time messing up the ribbon that Ino gave her.

“Sakura, I am not dismissing your dreams and aspirations when I say this. If your dreams change, there is no shame in that. You will always have a home.”

“Yeah, what your mom said. We’ll always support you!”

Tears were streaming down her face as she thought about her parents. Would they be proud of her now? Yes. They’d even be the ones making sure Sakura wasn’t overdoing it. Which she certainly was. No one was looking over her shoulder. Not even the person that she had to turn the reports into after her mail delivery. The Crush took them from her. Maybe that’s why she was pushing herself so hard, she was burying her grief. She missed them. With every breath she took. With every beat of her heart, the pain of their absence . . . it hurt so damn much. Sakura sat up and pulled her knees to her chest, hugging her legs as the tears leaked from her eyes. She wanted to protect the people of the village but when the time came, she was knocked out so easily. Then again, Gaara was extraordinarily powerful. Shikamaru was right, Sakura was a girl with no skills.

~🎃~

Sakura did not slow down. Even at the start of the fifth week of her team, more or less, falling apart (trying to ignore that she had her first heat), when the signs of her training were starting to truly show. She was now able to make two mini water clones. With them running around all over Konoha, doing who knows what, her two yin clones in her lackluster apartment, and her yang clones helping with the mail. Sakura took on more. She ran, jumped (super or regular), climbed, wall walked, and shunshined (for now, the jutsu was for short distances) all over Konoha. Sakura did something different, she gave her yang clones the usual routine, but not as much as she normally did. This time, Sakura needed to really get into the habit of running. With all sorts of added weight, or lack of weight, on her person.

After the mission report was turned in, she went off to the hospital, replacing Sensei’s flowers, and removing any of Sasuke’s dead ones. She read to them; it was usually something dull and boring (to them), but it was something. Then she visited Lee. Ran to the abandoned field and practiced her limited jutsu. Water Bullet was now more of a Water Trickle. She did this every day, until it was Friday and the rosette noticed that she was using the shunshin more and more with each passing day. She needed a new plan. This wasn’t going to work. Using the shunshin was awesome, because her distance was getting further. However, she needed to keep her speed up. She was stupid slow.

On Saturday, she decided to get up two hours earlier and run on Konoha’s border. She needed to get better with her endurance, ending the run to go deliver mail, she did all her clone nonsense. Hospital and then the abandoned field with the decrepit house, where she continued with her other training. Trying to do some trick shots just for the shits and giggles. But one bad throw of a kunai and it ricocheted towards her, and she barely dodged out of the way. That gave her an idea. She made more yang clones, and they started throwing stones at her. She got pelted. She was definitely going to feel that in the morning.

On Sunday, she did feel all that she did. Maybe not do a lot dodging, just yet. At least she was trying to improve. She needed to get talent. Not be useless. Stand beside her teammates. To not be a burden. Sakura wanted to wear her hitai-ate with pride. Even for an omega like her. A part of her feared that she’d be regulated to a desk job, but there were omegas like Gai, who broke the mold and became something of themselves. Sakura wanted that for herself. To be the best at something. Anything. But Gai was the exception to the rule, not the standard. It was rare for an omega to progress. Maybe she should keep her status hidden. Until her heats became more stable, she wouldn’t be able to take heat suppressors. Sakura crawled out of bed, just to repeat it all over again.

~🎃~

On Wednesday, she had an idea to fix the fuzzy memories of the water clones while she ran on the wall. After her run, she decided to insert a tiny amount of yin chakra into a water clone, and sent it off somewhere. Then it popped out of existence. The memories of the mini water Sakura came to her. Yes! It worked! She got the memories. After her clone shenanigans, she went off to deliver the mail. What else was new?

At the end of the day, she learned what her mini water clones got up to, which were being nuisances to Konoha. At least they were tiny. They would get on people, without anyone noticing, make puddles on them, and then reform once the person wasn’t paying attention. Another apparently befriended the ravens, by bringing them shiny things or food. They loved the food. The pretty birds would then allow the clone to get on top of them and fly around on their backs. The ravens seemed genuinely upset whenever the mini water clone Sakura would say “it’s time for me to leave.” And become a puddle. Sakura felt horrible. She wondered about those ravens; they seemed awfully smart for just birds.

She went off to find these ravens, but first she bought apples and berries. Using the water clone’s memories of their last known location to start her investigation into finding them. It took her a few minutes, but she found the ravens on a training field. The one she got kicked from. She might get in trouble. One flew to her, landing on her shoulder. She handed them a berry. More ravens showed up. Her heart was beating painfully in her chest as her stomach twisted in knots.

“Hello.” One cawed. “I’m sorry about my water clones. I didn’t know you guys existed until today.” Sakura put the basket of fruit down. The one on her shoulder nudged her. “I’m sorry. I’ve been training and using the water clones to help with my chakra usage. The memories were always fuzzy, so I put a little yin chakra into their creation so I could remember what they did.” Sakura had no idea if the birds could understand. Was it crows or ravens that were highly intelligent? So maybe. “Today was the first day of using it. I came as soon as I could, well I did get you guys fruit as an apology.” Some caws. “I don’t know what you guys are saying, but I’m willing to learn to listen.” The one on her shoulder nudged her and she looked over. The raven seemed understanding of what she said. “Can I show you guys were I like to train after my duties? That way I don’t get in trouble for being here.” A chorus of caws. Sakura had no idea how she even began to befriend a group of ravens, but it seemed like she did.

~🎃~

By the end of the week, she had befriended the ravens. All eleven of them. Weirdly, they were helping her train. Sakura had no idea why or how they knew, either way, she was grateful for their help, even if it was a little bonkers. They would peck at her to run faster while on the wall. They helped her with her combat capabilities by diving at her, if she didn’t move then she and the birdie would get extremely hurt by her. Seeing one hurt bird was enough to take to dodging super seriously. The regret of not adding throwing stones at herself weighed heavily on her shoulders. At least if she dodged them, the ravens would fly up, and more importantly stay unhurt. She did pick up several books on ravens and their care for her yin clones to study. If they were going to get hurt while helping her, she might as well learn how to care for them in return. The flock seemed to understand her intent and were the happiest little birds.

They seemed to understand a lot of things about Sakura, including but not limited to her mail delivery mission and when she was in the hospital. During those times, they left her alone. Mostly. The ‘main’ raven, the one that landed on her shoulder, would follow her into the hospital (no one batted an eye) while the pretty black birdie was resting on her person. The pretty raven seemed friendly towards Kakashi-sensei. She took care of the flowers, read to them, and then went about her business of visiting Lee, who didn’t question the bird, which Sakura found weird. Oh well.

At the end of the night, she was able to do some cool trick shots with shuriken and kunai with the ravens watching. But the ‘main’ raven was cawing at her on the second night of them just following her around. Maybe she should stop feeding them . . . after point zero one second of thought, she strongly decided against it. Absolutely not. She liked (loved) their bizarre company. Sakura stared at the bird trying to figure out what they meant while another bird took off. She really was trying to listen to the birds. It seemed like the raven was understanding of her lack of understanding. Another other raven came back with a small rope, placing it in Sakura’s hands.

“Do you want me to tie rope to the shuriken and kunai?” Sakura asked. She felt so damn stupid for even asking. “Wait. No.” The ravens were ‘laughing’ at her. For some reason, she got the impression that they were just teasing her, in a fun kind of way. Rope with her weapons. Actually tying them would take time and effort. Unless they were made of cha- . . . oh. wow. She felt stupid. “Chakra strings.” The ravens were dancing around and cawing loudly. Sakura giggled. “I like you guys.” More happy cawing.

Figuring out chakra strings wasn’t that hard for her to do. She had gathered some chakra to her fingertips and have them stick to things. Once that was all figured out, she began practicing her bukijutsu and shurikenjutsu with chakra strings. It was easy to transfer the skills from performing the trick shots with the strings. She wished she had a real weapon to use in the field. However, then she remembered Zabuza’s accomplice. Haku. He didn’t use flashy weapons—just senbon and his ice—and he was badass. Oops, she thought a swear. Wait. She was a kunoichi. But she was also a lady.

~🎃~

The ravens were helping her with even more with dodging, By being far more thorough, as in they were throwing stones or many of themselves at her; both on the ground and on the wall (she got the impression it was to replicate a multi attack). It seemed they were having lots of fun trying to do these things while she ran on the wall. Especially then. She almost fell to the ground several times because of what they were doing. Forcing her to basically dance (to dodge) around while running. Some of the chūnin guards laughed at her. Sakura noticed how her favorite birds would steal from the guards. Normally, she’d condone such behavior, but they weren’t laughing at her for the fun of it, like everyone was enjoying the hoke, they were being mean. They said cruel things about how omegas shouldn’t be training as hard as she was. She’d give the ravens more food.

She kept on feeding them because she liked them. The rosette even made some shelters for the ravens in the abandoned field with the nearly destroyed house. “Now if it ever rains, you guys will be safe.” There were cawing cheers all around.

At some point, she named the ‘main’ raven Karasu, who seemed delighted by their new name. it inspired her to name all the other ones. With their permission, of course. Karasu was cawing at her as she stared intently at the rest of the flock. He seemed excited. “I would like to name the flock with human names. However, if any of you don’t like that idea please fly away now.” None of them flew away and were all cawing at her. Eleven ravens were cawing at her as they began dancing on the ground. Sakura giggled. “Alright, one at a time.”

Yoru.

Takeru.

Fubiki.

Kurai.

Yamikiri

Kokū

Ou.

Raku.

Sora.

Aki.

They were cawing happily. Now if only she could figure out what they said. Sakura would do so. It would be mean for them to speak her language but her not speak their language. At least she was getting better at interoperating with them.

The rosette went so far as to help the flock hunt for small rodents. She had to learn how to make traps for something so small. It was a strange way to learn. But she was improving. Day by day. Even with her own practicing and clones and whatnot.

It was the end of the sixth week when Naruto returned to Konoha with Jiraiya and the legendary Tsunade. She raced to the hospital with Karasu on her shoulders. Both were alphas. Both smelled weird to her. It wasn’t bad but weird. Naruto (beta) didn’t smell as bad as Sasuke (beta but now smelled too sour for her liking), but he stunk too. Tsunade was able to heal her teammates. Sakura was so happy that she flung herself at Sasuke, ignoring his stinky smell (Sakura completely missed Kakashi’s glare at her), while Karasu cawed at the sudden movement. Sasuke laughed. Genuinely laughed. When Karasu ‘huffed’ at Sakura when she pulled away and Karasu landed on her shoulder.

“What’s up with the bird?” Naruto asked.

“Karasu is my friend.” Sasuke laughed again when Karasu began dancing on her shoulder, but it didn’t sound happy because Sasuke then growled. “What? He’s so nice.”

“I hate crows.”

“Good thing Karasu and the others are ravens.” Sasuke’s face did not change. She missed how Kakashi was struggling with his own body, clenching and unclenching his hands. Glaring at her then moving his gaze to someone else. She didn’t know that Kakashi was besieged with unwanted smells and ‘other things.’

~🎃~

All was not well. Sakura got between her teammates when they tried to kill each other on the rooftop. Sakura warned Sensei that Sasuke will leave. Tonight. Kakashi-sensei promised that everything was going to be okay as he ruffled her head, giving her a very fake smile underneath that stupid mask of his. When nightfall came, the worry ate at her soul, so she went to her teammate. She predicted he’d go to a familiar place to leave. She almost didn’t make it. She tried to convince him to stay. Sakura even made a joke about Karasu and him. Instead, he hit her hard, and with lightning, enough to black out.

It was Karasu and her ravens that brought her into consciousness. Sakura had a raging migraine and her hands trembling. She struggled to get up, but she stood there. It was worse than she was trying to teach herself jutsus. Her body quaking at the electroshock she received (her memories slowly coming to her). Step by painful step she sluggishly made her way to the Hokage Tower. When she finally arrived, she looked up. The stairs would be too much, so she walked up the side of the building until she got to the office, her precious ravens helping her as best they could. Painfully, she crawled through the window. In all honesty, the rosette assumed this was what being drunk was like. And she fucking hated it. “S-Sasuke left. Out the north-eastern gate. Number seven.”

The Hokage stared at Sakura for one heartbeat too many and started to bark orders at people. After some time, Tsunade-sama kneeled down next to the rosette, since she was still on the floor. The pain was still there. Her flock was being defensive of her. “Sakura, I’m going to perform a medical scan.” That got the flock to back down. Sakura nodded and the Hokage’s chakra felt like an invasion. It still wasn’t as bad as Sasuke’s lightning chakra. “Sakura, you are a very strong person.” Her voice was so soothing as her chakra finally left hers. The powerful blonde turned her head towards someone she could not see. “Oi! We need to take her to the hospital now!” Tsunade-sama turned back to the rosette. “You can rest now. You did your part.” The last thing she heard was cawing, the last thing she saw was the most powerful woman in Konoha kneeling before her.

~🎃~

When Sakura woke up, she was in the hospital, and the pain was gone. She had no flowers, but her eleven ravens surrounded her. A woman with short black hair walked in. A beta. “Oh, good. You’re awake. You gave us quiet a scare.” Her smile was kind, and she had even kinder eyes.

“What happened?” Sakura asked as she tried to sit up. Her muscles were screaming at her from the simple motion. Why did Sasuke attack her like that? Karasu flew over and landed on her shoulder. The black-haired woman chuckled softly.

However, she sobered up. “You were shot with lightning.” Sasuke’s lightning. Her ravens all flew onto the bed. Her beautiful flock. “It’s a miracle that you survived.”

Sakura numbly nodded as more of her ravens stared at her. “My muscles are sore, but I’m alright.” Various caws. “How bad was Sasuke’s attack?”

“Bad. You have scars.” Great. “Sakura, managing to survive the attack and then making it to the tower was even more of a miracle.”

“Any long-term damage?”

“No. We caught it soon after it happened.” That didn’t help her anxiety ridden brain. Yamikiri hoped into her lap, and Sakura began petting the pretty birdie. “To ease your mind, we can monitor you for any changes.” Karasu cawed. “I’ll take that as a yes for the monitoring.” Sakura reached up and scratched Karasu’s head. The raven-haired woman closed the door, and then came over to the rosette, and sitting down in a chair by the hospital bed. “Tsunade-sama gave me permission to discuss this with you when you woke up.” Her heart sank into her stomach. “A team had been dispatched to retrieve Sasuke; it ended in a failed mission. Everyone sent on the missions came back alive, but in critical condition.” Sakura did not like how the raven-haired woman was being vague. “Hyūga Neji, Inuzuka Kiba, Nara Shikamaru, and Uzumaki Naruto were the ones sent out. Part way through the mission, Suna shinobi helped aid in the efforts. After Rock Lee’s surgery, he went off to help with the mission.”

Her heart skipped a beat as her warmth evaporated from her body. They came back. She had to remind herself of this. Before she spiraled again. They all came back. Like in the library. “Was Lee injured again?”

“He was badly banged up, but he’s fine.” The relief flooded her system as a chorus of cawing from her ravens. “Everyone will eventually make a full recovery.” More happy cawing. “Sakura, you went into a heat while in a coma, you were placed in a private room until it settled. It was short lived.” Maybe that’s why she slept for so long.

“How long was I out?”

“Three days.” Sakura frowned. Her heat was super short. Her first lasted five days. “When was your first heat?”

From there, Sakura spoke to the woman, and the rosette learned her name was Shizune. The rosette spoke of her first heat and how long it lasted. Her experience with the cramps and lack of desire to make a nest. Shizune did not judge the teenager for being a late bloomer. The older woman admitted to being a beta, which the rosette found odd. Sakura already knew she was. Whatever. She was super sweet as Sakura talked about her medical history. Shizune did go into what to expect while she was going through second puberty, and how her heats would be nearly random until her omega settled down. As she continued to grow into her secondary gender, the nest making would increase. Then it’d be every three to four months (which was the average), the rosette would be getting heats instead of the random intervals.

~🎃~

Lee visited her. As did the rest of the boys who went on the mission; Neji had really calmed down. Sakura learned that Shikamaru was promoted to chūnin. It was cute and hopeful seeing him in the chūnin vest. He was also an omega. He was marked. But he smelled funny to Sakura. At least the rest of them were betas and smelled weird but not bad. When Gaara poked his head into her room, the rosette nearly had another panic attack, looking for everyone. He might’ve switched sides, but there was no way he was redeemed in her eyes. When Naruto waved him in, the Suna redhead smelled like an omega, which was weird to her. He was so . . . not monstrous, but strong? Sakura didn’t know why Gaara was an omega.

What was even weirder was that Ino, Tenten (a beta), and Hinata (who was an alpha and was eyeing Gaara) had visited as well. So long as everyone else was. “One of the nurses said everyone was gathering here.” Ino said loudly. Her senses were going bonkers. Too many alphas and omegas. It stunk in here. The blonde had come out as an alpha two months before graduation. Sakura knew her former friend had marked Shikamaru.

Hinata came out as an alpha a year before they graduated. Sakura’s senses were screaming at her. She needed to get out. Or for them to get out of her hospital room. She wanted her ravens. She missed them. Two female alphas and two male omegas in the room. Hinata was eyeing Gaara, her own pheromones making things worse. A part of Sakura wanted to cry because of the pheromones. Of everyone in their graduating class, there were only two omegas and two alphas. Not a lot compared to the twenty that graduated. There was a rumor she heard in the library that more and more betas were coming out, and there weren’t enough alphas and omegas to keep up with the population. Or so the rumor went.

Shikamaru got up from his seat and went over to Ino as everyone continued to talk. It was too noisy. She hated it. Another part of her was jealous of the bond they had. But a larger part of her was getting overwhelmed with all the people, the noise, and pheromones flying around. She wanted the company of her ravens. Not people. Even if they couldn’t communicate, they seemed to understand exactly what Sakura wanted and needed. She wanted them. She wanted everyone to just leave.

Hinata made a comment towards Gaara, and it was the last straw for the rosette, who screamed bloody murder for everyone to get the fuck out. Naruto looked hurt by her shouting, she did feel horrid, but the pheromones were driving her bonkers. She heard what they said as they left, calling her all sorts of names. Naruto, at least, was trying to defend her.

As soon as the door slammed shut, the loneliness came back. It was her fault for driving them away with her screaming. She’ll apologize to Naruto and explained that she was overwhelmed and lost her . . . it’s okay. She was a kunoichi now. Sakura lost her shit. Maybe he’d forgive her. He did defend character. But it might’ve been only in earshot of her.

~🎃~

Forgive, he did. They were released at the same time, a day later, and Sakura apologized so profusely that she was ugly-crying. Naruto hugged her. “It’s gonna be okay, dattebayo. Wanna get some ramen?” Sakura nodded, with a smile on her face as the tears continued to fall.

At Ichiraku’s, Sakura got the shrimp ramen while Naruto got his usual beef. They chatted happily. Leaving out the large Sasuke shaped hole in their conversation. They had just finished eating when Naruto got serious. Her heart sank. “Sakura, I’m going to be leaving the village with Pervy Sage.” Jiraiya-sama? “I won’t be able to write to you, because security and some other stuff Pervy Sage said. Just know that I’ll be thinkin’ about you.”

Sakura smiled at her friend. “Please, be as safe as you can be. Come home.”

“Of course! A once-in-a-lifetime promise, I will come home.” Naruto beamed while Teuchi and Ayame (both betas) were chuckling as they worked around Ichiraku.

Sakura rubbed his head, who continued to beam at her. “You don’t have to take it that far.”

~🎃~

The day that Naruto left with Jiraiya-sama broke her heart, but at least he didn’t leave her with a nasty scar on her back. Sakura kept reminding Naruto of things he needed to think about now. The rosette wasn’t going to be there to remind him. The blond beamed at her and promised to, at least, try. Kakashi-sensei was able to say goodbye to Naruto. Sensei smelled better than Ino and Hinata, but it was different than before. Maybe he was back on rut suppressors. Even with it being different, his scent was calming her growing inner omega. They watched the Sannin and Naruto leave, until they disappeared from view.

“Sensei, it’s just you and me now. Huh?” Sakura put on a bright smile for him, even though her voice cracked in a few places.

“Maa, Sakura, I need to talk to you about something.”

Sensei started walking away, and Sakura felt compelled to follow. But it wasn’t a command. Her omega wanted to follow. So, she did. Kakashi-sensei led the way to some place private. Silence weighed heavily between them. Sakura wondered what he wanted to talk about. Maybe he’d be able to teach her things. The thought of the Copy Nin teaching her some water jutsus was an awesome thought.

Sakura opened her mouth to ask just that but was cut off when Sensei let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t like omegas.” What? Since when? “They always weigh down any team.” No. No. No. No. No. She wanted to be a great kunoichi! Sakura opened her mouth to protest, to explain everything she been doing but he continued. “If I’d known you were an omega, I wouldn’t have accepted you into Team Seven.”

“But the roofto-”

“I was hoping we’d have a team meeting about you being kicked off, but that went to fucking hell.” Sensei rubbed the back of his neck as he sighed heavily again. “Whenever Naruto returns, I’m certain he’d want you back on.” Naruto and she were friends. Right? He was a beta. “I will be the one to inform him of the new dynamic.”

“What about abandoning one's friends and comrades? Aren’t you essentially abandoning me?”

“Enough!” Sensei let out his alpha and her omega whimpered under the order. He wanted her silent. He ran his fingers through his hair as Sensei was breathing heavily. “I don’t like omegas. You shouldn’t have made the cut into the forces. Maybe you’ll do well as a paper nin.” What- . . . no. Please, sensei. She wanted to open her mouth to protest but her omega was obeying the order, Sakura stood there . . . frozen . . . while her turbulent emotions went everywhere. Her brain mush as she tried to wrap her mind around what he was saying. She can explain everything she’s been doing. She wasn’t useless. She wanted to improve. “I am not abandoning you. This is the best for you, omega.” It was at that moment that he only said her name once, since he woke up from his coma. Not even on the rooftop. “You shouldn’t be out in the field. No omega should. I hate them.” Sakura didn’t want this to be happening. She wanted to rise above it all, stand should-to-shoulder with her teammates. The rosette created some jutsus just so she could try and keep up. Would he be impressed? If only she could open her mouth and speak. She was trying. Just like everything she was trying to do. “This will be the last time we meet. Goodbye.”

Like that, he was gone with a shunshin. Her ravens surrounded her while the death grip that Sensei had on her omega was slowly dissipating. Her eyes prickled as her emotions continued to go everywhere. Her brain was muddled. Karasu landed on her shoulder and rubbed his head against her cheek.

“I’ll be okay. I just need-” Sakura began hiccupping as she tried to swallow the tears. “I’ll just need-” Sakura hiccupped again. The tears hurt her eyes. A mournful caw and that made her burst into tears and allowed the sobbing to begin. She was on some remote bridge, she knew that the traffic was nonexistent here, so she’d have her privacy as she broke down. While her eleven ravens surrounded her and tried to show her comfort the best they could.

