Chapter Text
Stars would be too kind for a night like this.
Instead, snowflakes drown out the view of thick, grey cloud cover. The winter storm acts as a fog. Seeing more than three feet ahead would be a miracle.
Tears streak the girl’s ruddy cheeks and she bites down until top teeth meet bottom and her jaw aches. Foreign blood bursts in her mouth. She spits out the fetid hunk of flesh with a sob, barely noticing it land in snow that absorbs his blood and her spit. She only tastes copper.
Clutching his wound, the monster man steps forward, threats cutting into the air. The girl tries to get away, desperately attempting to push herself, but her arms slip into unpacked powder and she collapses to her back. The miniscule warmth she still has melts little of the ice crystals that meet her bare skin. The man leans down and foggy breath invades her own. He whispers something in her ear, and she can’t let herself register the words, lest her will to fight be drained. She screeches and swipes at him with her left hand, stiff and red from her lack of gloves in freezing snow. Three red lines form across the man’s already scarred face. Blood weeps from his lip, nose, and eyelid.
He growls, animalistic in deliverance. His eyes pure rage. His aura murderous.
His hand moves quicker than she can see, squeezing tightly around her throat. His fingers overlap and his thumb slides between the gaps of his middle and ring fingers, slick with blood. Slick with the blood of the wound she caused. Slick with the blood of his thing he forced in her mouth.
He’s looking into her eyes and blooddrops splatter on her cheeks, mixing with tears. His lips are moving and she can’t hear him, can’t hear anything other than her own heartbeat and a voice in her heading telling her to stop stop make him stop make him get—
She kicks him with a squelching crack of breaking bones and viscera. Her heartbeat thrums and she can feel the beats pulsing through every inch of her body and he falls forward, tugging her leg in a way that aches and makes her sob louder. Her head fills with air as she breaths in and out, in and out, in and out in and out inandout and—
The body man is pulled off of her. Bone shards scrape her leg. A boy radiating panic pulls her into his arms and she freezes, straining to understand what he’s saying but his words just don’t make sense. They’re not reaching her, as if he’s speaking on the other side of thick glass and she’s three feet deep in a pool of water. Or maybe a pool of the man's blood because the crimson is soaking her leg and mouth and clothes.
Something soft is wrapped around her as he strokes her hair and he carries her away. This boy’s touch is gentle. His aura is as warm as the sun on a spring day, coaxing the morning dew from newly sprouted blossoms. She’s tired, enough so that she deems this boy trustworthy. She allows herself to curl into him and sob. He holds her just a bit tighter, tucks the soft blanket just a bit more around her so it keeps out as much of the cold as possible, and continues to stroke her hair. He whispers soothing words to her through the glass and blood.
Her panicked breathing begins to slow with the comfort freely given. She nuzzles her head closer to him and holds herself a little lighter, letting a smidgen of her worries fall to him.
“—so strong. I’m proud of you for saving yourself and…” He pauses with a shuddering release of breath, sniffling. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry we weren’t there sooner,” his voice breaks and his murmurs devolve into endless apologies. She wants to tell him it’s okay and not his fault but she wouldn’t quite mean that. In a village full of shinobi, how did no one hear her cries sooner? Just how long did she fight? Time feels as foreign as the blood in her mouth and hair and hands and—
Blood is everywhere, soaking her to the bone as she drowns in a pool of crimson.
🏵
She awakes to the sound of an opening door and crackling fire. The warmth envelopes her.
The boy stops walking just after the door clicks shut behind them. He murmurs to her in a soothing tone, “I’m gonna set you down, okay?”
She clutches his shirt. Her head is still full of air but it’s denser, weighing her down, making it a struggle to look up at the boy that didn’t quite save her but saved her. She feels herself bounce gently as he takes steps more silent than a mouse. A mouse still sounds of teensy paws and claws pittering and pattering on hardwood, but this boy does neither. No pitters, no patters, no audible thumps or bumps. If she were as silent as him then maybe—
“I can’t set you down if you’re holding on,” he tells her. He still sounds gentle, not an ounce of him is mad. His voice and aura are filled with care and concern.
She looks up at him, trying to ignore the screaming ache in her neck. He’s pretty for a boy, with his short, messy black hair and black eyes (the whites stained red from unending tears,) and his gentle smile that’s genuine despite the way it quivers. She knows it’s because of all the tears and pain. She can’t smile back, her lip is quivering too much and she’s on the verge of loud sobs again, but she can try to comfort him at least a little. She reaches up a shaking hand and places it on his cheek, just like mama does for her when she’s sad, and she speaks for the first time in his presence, “Don’t… don’t leave.” Her voice is weak and scratchy because her throat feels like it’s full of needles and thread that won’t stop trying to stitch it shut.
