Title: Hanami
Author: Timothy Wren
Fandom: Naruto
Relationship: Haruno Sakura/Uzumaki Naruto/Uchiha Sasuke (ot3 Team 7)
Genre: Anime, Post-canon, Gen, Slice-of-life, Romance
Warnings: Sakura ate a god, so slant cannibalism? She used plant magic a la venus fly-trap to do the ‘eating’ though. Mokuton!Sakura. AU: Sasuke Never Left
Word Count: 3,206 (Complete)
Summary: Spring lashes through the village.
Spring lashes through the village. It’s a scent on the wind, the heat in the air, the sigh of wildlife and new life with winter defeated.
In the capital of Fire, flowers bloom in ornamental gardens a hundred years in the making, and artfully shorn trees burst with cherry blossoms.
Konoha, some three hundred leagues to the south, has only the occasional rooftop garden, training-grounds masquerading as meadows at a glance, and wild, untamed forests. Though they are– of course– plentiful, the trees and leaves hiding the village are often a more practical variety, oaks and enormous redwoods stretching to the sky.
The beauty of a ninja village is harder to find, subtle yet there if you know where to look– shrubbery flowering in front yards, vines spilling out of window balconies, wildflowers spilling between clan compounds and dusty training grounds, half overgrown with disuse.
Beauty is a second thought amongst killers for hire, a luxury afforded only in times of peace, or dotted stubbornly throughout existing infrastructure by equally stubborn civilian families. It fills in the gaps of stark utilitarianism, of buildings made for practicality and haste above all else.
The main street of Konoha stretches from the Hokage’s office, nestled against the great mountain, all the way to the village walls. For the first half-mile or so it is bordered predominately by shinobi administration buildings, which transition neatly into clan-run businesses wielded like bribes at the founding: Yamanaka flower shops, Akimichi eateries, and the like.
It bulges outward into the market center, the road widening into a round subsection taking up several blocks; here vendors come on market days, setting up stalls of plenty, and on special occasions it is the centerpiece of mirth and merriment, where lights are strung up for festivals that pour out into surrounding streets.
After the market area, the main road narrows back again into one street, its buildings tending towards commercial storefronts once more. The odd residential complex begins cropping up, apartment high-rises for shinobi or civilian townhouses tucked against specialty shops. The shape and services get more and more esoteric as the main road meanders beyond ninja shops and into the scope of this, that and the other.
It stretches all the way to the southern gate, the biggest and oldest of entrances through Konoha’s walls.
Sakura steps out of the Hokage tower and cracks her knuckles.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Sasuke mutters next to her, too quiet for most others to hear. Naruto hums.
“I know.” Sakura says easily. She rolls her shoulders. “Be here to catch me, yeah?”
Sasuke scoffs, eyes narrowing with offense. As if there was ever any doubt.
Naruto smiles for the crowd and leans forward to brush the words against her jaw: “You should take some chakra.”
“Probably.” She responds, eyeing the throng of people who line the streets. The majority of them are waiting in the wings of market street, which their path will carry them through all too soon, but plenty of shinobi have gathered around to watch the beginning.
Jonin and ANBU cluster on the roofs for a better vantage point.
“Stubborn.” Naruto huffs, but he’s still smiling, for them this time. “Just say the word. You know I have enough to share.”
“More than.” Sasuke says in disgust. He meets her eyes over the blonde’s head and they share a commiserating glance.
“I’ve got this.” She insists, though thankful. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have volunteered otherwise. You might offer it up to the earth-benders, though.”
“Ha.” Sasuke bites out, amused. Naruto looks thoughtful for a moment, then shakes his head.
“Nah, they almost certainly couldn’t handle it.”
“No shit.” Sasuke says under his breath, this time so quiet really only Sakura can hear it. She snorts an agreement.
Any influx of chakra from an Uzumaki Jinchuuriki would burn through their veins like lava.
It would heal the most fatal of the immediate damage as it went, of course, but the real trouble was the amount. Naruto’s control had improved by leaps and bounds over the years, but he’d been born with more chakra than the average chunin could acquire with Choji’s red pills and a lifetime to practice.
For most of Konoha’s forces, like those voluntold to shift earth for today’s festivities, the barest trickle of chakra Naruto could donate would be more than the sum total of their reserves– like dumping a swimming pool’s worth of water into a bathtub.
