Eight

These Weary Bones

Kurenai was surprised that her cup didn't shatter in her hands. A brief, selfish thought ran through her head that she wished it did so that its pieces would have embedded themselves into her palms and made her bleed, just to ground her down with further proof that everything she just heard was real.

Because it all started to make a lot more sense when they told her that Sakura wasn't just a Sakura, but a Hoshigaki Sakura.

There hadn't been a thunderclap in the distance upon her admission nor an explosion of emotion that brought Kurenai to her knees. Instead, it came quietly around the dining table in her kids' unit, all of them settled in the seats that had enough room around them that their elbows didn't have to touch but chose to practically squish into the same seat anyways. Sakura spoke in low tones from between Kiba's and Shino's bodies, eyes red-rimmed and downcast as they traced over the prosthetic laid out to dry on the table. Akamaru laid across three pairs of feet, attentive as he always was.

She spoke about a mother she only knew as a gravestone, a young father half-gone on missions, a somber angel who taught her what it meant to be exemplary, a leader she couldn't mention without fear. All she'd known was rain and streets under the cover of cold nights when there were less people out to see her so no one could know of her; she spent her days in her room, the training grounds, the library in the Pillar—always the Pillar—and not much else. She never made any friends but she always had Dad or Konan-san so it hadn't bothered her then, and she'd known a Kakuzu, Orochimaru, Sasori.

"He told me Leader-sama would find me," she said. "He'd laugh if he saw that I was the one to seek him out before he had the chance."

Sakura's story ended at the warehouse the day she met those Konoha-nin who took her away. No need to be redundant, right? Except now Kurenai was left with the knowledge that Hoshigaki Kisame hadn't kidnapped her, no, he was a father who tried to keep her safe when the enemy came swooping down from above.

A hand came up to unconsciously brush against her stomach. She'd drink something stronger than tea if she could.

"I know it's a lot, sensei," she said. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Kurenai said, eyes softening further when the teen hunched her shoulders a bit and turned her eyes away.

"I know it's not."

"Sakura—"

"This isn't something you can just forgive me for. None of you." Sakura clenched her jaw. "I was young when I was taught about the Tailed Beasts, their last known locations, their assumed hosts. I'd known about the Kyuubi before I knew of the laws that forbid speaking of it."

(If it weren't for her, the first stone would have never been cast.)

"And how is that your fault if you couldn't have known?"

"I have been, am, and always will be Akatsuki's." She was sagged and defeated, a pillar crumbling, a foundation cracked. "If they don't do good, how could I?"

A couple moments passed and then she straightened in her seat, letting go a deep breath as she wiped the remnants of tears off her cheeks. Kiba opened his mouth and closed it the next second, pursing his lips and tugging the prosthesis toward himself to no doubt poke around the seals he etched in when Kankuro first gave it to her. Shino turned his head slightly to the side, eyes still dead ahead, and Kurenai knew this conversation was over.

Her kids have always had this sort of cohesion, and maybe now it was easier to see where they'd been melted down and stitched back together. Secrets, sabotage, prisons, prices—sometimes it was hard to see where one of them started and another one of them ended. Kurenai knew this couldn't be good for them; they were one person split into three and a half bodies because the world failed them and they had no one else to rely on but themselves.