Chapter Text

Most likely an hour passed, but it felt like an eternity, the rosette finally stopped crying. “I just needed to get it out of my system.” She spoke with a confidence that she did not have. “I’m going to be the best.” Somehow. “Prove everyone wrong.” Her ravens were cawing happily as they danced around her. “To be the best, I need to train under the best.” The rosette eyed the Hokage tower. If Sasuke was going to be training under Orochimaru, and Naruto was under the guidance of Jiraiya. Why not she trained under a sannin too? “Will you guys be offended if I managed to get under Tsunade-sama's tutelage?” There was no protesting from any of her birds.

With confidence she did not have, she raced towards the Hokage Tower. Climbing the buildings and using the shunshin to cut her journey. Her ravens followed her. They even entered the office through the window, just like her. Several pairs of eyes were on the rosette and her small army of birds. “What do you want?” Tsunade-sama asked, sounding more tired than angry. However, the legend looked like she was trying to be hard, a domineering woman, but Sakura saw the way her mouth was twitching and that she was trying very hard to keep her smile at bay.

“Train me!” Sakura demanded. Several snorts from the other people in the room. That she blatantly ignored. “Make me your apprentice.”

“You have some nerve to make such a demand.” One of the Elders said. Ou cawed. At least she could tell the difference between her ravens.

Sakura didn’t see who it was because Tsunade-sama and herself were in a staring contest. “No.” Tsunade-sama said before turning back to the Elders.

The rosette marched right up to the most powerful woman in Konoha, with confidence she did not have. “Train me!”

“No.” Tsunade-sama said again.

“She’s stubborn.” Another person said. Sakura didn’t dare take her eyes off the larger than life blonde.

“Brat, either take my answer and leave, or I’ll call ANBU to remove you.” Some laughter from the humans in the room.

“I am not leaving until you agree to train me!”

Tsunade-sama sighed. “ANBU it is.”

With a belligerence that Sakura didn’t even know she had, she got on the desk and planted her ass there, and using chakra to keep herself glued to the giant desk. “Train me.” Sakura even crossed her arms. “Teach me everything you know.” Her ravens were cawing what the rosette assumed was laughter.

Karasu flew over to them while Tsunade-sama stood up and grabbed the bird from the air. She didn’t know what came over her. Maybe she was emotional because of Naruto leaving and ‘Sensei’ saying that he basically hated her. Whatever it was, Sakura lashed out and bit Tsunade-sama on the arm that had Karasu.

The most powerful woman in all Konoha let go of her precious birdie, which squawked and flew away, and the blonde began laughing. “You’re as stubborn as they come. Good. I need people like you.” Whispers broke out all around them. “Brat, you can let go now.”

After she pulled away, the rosette saw that she had pierced skin, but not enough to bleed all that much. Or Tsunade-sama was already healing herself. She tasted blood on her tongue, so yes. Sakura did pierce skin and the Hokage had healed herself. “Are you going to train me now?”

Tsunade-sama was staring at her bite mark. “Huh? Interesting.” Her honey eyes were now on Sakura. “And yeah. I am. So those books over there-” Tsunade pointed to a pile of books that were just sitting on the floor. “-read all of them.”

“Tsunade-sama, she assaulted you.” Sakura haphazardly walked over to the books, ignoring everyone around her. “That’s treasonous.”

“I allowed it. I wanted to see what the brat would do.” They weren’t all medical, it was a variety of topics. Why were they here? Just sitting on the floor. “She has balls of steal.” It was the way she spoke that the rosette deciphered the reason why the books were just sitting here: the Hokage had been expecting Sakura. Hope bloomed in her heart.

~🎃~

Kakashi hated omegas. It pissed him off that one of his students ended up being an omega. He should have known. She was emotional and looked too pretty. He hated how she didn’t just turn in her hitai-ate in as soon as she got her first heat. He hated how she hadn’t realized she was in far more danger now. Damnit! He fucking hated omegas. Omegas are weak, fallible, easily broken, and too emotional to function as a shinobi. They couldn’t handle even a simple D Rank Konoha bound mission. It was either paper nin or turning in their hitai-ate.

He hated, but loved, that his ANBU mask was reactivated after Team Seven fell apart. Kakashi was sent out with the forces again. The worse part was that he hated himself even more. He felt so damn weak against Zabuza. Kakashi knew a dozen different ways to end both the kid and the missing nin easily, but he felt slow and sluggish. He knew, in part, the reason was because he was taking rut suppressors, and his chakra was being weird again. No side effects, what a load of shit. Kabuto ending the lives of his fellow comrades and slipping passed Kakashi had fucked with his own mental state.

The silver-haired jōnin was the best. Yet, in those long moments, he felt so damn weak. When it came to Konoha and her people, Kakashi was simply the best. He wasn’t cocky. It was a matter of fact. There were greats, like Gai and his taijutsu and Yūgao with her kenjutsu. There were others. But they specialized in one thing. That one aspect of being a shinobi that made them great. Kakashi was different than everyone. Again, he wasn’t cocky, it was a simply a fact. Cocky got people killed. But he did allow himself to get comfortable. What happened since Team Seven formed was a harsh reality check. Learning the hard way that comfortable was just as horrific as getting cocky.

With his mask activated, he was able to run with the ‘big boys’ again. Train with them. Kakashi had promised himself that he’d never feel weak. He made that promise when he was five. So, the Crush was a rude awakening. Facing off against Itachi and Kisame was even worse. Then ending up in a coma for six weeks. He wondered who gave him flowers; he wasn’t close to anyone. With one made of glass, so it’d last forever, so long as it didn’t break. Naturally, he placed it next to Mr. Ukke on his windowsill. Whoever gave them to him, it was a sweet gesture. Just like Sakura’s luscious, sweet scent. An omega.

Every omega he came across always smelled tooth-rotting, diabetic causing, sickeningly sweet. Rin was no different. Thinking of her made his blood curdle. Not Sakura. It was perfect. She was still young, her delectable, sweet scent would age like a fine wine. Hopefully, it’ll stay just a yummy as she ages. When he woke up, the first thing he noticed (besides her scent and omega status) was that she looked different. Not in the ‘I just had my first heat’ but in a ‘I’m suppressing my emotions’ way. Kakashi, also, saw the way she flung herself at Sasuke. She must’ve eyed him as her potential alpha; Sasuke didn’t smell like it. He smelled like a beta. Then again, the young Uchiha might be a late bloomer. Given how blatant Sakura’s crush was on him, Kakashi wouldn’t be surprised that she was just that hopeful. It only was set in his mind when she worried so much about his safety and wellbeing. The raven did freak him out, just a tiny bit, reminding him too much of Uchiha Itachi. Even Sasuke noticed how similar she was to his fucked up older brother. It was just a normal raven, not a summoning one though.

Would pulling the team after they woke up and telling them that Sakura was no longer on the team, be a good thing or a bad thing? Sakura would probably be devastated, but it might’ve kept Sasuke in the village, just a little bit longer. Maybe. It wasn’t until after the storm of his defection did he learn that Sakura wound up in the hospital because of the young Uchiha. It was because of her strong headedness that she managed to crawl her way to the Hokage and report of said defection. With the early warning, they managed to track down the Sound Four far more quickly. Most of the Sound Four getting killed in the process. But Sasuke still managed to get away. He didn’t know that Sakura wound up in the hospital until after Kakashi came back with dispatched teams injured bodies. He broke into the hospital records and saw her patient file. Uchiha Sasuke had struck her with lightning. The thought of a precious omega being mercilessly attacked like that made his stomach turn. It reminded him so much of Rin. Fuck. Even Sakura putting herself between them made his decision to kick her off the team final. She’s too emotional and couldn’t think ahead past those emotions. Like Rin.

“Sensei, it’s just you and me now. Huh?” The young omega put on a stupidly bright smile for him. It irked him that her voice cracked. Too emotional.

“Maa, Sakura, I need to talk to you about something.” He dreaded this conversation but needed to be done. She didn’t follow at first, but then she did. Leading her to a private area, where he knew that no one would disturb them. The omega was far too trusting. When they got there, he saw that she was going to speak, probably something asinine. But he sighed far too dramatically to cut her off. He didn’t want to hear what the omega had to say. “I don’t like omegas.” The confusion on her face broke his heart. His alpha was clawing at the surface to comfort the young omega. The rut suppressors were starting to fail him. Again. It’s been happening for too much recently. “They always weigh down any team.” She opened her mouth, probably to protest, to explain something as silly as her cute pink hair. “If I’d known you were an omega, I wouldn’t have accepted you into Team Seven.” Her parents were betas. It was odd that she was an omega.

“But the roofto-”

“I was hoping we’d have a team meeting about you being kicked off, but that went to fucking hell.” Kakashi rubbed the back of his neck as he sighed dramatically again. He hoped this would break any tension in her body. “Whenever Naruto returns, I’m certain he’d want you back on.” Naruto was weirdly a beta. His father and mother were both alphas. “I will be the one to inform him of the new dynamic.”

“What about abandoning one's friends and comrades?” How dare this little omega question him? He took more offense to her standing up for herself. Even if she was right. “Aren’t you essentially abandoning me?” She was fucking right.

And it pushed his senses into overdrive. The rut suppressors failed. Again. “Enough!” Kakashi let out his alpha and she whimpered. He could see the tears pooling in her eyes and her lip quivering. Kakashi wanted her to be silent. He ran his fingers through his hair as his breathing became heavy. “I don’t like omegas. You shouldn’t have made the cut into the forces. Maybe you’ll do well as a paper nin.” A part of him was proud that she was trying to fight the biological urge to obey. And fuck. She was right. The little omega was completely right. He was abandoning her. It was better this way. She’ll find an alpha (the thought pissed him off, she smelled so deliciously sweet) who would treat her decently enough, either quit the forces or become a paper-nin. Rin was a prime example of an omega not belonging in the field. “I am not abandoning you. This is the best for you, omega. You shouldn’t be out in the field. No omega should. I hate them. This will be the last time we meet. Goodbye.” He did a shunshin to escape her faster. He couldn’t take her scent any longer, not because it was disgusting but because his alpha wanted to pull the omega into his arms and comfort her. He wanted to say more about her, but he bit his tongue. He held back. He saw the pain in her eyes as the tears were starting to well. His intention was to only push her away. Not emotionally murder her. It was for her own good. Omegas needed to remain put. Alphas and betas will protect them.

After he booted her from his life, he had suspected she’d do something along the lines of her parents: merchants. However, he took a mission to get away. A week later, he heard the tale of how Haruno Sakura bit the Hokage to get training from the legendary sannin. The alpha inside him was proud of the little omega. But Kakashi was furious. She had embarrassed herself. Nearly gotten herself thrown in prison. If that was the best-case scenario. He went off to lecture her. Because it wasn’t just her reputation, it was all her associate's reputation as well. Instead, he found Sakura in the Hokage’s office reading. It looked like she was drowning in books. He walked away. He wanted to lecture her, but not in front of the Hokage. He took another ANBU mission.

~🎃~

He woke up in a cold sweat. Visions of Rin and his hand through her chest. He ran to the bathroom and scrubbed the blood away. It wasn’t coming off. He washed and washed and washed until his hands ached and his skin was as red as blood. His blood. He killed her.

Kakashi killed Rin.

Sakura was safer as a Konoha bound medic. She’ll work in the hospital. She won’t get out of the walls. Kakashi refused to allow the past to repeat itself. Sakura’s safe. She was safe. There wasn’t a war going on. Sakura wasn’t Rin. She was safe!

That’s all that mattered.

He couldn’t lose another precious person. He couldn’t survive that kind of pain again. It was only the good graces of Minato-sensei that he even survived the first time. With Rin. Sakura was safe. She’ll be a medic in the hospital. Despite his hands hurting, he kept washing them. The imagines of his hand through Rin’s chest flashed before him. The images morphed to it being his hand through Sakura’s chest. What Sasuke had done, made it infinitely worse. Sakura’s attack was close, but she’s here. She’s alive.

She’s safe.

That’s all that mattered.

~🎃~

When he woke up, his hands were shafting. Lotion. Lots of lotion. It stung. The pain reminded Kakashi that he was alive. Sakura was alive. Another bad night. Kakashi needed to get his shit together. If he wanted to protect Sakura them, Konoha, he needed to get better. His chakra issues were fucking with him the most. Kakashi did what he did best and put on a disguise to figure everything out on his own. The sharingan was draining his chakra the most, whatever, he’s lived with it for a decade and a half.

Except he saw not one, not two, not three, but eight Sakura’s running around Konoha with satchels on them. Did she recreate the Shadow Clone? Whatever. Wait. No. It wasn’t whatever, because a couple of them had done the shunshing. Shadow clones cannot do that! What did she do!? After having a minor heart attack over the fact that Sakura had experimented with jutsus. They could literally blow up in her face, he should know. He bared the scars of what he did to insert lightning in the Rasengan. Not his circus, not his monkeys. Despite how his alpha was whimpering at the omega’s lack of safety over her own wellbeing.

Very well disturbed, Kakashi entered the library and went to the chakra theory section. He had chakra issues his entire life and it needed to be corrected. Kakashi probably should have taken care of this a long time ago. After hours of pouring over scrolls, books, and tomes, what he found delighted him, he could correct the issues, it’d be a lot of hard work, but it was possible. It helped that he knew every nature transformation. Honestly, he felt like a genin all over again. Scared and pathetic. Worried over things outside his control. When he put the material away, he passed by a section for genin and Kakashi could have sworn he smelled Sakura. It was far too faint. But it was distinctively her.

~🎃~

“One of Sakura’s birds died, she cried about. Not in the pretty omega type of crying, full on fugly crying. Even had a funeral for the bird.” Monkey snickered.

“She’s an omega. What do you expect?” Lemur snorted out his comment.

It boiled Dog’s blood. Under his impassive mask, Dog was screaming at them. Yes, she was an omega, but they were her pets. Anyone would be devastated by the loss of a beloved pet. “Didn’t you guys hear?” Cat commented lightly, but how she slammed her locker door got everyone’s attention. “It was the final test of Sakura’s loyalty to the ravens.” What the fuck did that mean? “She signed the summoning contract with them.”

Kakashi blinked behind his immovable mask as the room grew quiet. Something inside of him shattered as a cold chill ran down his spine: Sakura was just like Itachi. Except she was an omega, not a beta. She was a civilian born and he was the clan heir. Crows and ravens. Sakura was smart. So was Itachi. Kakashi swallowed. Maybe he shouldn’t have kicked her out of his life. Maybe he should have kept an eye on her. She’s under the guidance of the Hokage. She’s safe. That’s what Kakashi told himself anyway.

~🎃~

If he wasn’t on an ANBU mission, he was training. He needed to get better. He needed to protect her Konoha. He knew over a thousand jutsus, but he never really used more than a couple dozen. It’s what one of the S Rank scrolls recommend. Practicing jutsus until they become second nature, which meant getting it to the point of using only one hand sign, even the complicated ones. Or even one handed. Like Haku. He was strengthening his core. It also said to start off doing nothing more than D Rank jutsus. Mastering these will make the higher rank jutsus far easier and strengthen his overall chakra reserves.

That’s what he did. Wind was his weakest element, so he chose working with that element first. After doing the same jutsu to the point of chakra exhaustion, he vomited and promptly passed out. He was woken up hours later with a killer migraine. Right. He forgot that over exertion was fucking bad. How could he fucking forget about that? He felt so damn stupid. Why was he acting like an over obnoxious genin? Sakura’s face flashed in his mind. His dampened alpha whimpered. No. He was doing it for Konoha.

Kakashi was a genius. Another fact about himself. Even before the sharingan. One of the best tacticians. Naturally, he adjusted himself and what he was doing. He’ll get to the point of near chakra exhaustion and then go home for the night. He rotated the elements, so he didn’t favor one over the other. It was like clockwork. So long as he wasn’t on a mission. There were plenty of those. Mondays were wind. Tuesdays were water. Wednesdays were earth, Thursdays were fire, and Fridays were lightning (his native element). After two weeks of his routine, he even began working on the yin and yang release. He had them. He might as well utilize them.

After another month of this routine, he nearly lost a contest with Gai and the silver-haired jōnin realized he needed to keep training his body. Not just his chakra. It’s fine. He’d adjusted his clockwork schedule. Chakra training in the mornings, and physical training in the afternoon. Kakashi wanted to protect this village, protect her, and he’d do anything for Konoha. It was easy to rope in other ANBU to train with him. Who wouldn’t want to train with the infamous Dog? He’d often kick their asses, but everyone had a different fighting style, so it was easy to adjust. He practiced and practiced until each element usage became second nature. Some days, when he just wanted to be alone, he’d make a shadow clone, and he’d reteach himself the Hatake katas. He hadn’t used them since his father died. Even with the obnoxious amount of rut suppressors he was on, Kakashi was still an alpha. He needed to act like it. At least as an ANBU captain.

Yūgao was acting strangely.

~🎃~

“Didja hear? Haruno Sakura is on the outs of all the major clans. No one is talking to her.”

“Huh? I wonder why?”

“She’s always so sweet when she’s studying.”

“I thought her and that Yamanaka cunt were besties.”

“Naw. They haven’t been chummy since, I dunno. A while.”

“Have you guys been getting your mail and it being accurate? No accidentally getting your neighbors or someone three blocks over?”

“Actually, yeah. I have been.”

“Same here.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that as well. Why’d you ask that Cat?”

“Then stop talking shit about Haruno Sakura, she’s the reason why our mail has been accurate.”

~🎃~

Kakashi investigated what Yūgao had said. She was right. Sakura had been single handedly delivering mail and had been soon after the Crush. That explained the clones and the satchels. What a waste of a brain. At least she’s studying under the Hokage in her free time. She probably taught herself the shunshin to deliver mail faster and adjusted the shunshin for her clones to use as well. That’s brilliant. Dangerous but brilliant.

A chuckle was let out as he closed her lackluster file and put it back where it belonged. What Sakura was doing reminded him of, well, himself. After his father died, Kakashi was given the very same shit mission roster. Except, he was given heavy packages and had a deadline. Being the Hokage’s apprentice, she was probably given free reign of what she was allowed to do. Normally, packages and mail would have to be delivered by the end of the day for a civilian, which was five p.m. Since everyone fucking hated him, they wouldn’t give him those packages until four and he’d have to push his tiny five-year-old body to the limits delivering items that were bigger than him. Kakashi learned the shunshin just so he wouldn’t get punished. There were lots of times when he didn’t make it, and Kakashi would go without pay. He’d go without food.

After a while, he learned to fish, because if he hunted his own food, he didn’t need to buy it. Ravenous couldn’t even begin to define him when he finally caught his first fish. And it wasn’t even with a pole. He caught it with his bare hands. Kakashi was so fucking hungry that he nearly ate the fish raw and while it was still moving around. He may be descendent of wolves, but he was still human. So, he killed and cooked the fish.

Her parents weren’t rich, but they weren’t poor either. They were able to buy a house in a good neighborhood. Sakura was spoiled by them. Nothing bad happened to her. Now as the Hokage’s apprentice, she absolutely wouldn’t see any real punishment for not delivering the mail on time. As an omega, she’ll continue to be spoiled. While he was leaving ‘Records,’ his alpha growled deeply and possessively. Kakashi himself nearly let it out. A small part of him wanted to do that for her. His alpha clearly did. No one deserved to spoil her but him. Why? Why? Just fucking why? With a deep breath, he moved on. Sakura was better off remaining in the village. Safe. Away from the dangers of the outside world. He’ll keep the village safe for her Konoha. Another alpha would be better for her than what Kakashi could offer. Safer. Even though everything screamed at him to go to her side.

Before long, he realized that he was standing in Training Grounds Three. He could almost smell her. That luscious, sweet scent. Kakashi was losing his mind. She was an omega. She’ll be needy, dependent on an alpha, and pathetic. Sakura would be exactly like Rin, whose skills were barely passable for a shinobi and the brunette never trained. Sakura would be spoiled by any alpha that marked her. Kakashi couldn’t contain it, the deep throated, guttural growl came out of his throat. He clung to that all-consuming hatred of omegas. He stomped on the jealousy that was rising.

A beta was what he wanted, or another alpha. Someone who could take care of themselves in a combat situation. Not some meek omega. Kakashi had a lot of enemies. If he ever allowed himself to get into a romantic relationship, his partner needed to be an extremely capable warrior. They’ll use his partner, and any pups they sired, against him. An omega couldn’t fight worth a damn. Rin and every other fucking omega he came across proved that. Excluding Gai, but he was a male omega and he was marked. He was overly emotional, but with him being marked, he was more akin to a beta in the emotional department. But still, cried at the ‘youth’ behavior of anybody.

He wanted to ignore her, yet Kakashi got jealous of another alpha going after Sakura. She’s under the care of the Hokage, a powerful alpha. Like him. Kakashi felt slightly better about the rosette, the Hokage wouldn’t allow any lesser alpha to mark her precious pupil.

~🎃~

It had been six months since Team Seven fell apart, and Kakashi was summoned into the office of the Hokage for a meeting about his career. So, before his meeting he went to the memorial stone and ‘talked’ to Minato-sensei. He was the first to discuss his career. The second time was with the Third, and he was removed from ANBU. He spoke to Rin. Staring at the stone as he ‘spoke’ to his fallen teammates. Kakashi said no words, everything was in his head. Words that failed to ever let out of his mouth. He couldn’t ever let them out.

When he finally showed up to the meeting, he was three hours ‘late.’ To him, it was early. A part of him wished he never stepped foot inside. The room had her scent all over it. His body had a mind of his own and he followed to the area where her scent was most concentrated. Piles of books, notebooks, colored pens, and just office supplies galore. “She’s been studying a lot.” He could see that. The books were more than just medical. He saw advanced architecture, mathematics, various sciences, and seemingly random other subjects that made no since in the context of being a kunoichi or a medic. “Everything adorably color coded.” Kakashi could see that too. He looked around, opening the notebooks. Math was green. History was red. Literature was blue. It was continued on and on. “Sakura-” he flinched at that name. “-wants to learn everything I know. But I know her, she doesn’t want to stop at just what I know.” He could tell with the piles and piles of books. “I know you put in the paperwork for her to be removed from the team. However, you left the reason blank.”

“I thought I’m here to discuss my career.” Kakashi replied as his heart skipped a beat. She turned their team picture into a bookmark.