Most jonin would burn out from that kind of influx.
It took a special kind of monster to handle that kind of onslaught. Team Seven could do it.
(Hell, Team Seven made it their party trick. Good luck fighting three demons with the infinite reserves of an army. Skirmishes had started and ended with a single sentry catching sight of them across a battlefield.)
The rest of the Rookie Nine could do it. Gai’s team, definitely. Gai himself. Kakashi, maybe one or two other jonin instructors. Maybe some of the clan heads. Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Tsunade.
People who played on the level of gods and kage.
The low-level shinobi who’d volunteered to move the earth in her wake would probably run screaming if Uzumaki Naruto walked up to them, glowing with living fire, and offering to burn their tenketsu out from the inside.
He could supply the entire village with chakra in an emergency, as Tsunade did through Lady Katsuyu, but the weakest of their number wouldn’t thank him for it in the aftermath– weeks of healing would be required.
Before Tsunade, they’d never had a Kage who could hold all their lives in one hand, keeping the entire village safe as one. Sakura thought it extremely telling that Naruto could do the same, had enough chakra to hold Konoha itself in a foothold situation.
“You’d probably make them cry, offering.” Sasuke muttered, and umphed as Sakura elbowed him absently.
“Eh, you might be right.” Naruto laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. The sun caught gold on his hair, ruffled in the light breeze. The weather was perfect for this. Peace and springtime were alive in the air, a murmur of excitement rippling through the entire village.
Naruto had more chakra than most of the village combined, but Sakura was no slouch herself. To be a medic on the battlefield, you had to replenish the reserves of your patient, and Sakura had once laid healing hands on thousands.
Like Sasuke, she could more than keep up with him; Naruto had more chakra than he could ever use, so they ended up evenly matched in the end.
But she had enough for this.
“I’m ready.” She says.
“I think your shishou is just finishing up.” Sasuke confirms, stepping closer for one moment. Naruto snorts.
It makes Sakura grin, too. Sasuke prefers to hide behind both of them on the matter of Tsunade, preferring the distance of ‘your Shishou’ or ‘your Grandmother’ than ‘my Hokage’ any day of the week.
Their Hokage is currently giving a rousing speech from the very market circle that Sakura’s procession would pass through. Usually, the Kage’s speeches were delivered from the large balcony on her tower, the entire shinobi corps gathered in the street, but this was a speech to all of Konoha, including her civilians and businessmen and crafters.
Besides: they need the laypeople out of the way.
Naruto gestures with one golden hand, signaling to the shinobi stationed on duty for this. They would pass the word on. Sure enough, as the faint echoes of Tsunade’s speech fades away, with the kind of timing their whole profession by necessity excels at, the lower-ranked chunin take up position.
All throughout Konoha, on the main street that stretches through the heart of the village, anyone who could perform C-ranked earth ninjutsu gathers. Some are closer together, limited in their scope and taking on a lesser stretch of it, but the details have been worked out far in advance.
This would be seamless.
To the civilians watching, unaware of the mechanics ruthlessly ironed out, it would appear like magic.
The streets of Konoha were designed with a shinobi’s eye. The heart of the village was Senju Hashirama’s heart-child, but it was Tobirama who turned a sprawl of buildings into an organized chaos– one designed to grow, change and most of all, be utterly defensible.
For all that there are paved sidewalks along the edges of the streets, for all that each building has a concrete perimeter for its light posts and pillars or support structures, the roads themselves are packed earth. No pipework is permitted under the earthen streets directly; no electrical or telephone lines, no basements toeing over from their shops.
Naruto and Sasuke take a step away as Sakura strides forward, her hands weaving well-practiced signs. They’d laid the seedwork for this as part of the ceremony, prepped the week before.
A breath, and dozens of shinobi fall to their knees, hands out in front of them.
A breath, and the ground beneath their feet shakes and heaves.
A breath, and Sakura takes her first steps forward. The edge of the roads, where the packed-earth street and the sidewalks meet, trembles. Fresh, tilled earth rises to fill the space between.
The streets widen by almost five feet on each side, as if a giant hand eased the buildings further apart.
