Chapter Text
The stars were beautiful, not the same—but beautiful nonetheless. Ursa Major, her namesake, was nowhere in sight. She couldn’t see Sirius, the northern star. Nor could she see Aquarius, or Canis Minor, or Orion, or—well. They were different. So really, she shouldn’t be looking for the same constellations she saw in a world she once called home.
What was worse, really, was that this knowledge wasn’t new.
Ursula had lived in this world for over two decades, had taken up the mantle of a Lost Girl, cast astray from her home world and forced to settle into a land of fiction. Her name, now, tasted bitter on her tongue.
It was the name of a character, a woman who was not meant to exist but did anyway. The name of a woman who persists.
Haruno. Not Sakura, never Sakura. No. That name was reserved for a child who had yet to find her own footing. A child who, for now, was still a child, tucked away in the Academy fighting over the affections of a boy too broken to see anything outside his need for improvement.
Her name was Tsubaki, of the camellias.
And around her was bloodshed, blooming red like her namesake.
One day, it would be her blood seeping into the ground. There was no if or ands or buts about it. One day, Tsubaki Haruno would die. But today was not that day.
Today, she lived. And she looked up at the stars and she said a hoarse, “To Takemikazuchi-no-Kami, I offer you the lightning under their skin.”
Takemikazuchi was a god of thunder. A god of war. A god fit for the worship of a Shinobi. In many ways it was Takemikazuchi that kept her alive during the Third War. It was the lightning in her chakra that saved her from death when others came too close. When their kunai tried to pierce her skin.
Twice upon a time, Tsubaki had been a child. The first, to a set of astronomers who spent their days looking into space unfathomable. The second, to a pair of noncombatants in a world of soldiers. Kizashi and Mebuki. That had been their names. Was still their names.
When was the last time Tsubaki saw them? Was it when she turned twenty? No, that had happened during a long term assignment to Wind Country. Was it when she was seventeen and in the hospital? No, those days were spent alone and in solitary confinement. White walls, a tight jacket. Was it when she was fourteen, after hearing of the loss of her Genin teammates? No, not then either. She stood at the memorial stone alone. She attended their funerals alone. Her Jonin vest standing out amongst her once-peers.
Perhaps, Tsubaki thought, it was when she was eight and was sent off to war.
She was not a prodigy, but a war had costs—and she paid with her second childhood. And that was what made her different. It wasn’t her first go around. So, when she picked up a shuriken for the first time, her aim struck true. And, when her fellows threw their punches, she was able to duck and land her own.
To the outside, she was—
“You’re doing it again.”
Tsubaki pulled her gaze away from the stars shining down on the latest battlefield she’d claimed as her own. But she was no longer alone with the bodies of her victims—five missing-nin from Kiri and Kumo. An unlikely squad that offered more questions than answers.
”Tsk,” she hissed, propping herself up to look at Jio.
The man blended into the darkness, his dark hair the color of pitch, his skin tan with white scars that sparkled in the moonlight. He wore a simple kit, jonin vest, black shirt, black slacks, and sandals to match. The edges were bandaged down to contain the snagging fabric. Around his forehead was a hitai-ate denoting his allegiance. The village hidden in the leaves.
Tsubaki, in contrast, looked overly done up. Her muted dusty rose hair braided down her back, from her ears hung emerald gems to match her gaze—shaped into swords, sharp enough to cut—and around her wrists were black metal bangles. They were made from the same chakra conducive metal that lined her earrings. Around her eyes were applications of liner, and her lips were unnaturally pink. Her skin too smooth to be true.
She was wearing the tight red turtle neck that she loved, the color of fresh blood—not the brilliant camellia red from a superficial cut, but the deep crimson of arterial blood. Of a killing wound. Her own pants matched Jio’s, black and covering all of her. Bandaged at the ends and tucked into her own set of ankle boots.
Tsubaki, however, was not wearing her hitai-ate so obviously. She wore it around her thigh, where it took more than a passing glance to identify. It was tight, and occasionally she used too much strength when putting it on, causing her leg to go numb. She kind of found it funny when that happened.
”What’s crawled up your ass and died?” She sighed.
”A Kiri kunai,” he snorted, and Tsubaki felt a smile come over her face. A sharp thing, but still. It was a smile.
”Then let’s get you home, Jio-chan, so our lovely medics can extract it.”
Jio didn’t rise to the bait, he’d worked with Tsubaki enough to know that it would never end if he indulged her in an argument.
”Home sounds nice,” he said simply. “Are you gonna clean up before we go?”
Tsubaki pushed herself the rest of the way up, surveying the carnage around with a critical eye. Within moments, she was gone, moving faster than any civilian-born shinobi had the right to. So too were the bodies, disappearing one by one into puffs of smoke. When the final body was gone, Tsubaki was standing in front of Jio and tossing a storage scroll up above her head—catching it lightly on the way down.
”Done.”
The two jonin disappeared. The clearing left empty of all traces—save the metallic tang of blood that was seeping into the soil.