“We will discuss that, but it is kind of contradictory how you're behaving now, by going through her things, and kicking her off the team without a valid reason.” Underneath all the books, there was a long red ribbon. It smelled heavily of her. Like the freak of nature that he was, he sniffed the ribbon. The suppressors that he was on nearly failed, it almost put him into a rut. Her scent was addictive. Tsunade-sama’s laughter pulled him out of his trace. “So, about your career.” Kakashi looked over at blonde as he caught himself nearly whimpering at her scent. “I love Konoha.” Slowly, Kakashi approached the desk of the Hokage. “That love never went away, even when I left and was gone.” The Hokage looked away and he tucked the ribbon in his back pocket. When her honey eyes landed back on Kakashi, Tsunade was making eye contact with him. “I don’t want more instability if I ever fall.” Fuck. He did not like the sound of this. “I’m placing you as the official emergency Hokage.” Until one that could properly wear the hat be found.

“Aren't I little young to be call a Hokage?”

Tsunade-sama looked absolutely annoyed with his question. “You know that’s bullshit. Minato was twenty-three when he took the hat.”

Fuck. “Why me? There are better leaders out there.”

“Besides your lackluster performance as sensei, you are a capable leader.” He got the feeling she wanted to say something else but said something more ‘modest.’ “You were an ANBU captain for years before you were ordered out of it, and you stepped right back into the role with ease. You’ve lead squadrons. Your success rate of missions, solo or with a team, is ninety-six percent.

“Honestly, on paper you are too damn perfect. You needed a fault somewhere; it just happened to be a sensei.” Tsunade snorted out. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” More like being ordered to take the hat if something happened. Just like the Third. “It’s for an emergency.” It was very practical for her to do. It was also wretched to think about.

“At least until someone can be appointed full time, and not just for emergencies.”

“I highly doubt it would come to someone else taking over the hat. You’ll keep the hat once the Daimyō approves of you being the new head of state.” Tsunade-sama chuckled softly, like she was fond of the idea. However, her expression and demeaner went back to being serious. It was a sobering moment. It felt like killing intent without it actually coming to that point, “So, what is the reason why you don’t want Haruno Sakura on your team?”

“I hate omegas. They don’t belong in the field.”

Shockingly, Tsunade said nothing of his reason. “Very well, you are dismissed.”

~🎃~

He hated omegas, yet he kept the damn ribbon. He hated omegas but listened in to every single fucking rumor that the ANBU threw out about Sakura. He hated omegas, he simply wanted to drown in her scent. He hated omegas, however whenever he heard the tiniest piece of information of her progress in her studies, he became proud of her. Kakashi hated omegas, yet he wanted to claim Sakura. He hated omegas, nevertheless his alpha wanted to claim her.

Sakura was Rin. There was no denying that aspect of who they were. Both omegas. The weak links in their teams. The designated medics. Too cute and emotional, like every omega under the sun.

He’ll protect her Konoha. Pushed himself every day. Tsunade-sama was right, his only failure was being a sensei. Although, he could argue that he wasn’t as bad as she said. He successfully taught Sasuke the Chidori and upped his speed to that of a jōnin in less than a month. For Naruto, he managed to get him to sit still long enough to listen and to get him to eat more than just ramen. And for Sakura- . . . he taught her to tree climb, which she got on the first try.

Guilt began to eat away at him. If Obito was alive, he’d kick Kakashi’s ass. He really fucked up. Maybe he’d understand the silver-haired jōnin’s hatred of omegas. Maybe not. Since Kakashi killed Rin. By putting a Chidori through her chest. He tried keeping his promise: protect Rin. In his eleven-year-old brain, Kakashi thought that marking her would be best to protect Rin. She was an omega during a time of war. Would Obito have forgiven Kakashi for marking Rin?

Chapter Text

“So, what is the reason why you don’t want Haruno Sakura on your team.” Whatever he said, it wouldn’t justify it.

“I hate omegas.” Her blood began to boil. “They don’t belong in the field.”

“Very well, your dismissed.” She said as calmly as she could.

Tsunade watched as Hatake left via the window, all the while, on the inside she was seething with rage. It absolutely revolted her with what Hatake had said about omegas. She glared at the spot in which he once stood. It repulsed Tsunade that he was smelling her little nook in the blonde’s office, and yet said something so disgusting. Enough was fucking enough. Sakura didn’t want her omega status to slow down her aspirations. Neither did she. Tsunade wanted her to have a well-rounded education; it’s why she threw so much at that demon child. Uncle would have enjoyed her company.

It was time to kick it up a notch. Since Sakura didn’t want to be hindered by her status as an omega, Tsunade needed to stop having her focus so much on books and chakra exercises. It was time for combat training. Sakura could keep a secret. Obviously. She never mentioned how her ‘sensei’ had kicked her off the team. Time to bring her and Yūgao into the biggest secret of them all.

.

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~🎃~

.

.

Being a disciple of Tsunade meant there were endless books. Lots and lots of books. All various ranks. Sakura still did her mail delivery missions, sending eight yang clones out, and finishing it off with package delivering, if Tsunade released her from ‘studying.’ For some reason, the legendary Slug Princess had her constantly studying in the Hokage’s office. To make her the seemingly endless of studying easier, she made a little nook in a spot. Best part, it was out of the way. One of her ravens was often by her side, pecking at anyone who got near that wasn’t supposed to be, or reminding her to go move and stretch.

Even so, Tsunade even allowed the window near her to remain open during noncritical mission debriefs so any of her ravens could come and go as they pleased. When the time came for Sakura to stretch her legs, with a raven to keep watch, she’d find an empty staircase and run up and down it. After her ‘stretch breaks,’ Tsunade would give Sakura a smile and throw another book her way. “Study this one.” Sakura laughed and got to work.

Her (original) routine had been disrupted but she wanted to prove her worth. Stand side-by-side by her teammates, even though one defected and the other was somewhere out in the world. One of the many, many books that Tsunade had thrown her way (literally) said stretching was the best, before and after a workout, for muscles and how to not cause long term damage to one’s body. They had Academy students do it, but after graduation, it was common practice to just stop. The rosette already had issues with keeping up with others. So, why not do this as well. It’ll help her.

So, she got up even earlier than before to do her training (she switched it to being in the morning), at this point it was four a.m., just so she could do proper stretching before her run. With their ever-present company, her ravens were still following her around and throwing rocks or themselves at her. Sakura was able to do two laps now, even with all the dodging she had to do. And the weights. Then she’d go to that abandoned field with the decaying house and trained her chakra. The Water Bullet was slowly getting better. Still a little stream, but it was getting stronger than it was before (it had been a month since Hatake kicked her off the team). And after her training for the morning, she’d stretch. Go off, organize the mail and send her yang clones off to where they needed to go. Before she had to go to the Hokage, she’d deliver any packages that were ready in the morning. Once done, she’d run and shunshin across the rooftops to get to the Hokage’s office. She’d climb through the window, leaving it open, and study whatever the Hokage would literally tossed her way. Plus, the other books and scrolls she was ‘forced’ to read.

There was a lot that Tsunade-sama wanted Sakura to learn. Since the rosette had already gone ahead and began studying literally anything she could get her hands on before Tsunade-sama took over, the Hokage already gave her the more advanced material. “You can call me sensei.” The Hokage offered one day, sounding more amused than anything else. It had been three weeks when her apprenticeship had started, and Sakura had been calling her ‘Hokage-sama.’ So that threw the rosette off.

Sakura swallowed nervously while Yoru and Aki were cawing away, clearly laughing. The joke was lost on the rosette. “Hokage-sama, I, um- . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“I see.” A part of her wasn’t sure how to quantify the dread or the horror of calling someone else ‘sensei.’ Not when her last one had unceremoniously kicked her off the team, Tsunade would answer any of Sakura’s questions, if she had any. Or at least point her in the right direction. “Well, then, call me Shishou. Same thing really.” The woman got up from her desk, stretched her back and came over to Sakura. “Now comes the time that everyone hates, chakra control exercises.” She sat down beside Sakura’s little study sanctuary.

“I don’t mind those actually.”

“You won’t feel that way after I’m through with you. So, tell me brat, what have you done for chakra control?” Sakura went into detail of all the things she done, at least with chakra. The running on the walls, the super jumps, the Water Bullet jutsu and the water clones and how she managed to get them, the shunshin, her strings, oh and how she used her clones for the delivering of mail; even mentioning that she managed to get her yang clones to shunshin and use mild amounts of chakra. “Impressive.” No, it wasn’t. “So, your yin clones, why don’t you use them here?”

“Isn’t that cheating?”

“Brat.” The woman hit Sakura over the head, and she hissed at the sting. “Are you a kunoichi or not?” There was a chuckle from above as the rosette rubbed her head. Sakura looked up, and there was an ANBU operative in the rafters. How come Sakura never noticed? “Now Cat is a prime example of a kunoichi. Cat you wanna come down and tell us why?”

The operative jumped down and silently landed in front of them. She had long black hair, and her mask was shaped like a cat, even painted to look like it far more feline. A beta. “You were raised civilian, so your sensibilities are shaped differently than the Hokage’s or I’s.” Her voice sounded weird, there was probably some sort of voice changer, maybe even changing the color of her hair, keep ANBU unidentifiable. “A kunoichi does not hesitate to get what she wants, especially with what she needs. You displayed that when you pursued the Hokage for an education. Performing your yin clones is not cheating, it furthers your goals.”

“That includes using yin chakra to help remember something, the hand signs of jutsus of an enemy. Which is extremely dangerous to use chakra anywhere near the brain, so it’s impressive as fuck that you did so successfully.” Tsunade continued. “What do you think I’m going to have you do?”

“While my yang clones are out delivering mail, I’ll be making yin clones to study, while you have me do those brutal chakra control exercises.”

“Exactly.”

“Tsunade-sama,” Cat said. “I do not mean to pry into Sakura-san's education, but when will she learn medical ninjutsu?”

“One of Sakura’s goals is to know everything I know. Before I have her learn anything remotely complicated as the human body, I want her education to be as well rounded as possible.”

“I want to be a combat medic.” Sakura said it with pride.

Tsunade had beamed at the rosette, rubbing her head. In the same spot as where she hit Sakura. “Exactly, and any shinobi or kunoichi who takes missions needs to be well rounded.”

“I see. Thank you for enlightening me.” Even with the voice change, Cat sounded sincere. “Do you wish for Sakura-san to continue with what she’s been doing outside of what you have teaching her?” Tsunade did not answer but did give a wicked smile. Sakura assumed it was a ‘yes.’

~🎃~

It wasn’t so bad, at least not at first. Shishou had a mannequin which had the locations of the chakra pathway system and the tenketsu points. Sakura had to use her chakra to ‘map’ the existing lines. It’d glow blue when the correct amount and control used. It glowed red when she had messed up. The rosette was good with self-teaching and reflecting, so when it turned red, she quickly figured out how to move her chakra along the mannequin. It took her maybe a week before she was able to map the entire body without it turning red. Then another to do it consistently. With each hand. Shishou wanted her to do it with less and less chakra. Which was fine.

However, the studying of the diverse topics did not stop. She took notes just in case she forgot something or needed a quick reference, which she didn’t really need to, but it was good to show her shishou what she had already done. Mathematics, physics, and chemistry made a lot of sense for a medic or a doctor, but the geology was a bit bonkers to the rosette. Studying theater was a bit silly, but she did enjoy stage production and costume design, and she could at least see the application in espionage.

Everything was colored coded by topic. Often by the end of the day, Sakura was exhausted and had a migraine, but that did not stop her from continuing her weaponry practice. Cat once said she knew someone in ANBU that used senbon and could throw the senbon successfully with their mouth. So, Sakura would try and recreated that. She would pool a small amount of chakra into her mouth and fire. Her lovely ravens would laugh at her for missing. A lot. It was so frustrating! She had excellent aim with kunai and shuriken, but not this blasted needle.

The rosette’s issue was that she had never thrown senbon before, so she had struggled with the trajectory of the little things. She had to take a few days off from using her mouth, to throw them normally. Sakura even went so far as to analyze her own memories of Haku. Ino, unbeknownst to her, was a giant help to that. Even with yin chakra helping with the memories, she struggled to view them given the distance and the mist. Shishou was impressed that Sakura had managed to reverse engineer a Yamanaka jutsu that Sakura had only heard about once when she was seven, just so she could understand something better. It wasn’t that impressive. Anyone could have figured it out. Overall, it took her two full weeks to get the hang of aiming the senbon correctly and the started aiming with her mouth again.

Shishou had given her the task when she was at home, since Sakura was able to reverse engineer a Yamanaka jutsu, to do the same with some of their other jutsus so she could speak with her ravens. All the ravens were there and were ecstatic about the possibility of communication with the rosette. They made a lot of noise, that she adored. So, after working on the senbon, she’d go home and try and figure how to communicate with her ravens. Another task Shishou had Sakura do, “while running on the walls, do one-hundred sit-ups, one-hundred push-ups, one-hundred squats, and one-hundred pull-ups. Karasu, make sure you and the rest of your crew give her hell.” Karasu squawked in laughter.

After the mannequin was a weird breathing exercise. Every time she breathed in, she needed to send her chakra throughout her body, and when she breathed out, she needed to let it out. All in the timing with her breath. The longer she slowly breathed in, the easier it was to send her chakra through her body, like a pulse. Or echolocation. Like a bat.

It was the third week after the start of her chakra training, and she realized that she could make ten yang clones and four yin clones. Her chakra was getting stronger. Yay! After this discovery, Shishou made her read four different topics all at the same time. Shishou’s reasoning was for Sakura to build up her memory and be able to compartmentalize her thoughts once the yin clones were gone. Eventually, she’ll have to be trained on doing complicated surgeries, Sakura would need her mind to be equipped to handle the workload of the possibility of everything going pear-shaped.

“Even now, there are somethings I cannot do because of my past or even my thoughts. I want you to be better than me. It will take time, but I know you can do it.” Shishou’s faith in Sakura seemed so unfounded, but it gave her a warm feeling.

All the while Sakura had to be doing the breathing exercise until she no longer needed to hold her breath to cycle her chakra like that. Unfortunately, she left every day with a massive migraine. It was only made worse when she continued to work on the way to speak with her ravens and deliver any additional packages.

Yet, Sakura did it. She got up every day, pushed her mind, body, and chakra to the limits. Sleep was becoming a luxury. When Sakura told Shishou that she was going to have one of her yin clones study sleep and sleep patterns, and how to get eight hours in without actually sleeping like that. Shishou was impressed by Sakura’s dedication to pushing herself. It wasn’t that impressive.

Cat made herself known, again, after that and explained how some ANBU even operated. It was apparently tradition that all rookie ANBU run to Suna within the three days and three nights it supposedly took to do that distance. All without stopping. Shishou laughed. “That’s been a tradition since Uncle founded ANBU.”

“But why?” Sakura asked.

“It’s for a baseline for the elite. If they cannot do that, then how are they supposed to do anything else.” Shishou answered through her laughter.

“That still holds true.” Shishou snorted loudly at Cat’s response. “The rookies are given blank masks until they can do that run, well after the initial testing to qualify for the rank.” Cat continued. “Some are field promoted, but that’s rare.” That sounded like an awesome idea. To become one of the elites. She wanted that. Even if she didn’t join ANBU, she wanted to get there.

So, she did bad (but quick) calculations in her head. From Konoha to Suna was about three thousand four hundred kilometers. So approximately, two thousand one hundred twelve miles. The diameter of the wall that was protecting Konoha was about fifty kilometers, so about thirty-one miles. Which would make the circumference about one hundred fifty-seven kilometers, converting it into miles, it would be about ninety-eight miles. Fuck. It would be about twenty-three laps. She was at two. Actually, with everything Shishou added to her runs, it was back down to one full lap.

“How do I increase my endurance?” Sakura asked, almost absentmindedly.

“You have been brat. The push-ups, sit-ups, and whatnot. Plus, actual running. Why do you ask? Thinking of joining ANBU?” Sakura knew Shishou was teasing, but it still made her feel flustered.

Yamikiri came flying in and landed on Sakura’s shoulder. “No. It’s just a neat goal to achieve.”

“I’ve seen you running on the wall. You’re slow.” Cat said. She wasn’t mean in her comment; it was simply a fact. She was slow. “Add weights, like your friend Lee. Start off small and then add on more.”

“I’m already doing that actually.” Sakura showed the weights she added onto herself. “I wear them all the time. Even here.”

“You have been thinking like a kunoichi.” Cat said. Even with her mask changing her voice, she sounded proud.

“What should be my goal?” She wanted to do those twenty-three laps. It would take three days and three nights. But she wanted to do it.

“With every added weight, get to your normal speed.” Sakura nodded and Yamikiri cawed happily. “I think your ravens will help you.” More cawing. With another nod, Cat disappeared into the rafters. Sakura liked Cat. She was friendly.

Six weeks after the start of her training of chakra came the most difficult one. So far. Shishou had Sakura basically do a handstand on one finger while balancing herself on top of a very pointy needle. Sakura kept falling, at first, and hurting herself. Until the rosette switched to her off hand and of course it was the thumb that was successful. Shishou said she’d be back in three hours. Even summoning Katsuyu to keep watch to make sure she remained on the needle without cheating. Shishou lied. She was back in eight hours.

She couldn’t keep her emotions in check and broke down crying. The blonde’s hard expression switched to something that she could not explain and healed her right arm. “As an omega, you will always be looked down upon.” Shishou whispered as she healed her arm. “People will see you as emotional and too cute to be deadly. I did that on purpose. I pushed you hard and I will continue to push you hard. Tell me why that is.”

Through her tears, Sakura piped up, voice shy and squeaky. “It’s so that I can be emotional in front of you, but I can keep myself in check in front of others.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, honestly.” Shishou continued to speak softly. “It’s so that you don’t give more to the world to look down upon yourself. You are a woman, an omega, a kunoichi, a civilian-born, and you will be classified as a medic-nin. Every single one of those aspects that make up who you are, the world looks down upon. I push and I push, so you can go out into the world and chew it up. Rather than it chewing you up.”

“Thank you. It’s actually what I want. I don’t want my status as an omega to hold me down.”

“That is a good goal to have. This training is not even the worst of it. This one practice is the most physically demanding, but it’s not as brutal with what I have in mind.”

“I’ll take it. I wasn’t lying, I want to know everything you do.”

“Sakura, I am teaching you more than I know.” That broke her brain. “Those topics you ask about, I truly don’t know the answer, I point you in the direction so you can learn it.”

Something inside of Sakura bloomed. “Thank you.”

In the background, Cat watched the alpha and the omega have their heart-to-heart. Sakura reminded Yūgao so much of Hayate. He, too, didn’t want his status as an omega to keep him down. He even managed to become a tokubetsu jōnin. She made a personal vow to help the rosette get better.

~🎃~

When the office was empty, and everyone went home for the day, the Hokage remained behind as usual. In this most private of moment, Cat had approached her. “The chakra training you have your apprentice under, if I get her chakra weights, would it interfere with any of it?” Cat asked.

“Why do you care?” Tsunade-sama retorted without ever looking up from her endless paperwork.

“She reminds me of someone who died. He was an omega, just like her.”

“It’s a good thing you're a beta.” The glare that the most powerful woman in all Konoha gave Cat sent chills down her spine. “Or else I do something that you’d regret.” Threat sent. Cat nodded. “I have something extremely specific in mind that those weights would interfere with, but that’s not until later. I’ll let you know when that is, and we can remove them then.” Cat nodded and returned to her post in the rafters. “One more thing, when she gets past the nineth level, don’t go higher than that one. I want her to learn to use as little chakra as possible.” Cat did not understand why but noted on what the Hokage requested of Cat. “But for now, don’t do it.”

~🎃~

When Sakura got up the next day, she found that she had the entire set for leg and arm weights, brand new and everything, up to a hundred pounds for each limb. Lee had about eighty on each leg. Sakura swallowed. Cat or another ANBU operative must’ve dropped them off for her. But why? Sakura wasn’t anyone special. Her ravens were encouraging of her to test them out. So, she put fifteen pounds on each limb. They didn’t feel too bad.

~🎃~

Correction. She needed to build the weights up, she was doing just her legs, but adding her arms, it hurt after a while. Sakura did time herself for her two laps over several days, without weights, because that’s how an experiment worked. But it was a little off because she had already added them for a while now. It was atill a good start.

When she put the weights on for running, after she found what her average speed was, the first half lap the rosette began to feel the additional weight on her. However, when she got to Shishou’s office after the first time using them, the mad woman ordered her to keep wearing them. The rosette was going to remove her arm weights. All day, every day. Sakura needed to live in them, the only exception was taking a shower. When asked about swimming, Shishou had the audacity to tell her that she needed to add swimming to her ever-growing list of things to do and improve on. Apparently, getting herself out of a riptide wasn’t good enough.

More clones, more chakra training. She was still doing the finger on the point thing. She needed to do eight hours each one. Weirdly, Shishou said that she could remove the weights for this one training, to get a feel of her chakra and fine tune it even more. Sakura was going to repeat this when she got to fifteen pounds on each limb. The rosette wasn’t sure how that would help until the end of the second day (after putting on the weights during the day) and her arm was shaking. It was to build muscles and force her chakra to get a more intense workout. Shishou said it was going to be brutal, and it was. She loved every second of it.

When she got ready to leave for the third day, with all eleven of her ravens (who instead of going to their little birdie homes that she built for them would stay in her apartment), she noticed that Yamikiri was a little lethargic than normal. A part of Sakura wanted to write it off, but worry was eating away at her. She wasn’t eating as quickly as she had done so before. She ‘lagged’ behind the others in flight, even around the apartment. Fubiki approached Yamikiri and rubbed his head on the raven. Her heart dropped into her stomach. Without a second thought, she scooped up Yamikiri and pushed her shunshing to the near breaking point, towards Shishou with her precious bird in her arms. Yamikiri gave a weak squawk. The others were following her.

Tsunade was already there, even this early in the morning and Sakura barreled through the window. “Something’s wrong with Yamikiri!” Sakura screamed.

The most powerful woman in all Konoha was already at her side, taking the bird from her arms and Sakura couldn’t let go. Ignoring the other people in the office. Silently, the woman’s hands glowed green and Sakura knew she was scanning Yamikiri. The rosette’s eyes began to prickle, and her throat tightened. A soft squawk. Sakura tried to swallow the emotion. After a few minutes, Tsunade removed her hands from Yamikiri. She didn’t have to say anything, Sakura already knew.

“She was an old bird.” The rosette tried to take comfort in those five words. But she couldn’t. Something inside of her broke and she could no longer contain it anymore, she cried.

She held Yamikiri in her arms and cried while the rest of her birdies were mourning the loss of one of their own. Her eyes burned as the tears kept on coming. They were surrounding her as she cried out at the death of one of her beloved birdies. She was old. She was going to die anyway . . . one day. But it still hurt. It still killed her. Karasu climbed his way onto her shoulder and gave a little caw, and it made her cry even harder. Her heart raced and her muscles ached she continued to hold Yamikiri in her arms. The world was a blurry mess. Even her ravens were difficult to see. Someone spoke and she couldn’t hear them through her sobs. All she could hear was her flock of ravens cawing at her . . . and her own sobs. Her throat felt scorched, but she continued to give her grief its due . . . because she was crying over the loss of her parents and now . . . Yamikiri. Her running nose made her feel so damn ugly. The beautiful bird in her aching arms was shaking. She didn’t understand why Yamikiri was shaking. She could barely see her as pain in her temples slowly crept throughout her head.

