Chapter Text
Haruno Sakura's mind was a mess. Everything was blurry, covered with thick layer of something and she couldn't think straight any more. She felt many things at the same time, but nothing made much sense.
Dull screams reached her ears, the smell of ash and blood lingered in the air, and the rippling feeling of fear in her body suffocated her, but at the exact same time everything was far away.
So far, far away.
In one moment she was running, punching, crying and screaming, and in the next, everything was just gone.
For a second, the pictures in her head became clear again. There was a war, cruel and ugly, pushing her through the day. She fought, long and desperate, like she always did, clinging at the last remains of hope. She didn't know when exactly it had happened, but somewhere along the way, everything became messed up.
At the beginning, everything was in their favour, but suddenly the war took a harsh turn. It escalated, dragged out for days, months, perhaps even years – she wasn't sure any more - and from one moment to the other, everybody was the enemy.
The names Madara, Kaguya and Zetsu were spinning in Sakuras mind, like a dark promises of dead, but her awareness was already to far gone.
The faces of her friends appeared in her view – some of them should be long dead, some of them were supposed to be far away, still fighting. It was just the feint memory of important people to her, playing tricks with her mind. She knew this. She knew she was utterly alone, laying somewhere in the dirt, running out of time, and yet...
Yet, just the broken memories of what she once had, were enough to give her a little bit of relief.
Sakura noticed how the pain in her body dulled out. It was there, crushing her with its intensity, but it was fading away, like her heartbeat as well. The heat of her fresh blood, the coldness of the sharp wind – everything was disappearing.
The realization that she was dying, was nothing more than a whisper, nagging on her consciousness. She should care, she should pull at the last bits of her life, fighting just a little bit more, more, more-
But Sakura was tired.
Tired of losing.
But she was losing again and she thought bitterly, she would allow herself to lose again, for one last time. Never again. Just this last time.
She knew she would never get a new chance, that this was her dead end, but she still made a promise to herself.
This would be her last defeat.
With the memories of her friends still nagging at her mind, and a promise repeating it self over and over again in her head, everything slipped away into a infinite darkness.
Dying was surprisingly easy.
Sakura was dead. She felt how her heart stopped in her chest, how a unhealthy amount of blood sipped out of her body, and how everything just stopped all around her. She was experiencing the unholy blankness which being dead brought, just here and now in this exact moment, but there was still something left. Something pulling and pushing at her.
Or no, there was nothing left. Everything had disappeared for good. It was more like... something new was coming, slowly but steadily. She couldn't feel her body, she couldn't think straight or even form a single word inside her – what? Mind? Was she still in possession of a mind? Awareness?
She was existing, floating in the darkness, without a cell to call her own. There was only the pulsing of something familiar all around her. It was the only thing she could feel, the only thing she could notice.
Chakra.
The chakra was always moving, always changing. It was affecting her, evolving with her, but it took time.
Sakura wasn't sure if time passed, she still wasn't even able to do more than just exciting, but there were tiny things happening.
Along the way, she gained a consciousness again. She switched out and in, sometimes floating again with the chakra and sometimes vanishing in something like sleep, deep and empty, without any dreams.
She wasn't sure what came first. The tiny clump what she supposed was something like a body or the first indicators that she had something like a mind again.
Not that it mattered much. She couldn't move and even if she had some sorts of a mind again, she wasn't able to think with words. She could think again, yes, somehow in a weird way, but just not with sentences, with words or even languages.
It was weird. Everything was weird, and she switched out of her consciousness again.
The thing that might be her body was evolving, growing, becoming more specific with each moment she spent in an aware state. Sakura still had troubles to move, but she thought she had limbs now. Or at least some stumps. Sometimes she could twitch with them, but never more.
At least until more time passed and a new feeling appeared. The feeling of being trapped. It was scary. Everything was narrow, perched, almost as if Sakura was embraced in something way to small. It was like she was trapped in a Genjutsu or a mind technic, and at the same time pressed into a small bag.
While everything was slow at the beginning, it moved in a fast pace now. Her body was growing, changing, way to fast, her mind became better more concentrated, still in a weird state of inability to form words, but the mess in her head made more sense now. At least a little bit.
She knew something was happening. And she knew she wasn't dead. At least no any more. But she was still not able to explain what was happening with her.
She hoped it would be over fast.
The next time her awareness was fully present, she realized a few things. There was pressure all around her, dull noises, and it was wet around her. No, not just wet, she was fully muffled with a thick liquid. And she didn't breath. She never breathed since she was in this weird space of darkness, and the realization almost gave her a panic attack.
Was she even able to have a panic attack? She wasn't sure. She wasn't sure of anything any more. For the first time in a really long time, she was wondering what the fuck was going on. She didn't care until now, everything was to dull, to weak, but now she had the feeling everything was rushing back to her. And it was scary.
Suddenly the pressure all around her was back, something pressed at her, pushed her through something, and the noises became louder, more hectic, and she begun to panic again.
Breath, her medic mind told her, she needed air, but she couldn't get any because there was no air around her, until abruptly, everything changed and she could suck in her first breath.
She was out. She was not trapped any more. She was free.
Her skin felt raw, the air burned almost coldly on her skin, and chakras was drumming way to violently all around her, but she was free again.
Something was touching her skin, wrapping her into something soft, and her body was pushed around, until finally, big hands – was to big hands were holding her. Calm whispers reached her ears, words, but Sakura wasn't able to understand them. She recognized the sounds of the voices, and the voices themselves, it was familiar, and yet painfully confusing.
At least until she managed to open up her eyes. It was a hard task, harder then it should be. Her eyes were like clues shut, but in the end it worked.
Messy colours morphed into each other. There was not much clearness around her, and the bright lights dazzled her, but even though the face was a blurry blob, she recognized almost immediately who was looking down at her.
Haruno Mebuki. Sakuras mother.
Like Sakura, Mebuki was supposed to be dead. But she wasn't, and was instead holding Sakura in her big arms. Or- no....
…The arms of Mebuki weren't big. Sakura was just tiny.
And suddenly everything made sense.
Haruno Sakura, Kunoichi, high class Medic-Nin, and War veteran and victim, was just been born. Again.
She was a newborn again. A baby. Reborn into the same body, just with one tiny difference. She still had her memories of her first life.
And all these memories, feelings, and impressions were currently crushing down on her.
It was to much.
She immediately passed out, without noticing the panic interrupting in the room around her.
Young Sakura was freshly out of her mothers womb, without any cry or any scream leaving her lips, without moving or even twitching at all. Only the short opening of her eyes indicated her being alive, just to pass out in the next moment.
Needless to say, Mebuki Haruno just thought her daughter had died in her arms.
Still affected from the hormones, it took the medic over ten minutes to assure her that no, the girl was indeed still alive and just asleep.
In all the chaos, nobody had really put much attention to the four coloured spots on her skin, scribbled words, still to small on the baby's body to really be identifiable. They would grow with Sakura, until she would be big enough to give the letters enough room on her skin.
However, while everybody was still discussing and checking the baby for possible issues, the exact same name – her name - appeared on the skin of three living people, one young boy still to be born, and on the preserved and lifeless body of a fifth person. On different spots, but always in the same neat handwriting and pale pink colour.
Five Soulbonds were forged this day, waiting for their activation.
And no matter what, a Soulbond was final, destined to happen, even through live an death.
Or through different lives.