He sits down, still holding her in his arms. “I won’t go,” he promises. He sounds like he’s been crying and speaking non-stop. His voice is wispy like he’s out of breath and his tone isn’t as rich as it was earlier. It’s like when she rambles to mama and papa about—
She’s glad when he interrupts her racing thoughts.
“Can you sit beside me?” he asks.
She lets her arm droop from his cheek. There’s a slight resistance as the blood tries to glue them together and her hand stings when she pulls away so his cheek must hurt too. The threads in her throat tighten in panic because she got him dirty and that’s bad and rude and— and she lets out another sob in an attempted apology.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, Mochi,” he says with an unquivering smile. He moves slowly so much slower than the monster and wipes away her tears. “Let’s get you cleaned up okay? My friend is in the other room and won’t come in until you’re okay with it. She’s really nice, I promise.”
She stares at him, wondering if he’s waiting for a reply. The thought of someone else being around is scary especially because she doesn’t know who it is. But she doesn’t know who the boy is either. He kind of reminds her of some of the Uchiha around the village. She trusts him, though. A little part of her knows it might be a bad idea but she doesn’t want to be alone. She can stay afloat as long as she has someone to hold onto. This boy is her lifeboat, now.
She looks to the cushion beside him. It’s the middle cushion meaning that someone can sit beside her. The girl he mentioned can sit there. She doesn’t want someone else near her but the boy called her his friend so she must be nice, right?
Hesitantly, she scooches off of him and plops onto the couch, sinking into feather-filled comfort. She clutches the boy’s hand tight enough that it would take some kind of super strong separation jutsu to make her let go. His hands aren’t as soft as hers and they’re calloused but that’s okay.
“It’s okay if you need more time, Mochi.” He rubs comforting circles on her hand with his thumb. “How about I tell you about her and what she’s going to do?”
She gives a little nod. The nickname he gave her is sinking in and almost makes her want to smile.
“Her name is Rin. She’s a medic-nin.” He cuts the sentence off almost abruptly, a flash of pain shocking his aura but he doesn’t let it seep into his expression. “She’s going to bring some warm water and rags to clean the—the blood off of you. You can do it yourself if you’re not comfortable with her.”
She frowns a little. “Can’t you do it?” Her mouth clamps shut. Opening it tastes of copper and cracks the dried blood on her lips.
He nods, “Some, yeah. Are you sure?”
She squeezes his hand. It’s so much bigger than hers. So much warmer. She feels her hair going damp—it must’ve been frozen and crunchy before coming inside.
“Okay, I’ll help then.” His gentle smile never wavers and she lets herself float in his warmth. He continues, “She’s also going to bring some fresh clothes for you, a towel, and a new blanket. And—if you’re comfortable—she’d like to check you over for injuries, okay?”
Speaking feels like a monumental task. She thinks it would be easier to climb the Hokage rock without help than it would be to say another word.
“Squeeze my hand three times in a row when you want her to come in okay?”
She squeezes his hand once. She’s not ready—not yet. The thought of someone else being around sends the needles into a dreadful frenzy, layering threads upon threads until only air and liquid can pass through but she can’t even swallow because the thread is made of steel and she’ll choke and—
And she doesn’t want to think anymore.
“More time? Okay. Do you want space—silence,” he corrects himself, “to think, or do you want me to talk? Fill the space? One squeeze for silence, two for talking.”
Silence only leads to racing thoughts, bad thoughts, thoughts that make her wanna stop. She squeezes twice.
“Hmm, okay, what ‘ta talk about,” he hums a bit as he rubs his chin. “I guess I can tell you about myself? That’s kinda boring but, it’s something. My name is Uchiha Shisui, my favourite colour is green—like your eyes, actually—I just turned 11, and I love barbecue. Some say I shoulda been born an Akimichi for that one.”
Her frown lessens a smidgen and the threads loosen.
“Ohh, I see the beginning of a smi-le,” he says in a sing-song tune.
She feels bad for not being able to smile for him like he is for her. She keeps holding his hand, letting his presence ground her.
“I’ve never seen hair so pink before.” His eyes are wide in awe as he dotes. “It’s the same shade as my peach mochi, which is my favourite.”
She wants to tell him that it’s her favourite too. It used to be strawberry but then Ino had her try peach and it was so much better. Peach mochi would taste so—
It wouldn’t mix with blood tinged saliva, would it?