Minutes could have passed but it felt like hours. Movement ceased to her. It could have been a room full of people, but she noticed none of it. It was all a blur. The world was tilted. Distorted. The cawing of the ravens was enough to make her grounded in reality. She must’ve stopped crying after a while because someone handed her a box of tissues. Sakura didn’t bother. Yamikiri was in her arms.

A hand on her shoulder startled her, and she finally looked at something other than Yamikiri. It was Tsunade. The gesture was lovely. “I-I want to have a funeral.” Sakura choked out. It hurt to talk.

“Of course.” Cawing all around. “If it’s alright with the rest of flock, we can have a shinobi one.” Happy, yet mournful, cawing from the ravens. “Yamikiri helped you, which makes her and the rest of them, honorary shinobi.” More melancholy cawing.

Tsunade ignored her duties for the day as they went to a funeral place, which specialized in shinobi ones. They made a pyre. Sakura, with difficulty, placed Yamikiri in the center. She knew that ANBU were around. They were always around. She just learned to ignore their presence while in the office, once she realized that they were always watching. But today . . . right now . . . it felt like an invasion. Like they were intruding on something that was supposed to be private. At least Shizune was there. Cat broke protocol by approaching and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her ravens were singing a song as the flames went up and Yamikiri’s body was burning. Sakura couldn’t afford a funeral for her parents after the Crush, at least until she sold the house, but before . . . she couldn’t afford caskets or even a headstone. She had her parents cremated. She wanted to put their ashes into those vase things to keep them with her, but she couldn’t even afford that. Her meager earnings as a genin hadn’t given her much. The selling of her parent’s house did give her the money necessary for those things, but at that point, it was too late. Her parents were dead and gone. Already ashes. Spreading ashes in Konoha was illegal, so the funeral home had to dispose of them elsewhere.

This time around, Sakura did something else. She turned Yamikiri’s ashes into a necklace shaped like raven’s wings. It was expensive. However, she didn’t pay a single ryō for it. Shizune, Tsunade, and even Cat had paid for it. The necklace would take two weeks to make. With her ten ravens, and her three favorite humans, they left. Today was a day of mourning, tomorrow would bring something new. Or so she hoped.

 ~🎃~

The placement of her hope was a good one, because a new day did bring something new. Karasu had brought Sakura a scroll while she was in the office of Shishou. She was going over ideas of how to add swimming to her already hectic schedule, bouncing ideas off Shishou between meetings. The rosette dropped what she was doing and read the scroll, while absentmindedly petting Karasu. She blinked.

She read it again.

It was a summoning contract with . . . her ravens. “I knew it!” Sakura shouted as she bolted upright. “I knew my ravens were special!”

From above, Cat loudly chuckled. “Let me guess, a summoning contract.” Shishou commented; there was a hint of humor in her voice.

“Yes. According to this, how I treated them during death was my final test of being worthy of being presented with the contract.” She looked at Karasu. “I didn’t do a funeral for selfish reasons.” Karasu cawed, which sounded like a ‘duh.’ “Well, actually I did, but it was more in line to do with mourning.” Another ‘duh’ sounding caw. Sakura chuckled. Stole a black pen (she only had colorful pens) from Shishou’s desk and signed the contract. Placing her blood next to her name.

~🎃~

She learned more about her ravens than just being normal ravens. Each flock had its own ‘head,’ one that’s supposed to remain near the summoner at all times. Yamikiri was the previous head, then made Karasu the new ‘head.’ Sakura didn’t like not having the rest of her ravens around, which thrilled them. The summoning didn’t work with just her flock; they worked with any ravens. If she summoned any more, any ravens in the vicinity would come to her. Instead of working on her Water Bullet, she worked on perfecting the summoning.

With this contract, it was like a fire had been lit underneath her ass, and she pushed herself. Screw scheduling, she just jumped in, like everything else she had done in her life. She would get her run and do her endurance training, then raced to the abandoned house, and do her swimming (she found a river near it), upstream in the rushing waters (like salmon). She lost count of how many times she was swept away, much to her raven’s amusement. Then came practicing her summoning. The more birds, and the distance from summoning them, she called upon, the more chakra it ate.

“I’m not going to be doing any more chakra training until I can truly master the summoning.”

“Why?” Shishou asked. She sounded very neutral.

“I want to know how many I can summon. I’m pushing myself to the extreme, and I can’t do that until I basically put myself into a chakra exhaustive state. The chakra training is already draining.”

“That’s dangerous.” Shishou snorted.

“So has everything else I’ve been doing.”

Another chuckle from Cat. “Very well. Don’t come here until after you get the summoning down. If I see you, I want a demonstration. Make it worth it.” The ravens cawed in enthusiasm. “I’m certain your ravens would keep you in line.”

“What line? I often treat that line like a jump rope.” Cat laughed heartedly from above.

Running, endurance, swimming, sending yang clones to deliver mail, and then summoning. With each use, with each passing day, more and more ravens were called upon. At first, she could only summon five additional ravens before she got lightheaded from the chakra usage. But she knew that over time she’d be able to summon more. After day five, Sakura would make a yin clone and have it study ravens and raven anatomy, now that she had Shsihou’s clearance she got the higher ranked material. The librarians didn’t even bat an eye when she walked right into the S Rank section and began studying. Sakura was doing this just in case any of them got hurt in the field, much to the delight of the ravens.

Eventually, she gave up on trying to sit around and literally summon birds to her. So, she combined running on the wall, doing her endurance training, studying raven anatomy (she wanted to be the best raven mom in the world) with a yin clone at home, sent her yang clones to do the mail, and practiced summoning while on the wall. As time went on, she went from fifteen pounds to twenty pounds. Two laps to three. Swimming up the river. It was an all-day affair. Sakura wanted to get better. Stronger. She didn’t want to be useless, like she had been for Team Seven. She didn’t want any of her statuses to slow her down. She would stand side-by-side with them. An omega that was strong.

The rosette even added punching trees to help her fight. She knew that her fighting abilities had gone on the wayside since . . . well, the Crush. So, she needed to get back into it. The ravens had helped with her dodging, but actual combat was hard to pull off with just ravens. So, she combined punching trees with trying to summon. Using whatever surface that could be available. Including water, which was starting to feel nice against her constantly burning skin.

The flock showed her how to make a raven clone. Karasu picked up how to write with his beak and gave a crude outline of how to do it. Guilt ate at her. She still hadn’t come up with a way to communicate with them. She could do it. She practiced and practiced and practiced. Ignoring the pain she was in, especially in her lower abdomen area. Absorbing anything and everything her ravens were willing to share. Taking all their lessons to heart.

She broke down in tears one day because she felt stagnant, even with the addition of her ravens. “I know crying doesn’t solve anything, but it’s to let the stress.” She explained through the sobs.

~🎃~

The next day, she went into a heat. She made a very crude nest in the room that was built specifically for omegas and was stuck in there for four days. The cramping wasn’t any better. Her skin burned. She was constantly thirsty and hungry. She cuddled a pillow while cocooning herself in blankets. Comfort. She desperately wanted to be comforted. Her omega wanted that. Cuddling. A companion. Someone to share the highs and lows with. Someone to be with her as she pushed herself. She cried as she waited for her heat to stop. Sleeping off and on. Crying.

After all that, it was like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and the feeling of stagnation was no longer there. Sakura blamed her hormones on going into a heat and pushed herself once again.

“How many do you think I should make my end goal?” Karasu put down twenty-five in the ground. The others agreed. “Okay, seems fair.” She was at summoning ten additional ravens, with the current flock.

Twenty pounds turned into twenty-five. Three turned into four. One hundred of everything turned into one hundred-fifty. Her swimming upstream slowly increased in distance. Her punches slowly made their way through the tree she was using at the abandoned field. She began practicing jumping without chakra. All the while, her beautiful ravens helped.

Including raven clones consistently in her training. It was a jutsu that produced a clone or clones by projecting one's own chakra towards several of ravens. Because the jutsu uses ravens as a medium, it requires far less chakra than the Shadow Clone jutsu, but more than her yin and yang clones, while still being able to perform other techniques. The ravens come together to form her body. The same ravens of the dispersed clone can regroup and form a new clone immediately.

When the chakra projected by the user was severed, the ravens disperse. Although, Sakura did learn that she was still able to continue to speak through the ravens. When the raven clone was ‘killed’, the raven can either attack the person who did it, even blinding them, and regroup to form a new clone immediately. She ordered them not to do any unnecessary risks, and their lives were far more important.

Karasu cawed at Sakura about that order. “Fine. Don’t do any unnecessary risks, your lives are far more important than an attack.” That got her a round of happy caws.

When she mastered the raven clones, next up was the raven kawarimi. Normally, the instant before a person was about to be struck, the user replaces themselves with a block of wood or something similar. Because the attack does hit something, enemies may briefly believe that they've successfully struck the user. This saved her butt during the chūnin exams. So, instead of a block of wood of similar size and mass, she was replacing herself with a raven. Normally an enemy would aim for center mass, unless they were like Haku or a Hyūga who could aim for something far more precise, the attack might not hit a raven. However, there was still a strong possibility of a raven getting hurt. Sakura cried about a raven, even one not in her flock, getting hurt when she realized the possibility.

Their solution, learn to get out of the way as soon as possible, which meant just dropping to the ground, and then flying. When she performed the raven kawarimi, no matter what, the raven was at center mass. She checked. So, she trained her flock to dodge human attacks. Ravens were fast and agile, but it hurt to know that it was still possible. Although, she did get an idea. It wasn’t a shunshin, but with a lot of practice and a lot of hitting the ground (literally), Sakura was able to mock fly, by substituting herself with a raven while in the air.

A day didn’t go by when she wasn’t mentally, physically, or chakra exhausted. Some days, she didn’t even make it home. She just crashed into the field with the abandoned house, and sleep there. Surrounded by her ravens.

~🎃~

When the two weeks were up, she got her necklace and wore it underneath her clothes all the time. That way, no one could take it. It was hers and hers alone. Her ravens loved how she immortalized Yamikiri.

The next time during her heat, she made herself somewhat useful, she had made little costumes for her ‘main’ ravens. They made their desire to look like Sakura known. And loudly. Turning her beautiful ravens into little birdie shinobi and kunoichi with their own navy-blue vests with the Konoha kamon on the back, and their own adorable tiny hitai-ate around their little necks. They loved it. They looked the part. For once, Sakura felt like a genuine kunoichi with her summons wearing costumes.

After her heat, she continued with the breakneck speed of her personal training. A woman with purple hair had shown up three days after her heat while she was at the wall. Introduced herself as Yūgao and was kind to Sakura. The ravens seem to like her, so Sakura trusted this woman. The plumette was helping the rosette with her katas, and she was impressed with how Sakura managed to punch a tree to remove its bark and some of its trunk. It wasn’t that impressive. Lee was better at it. Yūgao trained her for two hours a day on katas after she finished her run. Actual fighting. With an actual sensei. Of sorts. Then she’d go for a swim in the river and continue with her ravens.

~🎃~

The day she managed to summon twenty-five ravens; she passed out from the chakra exhaustion. When she came to, Shishou was above her. Her eyes were blurry, but she recognized those honey eyes of her Shishou. “Karasu came and got me when you passed out, brat.” She fell back asleep, grateful to Karasu, who she heard cawing to her right while Shishou was running her fingers through Sakura’s short hair. It was getting longer now. Pleased that her yin and yang clones were independent of Sakura’s core chakra.

~🎃~

Before she went back to Shishou to continue her tutoring, Sakura wanted to keep on summoning twenty-five ravens, until it became easier for her to do. All the while, she kept doing all those other shenanigans with clones. Two more times she had passed out. Then on the third, she got close to extreme chakra exhaustion. It was on the fifth time of summoning all those ravens when she realized something incredibly stupid. She could use her chakra strings to form the connection between the ravens and herself. So, she worked on that when she was home. Whenever she was home.

When she could summon twenty-five ravens with only cutting her chakra around the halfway mark, she went off to continue to train under Shishou. After demonstrating her summoning abilities, Shishou threw a literal book in her face and told her to get back to it. Of course, it wasn’t easy as pie. She had to start over with the needle point training, and it was just as brutal as before. She was wearing the weights, unlike last time. But the best part was that she was studying human anatomy now. There was the full body anatomy, but then all the different systems, and functions, and there was just so much to learn about the human body. No wonder she wanted Sakura to start off on other topics first.

After the ten days of balancing on a finger with chakra, and Katsuyu watching her, Shishou wanted her to feel her chakra, and meditate on it. She did say the needle point was the most physically demanding, this one was the hardest but in a different way.

With her active mind, it was hard to sit still and just not think but just feel. So, naturally, she went to the bookstore after Shishou released her for the day and found a few on how to meditate for her mind. Sakura highly doubted that Konoha Public Library would have these kinds of books. She had to go to the civilian district. With Karasu on her shoulder, she walked to her apartment with an armful of books. Her mind trying to figure out if she should go back to trying to perform water jutsus. Shishou had assured her that her chakra was going to be fine.

However, Karasu cawing pulled her out of her musings, and she stopped. It was a women’s only gym. They advertised yoga, pilates, and a few other classes on the window. She had been here several times before, but it just dawned on her on what it was. With all the mail delivery, she just saw addresses and sectors and habits, not what the places were.

Curiosity getting the better of her, she walked in. There was a reception area with a woman behind the desk, she was talking on the phone. Sakura blinked. Phones were becoming more common, but they were still rare in households. Her name tag read ‘Reiko.’ She was looking through the brochures and saw that yoga could help ease her mind. There were several other benefits as well, and there were sources for everything. It was on the back, but still, sources. She had to investigate if these statements were actually true.

“Sorry about that, how can I help you?”

“Um, yoga. How do I sign up for a beginner’s class?” Worst case scenario, she’d waste her money. Best case, this would help her.

“We have classes beginning every eight weeks. The next time this course starts is two weeks.” Oh. That wasn’t that far away. Yay. Karasu happily cawed. Reiko smiled indulgently. “What time were you thinking about?”

“What do you mean?”

“We offer a variety of times for someone to start. We try and be as flexible as possible.”

“What about evenings? Like after seven p.m.” Sakura asked.

“We do have ‘night classes’ that are offered at eight p.m.”

“How often do these classes meet?”

“Three times a week. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and they do last for two hours.” For civilians, that made sense. Their bodies didn’t have active chakra, so recovery took far longer than a shinobi or a kunoichi. “We do ask for full payment for any classes before the start.”

“What about on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays?

“Different yoga classes for the time you are looking for.”

“So, beginners can be any other time, it’s just the time I am looking for is only offered on those days?”

“Exactly. Although, the night ones tend to be less crowded because of how late it is for most civilians.”

Sakura signed up for the beginner’s class.

Chapter Text

When the rosette crawled into her bare apartment, she read the books at night. The topic went right over her head. The rosette tried talking to her ravens about the difficulty, but there was nothing from them. Which sucked. Oh well. She still had those yoga classes.

Same routine. Get up. Stretch. Run. Yūgao’s training. Swim. Organize mail. Make and then send off ten yang clones for mail delivery. Go to Shishou. Make five yin clones. They study. Sakura meditated. Her mind was constantly racing. Her day ends with Shishou. Yoga (when it was that day to show up). Then she practices bukijutsu, and anything to do with chakra. Then she finally crawled into her apartment, or she slept in the field by the abandoned house. The day repeats. It was repetitive. But consistency was key.

Twenty pounds turned into twenty-five. Three turned into four. One hundred fifty of everything turned into two hundred. Her swimming upstream had somehow turned into swimming nearly the entire length. Twice. Yūgao kicked her ass when it came to learning katas, but she made sure to make Sakura continue to punch trees. The first time she punched straight through a tree, Yūgao had asked, “did you use chakra with that?”

“Uh, no.”

“Damn.” Sakura couldn’t help but laugh at the plumette.

She continued practicing jumping without chakra but to change her scenery she used Konoha herself, rather than trees, civilians called it parkour. Her beautiful ravens continued to help the rosette. So much dodging, even while jumping around Konoha. She didn’t let her super jumps go to the wayside either. Her ravens were willing to help.

Days did trickle by.

And they blurred.

If Sakura didn’t have yoga on very specific days, she would not know what day it was. Karasu was with her during those classes, and he would be doing the poses as best as he could. Some of the other class participants were weirded out, but they did grow used to his presence. So far, the only thing she has noticed was that she was getting more flexible. Even with the extra weights. The instructor suggested to Sakura to get a weighted vest. She broke down and bought one, adding twenty-five pounds to her added weight.

~🎃~

Kokū was with her during a meditation session, instead of what the others did, which was leaving her alone or sitting on her shoulder. Kokū made herself comfortable in Sakura’s hands. The rosette could feel her little heart beating, and the warm soft black feathers. Sakura liked having Kokū in her hands, it was a nice focal point. It reminded her of her classes. She breathed in. She breathed out. Feeling Kokū’s heart. Her mind was more at ease, less chaotic, less noisy . . . she didn’t feel like sinking, it was like she was floating . . . it felt so co-

Something had pulled her out. It was a book to the face. Again. But it wasn’t Shishou who threw the book, it was Ino. Kokū angrily cawed at the young blonde. “Finally! You’re awake. You were a downright bitch last time we saw you.” Ino and her team were in the office. Chōji and Asuma-sensei both looked embarrassed by Ino’s comment. Shikamaru looked indifferent. With him it was hard to tell. “Aren’t you going to apologize to me?”

“No.” Sakura said as she got up. Her legs felt like jelly. “How long was I meditating?”

“About three hours.” Shishou answered. It did not feel like that. At all.

“What do you mean you are not going to apologize?” Sakura just stared at Ino as she moved Kokū to her shoulder. “What’s up with the birds? Aren’t they a little morbid for someone so bright?”

Kokū squawked and Sakura snorted. “Um, Ino. I think you should back off, crows are harbingers of death.” Chōji mumbled out.

Sakura bit her tongue so she wouldn’t roll her eyes. “Kokū is a raven, and they represent wisdom, transformation, and spiritual communication.” All the things she’s been working on. Maybe . . . whatever the meditation thing and the cool feeling she just felt. “She’s a part of my summons.” Sakura spoke with so much pride. “She’s so pretty. She has the nifty blue hue in certain lights. Kind of remind me of Hinata’s hai-”

“Oh, come on! Just apologize for blowing up on us.”

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no?’” Ino was using her alpha to get Sakura to comply to answer her.

Well now, that had pissed her off. The omega inside was furious. How dare she!? “Fuck you.” Sakura said through gritted teeth. Shishou chuckled.

“What did you say!?” Ino snarled pointing an actual finger at her.

“I said ‘fuck you.’ It’s a good thing our Hokage is renowned medic, she could take a look at your hearing. Only if you ask nicely.” Shishou was laughing hard now.

“You were the rude one and then disappear for months on end. You owe all of us an apology for your stanky rude ass.”

“Wow. Tell me how you really feel about me. I am an omega. I was in a private room full of betas, two alphas, and two other omegas. Everyone’s pheromones were getting to me. It was your duty as an alpha to protect all omegas, even the ones you didn’t mark.” Ino’s face went pale. So, she did know her place on the hierarchy. “So, I had to protect myself.”

Instead of apologizing to Sakura, for her failure as an alpha, Ino doubled down. “You should have said something.”

Kokū squawked again. “Your right. Being an alpha is lost on her.” Sakura hadn’t known what she said, but the way Kokū was dancing on her shoulder the rosette was right. Of course, Ino decided to try and grab Kokū and Sakura punched her in the face. The young blonde, tripped over a stack of books, and fell over. Kokū squawked again. “You don’t know, do you? I bit the Hokage when she grabbed one of my ravens. Do that again, and it will be worse than a punch to the face.”

“You’re ending our friendship over a wild animal?”

“You ruined and ended the friendship when you decided to not stand up and protect an omega. You and Hinata had failed.” Sakura tried to keep her breathing steady. Try and keep calm. She was an omega; she would be construed as being overly emotional. Sakura. Did. Not. Care. “And my ravens are not wild animals; they’ve been the best of friends I’ve ever had. They’re loyalty has never been in question, unlike yours.”

“Team Asuma you are dismissed.” When they got out of the office, Tsunade stood up and came over to Sakura. “You are going to get a lot of flak for that.” She placed a hand on the rosette’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you. You stood up for yourself.” All Sakura could do was nod. “It’s already been put into both Ino and Hinata’s files that they failed to protect an omega.” Sakura nodded again, unable to trust her voice. Kokū rubbed her head against Sakura’s cheek. “It was reported after you screamed at them to leave during your hospital visit.”

“W-what about the punch to the face?” Sakura choked out.

“You were defending your summon. You bit me without any consequences; I’ll make sure you won’t get in trouble with punching a bitchy heir who seems to think she ranks higher than my apprentice in my office.”

~🎃~

There were no legal ramifications, because of the precedent that Shishou had made with Sakura defending her summon against the Hokage herself. But there was a social stigma now. Every major clan had rallied against her for her ‘natural hormonal omega outburst.’ Whatever. It wasn’t going to stop her from doing what she wanted. In Sakura’s eyes, nothing changed.

She kept at it. She didn’t care what others thought. Her inner omega didn’t want to be tied down by some two-bit alpha. After what she did with Ino, other alphas tried. When Sakura was meditating in the office, trying to feel her chakra, they would interrupt her, like Ino did, after they debriefed the Hokage (or vice versa) and they would have the audacity to ask her out. At first, she was flattered that someone was taking an interest in her, but her omega seethed at the idea. They all smelled fucking awful. She didn’t want some alpha who couldn’t even get to jōnin. Sakura wanted the best of the best. With that, her inner omega and herself were on the same wavelength.

So, she made it her mission in life to become the best of the best. How could someone of that caliber notice her if she couldn’t keep up with them? As a kunoichi, she still wanted to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her teammates, but as an omega, she wanted her companion to be great. So, she needed to be. That would be unfair to do differently. When an alpha got particularly forceful, Shishou would threaten them with bad missions, if they didn’t get out in five seconds. They were often gone in three. Sakura considered having her wild ravens stalk those alphas and ensure they went on a date again, either by dive bombing them or shitting on their heads anytime they spoke to an omega. It was tempting.

It had been around six-month mark after her apprenticeship started (she refused to see it any other way) when something changed. Sakura entered Shishou’s office, like usual. But the air had changed. Instead of the quiet chaos, it was just quiet. Filled with an emotion that Sakura could not describe but could taste it on her tongue. “I need to apologize to you Sakura.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been pushing you, but I haven’t been able to give you exactly what you wanted.”

“That’s okay. You’re awesome, but not all knowing.”