Sakura walks forward, crossing even with the first two rows of ready soil on either side of her just as they erupt into being in front of her, picked up as if the village itself made space.
Chakra heaves.
The Inner version of herself, settled into lotus within her mind, looks up with eyes blazing a white so soft it is nearly pink. Lines of the same power course as rivers down her face and throat and chest and arms.
Natural energy surges up from that meditation, woven seamlessly into Sakura’s hand-signs, as three branches of chakra achieve harmony in her veins.
The breeze picks up, the sky a vivid blue, the conditions perfect.
Sakura’s hands settle into the Snake, holding firm, and the jutsu takes hold.
A breath, and Sakura begins a trip through the village, the hand-seal held tight and steady, breathing evenly as she walks with steady, unhurried steps.
In her wake, cherry trees grow, from seedlings to twisting trunks and reaching leaves within moments, stretching toward the sun.
Her path takes her all the way along the main street of Konoha, where the buildings leap out of the way, and soft, loamy earth awaits. As she passes, new trees rise, over and over again until she approaches the ancient gate.
Hundreds of trees rise, not spindly new-growth but continuing to age until it’s as if they’ve been there for years, as old as the village itself– sixty, seventy years of age in the span of moments.
At the end of her path, another crowd is gathered. The rest of the Rookie Nine– Ino’s smiling face, Shikamaru’s wry grin, Choji’s cheers, Team Eight’s range of quiet to boisterous approval– Kakashi, and Tsunade herself stand waiting.
Sakura is supposed to have a line here, she’s pretty sure, but instead she holds out both hands to Tsunade.
“Shishou.” She manages, a bright grin stretching across her mouth. “I fucking did it.”
“Not yet, disciple.” Tsunade says with amusement, not bothering to lower her voice. She shifts into profile, and Tsunade gestures their clasped hands to the road behind them, cherry trees stretching as far as the eye can see.
“My grandfather dreamed of a beautiful future!” Tsunade booms, voice rising to every ear. “Today, we are one step closer to his dream. The five nations are at peace, however long that may last, and Konoha will never stop growing and flourishing.”
Sakura’s heart thunders beneath her ribs.
“Today we celebrate!” She yells. “Now… Sakura!”
She sucks in a deep breath, grinning wild and reckless. Inner Sakura passes a continuous stream of natural energy to her. She lets it build and build, molding it to the physical and mental chakra contained within her, until it’s ready to burst.
Sakura does not need a hand sign for what happens next. She can feel every tree she has grown as if it’s an extension of her body, and her control has always been excellent.
By now, it is perfect. She lets the sage chakra flow through her fingers and into her roots and leaves, stretching all the way up the road to Hokage Monument, visible even if the tower itself is not from this distance.
Along the main street of Konoha, the cherry trees explode into rapturous bloom. Pink blossoms coat the air, cover every bit that was previously green, and cheers erupt from the crowd.
All across Konoha, jubilant cries ring from joyous throats, because Sakura has single-handedly brought Hanami to the village hidden in the leaves.
She sways, a little, hardly noticing– instantly, Sasuke and Naruto are on either side of her, holding her up by the elbows in such a way that it looks like a congratulatory hug, or embrace, and not like she’d collapse without them.
“Reckless.” Sasuke bitches in her ear, but is unable to stop smiling.
“Fucking incredible.” Naruto counters, sounding just as proud. He wears his joy loud on his face, unashamed. She could get drunk just looking at him; fortunately, she doesn’t have to.
Tsunade had taken the planned display of strength and morale one step further by organizing a week-long festival, for as long as the cherry trees are in bloom. Even now she ascends to a stage and flicks the cork out of the first sake bottle with a careless show of strength.
“Let the festival begin!” She screams, warm, throaty voice enveloping them all in her approval– and then their Hokage knocks back the entire bottle and shotguns it.
“Okay, yeah, we should have expected that.” Naruto grins, so wide it looks like it hurts. Sakura doesn’t do much more than pat his arm consolingly; he’s a jinchuuriki. If it doesn’t kill him in one hit, he’ll heal, and laughter lines are the mark of a shinobi who lived long enough to find happiness.
Sasuke says nothing, wisely aware that Tsunade has ears everywhere, but Sakura knows he’ll complain about their lush of leader in the safety of their shared apartment, Naruto giggling his amusement into pale skin.
