heritage

Chapter Seven: Soothe

Dear Naruto,

Your eyes remind me of hope. Aside from the fact that we just got paid today. I mean the blue. It reminds me of my father's eyes. Crystal clear like the summer seas of Uzushio. But even brighter. Filled with the Will of Fire. My father's cousin, Kushina, had eyes like yours.

It's ridiculous how I still haven't gotten proper letter paper. Obviously, this is a spare ticket stub. But I've already robbed you of some of your heritage. I didn't want you to miss this. I think Kushina might've been your mom. There's a picture of her in this box. It's taped to the lid.

—Sakura

—

"I'll never leave you alone! I promise."

          It's the thick of summer, Sakura realizes abruptly as they walk outside. She can feel the warmth in the air, a stark difference from the prickling chill inside the Hokage Tower. The leaves of all of the surrounding trees are a vivid, bright green. There are no buds swaying on the branches, no scent of rain in the air. No signs of blooms sprinkled across the decorative bushes, no faint shouts from the market that items for Sango Matsuri have just come in. Just warm, ambient air and the summer sky stretching beyond the buildings lining the streets.

The realisation both fills Sakura with relief and tangles her stomach into knots.

She doesn't know if they had the festival. Probably not, with the entire village needing to recover from the invasion. Still. If things had gone the way they were supposed to, she knows they would have. It would've been the first one where she led the traditional ceremonies alone.

It does not comfort her that the only reason she is relieved from that duty is because of the almost-tragedy she helped prevent.

The tragedy she experienced instead.

Naruto and Sasuke walk on either side of her, Kakashi taking the back point of the group, looming over them in a protective manner with his normally sly expression nowhere to be seen. Sakura herself has her hands firmly clasped in those of her teammates, the ice in her chest still slowly melting and cracking away.

Strange, Sakura thinks, though no emotion can be ascribed to the thought. When Hibiki was still with her, Sakura would have been back to normal by now. Transitions were always seamless, before.

The ice crackles, and a piece drops off into her belly.

Cold.

The sound is almost the only thing she can hear.

"Y'gotta let us in, Sakura-chan!" Naruto chirps, turning his head toward her with a cheery smile. As he looks at her, Sakura watches as his previous smile quickly strains, tugging down a bit at the corner. She tells herself to speak, but her silence lasts a moment too long.

His smile almost evaporates in those forever seconds.

"Entry?" Sakura finally manages, and she can tell that it is the wrong thing to say when what is left of Naruto's happy visage all but crumples. "I—I mean—" Sakura fumbles her words, as if her lips are too numb to speak. She stops, glancing desperately at her door and begging the plants to move with her mind.

Another chip of ice flakes off her heart, but the freezing sensation under her skin remains.

The ivy curled around her door seems to be moving as slowly and as frigidly as Sakura currently feels, but eventually it does drag itself away enough that Kakashi is able to open the door with a gloved hand. Absently, Sakura is glad her sensei was wary enough about the handle to ensure he had a layer between his skin and the metal whenever opening it. She knows the knob certainly held a layer of irritant from the ivy at the current moment.