Shishou chuckled. “Thanks little one.” The nickname change made her omega purr. She liked it. “But I meant it terms of combat.”

“Oh, a kunoichi named Yūgao has been teaching me.”

“Oh, has she?”

“Is she in trouble?”

“Not at all. Cat, come down now.” Cat dropped down from her post in the rafters. “You have permission to remove your mask.” Cat nodded and removed her mask. Sakura was right. The mask did hide her hair and voice. Now, she was starstruck. “Yūgao, thank you very much for helping my student with training. I wish for you to continue, with whatever it is that you were doing.”

“I’ve been helping her learn a few different katas.”

“No kenjutsu?”

“I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries. I thought going to her in my jōnin uniform would be better than my ANBU one.”

Shishou chuckled. “I am not upset about what you have and have not done. I want to push Sakura even further in terms of combat as well as being a medic. In your professional opinion, do you think Sakura running and swimming should continue?”

“Running, yes. Especially with the added weights and the endurance. However, swimming is good enough. I’m certain she could get herself out of a riptide.”

“I can already do that, even before this.” Sakura corrected. “I got caught in a riptide in Waves. I thought you knew that.” Did she forget to mention it?

“How did you manage to get caught in a riptide in Waves of all places? Where was your sensei?” Was Hatake ever really a sensei?

Sakura blinked. “Recovering from chakra exhaustion.”

Shishou sighed dramatically. “Brat, you are not in trouble, nor will I use this against that asshole.” Wow, such strong language. Kurai cawed in agreement. “Please tell me what your idiot sensei left out in the mission reports.”

She chewed the inside of her cheek. Shishou wasn’t demanding as an alpha nor as the Hokage; she wanted to know where Sakura’s true skills lie. So, she explained the mission. From her point of view. All of it. Including how she had to protect to the bridge builder on her own, and how she decided to teach herself how to water walk there. How she got caught in a riptide and how the rosette managed to get out. She explained Zabuza and Haku, and how Hatake handled the mission. Somewhere in the village, Kakashi sneezed.

~🎃~

The rosette no longer had to swim, and running was put on hold for now, instead her mornings were filled with dodging boulders and blades. Yūgao and Shishou wouldn’t let up for either. The plumette was going through all the kenjutsu she knew with such fervor that Sakura vomited the first day. Shishou throwing boulders and Sakura dodging them wasn’t much better, Her ravens did help her with all of that, long before Shishou started. However, her ravens were being menaces to Sakura. Again.

Sakura got hurt. A lot. Shishou often had to carry Sakura over her shoulders into the office. Her ravens were having the time of their life. She didn’t show them the abandoned house she trained at, but why did she have a hazy memory of Shishou’s honey eyes being there? The tree she punched was one in a less used training grounds, she did book it in advance, so she wouldn’t be run off. Now, she trained in the ANBU one with Shishou and Yūgao. None of the other operatives bothered them. If they were there. Sakura was certain that they were, just hidden in the trees. Away from view.

After being carried into the Hokage’s office, she still had to send out the ten yang clones to go deliver mail (at this point, they can organize the mail themselves, and had been for a while), five yin clones to study, and she had to focus on feeling her chakra. Calming her mind and body. Yoga helped a lot actually. Reading the books after some time away had made some sense. It was just hard to apply the information.

Takeru was in her hands as a focal point today. A part of her was grateful that she learned to stand up to weaker alphas because they kept trying to interrupt her, but soon she was able to ignore all outside noise. It took a long time to get to that point of ignoring the outside world. The only thing she could feel was any of her raven’s hearts. Like Takeru right now. It was peaceful. Gave her clarity. A peace of mind. A focus. Like her grief of her parents and of Yamikiri. She had something to focus on. Getting stronger. Her beloved village. The desire to stand side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder with her teammates. To stop being so damn useless. Wisps of her chakra. They were cooling like her tears when the cramps got bad from her heats. It was a stark contrast between how her skin often felt like. How her blood often felt like it was being boiled. Yet, her the wisps were cool. A welcome, but severe, change.

She didn’t feel like she was falling.

No.

She felt like she was floating.

Yes.

Not with wings.

Not with the wind.

Like she was on water.

Floating in the ocean.

But it wasn’t.

The current felt too strong.

It was like a river’s energy.

The irony wasn’t lost on her even though she felt how the river seemed to be never ending. Serene in some places but a force of nature at her very core. Using ‘pools’ for her chakra wasn’t far off the mark for her. One thing was certain; Sakura’s chakra was fucking dense. From what she gathered, it seemed like the more she worked her chakra, instead of increasing the size of her river, she made it denser. Sakura knew that rivers could only get that way in cold climates with layering. Sakura felt around and explored her chakra. It was chilly. Sakura was fascinated with how her chakra moved throughout her body. The colors of her river were so pretty, a periwinkle shade. She wondered what it meant to have periwinkle chakra. Or her chakra being represented as a river. It was fascinating. Watching her chakra circling around, making the river would never truly end. Flowing in and out. Weaving around like regular river. Watching her chakra, it was like reading a book. Her history.

The more she used her chakra, the more she made a jutsu second nature, the less chakra she needed. That was normal. What wasn’t normal was that instead of her river growing, it just became denser. If Naruto was here, she would honestly use baked goods as an example. His chakra was like sponge cake; he would be needing to eat more to feel full. However, a brownie, a sweet good that was dense, wouldn’t need as much to fill him up. Small but mighty. That’s what Sakura was like. It was reflected in her chakra. Sakura already knew that she would struggle to perform any high level jutsu because of the minimum chakra requirements, but seeing the evidence before her of her efforts with what she was doing, it was simply breathtaking. The proof that she needed. There was a validation to it. Something she didn’t know she needed until this very moment. Her chakra was beautiful in its periwinkle, dense river glory.

~🎃~

When the rosette opened her eyes, the office was darker, she was squinting as her eyes were adjusting to the sudden change of light. “How long have I been meditating?”

“Ten hours.” Shishou answered. Good thing it was Saturday, or else she’d jave missed yoga. Cat was standing on the other side of the room. Somehow looking both intimidating and concerned, even with the impassive mask on.

“Weren’t you worried?” It was Shizune who spoke, she was standing near the desk. Most of her body had been hidden from view with the mountains of paperwork.

“Naaw. I was the same way when Uncle had me do the same thing with my chakra.” Shishou was sitting on one of the chairs, she had it turned facing Sakura. “Except, it took me two plus years and about twenty or so hours ‘under’ to feel it for the first time.” Shishou rubbed her chin like she was thinking about it. Something told Sakura that Shishou was far more worried than she let on. “What was your color?” She asked with a wide smile.

“Periwinkle.” Her honey eyes were wide and sparkled in the artificial light of the ceiling glows as her smile broadened.

“Mine was a macaroon creme.”

“What do the colors mean?"

“Easy. It means that you have an affinity for water release. I know, brat, you already know that. But it’s reflected in your chakra. You will have an easier time with wind and fire. Whereas lightning and earth you are going to struggle with. It’s not impossible, but you will struggle if you wish to unlock the chakra natures.” If she could unlock any other elements. She was already struggling with one.

“What do you mean yours was macaroon creme?”

“It means when I did the meditation to feel my chakra, I had a strong affinity for lightning, with a dabble of earth, as I grew up and trained my chakra more and more, especially in the medical arts, it changed. Yours will too. Periwinkle has a strong ‘blue’ to it, which also means water.” Shishou pointed to the diamond in the middle of her forehead. “This is now the color of my chakra.” It was a lavender color.

“My chakra was like a river. A very dense river. What does that mean?”

“A dense river?” Shizune asked as she made her way over to them. “Now that’s fascinating. What did your chakra feel like?”

“Cool.”

“Rivers often mean life and flow, direction and journey, change and transformation, purification and renewal, or connection and unity. Depending on the context of the culture or even used for the arts. For example, fertility or the way life is.” Cat answered Sakura’s question.

“Bingo!” Shishou shouted. “The meaning is honestly up to you. Take it literally or not. It just reinforcing that water is your native element.”

Hatake (her omega purred at his name) had all five elements. She heard rumors of his skill in ninjutsu. He knew over a thousand jutsus. Supposedly. That took a lot of effort. It was unheard of to have all five. Yet, he did. “Does more or less mastering yin and yang effect the colors?”

“Yes. Just like adding black and white to paints to make them lighter or darker.”

“I think Sakura has the capability to finding the perfect balance in yin and yang.” Cat suggested.

“Like yin-yang release?” Sakura tilted her head and raised her eyebrow. Now that was a stuff of legends.

“Possibly. I know Dog once mentioned that it was theoretical to recreate kekkei genkai, like the mokuton.” Cat sighed dramatically. “If anyone knows anything about chakra and natures it’s that jackass.” Shishou snorted. “Please don’t tell him that I said that or else he will kick my ass.”

“I don’t even know who Dog is.” Sakura said. Shishou gave a thumbs up. If Dog was knowledgeable and Cat was afraid of him, then he must be strong. “Alright. Since I felt my chakra, now what?”

“Now, you go home and sleep. It’s honestly an exhaustive exercise to do. You will have tomorrow off. Absolutely no training. If you want to read, then read it must be fictional. No weights.”

“But the mail!” Takeru cawed as Sakura shouted.

Tsunade huffed as she crossed her arms. The rosette thought she was going to start yelling, but instead she said, “fine. But that’s it. You stay home or do something fun outside of it and send your clones out to do the mail.”

~🎃~

Having a day off without a heat to keep her occupied was weird for Sakura. She honestly had no idea what to do with herself. She made fifteen yang clones (since she wasn’t allowed to make yin clones) and sent them off to do the mail. Every single book she owned as nonfictional. It seemed like her ravens were just as confused as she was.

For the first time since her tenth birthday, she decided to go to an onsen, and left the weights behind because today was her day off. ‘Allowing’ her ravens to go be menaces to society, like her water clones once did. Should she do that again? Karasu led the rest of the flock towards the abandoned house. Or so it would seem. Probably to check in on their little birdy houses. Maybe she should move apartments, one with a balcony so she can put bird houses outside. After some musings, the rosette, in civilian clothes, went to Konoha’s biggest (and arguably the best) onsen. The same one she went to with her mom for her tenth birthday. It had been a few months after Ino and Sakura broke their friendship over an asshole. Now that Ino had become a massive cunt, the rosette wasn’t bitter about their friendship ending anymore. She realized she thought two naughty words. She was a kunoichi and they swore.

She paid the admission fee of three thousand ryō, a definitive splurge for her, and made her way inside to one of the hot springs they offered. It was basic ‘package,’ but it’d be worth it. She quickly found the changing rooms. She removed everything and put her clothes and shoes in a basket, sitting on the bottom shelf. She did look at herself in the mirror, and for the first time, saw part of the scar that Uchiha had left behind on her back. It really did look like she was struck by lightning. Her hair was longer than she realized, so she tied her hair in a tiny bun.

Before entering the hot spring, she went to the bathing station and thoroughly washed and rinsed herself with the complimentary toiletries. The soap and shampoo smelled nice, especially compared to her unscented stuff at her apartment. Ever since she went into second puberty, also known as heats, Sakura had become extraordinarily sensitive to scents and smells. The stuff- . . . the stuff that her mom used to get was scented, but it was too strong. She knew she could be tracked that way. So, the rosette switched to unscented. Here, the soap and shampoo had a scent, but it wasn’t strong, it was very subtle. There were hints of cedarwood. Her inner omega purred. She memorized the bottle so she could get more.

After rinsing and scrubbing off any dirt and soap, she cleaned up her shower area. Then (finally), Sakura grabbed a small towel and made her way to the hot spring. Just smelling the warmth already had her relaxing, so when she toed the water, because it had been several years since she came here, it was hot. Gingerly, she entered the hot spring. Going to the far corner, placing her towel on the edge, she sat down on the underwater bench. Resting her head against the towel, like a pillow.

There were a few windows far above someone’s head but knowing what a peeping tom Jiraiya-sama was known for, she could keep her eye on any peepers, even with her head back. Using the water to cover her body. Everything up to the neck was submerged in the hot mineral water. Sakura read the effects of an onsen, because of all the information cramming Shishou gave her. It was found that regular bathing in an onsen had various health benefits such as lowering blood pressure, improving circulation and cardiovascular health, reducing chronic pain and fatigue, and lowering the rate of depression. Someone had even gone ahead and did a study that civilians with an onsen in their homes were less likely to take blood pressure medication than those without an onsen. Sakura wondered what it was like for a shinobi. What were their statistics?

Early in Sakura’s life, her mom and herself would go to the carbonated springs this place offered because her mom fully believed that it would help with keeping her skin smooth. Sakura understood that her mother was older than most women when she gave birth to the rosette. Her blonde hair was greying and laugh lines had existed. “Our little miracle child.” It was what they called her. She didn’t understand until recently. With her weird clearance, she managed to look at her parents’ medical records. Both of her parents were unable to conceive properly. Her mother’s womb was a hostile environment for any semen to survive, and his sperm were slow swimmers. But they had a child: her. No wonder they named her ‘Sakura.’ From what she understood, most children with parents that struggled to conceive, were often overprotective of said child. Yet, her parents signed off on her going to the Academy.

As Sakura sat there, and soaked in the hot, rich mineral waters, the grief began to spread throughout her body, like the ‘fever’ from her heats. She stopped herself because she could not cry here. The rosette was here to relax and enjoy her day off. But she thought of her parents. They signed off on her going to the Academy, despite it being a career destined for hardship and death. Maybe she would understand when she was older. Right now, in her mostly innocent mind, she liked the idea that they signed off because to them finding a love that could burn so bright and so true was the greatest protection of them all. That the career, despite death, was what would truly protect their little miracle child.

Noises from the men’s side were heard. The loud, easy laughter and banter between friends had made her realize just how lonely she was. Shishou, Shizune, Yūgao, and her ravens, but they were more akin to teachers than friends. Well, her ravens were her friends. But it wasn’t the same as going shopping for frivolous things like dresses or shoes. Sakura hadn’t owned make-up since . . . the Crush. She ended up tossing it because it was pointless with everything she was trying to teach herself. Often making her look like a melting clown than a cute girl at the end of the day. Sakura lifted her head and looked down at her cup size. She was almost fourteen and she felt weird not having bigger boobs. She made a mental note to figure out a way to make her cup size increase naturally. Tenten at fourteen had a bigger size. Ino had bigger boobs at twelve. Hinata- . . . yeah, she was very well developed in that department. A self-conscious part of the rosette thought her breasts were a little off. One was bigger than the other. Was it normal to be hurting all the time? Sakura had always written it off as constantly pushing herself, in every direction.

More noises from the men’s side had pulled Sakura from her spiraling thoughts of her body, which she realized was starting to get overheated. So, she went over to the steps and got out. Drying herself (mostly) off with the small towel and made her way back to where her belongings were. She completely dried off, let her hair down, and got dressed. While she was leaving, she thanked the staff. Making her way downtown to get some dango (something she hadn’t had in a long time), the rosette realized that she should be able to keep herself company. Having friends would be nice, but she has never been actually alone-alone. Maybe before she met her ravens, but she often collaborated with other people. Before they all fell off when it came to delivering the mail. She needed to keep her own company, be comfortable with who she was as a person. But she wanted a companion. Someone to share the highs and lows with. To complain to or to brag.

Despite learning so much about being a kunoichi, Sakura decided to get her nails done. She got a mix of purple and green, much to the nail techs befuddlement. They weren’t good colors to pair up, but Sakura did not care. She didn’t get anything fancy, just the basics done. Since her nails were done, might as well get her hair cut as well. Not with a kunai this time, but with actual scissors and a stylist. So, she went to the salon that her mom and herself used to go to. There was a small line, so as she waited her turn, Sakura looked through all the magazines they had. She found one that was short with bangs, honestly, she missed having bangs.

The rosette used her bangs to hide her forehead because of the bullying, and Ino said to (basically) show it off. Now that she was older, she didn’t care. Sakura could always wear her hitai-ate on her forehead instead of as a headba- . . . fuck Ino and what she said about how Sakura should care her appearance. The rosette decided on a pixie cut with bangs. When it was her turn, Sakura pointed at the picture she wanted her hair to be. The stylist nodded and got to work. As Sakura watched her locks fall, it was freeing in a way. She grew out her hair because she heard that Sasuke liked girls with long hair. She cut it during the chūnin exams because she was tired of looking at everyone’s backs. It was like letting go. No wonder some women do this after a bad breakup. Her inner omega was enjoying the view of her locks falling around her.

Sakura was letting go of her silly crush (it died the second Sasuke attacked like he did) and her silly goals. She and her inner omega had new goals. As the stylist made her bangs, Sakura was excited. What was that old saying, ‘out with the old, and in with the new.’ Her omega wanted to be cared for, but there was a certain level of thrill and excitement to being independent and taking care of herself. She might’ve been an omega, but she was also a kunoichi. She was strong. The women around her were teaching her to be self-sufficient as well. So that any alpha that she wanted wouldn’t use her status against her. She was nobody’s eye candy. Her omega was proud of who they were becoming, and the desire to care for herself filled her with pride even more. One day, she would stand by her teammates and not have to watch their backs.

Once done, Sakura fucking loved it. She paid and left. With a new hair style, she splurged and decided to get a new wardrobe as well. For a kunoichi and civilian. Besides, she was growing, and her other clothes would soon no longer fit. A part of her mourned for the clothes her mom and dad got her because she would no longer be able to wear them. After buying some civilian clothes, an idea hit her, she could save them and give them to her daughter. Whenever she allowed an alpha to mark her and decided to carry their pups.

It was close to sundown when she finally made it to her apartment, dropped off her new purchases, and headed back out. She never did get her dango. There was a cute little tea house that Ino and her used to go to after class for the Academy, so she went there. Sakura knew the dango and tea were good. She got there ten minutes later and entered the shop, it was quiet, with very few patrons. Finding a good table by the window was easy. Placing an order for dango and a fruity tea, she sat there and enjoyed the view of the passing people. Today was absolutely needed. A chance to feel human again. A reminder that she needed to stop every once in a while to enjoy life. ‘Stop and smell the roses.’ Except, she preferred lilies. Her omega and her were purring at the contentment of being by themselves and doing all the frivolous things for themselves. She should get some flowers and not from the Yamanaka Flower Shop.

“Can I join you?” A very male voice asked, breaking her from her musings. Sakura looked over and-

“Sukea! What are you doing here?” Sakura asked with a wide smile.

She was about ready to stand up, but he held up his hand, so Sakura gestured for him to sit. And he did. “I was in the neighborhood, and I saw your hair in the crowd.” He smelled like a beta. “I hope you didn’t mind that I sort of followed you.”

“It’s fine.” Something was bubbling inside of her. Was it good? “Are you staying in Konoha?”

“Not sure, yet. I see you cut your hair. Last time I saw you, it was to your waist.”

“Yeah, I cut it. I just got it this short today. I like it.”

“It’s cute.” Sakura’s face felt warm. “What have you been up to?”

“Training under the Hokage.”

“Oh? How many times has she sent you to the hospital?”

Sakura snorted as her dango, and tea arrived. She immediately ate one. “So far, none. She heals me whenever I get to0 injured to function.” Sakura could have sworn an alpha’s pheromones had wafted in here, but there were no other alphas in the room. She was the only omega, the rest were betas. “Shishou has been throwing medical books at me a lot recently, so I might start learning how to heal. Although Shizune does want me to learn to manage healing in the old-fashioned way. For me, why not both?”

Sukea chuckled softly. “Makes sense. In my time in ANBU, I had come across medics who ran out of chakra and couldn’t take care of a cut, let alone a broken leg. So, you already have a leg up on every other medic out there.”

Sakura snorted again at the pun Sukea made. The rosette picked up her tea and drank some of it. She liked this. Next time she went grocery shopping, she might grab this tea. “What have you been up too?”

“Just following the roads of life, allowing the wind to take me wherever. I haven’t had a chance to look at beautiful things, such as yourself.” If it weren’t for her already setting down her tea, Sakura would have dropped the cup. Her face felt like lava now. “It’s a nice to have run into you, to get a chance to remind myself that there is still beauty in the world.”

The rosette collected herself as best as she could. “It’s nice to know that even betas are interested in me.” Something crossed his brown eyes, and it was an emotion Sakura did not recognize, so she picked up her dango and ate another ball. “But you need to pass Shishou’s scrutiny if you want a chance with me.”

“It’s good to know that your shishou is protective of you.”

“Yeah. She doesn’t use her powers of authority often or even threaten to use her strength. When Shishou does, it’s when I turned down lesser alphas and they won’t go away.”

“Lesser alphas?”

“Yeah. Some two-bit alphas who think they can shoot their shot, but they are not worth my time. If they can’t even make it to jōnin, what’s the point?”

Sukea chuckled almost fondly as something dark crossed his eyes, her inner omega liked that look. “Aren’t you still a genin?”

“Yes. However, I am the Hokage’s apprentice. I’m studying under a sannin. The one who invented iryō-jutsu and revolutionized the medical field. Why should I settle for an alpha with nothing short of the best?”

“I see. Good to know that your far more secure as a person than you once were.”

Sakura giggled. “I’m still an insecure person, but I know what I want, and I am not afraid to get it. I bit the Hokage because she grabbed one of my ravens from the air after she threatened to send ANBU after me to kick me out of her office because I refused to leave.”

Sukea looked so gob smacked, and then a wide smile came across his pretty face. “That explains why you want a powerful alpha. You are powerful yourself.” Her heart skipped a beat. Acknowledgement. Validation and vindication.

That flustered her even more than Sukea calling her beautiful. She took another sip of her tea to collect her thoughts. “I’m not there yet.” She finally said. “I want to be, and I’m working towards that. I don’t want my status as an omega to slow me down.”

“I see.” Sukea sounded intrigued. But of what? “I think you’ll get there. You did do something absolutely insane.”

Sakura snorted and then took another sip, once again hiding her embarrassment of someone outside their little circle thinking she had what it takes. “Yeah. Shishou said I have balls of steel.” She finished her tea and then ate the last of her dango.

“I can tell. Did you ever manage to get a look underneath what’s his face’s mask?”

“Oh, Hatake? Naw. I stopped caring a long time ago.” Ever since he said he hated her. Probably even before then. Sakura could have taken his mask off when he was in a coma but chose to respect his boundaries. Oh well. Too late now. “Do you want anything?” Sakura offered.

“Thanks, but no thanks. I bothered you.” Sakura snorted at Sukea’s comment. “I’m not an omega, so I don’t know what it’s like, but don’t omegas want to be spoiled?”

“I just spent the day spoiling myself.” Her omega purred at the thought of another day where she got to spoil herself again. Yet- “I don’t need some alpha doing that for me.” Her omega purred at the idea. Frankly, so did she. Stupid simpering mess of an omega. “Maybe during my heats.” Sukea looked at her weirdly. She couldn’t place that look. And something changed inside of her, her omega really wanted to be spoiled, by Sukea. For some reason. “But any other time, naw. I’m good.” Sukea was a beta. Maybe a strong beta. He was in ANBU after all. Yūgao clearly was. She was both a beta and in ANBU.