Spit has been welling in her mouth for a while now and she doesn’t want to swallow. She doesn’t want to feel the viscousness as it trails down her throat and through the thread. She doesn’t want to be covered in blood anymore even if it means that someone else has to be near her. She squeezes his hand three times in quick succession.
The boy—Shisui—looks a little surprised. “Are you sure, Mochi?”
She squeezes thrice and feels his aura grow, it was already sunshine and it’s a sunburst at the height of summer. It calms as quickly as it came. Soft footsteps patter across the wooden floors in response to Shisui’s light. She wonders if anyone else found him as bright and warm and comforting as she did.
A young woman carrying a bucket in each hand crouches in front of the couch.
“I’m Rin, what’s your name?” Her voice is light and sweeter than any peach mochi.
Sakura hasn’t thought of her name all night. She hasn’t felt like herself. She feels like a crumpled flower tossed in mud.
Shisui answers her, “I don’t think she’s up for talkin’ right now. I’ve been callin’ her Mochi for now.”
Rin gives him a slightly confused look, but drops it for a sweet one as she turns back to the little girl. “Okay, Mochi, do you want me to check you for any ouchies first, or do you want cleaned up?”
She doesn’t know how to tell Rin that the blood in her mouth is the worst and she needs it gone. She can’t squeeze Rin’s hand—that’s too scary—and Shisui probably wouldn’t understand what her squeezes mean so… so she does something scary. Her hand trembles as she raises it to her mouth to point out the blood on her lips and chin and—oh, it’s coating her nose and spattered on her cheeks, too. Needles tighten thread as she opens her mouth oh so slightly, pointing at her crimson saliva.
“I see,” Rin says, “I’ll get it out, okay? Can you be brave for me?”
She doesn’t have the will to nod and keep her mouth open at the same time so she squeezes Shisui’s hand and hopes he understands.
“She does,” Shisui says.
Rin’s aura pools in her palm and flows across her fingers. It glows a soft green that reflects in her eyes. Her eyes look like Sakura’s now, if a little more vibrant from the glow.
‘I wonder if mine are glowing too,’ she thinks.
Rin is slow as she moves her hand. The aura extends into the Sakura’s mouth and there’s a pang of fear, but she lets Rin keep working. Shisui trusts Rin, so Sakura will too. The aura coats her mouth and the back of her throat. It’s cold like freshwater. It makes her think of the pond that mama takes her to for her birthday.
Rin tugs her hand back. The cold leaves Sakura’s mouth feeling cleansed like she does while playing in sunshowers in spring. She sees the blood and spit separated, floating in the air and swathed in glowing green. Rin pulls it out of sight.
The blood is gone and her mouth is clean and the threads loosen more and she’s safe. “I’m Sakura,” she whispers. She doesn’t mean to. Her voice won’t go louder than when she’s playing hide and seek but still wants to talk to Ino.
Rin smiles and looks like she wants to speak but Shisui cuts her off. “That is incredibly fitting.”
Sakura squeezes his hand a little tighter because she still can’t smile.
“It’s beautiful,” Rin tells her. “Please tell me if I’m rushing you, but are you ready to clean up?” She stops but looks like there’s more she wants to say so Sakura doesn’t speak yet.
“She asked me to help,” Shisui says. He feels nervous and Sakura doesn’t know why.
Rin doesn’t answer him. “I thought I’d be in here sooner, but you’re warmer now. I think a bath would be safe if you’d prefer, Sakura. And we can wash your hair.”
A bath would be heaven. She always took baths when she was feeling down. Or happy. She took a lot of baths. But Sakura doesn’t want to be away from her lifeboat right now—her ray of sunshine on a stormy night. “Can Shisui come too?”
Rin looks contemplative. “He’ll be on the other side of the curtain, okay? And if you take a bath, I’d like to be there so you don’t get hurt.”
Rin’s aura is similar to Shisui’s in the way it’s safe and calming. It’s an aura of cleansing sunshowers. “That’s… that’s okay. Can you wash my hair?” It’s still damp from melted snow and clumped together with sticky gore.
“Yes I can, little Mochi. Let me go run a bath, okay?” She turns to Shisui, “Bring her over in two minutes. I’ll get everything ready.”
Shisui nods. He’s looking at Sakura and she sees the dried tear streaks on his face are getting wet again. His tears tinge pink while they pass over the blood she accidentally left on him.
“I’m sorry,” Sakura tells him. She can talk now but it still hurts. The thread is looser but still there and layered many times over.
