Sacrifice and Surrender

15: Punishment

There was something that hadn't changed in Konoha, despite the different era's, and that was the speed and amount of gossip. Sakura wondered if the other villages were as bad as Konoha with gossip. It seemed that despite shinobi having a proclivity to keep secrets from enemies and outsiders, the internal grapevine grew fast and thick and whispered constantly. There seemed to be an endless amount of things to talk about, and most of it revolved around Sakura, the Nine-Tails, and Mito. It had come from several of the shinobi who'd accompanied Hashirama and witnessed everything that had happened in the battle.

All of Konoha was now under the impression that Sakura was some legendary un-killable kunoichi. It wasn't a secret that Mito now held the Nine-Tails inside herself, and both of their reputations had skyrocketed.

For Mito, it didn't mean too much change, but there were some people who became warier of her. The difference in the way she was treated and looked at compared to how Naruto was seen, broke Sakura's heart. Mito was looked on as less of a monster, and more just with some caution, while he had been hated and despised. It wasn't fair, but she couldn't blame anyone for it, so she kept the little flickers of resentment she felt deep inside.

Sakura, however, was treated in two new different and extreme manners. On one hand, a small number of people looked at her like she was some kind of unnatural thing to avoid death like she had. But those people were few and far between. The others treated her like she was some god. She knew it would pass, but it was embarrassing, to say the least, when people bowed to her in the street. For the most part, however, Sakura felt like it was just curiosity that people looked at her with, especially since people didn't know whether or not to believe the gossip about Madara carrying her through the village. His actions had seemed so out of character for him that she now understood why he had no problem. If people didn't see it with their own eyes, they wouldn't believe it.

But in the eyes of Shikata Nara, she saw very little that was decipherable. Like she'd promised Shikaru, she came by his house to speak with Shikata. She'd waited a few days because first, he hadn't come to the hospital, and second, she'd been busy. He'd been out, so she sat on their usual place on the balcony with some tea and the shogi board, waiting for him to come back.

He'd returned from his training, seen her, changed and then sat silently across her from. She made the first move. From his retaliatory move, it was clear to her that his heart wasn't in the game. He let her win easily. Sakura sipped her tea and looked at him. He sat moodily, staring at the board with disinterest. His shoulders were slumped; not in his usual manner of boredom, but heavily.

"So what did you learn?" Sakura asked him.

There was no point in asking Shikata the traditional way what on earth he was thinking when he decided to come after her. His intellectual abilities meant that he could be out of touch with his emotions, and so she knew she had to get into his head before she could get anywhere else.

Shikata briefly glanced at her, before she looked at the shogi board again.

"Each piece has a role to play," he said. "If a piece is moved into an unfavourable position, another must be sacrificed for its mistakes."

"Sacrificed, huh?" Sakura mused with an ironic twist to her mouth.

Wasn't that exactly what she had been in Indra and Asura's hands? A sacrifice?

"Is that what you think I did? Sacrificed myself for you?"

Shikata swallowed. "What else do call that?"

Sakura felt like she really, truly, finally understood what Itachi had done that day. "Love," she said with a soft smile. 

Shikata's eyes widened with surprise and his brow furrowed in confusion.