“An independent omega, now that’s rare.” Sakura shrugged as she stared at her empty cup and plate. She wanted more dango and fruity tea. Oh well. There was food at home that she needed to make. “Do you want more?” Sukea asked.

“I have food at home.” Sakura pouted as she spoke, but Sukea was already up and heading over to one of the staff members. Her face burned hotter than the onsen waters from earlier. When he came back, Sakura’s pout was even deeper. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know. I wanted to. I even paid for you.”

“You didn’t have to do that. I can pay for myself.”

“That’s true, but even the occasional treat won’t hurt someone so strong and independent. Sometimes being spoiled by someone else can be a good thing. For the other person. If they wanted to do it, which I did.” He was a beta. Why did he care? He wouldn’t understand the alpha and omega dynamics or how base their instincts could make them. Her heats weren’t regular yet, so she couldn’t go on suppressors. One day. “Besides I crashed your alone time, I was making up for it.” Okay. That made a lot more sense.

“Thank you.” Soon enough, her dango and tea were on the table, and they were taking away the other cup and plate.

Her omega desired to crawl into his lap as she enjoyed the treats Sukea provided. But she kept her ass in her seat. She wasn’t going to be a simpering mess like every other omega out there. That actually made her inner omega stop whining about wanting more attention from the beta before her. She will stand tall and proud and not see her teammates backs. The expression on his face was like he wanted to ask, or say, more, but kept quiet. She ate another dango ball. It had been a year or more since Sakura seen him. Back when Team Seven was still together and relatively happy. When Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura had worked together to try to unmask Hatake. If she remembered correctly, she had been reluctant to follow along, but Sasuke had ‘convinced’ her to follow along. No wonder Hatake ‘lied’ to them about the chūnin exams. One pleasant thing from Sasuke and she’d have done the same thing there.

She sipped on her tea. “The international chūnin exams are coming up. They are joint Suna and Konoha endeavor. Are you going to participate?”

“I already knew about that.” Before the great fall out, she was going to ask Ino and Chōji if they wanted to be on the same team and participate. “I don’t really have anyone to go as a team. Although, Shizune did joke that I qualify for a field promotion to chūnin. I might go for that instead.” Sakura ate another dango ball. “I’ll have to look into that.”

“Field promotions, outside of state of emergencies are rare.”

“Just like me.” Sakura continued with a bright smile.

“That is very true.” Sukea sounded proud of that. Yay? “I meant, if you did go for the field promotion, you’ll be a leg above everyone else, again, because field promotions are that rare.”

“Outside a state of emergencies.”

“Yes. I’ve seen many genin get promoted during that time and afterwards are stripped because of one reason or another. I’ve also seen other genin rise to the occasion and earned their rank.” Sukea sounded so sad. He must’ve known a genin who was field promoted in an emergency, they probably died.

Sort of like how Yūgao just seemed to pop up in her life. ANBU was one thing but her desire to train someone else that wasn’t family, or a future spouse was bonkers. “If I get field promoted to chūnin, would the rank ever get stripped from me?” Sakura was certain the rosette reminded the plumette of someone, who probably died.

“Unless you do something monumentally stupid, no.”

“What about chūnin who were stripped of their rank and sent back to being genin? I’ve heard it was because they didn’t do enough missions.”

“That has happened in the past, but if you are always doing a mission, even D rank ones, it’s okay because you are contributing to the village. I think the exception are chūnins who teach at the Academy.”

“But they are still contributing to the village, helping shape the next generation.”

Sukea chuckled fondly. “You are right about that.” Sakura ate the last of the dango. “Either way, you are actively helping the village, so there is no room for argument about your rank being stripped or not. Field promotion or through the exams.”

“That eased some of my worries.”

“Let me guess, it’s been in the back of your mind, but hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Exactly.” Sakura drank the rest of her tea. A smile grew on her face as a tap on the window drew her out of her thoughts, it was Karasu. Her smile grew more. “Speaking of ravens. That’s one of mine. His name is Karasu. Best thing that ever happened to me.” Sakura got up. “Thank you for the lovely company.” Uncharacteristically she kissed him on the cheek before leaving the tea shop. Karasu flew onto her shoulder. “Did you guys have a wonderful day?” A single caw. “That’s awesome.” Sakura giggled.

Chapter Text

Kakashi sat there, staring at the empty seat. Her soft lips were still felt on his cheek. Disguised as Sukea for an undercover ANBU mission, he saw her pink hair bobbing in the crowd. Following her with the very intention of lecturing her, but when he entered the too girly tea shop with its aggressively sweet aromas, his eyes landed on her and her extremely short hair, and his heart skipped a beat. As he approached, all thoughts of lecturing her about how to act around the Hokage were thrown out the window. Her scent was maturing. Hyper aware that he was on rut suppressors (far more than he was supposed to be taking), yet he still flirted with her. Complimented her. She was fourteen years younger than him. Yet, it shocked him that Sakura had clocked him for a beta. It might’ve been a side-effect. He’ll have to investigate it. But he was able to see her and who she was turning into. It was good to know that the Hokage was protective of Sakura and that his once student was extremely picky about who she wanted in an alpha. She wanted the best.

Yet, he hated omegas.

The alpha inside of him was scratching at the surface to show the cute omega just how powerful he was. He knew over a thousand jutsus. Every elemental release was at his disposal. A tactical genius. A once-in-a-generation genius, and that was before the sharingan. He pushed his own donated sharingan to the limits of what it could do, further than any Uchiha did.

Yet, he hated omegas.

His alpha was proud (and selfish) that she was stingy with affection with alphas. Now he needed to track them all down and beat them within the inch of their life. Because how dare they try and get with her. An omega far above their station. Sakura wanted the best, Kakashi was the best. He’ll help her, even within the shadows. Because his alpha wanted her to never settle for less than what she deserved.

Yet, he hated omegas.

Kakashi broke into records and found her file, she had moved away from her parents. She was living in an apartment near the Hokage Tower, it was made for omegas. Built in places to make their nests. Kakashi wondered what hers looked like.

Yet, he hated omegas.

_{His alpha whispered:}

_{Sakura is no mere omega.}

It didn’t help that her sweet little gesture, a kiss on the cheek, and nearly sent him into a rut. He was on so much suppressant right now. When she was ready, would she invite him into her nest? He couldn’t believe that an innocent little gesture did that too him. So, what would happen if she did something more? What would happen if he- . . . Kakashi couldn’t think of the rest. His alpha was making him spiral into something inappropriate. He didn’t want another Rin on his hands. Sakura was safe in Konoha, under the watchful eye of the Hokage. His heart couldn’t take it. His alpha wouldn’t be able to survive.

~🎃~

Sakura was glad for the day off.

She felt very human again.

Unfortunately, they upped her weights just for what seemed like a weird joke. She was already doing that on her own. What wasn’t on her own was chakra weights, and just for good measure, they set it to level two. Meaning she didn’t have access to twenty percent of her chakra because she had to send it to the cuffs on her legs and arms just so she could walk and use her arms. With all this, it felt very much in the same vein as a ‘do or die’ situation. All because Sakura felt like she was going to die on the first day of wearing them. Twenty percent didn’t seem like a lot, but it was. Shizune hinted that they might up the ante.

So naturally, after that morning session of dodging blades and boulders, Shishou had her feel her chakra, so she could get faster at finding it, exploring, and getting out. It seemed like Shishou had figured out that if someone gave Sakura the expected goal of a training exercise, she would have far less questions and just dived right in. The second time did not take long to get in, feel her way around her own chakra, and then get out. Only six hours. All the while, her clones were studying somewhere in the office. It seemed like Shishou took what Sakura wanted to heart with more fervor than at the start of her apprenticeship. Not just her yin clones, but Sakura herself had to read them, take notes, and then summarize the books and scrolls Shishou tossed her way. So, she was reading them twice. Once for the clones (who didn’t take the notes), and then once herself.

“I want you to know the material. Inside and out.” Sakura wanted to be the best, so it made sense. The double reading would reinforce her education.

The worst part, Shishou given her extremely restricted literature and scrolls, she wanted Sakura to study them, not her clones. It did not take long for her to understand why these were restricted: Orochimaru’s forgotten journals and his human experimentations. Sakura vomited heavily after reading them. This was disgusting. She hated that snake-man even more than she already did. He treated his fellow humans with such malice and execration. Sakura would go so far as to use ‘abomination’ for Orochimaru and his actions. The odium directed at the Sannin was far too great. Sakura wanted to hunt him down for sport.

After Shizune had given her some water, and her stomach could handle just taking the cool water, Sakura continued with medic reports from the Second and Third Shinobi War. There were even missions between those times. They were all a lesson in how even the most inexperienced medics would do the best that they could in the ultimate shitty situation. It would be the closest thing to a real-life situation they could recreate without putting Sakura’s life in danger like that. She kept seeing a Nohara Rin pop up and her nicknames she gave her teammates. It was clear in her reports that she gotten the war time education on medical ninjutsu. Which meant, a haphazard education.

“What happened to Nohara Rin?” Sakura asked when she realized that her reports stopped showing up. “Did she become a civilian? Or go missing nin?”

“No. She died.” Shishou sounded like she regretted Rin’s death. At that point, she had- . . . oh right. Shishou probably blamed herself for a lot of what happened during the Third War.

“Thank you.” Sakura’s gaze went back to the reports. “You are making up for lost time.” The rosette said. “The people who died in the Third Shinobi War, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I could have prevented a lot of death.” Shishou spoke so lowly that the rosette nearly missed it.

“It still wasn’t your fault. In war, people die. You didn’t put a kunai in someone’s stomach, it was Iwa and her shinobi.”

“I could have healed them. I could have been on the field saving lives or giving the medics a better education than the shit one they did get.”

“I know I am very inexperienced, but you need to let that guilt go. It’s the same as if you were on the other side of the country when the Uzushiogakure Civil War took place. Were you physically able to help? Yes. Were you emotionally capable of giving the best care that you could give? No. So, even if you did stick around, in my limited experience, I truly believe that you would have been more of a hinderance than helpful. Especially when your hemophobia was so ingrained in you.”

“I was six when that civil war took place.”

“See! You’d be absolutely useless.” Snickers from above. Sakura looked up, she didn’t recognize the ANBU. There were two today, no surprises there, given the context of what Sakura was reading. Normally it was just one. She lowered her head and her green eyes on the honey-eyed woman. “It’s the same concept. Even if you did stick around and train other medics, you wouldn’t be able to give them a better education.”

One of the ANBU jumped down from the rafters, his mask looked like a sheep. “Hokage-sama, I do apologize for the interruption, as someone who lived through that war, I have no ill will over your departure. Sakura-san is correct. You would have been useless.” The second ANBU snorted. “See, even Tanuki agrees.”

“Ram, your opinion has been noted.” Shishou joked.

Ram nodded and jumped back into the rafters. That mask didn’t look like a ram. Sakura looked up. She couldn’t see the mask all that well. So, she sent some chakra to her eyes, enhancing the vision. Sakura could see Ram far more clearly, but since they were covered in shadows, it really was hard to tell. Retinal receptors come in two flavors: rods and cones. Rods respond to changes in light levels (black and white), while cones react to color. About eighty percent of the light receptor cells on a human retina are rods. In contrast, around ninety-six percent of the light receptors in a cat's eyes are rods. With a cat, the tapetum lucidum was a reflective layer positioned behind the retina of cats, dogs, and most other mammals. Light passing through the retina bounces off the tapetum back toward the receptors. With great trepidation, Sakura changed her vision to that of a cat, and she saw Ram’s mask far better. There were little horns on the mask, which gave him more of a look of a demon than a ram. Oh well. She reset her eyes back to being human. She should have chosen a raven to get a better look at his mask. Oh well.

~🎃~

When the rosette came too, the next morning Shishou was sleeping on the couch and there was a blanket over her. She didn’t even make it home and hadn’t realized that she had crashed in Shishou’s office, surrounded by the reports she was studying.

Her aching body (and chakra) was still dragged to the ANBU training ground. The rosette still had to go through the motions of dodging blades and boulders. For dodging blades, it wasn’t actually like that. Yūgao would show her the basic steps of how to do certain moves, and then she had to practice against the plumette, which often led to Sakura needing to dodge blades. However, her ravens weren’t helping with any of the dodging of boulders. Dive bombing between Shishou picking up boulders just to keep Sakura on her toes. Her body hurt. Her chakra hurt. What didn’t hurt?

When they got back to the office, she had to feel her chakra and then study hospital reports. Not the normal patient ones where they were taken care of and released, but the ones were patients died and why. This was to show Sakura how patients undermine their own treatment, by not talking about their symptoms, even the embarrassing ones, and how some of the medical staff treat patients poorly. Like they didn’t care one way or another. It royally pissed her off. How dare they!? It’s called patient care.

When Sakura finished all the ones Shishou handed her (there were shockingly far more than there should be), it was time for the studying of theoretical medical jutsus. There weren’t a lot that was declassified.

“I want you to practice what you can on your own time. Like you did with the water jutsus. Some of them do classify as water release, so it should be in your ballpark.”

Sakura didn’t understand until she started reading. A lot of them were obviously from Orochimaru and his snake summons. Something she couldn’t replicate. She stared at Ou. Maybe she could with her ravens. Sakura went back to reading. Some of the jutsus made her stomach turn. The rosette did think about how they got to be, and it was easy. Observation, stealth, and infiltration. After a while, her eyes grew heavy, and the words began to blur together. She read the same paragraph three times.

The person injected with these snakes can also force the snake out, and drink the chakra directly, vastly increasing their chakra and power, as well as inducing a body-mutating transformation, but results in their body will be highly unstable, which, if struck with sufficient force, can result in the body exploding.

She wasn’t sure when she fell asleep, but she woke up surrounded by books and scrolls, with a blanket on her and Shishou on the couch. Ou was still with her. Cuddling Sakura under the blanket.

~🎃~

This cycle repeated for a week: brutal training in the morning, feel her chakra, study medical texts (forbidden and not so forbidden), and then crashed in Shishou’s office floor to sleep. The first night she wasn’t completely dead on her feet, she somehow managed to crawl to her empty apartment. Before she flopped onto the paradise called bed, she found a book on protecting one’s home with fūinjutsu and traps and a note:

Your home is too easily broken into. This will help.

Her heart skipped a beat. Sukea? She was too tired to read the book. So, she set it down and flopped on the fluffy goodness and passed out. All too soon, she was opening her eyes from her alarm clock. And had to do the brutal days all over again. Aching body. Pained chakra. Always tired. Never getting any restful sleep. Sakura swore up and down her breasts were different sizes.

That was when things changed, after nearly dying from two of the three (possibly four with Anko somewhere in the bowels of T&I) most insane women in Konoha, instead of focusing on feeling her chakra, Sakura needed to spend two hours every day trying to map her tenketsu points. All three-hundred sixty-one. After the two hours were up, Sakura had to resurrect fish.

Between burning the chakra pathways in one and working on another, Sakura asked, “can I be field promoted to chūnin?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m placing you with Team Asuma during the international exams. You need a team, and they need a third. It works out.”

“But, why them?”

“Because I want it to be known that despite how they treated you, you were the better person and was willing to collaborate with them. Field promotion would be sweet, but I don’t want anyone to have any excuse to ever strip you of that rank. Or question your abilities.” Pride filled her. And she continued to work on resurrecting fish. She ended up burning through five fish before finally resurrecting one.

~🎃~

Those were her days. Train with two insane women and her ravens, and they slowly upped her weights and the percentage for chakra weights. Map her tenketsu points for two hours. Then slowly resurrecting more and more complex sea creatures. At least she crawled her way to yoga classes. It was honestly the only time she knew what day it was. The Hokage never took a day off, so neither did Sakura (unless ordered to). Yoga did not help with the pain she was feeling. At least she could somewhat calm her mind, feeling her chakra helped. But she still needed outside help. A focus. But she was still trying. On her own. Meditating at home to feel her chakra without a focus. It was so hard.

After two months of this, Shishou said to start running on the walls and endurance after her learning to heal with chakra. Shishou even released Sakura an hour earlier than normal, just so Sakura could start running again. Naturally, her lovely ravens would continue to help her dodge. With the limitations of the physical and chakra weights, and being dog tired from everything she did, Sakura (somehow) ran. She had slipped back to only being able to do one lap and one hundred of everything; the rosette was already dripping in sweat by the end. On the days she did not have yoga, she went off to practice her Water Bullet and the other medical jutsus and then, after all of that, went home. Where she read about the fūinjutsu and trap making, practiced with both, and finally fucking went to bed. For the first time, she really wanted to decorate her apartment. The itch to make a nest was slowly creeping up on her.

Another month of this daily ritual, and suddenly (to her) Sakura was fourteen. She hadn’t realized it until Shishou and her had walked into the office after another brutal morning. There were a birthday banner and cake and some presents. She burst into tears. She had forgotten completely when her birthday was. Shishou had wrapped her arm around her shoulders as she cried, Sakura immediately returned the hug. Once she stopped the waterworks, Sakura thanked everyone and proceeded to open her presents. New colored pens and pencils, post-it tabs, notebooks, highlighters, and sticky notes. All from Shizune. She was running out of them. Yūgao gave her own whet stone and a kit to keep kunai clean and sharp. She even got the rosette her own tantō. Shishou said that she was still working on something and would give it Sakura later. She did not care. The fact that they remembered when Sakura forgot was beautiful. They ate cake.

Unfortunately, the day had to continue. Yūgao put back on her mask and went into the rafters. Shizune said she wanted to start training Sakura in both the old fashion way of being a medic as well as poisons. Shishou and Shizune got into a small argument over that, because Sakura still needed to be taught how to be a medic with chakra. They put it off to the side because Sakura herself needed to be there for both things. It got her thinking . . .

~🎃~

Yin-yang release was unheard of. A stuff of legends. But according to Yūgao, Dog mentioned that it was theoretical to recreate any kekkei genkai, like the mokuton. Going off that idea, it would theoretically be between two existing releases. Like ice release. It was obvious which elements to use, wind and water. Wind was for making the water cooler and water for obviously needing it to make the ice. They probably needed to be in perfect union. Well, Sakura had perfect chakra control.

Day-in-day out. Sakura always came home feeling like shit because she was pushing her mind, body and chakra to the absolute extreme. After her birthday, she had come home to dango sitting on the coffee table, a birthday box, and another note:

Your traps and fūinjutsu are improving. Do better. Keep me out. If not your home, at least your nest. Improve your stealth with and without chakra.

She carefully opened the box and inside were dozens of bells and two books. One was for more advance fūinjutsu and the other was trap making, both were classified. S Rank level of classified. A part of her, mostly her omega, wanted to eat the dango, instead she threw it away.

The next day, she asked Shishou about food poisoning and how people poisoned food to kill. Her response: start feeding her rancid meat so Sakura could learn to kill the bacteria before she got food poisoning. Sakura was in the hospital in less than two hours. Unfortunately, it triggered a heat. Shishou had to punt some of the other lesser alphas away, so she could place Sakura in the hospital nest they had for omegas. Shishou never left her side and kept calling her “little one.” The rosette really liked that nickname.

~🎃~

“We have to do these tests; your heats are not consistent.” Shishou said. “They should be by now.” Sakura just shrugged. “Even if you were a late bloomer.” Again, Sakura just shrugged. She was already in here because of what Shishou had done.

“Why were you immune to my pheromones?” Sakura asked. Shishou ended up having to take care of the rosette because of her heats. No one else could come near the room because her pheromones were inhospitable for everyone but Shishou. Any alpha in the area was ordered to stay clear because apparently, even with rut suppressors, they were immediately put into a rut. Except Shishou.

The blonde showed the rosette her arm, where she bit her nearly a year ago. There was a scar. Of her mouth. “I can’t heal it.”

“So, I marked you?”

The honey eyed woman snorted. “In a way. It’s not traditional, but I think you marked me as a pack member. When you went into heat, I had zero attraction to you. The scientist in me is fascinated in this development.”

Sakura couldn’t help but laugh. “Could it be possible that marking you as—I guess pack—is why my heats have been so wonky?”

“I have no idea. It’s why I want to evaluate everything.”

~🎃~

In conclusion, Sakura’s body was still behaving as a late bloomer. Her body was still trying to come to terms with being an omega, her glands still haven’t properly developed, they were there, but not fully. Sakura’s desire to not be held down by normal omega stereotypes, and everything she was putting herself through actually wasn’t at odds with her body’s growth as an omega. Even her cramping and barely there nest making desire wasn’t in conflict with her developing body. It was common for late bloomers. Normal. At the rate of her growth, it’d be a while for her to fully mature. Shishou estimated another year or so.

Great.

Since Sakura had accidentally marked Shishou as pack, but not in the normal alpha and omega way, Shishou was essentially her mom. The Hokage was quick to make Sakura the heir to the Senju clan, just to be on the safe side. Sakura didn’t really understand why though. When the rosette asked. Shishou responded with “the clans are vultures; they will swoop in and eat anything they think is dead.” Karasu cawed. “So, if they smell any weakness, anything that can rip power away from others and to boost their own, they’d do it.” Karasu cawed again. All because it was unheard of for an omega to mark an alpha like she had.

A part of her understood that it was because of the loss of her parents and her determination to get Shishou to train her being the reason why Sakura was able to pull that off. The larger part of her still struggled with comprehending her parent’s death, it went as far as to freak her out when it came to change her clan’s name. It was the last thing she had from her parents. She had a few nicknacks, but this was her name. So, between Shishou and Shizune, they found a law that allowed Shishou to make Sakura the heir while she was able to keep her clan’s name. It honestly went above her head, something about an adoption clause, but was grateful, nonetheless.

After that little debacle, it was business as usual. Of sorts. The chūnin exams were right around the corner. “Before you start trying to get Sakura an immunity, I want to make sure she understands poisons and antidotes.”

“Fine.” The honey eyed woman had taught Shizune everything she knew about poisons, but the raven-haired woman had taken that education even further. Therefore, a better sensei at teaching Sakura. “After the exams, I will relinquish Sakura to your care.”

Unless the rosette could figure out how to do yin-yang release. After her laps, Sakura spent her evenings trying to get it right. They had to be perfectly balanced. Although, one night when she got frustrated with trying to get it right, she focused on another jutsu she was struggling with: communicating with her ravens on the field. She managed to figure out how to turn chakra strings and reverse engineering the Yamanaka jutsu into what she needed. However, she wanted it to be long distance, and with her pathetic pools, it wasn’t going to be easy to make those kinds of strings. Karasu and the others were trying to help when it came to the yin-yang release.

“It possible.” They repeated that phrase over and over and over again. Repeating that line was reassuring. It helped her. Kept her grounded.