She doesn’t immediately recognize what the look in his eyes are, or the feeling in his aura, but it’s not good. It’s like a mixture of sadness and something else. It’s how she feels when she takes the last cookie and a pang of sadness washes over Chouji’s face.
“You don’t have anything to say sorry for, okay, Mochi?” He squeezes her hand and keeps rubbing little circles. “You didn’t do anything wrong, you did everything right. I promise”
‘Everything right?’ But she got blood on his face and shirt and she hurt someone really bad. She was hurt first but that doesn’t excuse the… the brutality of it all.
“We need to take you to the bath, is that okay?” He wipes away some tears and smiles at her.
He called her strong earlier and he was wrong, he’s the strong one because even with all the pain he’s feeling, his smile is still genuine. Sakura nods and tries to scooch back to his lap. She’s too tired. Her body aches. Her arms and legs and stomach and everything twinge in pain when she tries to move. He wraps the blanket around her more securely and picks her up. Sakura curls against him again.
Rin turns off the bath just as they step in, and Shisui shuts the door with a soft click. The bathroom smells of a nondescript floral. For a few seconds, the only sounds are of the gentle drip drip dripping of the tap.
“Sakura, are you okay to stand?” Rin asks.
“My legs hurt worse than that time me and Ino and Shikamaru and Chouji raced from Hokage Rock to the playground. Chouji won because Shika thought it would be funny to tell him the winner would get a buttload of snacks. There weren’t any and Chouji cried and then Shika cried because Ino hit him for being mean.” She lets the words spill with her memory and hears Rin giggle a little. It feels nice to make someone laugh. Sakura didn’t think she could talk so much at once and her throat hurts but she’s glad she could speak. She wishes Ino were here but blindfolded so she wouldn’t see all the blood.
“Someone’s gettin’ talk-y,” Shisui laughs. “Shika sounds like he got what was comin’, though. No one should ever lie about snacks.” He makes it sound like it’s the most egregious lie in the world and Sakura doesn’t disagree.
“Can I take the blanket?” Rin asks.
“Uh-huh,” Sakura nods. The blanket is wet and she thinks it's soaked in snow.
Rin gently tugs the blanket off as Shisui holds Sakura tightly. There’s some resistance, just like when she touched Shisui’s face and the blood was like glue. Rin is methodical and gentle and it doesn’t hurt when she’s done taking the blanket.
Shisui sets her on a bench by the tub but doesn’t let go of her hand. Sakura doesn’t let him.
“Mochi, is it okay if you let go of me for a few minutes? I’ll be here the whole time okay? You can hold my hand again after the bath, okay?” As gentle as he sounds, Sakura can hear the pain drifting through his voice. His aura screams of it, like little thunderclouds threatening to hide his sunshine.
Reluctantly, she lets go.
Rin is pulling on a curtain that cuts the bathroom in half. It’s blue with red peppers. Shisui steps behind it and Sakura can feel him there but she fidgets at the lack of sight.
Rin crouches to Sakura’s height. “I see a cut on your leg, Mochi, can I heal it for you?”
Sakura likes being called Mochi. It’s sweet, just like her. She nods.
Rin makes her hand glow with green aura again and hovers over Sakura’s shin. It feels similar to earlier, the cleansing of freshwater, but this time it's deeper. The pain in her leg slowly diminishes. She didn’t even realize she had a wound and now she can feel it stitching together. There’s a brief bout of itchiness like when her scrapes turn to scabs, and then the sensation is gone. Pain-free, itch-free, cleansed.
“All better!” Rin smiles. Her smile is pretty and warm and Sakura wants to smile like Rin some day.
“Thank you, Rin,” Sakura says. She tries to force her lips into a smile but it doesn’t work and her frown deepens instead.
“Can you turn around for me, Mochi? I’ll help you with your clothes, if that’s okay?”
Sakura tilts her head a little to the side, confused. Her hair doesn’t fall like it should. It has a heaviness that doesn’t belong. “But I can get ‘em myself?”
Rin frowns, “I think they’re stuck, like your blanket, remember? I don’t want it to hurt you.”
The little tug on her skin from the blood between her and Shisui earlier hurt and she imagines her clothes would hurt more. “Okay,” Sakura says. She whirls around on the bench a little too quickly and the air is coming back to her head and the room spins a little. She feels little prickles run up her spine.
Rin narrates everything she does and Sakura is thankful. Rin pulls the back of her shirt away from her skin—it’s not a tight shirt but it’s clinging anyway—and gently cuts the fabric. It was torn already but Sakura is still sad to see it even more ruined.