“I’m going to be doing so much paperwork this time next week.” Sakura laments, surprised by how woozy she still is. “You just know she’s going to drink the entire festival away.”
Sasuke bites his lip hard to avoid the knee-jerk reaction he has to that. Unlike the two of them, he cannot get away with saying such things about Senju Tsunade, and this learned self-control aches.
“It’s not worth it.” He says to himself, then inhales roughly. “Ugh, you two are torturing me on purpose.”
“Got me there.” Naruto laughs. “C’mon, Sasuke, just as a treat.”
“No.” Sasuke reached out with his free hand to flick blonde curls out of a tan forehead. “Don’t tempt me.”
“I’ll tempt you.” Sakura doesn’t sway so much as lean into them, trusting all her weight. “Mm, we have the whole week off. I can do so much tempting.”
Speaking of, across the festivities, Ino catches her eye with a wink. Shikamaru notices, rolls his eyes, and catches her elbow pointedly. Ino pouts at him.
He, like Sakura herself, is well aware that she is only putting in a cursory appearance, just to show how strong and unaffected she is for the spies in the back, before she face-plants onto the nearest mattress.
(Sue her; Yamato-senpai can only build one two-story house before he needs a breather– and probably a meal, and an old-man nap to boot.)
“Ten more minutes.” Naruto judges, consideringly. “Then we’ll fake some drinks, buy some flower crowns, and disappear into the crowd.”
“I can do ten more minutes.” Sakura agrees, drunk on power spent so quickly. She’s done more with less in the throngs of war, but that is unfocused destruction, and most of it was with a goddess’ power burning through her.
Sakura had eaten a god, and the power had taken over a year to fade. Even now it left her with a better grasp of Mokuton, the ability to wield Sage chakra with ease, and a larger reserve of chakra inside her.
Unlike the carnage of limbs and vines across a battlefield, however, this had been an effort of ruthless focus. She spent chakra by the trove ensuring the roots grew in a certain way, that the trees would stay grown and healthy even after she stopped pumping power into them, and that each of the sixty years they’d lived was a good one, full of healthy sunlight, water and nutrients.
If you took a core sample from one of the new trees that ringed Konoha’s streets, you’d find them no different than any other tree, born in the wild and alive without assistance.
It was a massive undertaking, the timing and placement precise, and placing such perfect control on the sheer output of power had drained her, regardless of her actual chakra stores.
(Within her, the aspect that is Inner Sakura has begun the familiar process of refilling her reserves. Sakura had been a nascent godling well before she wrapped Kaguya up in a coffin of nature and squeezed.)
Now, she leans against her teammates and smiles. Sasuke rolls his eyes hard, but tolerates the cheek against his collar. Naruto shifts until he has an arm around both of them.
Pink lips tickle her hair, his voice a rasp:
“Bet you ten ryo she gets messy drunk and vomits all over a vendor.” Naruto teases, eyes sparkling with mischief. Between them, Sasuke makes a strangled sound.
“No bet.” Sakura snorts, letting her eyes fall closed. “But she’s Shizune’s problem, now. I’m not worrying about her until next week.”
“You worry about her all the time.” Naruto counters, because he does, too.
“Mm. Nope.” Sakura denies. She ate a god; she can be as contrary as she wants.
But Naruto has a god sealed within him, as old as the natural energy that suffuses the earth around them and sprung from the same source, and he was born to be the kind of contrary that shakes the world.
His laughter is like spring, like the perfect weather around them, like the petals even now floating softly through the air, and he hooks a chin over Sasuke’s shoulder.
“Our ten minutes are almost up.” Sasuke says, reminding them, and they shift into a better position for walking. Naruto leads both of them to a stall that smells like fresh flowers, like Ino’s hair in sunshine, and orders them alcohol they probably won’t drink.
The breeze is refreshing and cool against her forehead, clammy from sweat, effort, and the midday heat of Fire; Sasuke brushes a stray sakura from her hair, one among thousands that swirl like embers through the new-kindled festival; Naruto looks back to them both with naked contentment on his face; and for one shining moment, there’s nowhere else she has to be.
It’s the kind of spring you always remember, and it’s everything.