Eight

Reinvention in the Roaring Discord

She couldn't count all the times she thought of her father since the day he left her.

She tried not to. When she stood alone in the middle of a training ground, when she secluded herself in the Forest of Death to hide Kubikiribocho, when she passed flower shops and seafood markets and watched bodies of water—she tried not to think because she didn't want to imagine what it would have been like to make him proud.

Her memory was a gift and a curse, because when she could recall information from stacks of scrolls she could also envision all the times her father looked down at her and smiled and told her he loved her.

She wanted to forget it all.

But she knew this was the life that would never give her all the things she wanted.

Maybe she shouldn't have come. Forget she ever came back here. Avoid her father for as long as she could possibly get away with.

Then the door burst open, and something hit the ground with a resounding thud.

Sakura closed the book in her hands and quietly tucked it back on the shelf. There wasn't any dust on her fingers or the book spines or the spaces between the pages, and it was all still organized just as she'd left it eight years ago—first by color, then alphabetical order by title.

"... Pup?"

A white hot pain lanced through her chest.

Pup. Right, that's what he'd called her when he tied her hair, made her breakfast, taught her katas, colored with her, made her memorize, made her laugh, told her he'd never leave—

"I'm... sorry if I tracked water into your apartment," she said when nothing else lined up on her tongue. Her throat strained and her mouth dried, and she didn't turn around to face him. Won't. Can't. "I just stopped by to see the old room."

The silence slowly started to strangle her as she waited for a response. Maybe it was only thirty or so seconds she had to wait, but those thirty seconds turned into thirty lifetimes when everything finally settled at the back of her head.

She was back in Ame, standing in the room she grew up in, and her father was here and real and the first thing she said to him after eight fire-filled years was nothing that had plagued her every time she went to sleep at night.

"Ours."

She blinked, but still didn't turn. "What?"

"It's still our apartment," he answered softly. "Doesn't matter how long you've been gone, it's always been ours."

Something hot pricked the corners of her eyes, but she took a deep breath and willed her breathing to even. One of her fingers came up to trace the junction between her upper arm and her prosthetic, a steady reminder of all the days she'd spent without giving her connected chakra pathways a break as the wood and metal soaked in infused rain. She'd have to do maintenance soon.

"Pup, I..." A long sigh. She could imagine him running a hand over his face. "How're—How're you here?"

It was tempting to bite back with snark. She almost gave into it, but.

"There was nowhere for us to go. Ame has always protected her criminals and refugees as long as that respect is returned to her." She exhaled shortly through her nose. "I pled asylum and it was granted, and my team and I will be staying at the pangolin complexes at the west side of the Pillar." Not that she'd been to their assigned complex yet. She heard that Kiba and Kurenai had moved in the morning after she saw them last, and Shino had moved there just yesterday and—how many days has it been? She'd been lost in a sea of paperwork and cataloguing every alleyway, every shrine, every drop of neon paint and their hidden meanings, all while Konan requested her accompaniment on her duties until she was to report back to the Divine Pillar to receive her full orders. "I thought I should let you know."