Rin sends out swathes of ‘chakra’, not aura, every time she hits resistance. It acts like water and the blood oil, separating the two with ease. Once Rin is done with her top, Sakura hears the curtain part and close again. The process is the same with her bottoms and Rin keeps apologizing every few words. The blood is the worst on the thigh of her leg that went through the monster man and it takes a long time to part from her clothes.
When the curtain opens again, Sakura hears Shisui breath in sharply and he says a bad word. His aura—chakra, she now thinks—crackles with angry lightning. Did Sakura do something wrong?
“Shisui,” Rin says. “No cursing.”
“S-sorry,” Shisui stutters.
“Do you need help getting in the bath?” Rin asks.
The leg that Rin healed feels a lot better but Sakura is still sleepy and sad and in pain. She doesn’t think she can, so she shakes her head.
“That’s okay,” Rin says, and grabs a towel. She wraps it partially around Sakura, lifts her up, and places her gently in the tub, not letting go until she’s sat and not at risk of slipping.
The water is warm but not hot, and has a thin layer of bubbles on top. Normally she would splash around and make bubble-beards. She doesn’t want to play. She wants to sink below the water and drain away with the blood.
“Do you want me to wash your hair?” Rin asks.
Sakura nods. She’s so tired. She just wants to be clean and dry and in bed at home with—
Sakura doesn’t talk anymore. She’s quiet while Rin washes her hair. She doesn’t tug and hurt her scalp, not once.
“How long do you think Minato and Kakashi will be?” Shisui sounds as tired as Sakura feels.
Rin massages shampoo into Sakura’s scalp. “Sensei will be back in the morning. Kakashi… I don’t know. Hopefully the same time, but it’s hard to tell with him.”
“That guy avoids me more than deadlines,” Shisui laughs. He earns a small chuckle from Rin.
Sakura scrubs her arms and legs under the water. It’s turning pink like coral. Not pink like her hair and she’s thankful for that.
There’s a bout of silence, save for the drops and ripples of water, until Shisui speaks again. “I don’t wanna overwhelm you, Mochi, but can I ask you some questions?”
Rin stops breathing for a moment, but doesn’t let up the gentle, methodical washing of Sakura’s hair.
“You don’t have to if you’re not comfortable, okay?”
Sakura still doesn’t wanna talk. The threads haven’t tightened in a while—they’re loosening as the blood washes off her skin—but anything is better than silence. “What do you wanna know?” Sakura murmurs.
Shisui starts and stops a few times, before finally asking the full question. “Do you have anyone to take care of you?”
Sakura thinks of her mama and papa and her heart aches. “Not anymore,” she says. Her voice is barely above a whisper but she knows both of them heard her. Rin murmurs apologies and she can feel the sorrowful rain in Shisui’s chakra.
“I’m so sorry,” Rin says. Her movements slow a bit as she conditions Sakura’s hair.
She wishes bathtime were over.
“I’m sorry, too, Mochi. You can stay here as long as you’d like, okay?” Shisui’s voice is smothered in guilt and shame and Sakura wishes she could make it go away. He pauses for a moment and speaks again. “Do you… Do you know the man who hurt you?”
Sakura pulls her knees to her chin and hugs herself. Red leaks down her legs so she scoops up some water and suds and washes her face. Shisui and Rin are patient with her. Sakura doesn’t let herself think much as she answers, “Papa’s cousin.”
Rin stays calm but angry lightning returns to Shisui’s storm of sorrow.
“Okay,” he chokes out, “I’m so sorry for asking, Mochi.”
Rin finishes Sakura’s hair and helps her out of the tub, helps her dry off, and helps her dress in clean clothes. Shisui and Rin chat the whole time but Sakura doesn't listen. She’s too sleepy.
The curtain is pulled back and seeing Shisui again is calming in a way that Rin isn’t.
“Can I hold your hand?” Sakura asks.
He smiles gently. His tear streaks and the blood are gone but his eyes are still red and now they’re puffy too. “We can hold hands whenever you want, Mochi.”
Shisui grabs her hand and hoists her in the air, holding her like he had before and she curls into him like she did before.
“We’re going to take you to bed, okay?”
Sakura mumbles, too sleepy to form words.
“Prettiest shade of pink I’ve ever seen,” Rin whispers.
Sakura feels Shisui’s sunshine part the clouds, and can practically hear him smile as he speaks, “It’s the same as peach mochi.”
She falls asleep in his arms before they even reach the bed.