She kept at it. Her deadline was the chūnin exam. Shishou had given her ‘special permission’ to not wear any of her weights just for the exams. She ignored the fūinjutsu from her mysterious benefactor. Ignored the trap making. At least for now. Because, honestly, she never gave a fuck about her home. An omega’s nest was a sanctuary. A legally protected place. Anyone trespassing in a nest without permission from the omega who built it was considered a Class A Felony. It was that highly guarded. No one fucked with an omega’s nest. The only exception was the hospital. Sakura was certain that even terrorists would respect the nest. So, right now, her nest didn’t need protection like whomever it was that was giving her books and bells. She suspected it was Sukea since she hadn’t seen him since that day. Then again, he could have left Konoha again. Her inner omega wanted cuddles from him. He seemed so strong.

At least she didn’t start up another yoga class, because of the chūnin exams and how she’d be gone for a couple of weeks. She didn’t want to waste money on a course that she’d miss two of the eight weeks for. However, she wished she was in a class with the instructor giving out sound advice, because the rosette wanted to clear her head. The frustration was mounting. Instead of allowing her anger getting the better of her, she went to the training ground that Shishou and Yūgao often took her to. Sakura was a familiar face enough that it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Her flock followed her, with her communication strings active, forcing her to make the strings longer.

“Keep us.”

“At bay.”

“Home.”

“Karasu stay.”

Sakura understood. Keep the other birdies at home and then summon them if necessary. Karasu will stay with Sakura. She nodded once. Without much fuss, she entered the grounds and began punching trees. She would have gone to the abandoned house, but she was already on the verge of collapse (what else was new) and it was simply too far away. If she passed out here, Sakura would be found the next day by Shishou and Yūgao. Again, what else was new. Knocking herself out because of physical, mental, and chakra exhaustion. Whatever kami was out there, she prayed she didn’t go into heat during the chūnin exams.

Tree punching. The rosette broke a tree in half after spending months punching the damn thing. What if she turned her super jumps into super punches? Like Shishou. Her fists already do a lot of damage. Obviously. It wasn’t that much in a leap in logic. Instead of just a tiny amount of yang chakra to send her flying, and then yin for her to stick, she’d have to let go of her chakra into wherever her fists landed. Was it possible that she’d needed yang chakra? No. Because she was sending her chakra out. Not to supplement her own body to do extraordinary things. After taking a stance, she breathed in, sending chakra to her fist. She let go of her breath. Sakura punched the trunk, letting go of her chakra at the last possible second. The tree exploded where her fist had landed and fell over, but it sent a jolt of pain through her arm. Her ravens cawed out in happiness. After the pain subsided, she checked her arm externally and internally. No damage. It was just the aftershock of her punch. It was just like her super jumps, which required perfect timing for both the jump and the landing. However, with the punches, she needed to protect her arm from the reverberations.

Sakura moved to another tree. Sending her chakra to her fist, but coating her hand in just yang chakra, so that would take the hit rather than her arm. She did it again. The tree fell over. More happy cawing from her ravens. There were very little aftershocks from her punch. With another tree, she experimented with yin chakra as the cushion. Because when she raced across Konoha, she used yin chakra to stick her feet to the buildings and to absorb the impact. Yang chakra was just the jump itself. Maybe instead of using just her chakra, she used yin chakra to protect herself, and yang to make a devastating blow. Using just chakra would tire her out, and using one of those two often significantly reduced the cost of chakra. But first things first, regular chakra with yin protecting her hand. When she devastated another tree, there were no reverberations of the impact. When it came to the fourth tree, she did yang chakra for the impact and yin chakra for the cushioning. She didn’t punch through the tree, the tree fucking exploded. More cheering caws from her ravens. Like any good scientist, she experimented one more time, but reversed yin and yang. Yin for the impact, and yang for the cushion. The tree exploded; she did feel the reverberations, and there was no pain. More cheering.

Sakura smiled.

So, she decided to start pulverizing the grounds with a fervor that she hadn’t expected. Getting the chakra from somewhere she knew not. She did but she was having too much fun smashing her way around the place, experimenting with different chakra outputs, and seeing what kind of devastation she could make. Sakura was fucking laughing like one of her ravens would. They were cawing excitedly. She was crying tears of joy as she smashed everything she could see. She chose the correct career path. This was fucking amazing! She acted like that until Shishou and Yūgao had shown up and saw the destruction Sakura had created. Her hands and arms were bloody and swollen and bruised, just like the rest of her body. But it was because of the shrapnel she created, not because of the actual impact. She needed to be careful, but she had managed to train her chakra to do yin chakra for the protecting of her hands and feet, and yang for the destruction. With time, it’ll become second nature. The rosette didn’t come here to figure out how to smash the way that she did, she wanted to clear her mind. It helped because she now knew what she was doing wrong.

Shishou and Yūgao forgone training for the day.

~🎃~

The balance between yin and yang was easy for Sakura to do. She had been doing it for the better part of a year with the various tasks she had been doing, and the jutsus she ‘invented.’ Even if she wasn’t the first, she did create them. However, she hadn’t been giving the balancing of the different chakra a direction. It was her defining issue. So, she decided to make a yin-yang clone. Just like her other clones to help deliver Konoha’s mail and to study. The perfect amount of yin and yang into this clone. She should not be doing this. Not the night before the chūnin exams. She wouldn’t be able to have the time after. She wanted to get better, stronger, like yesterday.

Attract a strong alpha.

Stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her teammates.

To not be left behind.

To stop watching her teammates’ backs.

That she can be on the front lines too.

Even as a medical kunoichi.

She made a clone. It had too much yang chakra. She dispersed it. Made another. Too much yin. It was possible. Her ravens said so. Breath in. Breath out. Center herself. Another clone popped into existence. “Fascinating.” Both Sakura’s said at the same time.

“We need to assess to see if you can retain my memories and to see if I can perform jutsus.”

“Do something with chakra.” The clone Sakura jumped onto the ceiling and stuck there. “And your chakra?”

“Didn’t even budge.” Which was normal for Sakura to do.

“Go to the bookstore across town and read something I never read before. That way we can assess distance as well.”

“I highly doubt distance will be a factor, given how your yin and yang clones operate.”

“True, but you are untested.”

The clone Sakura nodded as she stuck out her tongue and shunshing away. The very human Sakura didn’t even feel the shunshing happening. She had her own chakra reserves. So did the clone. Ten minutes later, the clone Sakura was back. “I seem to have my own little chakra pool. I think if I last longer, it will refill like your body does. I hypothesize that once you run out—chakra exhaustion specifically—I will disappear like any other clone. Go ahead and cancel me.”

Sakura did so. The clone Sakura poofed out of existence, and she got the memories of the clone’s travels to the bookstore, reading about knitting, and their travels back taking a different route. “Fascinating.” The rosette whispered. Hardly any chakra was wasted on the creation, but if Sakura put more chakra into the clone, then the clone might have more chakra to work with. If the clone’s reserves were indeed refillable, then the clone could stay indefinitely.

~🎃~

Before Sakura made her way to where the chūnin exams were taking place, she made her yin-yang clone. They already knew that it needed to read about the fūinjutsu and trap making that her mysterious benefactor left behind and set up her apartment. If it needed to leave the apartment, go in a henge, and use scent blockers; especially for the mail. Once done with the fūinjutsu and trap making, read all the books and scrolls that Shishou and Shizune had assigned her for ‘additional light reading.’ It wasn’t required, but it would make her more well-rounded as a kunoichi, like learning the history of ballet and Iwa’s geology.

Then she made her way to the chūnin exam would be held, at least in Konoha portion. Team Asuma was waiting outside. Ino was all over Shikamaru. “Oh, look, it’s the mate less, chest less cunt.” Alright. That one hurt.

“Good morning, everyone. I look forward to working with Yamanaka-san and Akimichi-san.” Sakura said politely, with an even more polite smile; just like any politician.

~🎃~

She did it!

She made chūnin!

She was an omega that made chūnin!

She wasn’t the first (neither was Shikamaru), but she won’t be regulated to being some dumbass two-bit alpha’s possession! Everything she did felt vindicated by her promotion. She wanted to cry tears of joy. Instead, she bought herself some dango and fruity tea. In quiet celebration. Sakura was used to being alone. But seeing the empty seat before her, she wished she did have a partner. There was no rush. She was fourteen. She had time to find a life partner. Somewhere in the mountains of Land of Earth, Kakashi’s alpha whined and the silver-haired jōnin had no idea why.

~🎃~

The rosette showed Shizune, Yūgao, and Shishou her yin-yang clone that stayed active the entire time she was participating in the chūnin exams. “I have been studying fūinjutsu and trap making, oh and I finished up all the texts that you have provided, Shishou. I, personally, had rarely left the apartment. I do not need to eat or sleep; however, I can just make myself appear human. I can eat, and digest food, and even sleep when I ‘need to’ as any human can. I have my own chakra reserves. But my max is whatever Sakura puts into me upon creation. I believe I will disappear when I run out of chakra, I have come close to that, but I was evaluating the limit of what I can and cannot do. So far, I can do everything Sakura can do. That is how I managed to finish everything, I made more yin clones to help me study and yang clones for mail delivery. I did make them wear a disguise.”

“Will Sakura remember what the yin clones studied?” Shishou asked.

“I believe so, when Sakura first made one, that clone went to the other side of Konoha, read about knitting. Plus, while she was away for the chūnin exams, I have been studying, and Sakura will get those memories. I have all of Sakura’s memories from the time of creation.”

“Can we test your physical capabilities?” Yūgao asked, already drawing a sword.

“Yes. Please. I am very curious!” Sakura squealed, much to the delight of her ravens.

In the end, come to find out, when ‘killed’ the clone will disappear in a poof. Sakura immediately got the memories, and since the clone had been active for three weeks, the migraine she got was brutal. What the yin clones’ studied was put into Sakura’s head. The rosette vomited from the sheer pain of the migraine she got.

“Memory overload?” Shishou asked, her hands on Sakura’s back, and her chakra already sent to the rosette’s brain.

It was helping ease her migraine. “I believe so. I should probably get used to it.”

“We should start off small.” Shizune offered. “One week. Then two. So on and so forth. Three weeks is a bit much all at once.” Sakura gave a thumbs up.

“Sakura, can you make two?” Yūgao asked.

“I’ll try once the migraine goes away.” Silence. Blessed silence. Two minutes and her pain lessoned. Thanks to Shishou and her healing touch. Sakura thanked her Shishou and made two yin-yang clones. They immediately disappeared as soon as they were created. More vomiting and then she blacked out.

Chapter Text

After she came to, her migraine wasn’t just any ordinary one. It felt like she went to a liquor store and drank it. Somehow surviving the alcohol poisoning. She refused to do that again. Or go to an actual liquor store and drink the entire place out of business. A part of her way curious about getting drunk, but the hangover the next day sounded a very much a ‘fuck you.’

They did more experiments with the yin-yang clone. Sakura could only produce one at a time. She can give it whatever level of chakra, so long as it wasn’t her entire reserves, and that would be the max the clone would have. It seemed like there was no distance that the clone and Sakura could separate and risk disappearing. It really was an exact copy of Sakura. The only exception to this was that anything physical, it took three times as long for the rosette to get the muscle memory. Similar to her yang clones but slightly ‘faster.’ Sakura would have the muscle memory.

So, Sakura would switch off between having a clone with Shishou or with Shizune. That way the education part doubled up, and she could genuinely learn everything. She couldn’t help but be enthralled with all they, and Yūgao, were doing to make sure she had a well-rounded education. Utilizing each woman as her sensei (each one was so much better than Hatake), and taking in anything and everything they were willing to pass their knowledge onto.

Shizune’s lessons were in learning the ins and outs of the hospital and its functions in every department. And naturally, poisons. How to make poison, how to make an antidote, and how to make an antidote when the poison was of unknown origin. Shizune went so far as to teach her plant identification, far more than just Land of Fire’s plants, it was every county fauna and flora. Even further than flower arranging at the Academy. Shizune knew how to make almost every single medication that was distributed to the patients and was shoving that information into Sakura’s brain. There wasn’t that much of a leap from poisons and antidotes to being a compounding pharmacist. A chemist was what Shizune was in Lightning. Interesting how in different countries, they had different terms.

Sakura started taking on patients as well. Not a lot, maybe a few patients a day. Mostly civilians and a few omegas. Minimal risk cases. It was a terrifying aspect, but she did learn that omegas and alphas were on the decline. She had to read the reports of the patients, and she saw the pattern. It seemed like no one had picked up on the actual facts. Anyone with eyes could see it. So far, Konohamaru’s generation only had one omega. No alphas. Despite the medical staff not picking up on the fact (but there were the rumors, which everyone knew about) of the decline, there was a low hum of worry underneath it all whenever she asked anyone about it, if they noticed. They look away or divert the conversation. Why? Omegas get so much flak for sitting there and looking pretty. From what she read about, it wasn’t happening in just Land of Fire, it was happening everywhere. But why? What were the issues? People seemed to be worried about it, but no one seemed to be doing anything about it. Society hated omegas. So why the unease? Whatever ‘free time’ Sakura had she investigated the possibility of the decline. There had to be a cause. With any epidemic there was always a patient zero, but with how spotty the history of omegas and alphas were, and without the other nations’ information, the rosette might as well bang her head against a wall with how good it was doing. Yet, bang her hand against a brick wall she did.

Since Sakura had access to the confidential files (not really but when the Hokage orders a person to read something, you read it) and it was weird that more and more betas were being presented but also birth rates in general were on the decline. There was absolutely no shock about the birth rates. With a war in every generation, and the Kyūbi attack when—wait a minute. Sakura looked at Naruto’s abysmal medical records (she was about ready to shank a bitch). She swallowed. Her heart was pounding in her ears. He was born on the same day that the Kyūbi attacked. That explained a lot. Guilt ate at her. Stomach twisted. It wasn’t his fault. He was a newborn baby. How could a village treat a baby like they were the cause of it. Thanks to those high ranked files, she knew that the Uchiha family were to blame. A sharingan user had made it seem angrier, rather than helpful. Sakura pinched the bridge of her nose. So much death. Just like the Uchiha clan were killed, one of their own went insane. It really did not surprise Sakura that the birth rates were down. Maybe not with the noble clans, their birth rates were fine, but anywhere else. Maybe one kid was born in a family.

However, when it came to Shishou, Sakura had no idea why the Hokage was so intent on pushing the rosette to the absolute limit of what her mind, body, and chakra could do every single day. She took it. Absorbed every single lesson they all taught her. Even going so far as to teach her how to investigate the underneath the underneath of every legal document.

What did it really say? What did it mean? “My uncle was a master at this. I was a brat, so I didn’t understand his lessons until much later. I regret not learning more from him.” Sakura understood that pain. The rosette wished to have spent more time with her parents. To enjoy her mother’s cooking one last time or one of her dad’s corny jokes.

Sakura (not a clone, not even if it was her yin-yang clone) was at some point, ordered to read everything the previous Hokage’s had done and make a book report out of it. The First and Second had done the most, it was taking her a while to get through them all. Which wasn’t a shocker. But it wasn’t just the laws, it really was everything Shishou could think of, she would literally toss the rosette’s way. It did not matter what the topic was, or how ‘hard’ (she was looking at ocean currents presently) it was to actually learn it. Sakura had to comprehend everything and give a report on the subject. It really did feel like a book report. The Third and the Fourth (he wasn’t wearing the hat that long before his death to really make a difference) were next, once she was done with the first two Hokages.

It did not stop at the just learning the functions of what the hospital staff did, Shizune even had Sakura (clone or real) read what nurses had to learn. Which was mostly the exact same information, but it was such a different role than that of a doctor, or a medic. The rosette suggested that she participate in the different roles, much to Shizune’s delight, that the hospital had. Sakura had to administer medications, help with IV’s, and patient care. The more she did. The more she understood why Shizune wanted Sakura (not a clone) to be there. Because neither a yin clone nor a yang clone would be able to do what needed to be done. They were too flimsy or not knowledgeable enough. The yin-yang clone did help with what needed to be done. But for the hands-on experience, Sakura herself was preferred to be there. The rosette just happened to agree.

There was a lesson that she had to learn the hard way. It needed to be done. She read the patient’s file and even met the person who had gone in for abdominal surgery that couldn’t be discharged because they hadn’t been able to have bowel movement on their own. Sakura was assigned to his case. She needed to learn, and she wanted to know everything. The rosette was laughing and joking with the patient whenever she stepped into his room for any reason. After a week, Sakura found excuses to go visit him. She hadn’t realized that she grew fond of the patient, nurses who liked Sakura had given her the ‘knowing’ look. Mei had said that everyone had a patient like that. The ones that become ‘friends’ while in the hospital. Weeks went by, and one day when she went in for her shift, the patient came out and screamed that they were finally able to go on their own. Sakura had never been so happy about bowel movements in her entire life.

After her shift, Sakura went home and cried because she had realized how important it was to be there as a medic. Shizune was right, Sakura needed to learn this important lesson. No amount of books or reports or lectures could ever truly give Sakura the understanding of what it meant to be in this field. To provide genuine medical care.

From that day forward, the rosette threw herself (not her yin-yang clone, which went to Shishou instead) into whatever lessons Shizune had to offer, taking medical care far more seriously than she did before. She wanted to learn everything there was about the hospital and how it ran. She even spent two weeks being a janitor just so she could appreciate the job even more than she already did. The raven-haired woman was very enthusiastic about the rosette’s newfound desire to learn (genuinely) everything. Every role. Every tiny little thing that went on in a hospital, Sakura enthusiastically threw herself into it. No matter how big or small it was. She did it. If she needed to wash and sanitize toilets, she did. If she needed to administer IV’s, she did it. Paperwork, not a problem. Medical coding, she performed the task. Washing bed pans, no problem.

Even with her extreme enthusiasm and desire, every day was still a brutal battle. Shishou, Shizune, and Yūgao were always pushing Sakura to her absolute limits. Upping the weights. Upping the percentage. New material. New katas. Twenty-three laps in one go, Sakura was at five. Despite all of it, she never once complained. Even in her head. It was demanding and challenging work, but whatever outcome her sensei-gata were thinking of, Sakura wanted to achieve it. With her own goals not to much further than their own outcomes.

Her ravens, mostly Karasu, were always by her side, except during her hospital shifts. They continued to push her just like all her sensei-gata. Water Bullet was a steady trickle, but not the force it needed to be, even though it did feel easier to use. The rosette didn’t understand why. Yet. She even began working on the mist, she was having a much easier time performing the mist than the Water Bullet. With the help of her ravens, she was trying to throw up the mist and blend herself into it. Yūgao realized what she was up to one day, when she was at the ANBU training ground instead of the abandoned house (this was closer) and she started helping her with that as well. Since the plumette was a sensor, she was helping the rosette blend herself away.

She signed back up for yoga. But it was everyday now, with three different classes. One was on Saturday and Sunday nights. One was on Tuesday and Thursdays. The last was on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Since her hospital shifts often ended at the same time as her usual time with Shishou, she still made it on time to the classes. Then she would run on the wall.

Whomever her mysterious benefactor was, they kept breaking into her apartment and leaving more and more advance works for fūinjutsu and trap making. Encouraging Sakura to keep getting better by keeping them out, but it always sounded- Sakura wasn’t sure. Happy? The rosette hypothesis that her mysterious benefactor must be ANBU. One day she left a note for her mysterious benefactor, asking for something benign. A cute new notebook, to be specific. She was thinking of the pink one she saw the other day with an anime character on it; one that Naruto had once talked about. Instead, they delivered on a level she hadn’t expected. She received a beautiful, green leather journal with a floral design on the front, and the edges of the pages were silver. There was a note on the front page.

The world is better off with you in it. Every time I see you, my heart skips a beat, and I forget to breathe. There isn’t much you can ask for that I will not deliver. Because there hasn’t been a day that goes by that I haven’t thought of you.

I am not much of a benefactor, for I am just a simple man, but I do want you improve on your skills.

~Dog

The operative that Yūgao spoke of. A hardass that knew a lot about chakra natures. Her heart skipped a beat. Dog. He must be an alpha. She managed to catch his attention. He must like her. He’d seen her. Dog liked her. She hoped. It seemed like it. Sakura swallowed. Or it could be someone claiming to be them.

~🎃~

She bit the explosive tag, and told Yūgao about her mysterious benefactor, without revealing the name that they dropped, and what he’s been doing. The plumette looked at her apartment and she too figured that the person was in ANBU. According to her, any average shinobi wouldn’t even make it past the door or windows, let alone placing anything around her apartment.

“I could ask around.” Yūgao offered.

“Will it get you in trouble?”

“Possibly.”

“Then don’t bother.” The plumette nodded. This couldn’t have been Sukea, he was a beta, and he was ex-ANBU and had been in for years. This level of protection reeked of something else. “I think whoever is my mysterious benefactor is-. . .  I think they are an alpha.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because why would any other beta or even an omega desire this much safety for me.” Her inner omega was purring at Dog and the strength he wielded.

Yūgao gave Sakura an odd look. “You think this is this alpha’s way of flirting?”

“I hadn’t actually thought of that.” This was some weird flirting. Why would Dog keep breaking into her apartment just to leave stuff for her to study and learn? Definitely an alpha behavior, even in the most oddish of ways. However, from what she gathered of observing other ANBU, they were a weird bunch of a people, with even stranger habits. It wasn’t that much of a leap in logic. Alphas were protective of their omegas; this was similar. Except she was unmarked and Dog refused to give her his identity. “There are more alphas per capita in ANBU than any other aspect of a shinobi’s life. I wouldn’t be surprised if my mysterious benefactor was an alpha and in ANBU.” Yūgao snorted. Trying to not reveal what she knew. Sakura refused to give up the name he gave himself. For now, she would wait and see. A part of her was ecstatic that she had the eyes of someone so . . . powerful. Her omega purred at the thought of the mysterious alpha named Dog.

~🎃~

It was four months after the exams that Shishou finally revealed Sakura’s birthday present. Underneath the Senju estate was a secret bunker, which had everything a person needed to live there without detection, even from the most sensitive of sensors, kekkei genkai or not. Sakura saw no reason why she would need a place like this, even if she was a secret heir. Until she met two men already living in the bunker, and she didn’t recognize either one of them.

“Tsuna, you brought more people than you spoke of.” One of the men commented, sounding more pleasantly surprised than any other emotion.

“Yūgao is in ANBU and is the mistress of the blade.” Shishou spoke with pride. “Shizune is my right-hand woman. I trust both with this secret.”

“If she is truly ANBU, she’d let me adjust her seal, so she cannot spill.” The other man said so coldly it made the large (training?) room drop a few degrees.

A light pause from everyone as the plumette stared at the second man that spoke. “Are you a ghost?” Yūgao asked with a raised eyebrow. What? What did she figure out?

“We might as well be.” The second one replied at the same time the first man sighed. The first had rubbed the back of his neck while looking sheepish. What?

“I take it that is your older brother.” Yūgao pushed back, crossing her arms. Older brother?

Wait. Didn’t Yūgao say that only the- “Holy shit you two are the First and Second.” Sakura gasped. Karasu cawed loudly. What does that mean? “Oh, they are the Hokage of the past. Um, the leaders before Shishou.” Karasu cawed again. Leaders? “Shishou is like you.”

“You can speak to the ravens?” Second asked in almost like a sneer while the First did something to make himself look like the First.

“Just this raven and nine others. They are my summons.”

“Tsuna, why should I lower myself to train someone who wants to work alongside the ravens? Harbingers of de-” Sakura punched him. He was dead. Who cared. Sending the Second into a wall was very cathartic for her already shot nerves.

The First whistled. “You raised another you.” He spoke as if he was proud.

“Only in terms of sheer strength and stubbornness.” Shishou said sounding both fond and proud as the First. It was good to know Sakura lived up to the blonde’s high expectations. “I honestly thought Uncle and Sakura would get along.”

“He made fun of my ravens.” Sakura hissed out. After calming down, with a pout, she asked Shishou, “first, how are they alive? Second, why are we really here? Thirdly, what is going on?”

“I also have those questions.” Shizune said. The Second recovered and pulled himself out of the wall.

“I third that statement.” Yūgao replied. “I still believe that they are ghosts.”

“Or a ghost and one bratty demon who needs to learn manners.” Sakura grumbled under her breath. Karasu cawed in agreement.

“Tsuna, did you fail to inform them of your master plan?” The Second growled as he approached. He now looked like the Second, instead of whomever he was before.

“With Danzō and his damn Root. He has eyes everywhere. I don’t trust anyone outside of this room. So, no I did not.”

“So, why have Yūgao and myself here?” Shizune asked. “I understand the lack of trust in others.”

“Because I wanted everyone to be fully informed.” Shishou rubbed the back of her neck, mimicking the motion of the First. “I have a horrible gut feeling that Danzō is going to do something fucking stupid.” That got everyone’s attention. “I am preparing for the worst case-scenario. If it never happens, great. Sakura will be overqualified for anything and everything in life.

“However, if I am correct then either Danzō is going to have me assassinated and making it look like an accident, or if I fall in battle, he is going to take over.” Sakura swallowed. She didn’t like that idea at all. She already lost one mom. “He has been quietly pushing for legislation about the birth rates, and I fear for Sakura’s safety if he takes over. He hasn’t done anything formal, but my gut instincts tell me that the second he gets the hat, he will do everything he can to shape Konoha into a larger version of Root. In which case, forced pregnancy on every female beta and omega. For Sakura, because she is my underling, Danzō will abuse her abilities.” As Yūgao put her hand on Sakura’s shoulder, Shishou sighed. “To answer the rest of your questions, my uncle had invented a kinjutsu of resurrecting people, it’s not a genuine resurrection, but it’s close enough. I had to take time to make it so that they could stay on a more or less permanent state.

“I had to tie them to myself in terms of chakra, and Senju land. If I had just tied them to myself, they couldn’t go far. However, if I tied them to our land and myself, they could stay with you and not worry about distance away from me. I did all of this to help augment Sakura’s training.” Why? “Sakura, you’ve caught up to me in the theoretical portion of what I know, and quickly closing in on the physical side of being a medic.” That’s awesome to know. Karasu cawed in happiness. “I and Shizune will continue to fill the gaps.” Okay? “There have been rumors of pulling Sakura from active duty and assigning some random jackass to be her alpha.” No! She wanted to choose her own alpha. But if she had to be assigned an alpha, Sakura wanted Dog. Her omega wanted Dog. Sakura growled at thought. “Exactly.” Yūgao squeezed her shoulder. “With Danzō snooping around, I believe it would be a Root member.”

“What!?” Yūgao shouted.

Shizune only stared at Sakura. “What makes me so important?”

“You are an omega who doesn’t listen to alpha commands.”

“Tsuna, you did not tell us that.” The Second commented as he stared at Sakura. His expression was unmoving.

“Sakura, meet my uncle, Tobirama.” Sakura waved. “He is also an omega that did not listen to alpha commands.”

“My favorite Hokage was an omega?” Shizune asked, sounding absolutely flabbergasted.

“I’m not your favorite Hokage?” Shishou teased while Shizune stuck out her tongue.

“So, what makes me so important? I am just a civilian born omega.”

“Girl, do you know what an alpha of alphas are?” Tobirama asked. Karasu cawed aggressively. Leave my human alone. “Disgusting beast.”

“I will put you through a wall. Again.” Sakura threatened.

“And you have the chakra reserves of a baby mouse. How are you even alive?”

“Stop being mean about my ravens.” Sakura snarled. “They are extremely smart and so far, have been far more useful than you.”

“Ravens bring death.” Why does everyone think that?

“Ravens are scavengers, they help hunt with wolves, and they can and will feast together on their kill. They only got that reputation because after battles they would eat the dead.”

“They are disease riddled-”

“So are humans! We are the worst carriers!”

“You are just a tiny little girl, who shouldn’t have ever gotten into the Academy, let alone become a kunoichi. You are a campfire in the night in an open field.”

“You are just a cranky old man who doesn’t understand that appearances can be deceiving and failed to look underneath the underneath of what a person is truly capable of.” She hated that she was repeating what Hatake had said, but it was true.

“Tsuna,” Tobirama looked at Shishou instead of Sakura. “I tolerate this mousy girl. I look forward to training her.” What the fuck just happen? Shishou chuckled fondly. “Alpha of alphas or sometimes referred to as enigmas. Extremely rare. They can give commands to anyone, including alphas.”

“There is a legend that alpha of alphas is fated for a certain kind of omega.” The First commented, sounding almost fond of the idea. Maybe it was a romantic fairytale. “Omegas who can ignore the commands of other alphas.”

“I do not believe in such foolishness.” Tobirama sneered.

“But you see, little brother, you never met your fated.”

“Being part of the fated as well as the alpha of alphas are just little shinobi kids dreams.” Sakura commented, showing them that she did know this information already. “Civilians have similar dreams, like being the long-lost princess or wanting to be the knight in shiny armor.” With her luck, Sakura would just end up with some two-bit alpha. It’d be even better if she was left alone, like Tobirama. “Wait. Shishou, do you think that Danzō believes in that legend?”

“No. Why would you think that?” Shishou asked back, sounding far more curious than Sakura had expected.

“Because he had always struck me as a man who loves power and having the ultimate control.”

Shizune snorted and commented, “you aren’t wrong.” Yūgao squeezed her shoulder again.

Sakura continued. “If he believed the legend to be true, then it would be the ultimate power trip if he could get his hands on the alpha of alphas. If an omega who could ignore the commands of normal alphas- . . . if they are fated mates, then controlling that omega would control the alpha of alphas.”

The room went deadly silent, and dropping a few degrees, for a solid minute before Tobirama broke the silence. “Normal omegas cannot sign a contract with any summons, even with your-” Sakura made a threatening pose while putting up two middle fingers. “-birds. There needs to a be a certain level of strength that omegas do not possess.”

“You mean normal omegas and their supposed lack of strength.” Sakura asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Normal omegas give into the whims of alphas and their base needs. Unless the omega is marked by an alpha, it is hard for them to be taken seriously.” Tobirama commented.

“So, an omega needs to be basically married for them to have any sort of benefit for the field.” Sakura pushed back but turned to Shishou. “Shikamaru is an omega, and he was promoted to chūnin. He’s one of the smartest people around. Gai is an omega and he’s a jōnin sensei. He is also the best taijutsu master in the world.”

“Both are marked by an alpha before their promotions.”

“What?” Sakura couldn’t see Gai with any person in a romantic sense. “I knew Shikamaru was marked by Ino. She marked him long before we graduated from the Academy.” Like a year before graduation. “But Gai?”

Shizune coughed. “That’s because Anko is the alpha.” Sakura blinked. “They keep their relationship on the downlow.” Sakura couldn’t believe it. “They told me when they came in for their consultation. They were thinking about kids and had questions.” Shizune rubbed the back of neck sheepishly. “I was just as shocked.”

“But Anko was the proctor of the second part of the chūnin exam, isn’t that a conflict of interest?”

“No. Unless they were her actual kids that were involved; it is considered not to be.” Yūgao answered. “Actually, the expectation is that Anko was supposed to have been even harder on Gai’s students because they were in a relationship.”

“Sakura, Uncle is the only omega that I am aware of that made something of themselves without an alpha.” That completely stunned her. The Second was an omega! There was hope for her yet! “And you are the fast track to being another one.”

The rosette just stood there as memories flooded her. Shishou’s push back when she first begged to be an apprentice. Sakura hadn’t noticed, at least not at the time, but Shishou was giving orders for her to back down. And the rosette blatantly ignored them. Her omega purred. Strong alpha. Her own desire to get a better alpha than those who she deemed beneath her. They both wanted Dog. Even if he was a known asshole. And he was weirdly obsessive with his care for her and her safety.

“I think your precious pupil is realizing-”

“I obeyed Hatake’s commands. The last time I saw him, he shouted at me, and I shut up.”

“What did the latest wayward mutt do now?” Tobirama asked.

“Wow. You are a judgmental piece of shit—but I agree with you in this case.” Shishou burst into laughter as the other women snickered. “And to answer your question, after Naruto left with Jiraiya, he pulled me aside and said that I was off the team. When I pushed back that he was breaking his own rules, he shouted ‘enough’ and I just sort of shut up because that’s the impression I got from his command.”

“When was the last time he had his rut suppressors?” Yūgao asked. “I know he wasn’t on any when he was in a coma.” It was lovely to know that she was correct in her assumption.

“Probably the day I woke him up.” Shishou answered.

“Actually, it was after he bailed out of the hospital. I wanted to make sure everything was good, which included no rut suppressors.” Shizune replied.

So, he just started taking them when he kicked her off the team. It would explain why he still smelled good, even after taking them, but his scent was slightly off. “ANBU, why do you ask?”

“Because he’s an ANBU captain and could wrangle other alphas into obeying orders. I’m wondering if he’s an alpha of alphas.”

“I know he’s taking far more than he’s supposed to be taking.” Shizune said. Sakura opened her mouth to ask a question, but Shizune probably already knew what it was going to be because she continued. “Rut and heat suppressors are the only medications that a person cannot get high off, nor overdose, nor does it negatively impact the body. We’ve done extensive research on the topic.” Sakura nodded. Question answered.

“If he’s over the limit of rut suppressors, then he is hampering his own abilities.” The First commented. “I highly doubt that he is an alpha of alphas. He could just be an incredibly good captain. Sakura could have obeyed him because she got in his face about his own nindo and he just got on suppressors; he was probably already close to a rut.”

“All of this talk of legends is all fine and dandy, but we need to focus on the actual problems. Like Danzō planning on taking over, and how he might use Sakura against said legend.”

“Do you have a successor?” The First asked.

“I do. Unfortunately, I could only make them an emergency. So, if I fall, there is no debating on who is ruling. I believe that the Daimyō would make them a permanent Hokage once the dust settles.” Why was shishou being so vague about who her successor was? It was probably above her head. Politician, she was not. Although, she was learning the laws, but it wasn't the same as being a politician.

“Where is your head Tsuna?” Tobirama asked, almost fondly. Weird for such an asshole.

“Sakura had managed to mark me as her pack mom; I made her an heir to the Senju clan.” Tobirama did not move but something changed in the air around him. Sakura could smell it. “If I fall, all that I have will be lost. I want to train the brat myself, however, I am also the Hokage. I cannot split my body like Sakura can.” That raised a few eyebrows. “So, while she is tucked away here. Sakura will make her clone and get double the education.”

“A shadow clone will not be enough to help in this endeavor.” Tobirama commented.

The rosette snorted. “It’s not a shadow clone. It’s a yin-yang clone.”

“Sakura, when you make your clone, put exactly half your chakra into it. Since it can refuel to that level, it should be enough to fool any sensor.”

“Considering we have her using the chakra weights, as long as we pretend to have them on the clone, it won’t look, or be, out of place.” Yūgao commented. “If Sakura suddenly disappears, even for a long-term mission, it would be weird, especially since she’s dedicated in her one daily mission.” Shizune snorted. “What? Sakura made her yin-yang clone continue to do it, even while she was away for the chūnin exams. In Suna.”

“Given that she delivers the mail, and that, on paper, is her only mission, it would look extremely out of place unless it was an extreme emergency.” Shizune continued. “Like another village needed someone with Sakura’s skills and I’m off somewhere else on another mission and time is of the essence.”

“Exactly. The clone can make the yin and yang clones. We continue with her education. Except, I will be scaling back her physical education. She mastered my greatest feat, that’s all the public, or what Danzō cares about. Yūgao, you will continue with the kenjutsu training with the clone.”

“Tsuna, I am an expert in kenjutsu why have-”

“Yūgao is the best at kenjutsu, even more than you, Uncle. She knows twenty-five techniques and collects techniques like you did with inventing jutsus.” The First snorted. “You will teach Sakura the all Senju techniques and guiding her in whatever else that pops into her head.” Now it was Sakura’s turn to snort. “The clone can learn the theoretical portion at the same level as Sakura. Physical training it’s far less.”

“The basics of kenjutsu is a good way for the clone to learn, and therefor Sakura.” Yūgao continued. “I assume you want the clone to come to the training grounds in the morning and then the hospital for the rest of the day.”

“More or less. The clone will make the yang, and yin clones that Sakura normally does, and then go to the hospital. Once Shizune is done with her lessons of the day, the clone will come to me, and I will continue to teach ‘Sakura’ iryō-jutsu.”

“It sounds like this yin-yang clone has a lot to do.” The First commented lightly. He sounded delighted.

“We are actually scaling back what the clone is doing. Sakura actually does a lot more in a day.” Yūgao proudly replied. When she put it like that, it did seem like a lot. “Is it alright if I drop by here every so often, just so Sakura doesn’t kill the Second, again?” Sakura snorted and Karasu cawed.

“Actually, you will be here full time.” Yūgao and Sakura exchanged looks before their eyes went back to Shishou. “You, I can ‘sendoff’ to a long-term mission, and it would not look weird. However, for the sake of appearances. You will be going to the training grounds, train the clone, and then come here for essentially what you said. Except, it’s to make sure Uncle doesn’t kill Sakura with his insane idea of training.” Now, Sakura was a little worried about training under the resurrected forms of the First and Second. “And further the kenjutsu, and whatever else you think would benefit her.”

“What if someone asks about Yūgao?” Shizune asked.

“I highly doubt anyone would ask where I am. I’ve been training Sakura in an ANBU training ground for nearly half a year, and no one, and I mean no one had ever asked ‘why.’ Not even fucking Dog has asked me, and that man has the observation skills of a bloodhound, and a nose that’s even better.” Why would Dog care about Yūgao training Sakura? A part of her wanted to ask, but a bigger part of her did not want to know. The answer scared the shit out of her. She really wanted to impress Dog, and if he hadn’t seen her training then it was a good thing. Less chance of him seeing her fuck up. Even if she had the benefit of him already liking her. “However, if someone does ask, you can just say that I’m on a special assignment within the village, and I have been given special permission to leave the post to train Sakura. No one will bat an eye at that.”

“Except maybe Dog.” Shishou continued, rubbing the back of her neck. Dog seemed to be everywhere. Strong alpha. Looking everywhere but at her, unless it was to drop of teaching material. Why didn’t he just show his face? Was he scared? “Sakura, Grandpapa and Uncle will start at the beginning of your education, so a lot of information will be repeated, but that is only so that there are no missing gaps.”

“Having a good, solid foundation will only benefit you. People tend to ignore the basics, which was Madara’s ultimate downfall.” What the First said had stunned the rosette. “Please, call me Hashirama.” He gave a respectable bow with a hand over his heart. “I will make sure my idiot brother is in line.” Shizune snorted at that.

“Don’t worry, Sakura uses the line like a fucking jump rope.” Shishou laughed as she spoke. “She is like Uncle. Yūgao is no better.”

“Why do you have ravens as a summon? Why choose them?” Tobirama asked.

“They chose me. And why not. They are intelligent creatures.” Sakura reached up to her Karasu and gave him scritches. “Besides they were my only friends when I had no one else.” Karasu cawed again. Our chosen human is special. “Loyal and kind.”

~🎃~

Her first instinct about Tobirama did not let up. He was an asshole. A worse one than Hatake, but at least the Nidaime was teaching her. Of sorts. The rosette understood where Shishou’s teaching style came from, he was a hardass who wouldn’t accept anything less than the best. Hashirama on the other hand had a far gentler approach to teaching. Honestly, he was like Shizune in that regard, but even she was harder on Sakura. Maybe it was because they knew what she was capable of and Hashirama didn’t know. Then again, Tobirama was a menace. A fucking genius, but still a damn menace to society. And to her. Especially to her.

Shishou was right, they did start from the beginning. Hashirama drilled it into her head that having a good foundation would only improve upon her other skills. So naturally, they upped her chakra weights to ninety percent (she was at sixty) but left her physical weights the same. At least until she was ‘used’ to the chakra weights. For Hashirama, it wasn’t slow, nor was it fast. His teachings were at a brisk pace. However, Tobirama was very much like Shishou. Do or die. What else was new? Nothing.

Being in an underground bunker (that was built by Tobirama himself) did not help when it came to time nor day. She slept when she could. Since her heats weren’t regular, she wasn’t sure of what month it was. At least she got a room with a place for her whenever she did go into a heat. It was bare, like her own apartment.

“Senju are known as the clan with a thousand skills.” Tobirama had growled out as he was teaching her one of the Senju kenjutsu. There were apparently six styles. She already had five cuts on her body. “You added three more to that ever-growing list with your absurd clones, Little Mouse.” He launched another attack and then disappeared from her view. A shunshing. He slashed her again in the thigh, and she hissed from the sudden pain, before returning to his position in front of her. All under two seconds. “Do you know why we are known for such proclivities?”

“No. Not officially.”

“Little Mouse, what does that mean?”

“There is nothing about why in any history book. My guess is because of your rivalry with the Uchiha before founding of Konoha. They can copy any technique, so the Senju had to adapt to the copiers. Make shit that is stupid hard to actually copy.”

Tobirama looked at her weirdly and then his scowl deepened. Correction. He was worse than Hatake. “Little Mouse, you are right about your assessment.” He disappeared from her view. Another slash. This time on her shoulder blade. “Those thousand skills are all jutsus that the Uchiha had struggled to copy.” He hit her other thigh. “Your ridiculous clones are a part of that list because of the chakra control needed.” Then the blade was against her throat, she dropped her blade as genuine fear shot through her, and Sakura put her hands up. Her heart was in her throat and her ears burned as the blood rushed her hearing. “You are no sensor. It is amazing you have not died.”

“The only mission I have ever taken was for delivering mail.” Sakura managed to let out.

“Then you are a sheltered brat.” He sheathed the katana. “You would have died a thousand times over during a time of war.” Tobirama walked away.

She fell to her knees as her heart rate returned to normal and she could properly hear Karasu, who landed in front of her. How the fuck was Tobirama an omega? He felt like an alpha. He came off as one. Dominating and angry at the world. Karasu cawed softly. It shook her out of her stupor, and she began to heal her wounds. She wasn’t a sensor because no one taught her how to be. Yūgao and Tobirama’s methods of teaching were completely different when it came to kenjutsu. He was trial by fire. Learn from her mistakes. But Yūgao she went through the motions at first and then fought, mostly so Sakura had a feel of how to dodge and then attack. His shunshing was fast. There was no smoke. Just a blink and she missed it. Literally. Karasu cawed again. Stop thinking so much.

Sakura chuckled. “Your right. I have been overthinking things.” Karasu laughed.

She repositioned herself, sitting crisscross applesauce. She used yin chakra to review her own memories, but with a twist. Deconstructing the Yamanaka jutsu even further than what she did to try and communicate with her ravens. She watched her matches against Tobirama. Slowly, she ‘reversed’ the memory, slowing it down even further. She watched Tobirama deliberately, trying to really look at how he moved. It wasn’t a shunshing at all, but to those who didn’t know any better, it would seem like it. He was using something. It was too discreet for her to notice, even with the way she was reviewing her own memories. She repeated them with her teachings against Tobirama. His fighting style was aggressive. Sakura’s was very much wait and then strike. Allow her opponents (her keepers) to come to her, all so she could analyze them. Then again, Shishou did beat it into Sakura (literally) to always remain on the side of a battle.

Sakura hummed as she opened her eyes. “Karasu, am I sheltered?” He cawed in the positive. “Thanks.” She groaned as she fell onto her fully healed back. Karasu hopped onto her chest.

Tobirama was a fast fucker. It’d be neat to defeat him in battle, given his prowess, but she was looking to be taught. Why was he so wishy-washy? Maybe Sakura wasn’t living up to his lofty expectations. They were probably higher than Shishou’s. That didn’t feel right. Would being a sensor help her? She stared at the ceiling. Sakura routinely delivered mail all over Konoha within the allotted time, even before she invented the clones. Then again, she had help when she did, after other people were pulled, she was left by herself. She made a personal rule, and she stuck to it. Sakura was fucking proud of herself to sticking to her convictions, even if they were a little weird. Wasn’t this the same thing though? Struggling until she figured out how to ease it. Getting better. Improving. Being the best of the best. What more was there than to be trained by the famous Shodai and Nidaime? Maybe Hatake should be the one here, he knew over a thousand jutsus . . . supposedly. But Tobirama did say that her clones were a perfect example of being a part of the Senju clan. Well, in not so many words. She wished she could get a better angle of Tobirama’s fighting style.

That gave her an idea.

She got up, much to Karasu’s displeasure, he squawked as he got into one of her hands. She summoned the rest of the flock. They weren’t here for this training, but Karasu was. She meditated, focusing on all her ravens, with her chakra strings, she pulled on their memories and she viewed the fight from their point of view. All ten of them. She watched the ‘trainings’ over and over again, slowing the memories down so she could really understand Tobirama was like with a blade. When she was satisfied with what she learned, Sakura got up and made a yin clone, shoving everything she learned from Tobirama into the clone. The clone was going through the motions, and Sakura copied them. He used the not-shunshing in fighting. So, Sakura will fight similarly. Wasn’t there an ANBU operative that was so good with the shunshing that they became famous for it? Yūgao mentioned it once. A long time ago.

Karasu cawed: you are a small human, make shiny thing longer. And Sakura chuckled. “Good idea.” She copied her yin clone’s movements and used water release (which felt easier to perform than normal) to increase the length of her blade. Sakura adjusted herself to accommodate the new length. But she stopped all of that when she remembered what Shishou said about her chakra. “Karasu, how do you unlock wind release?” He cawed: about time. “What do you mean ‘about time?’” He cawed again. “Fine.”