Chapter Text
Describing death is impossible, they would say. It's intense, personal, and beyond the imagination. Everyone has their depiction of what death would feel like before they die, but won't know the truth until it happens. Sakura would say it was dark and lonely. Sukuna would say it was embracing.
Their eyes refused to open, but they could feel liquid coating their skin and barely feel the movements of their limbs.
Sakura was starting to think that this wasn't transmigration but reincarnation, and she was in the body of a newborn who still had to be born. Sakura was a medical ninja, not an idiot. She knew what this fluid surrounding her was. Before the war, she had helped with countless births at the hospital and knew every pregnancy stage. The fluid surrounding her was in an amniotic sack, the protector of the unborn fetus.
Sukuna thought this whole situation was a mutiny and wanted out. If he was in the womb of some human woman, that only means he's a f*cking human too. Moreover, there's another one in the same womb as him. Repeatedly, he's tried to kick the other out of frustration. Only to get a kick in response. Damn feisty son of bitch— wait. That would be calling himself a bitch too, since they shared the same mother, and he was the son.
Sakura began to think her twin was a piece of sh*t because of all the kicking he put their poor mother through. To be able to think like she is, was a miracle. If she could think, she had to be between five and six months old. Babies can display glimmers of consciousness and memories as early as five months, but to be able to think like she should be impossible.
To be able to retain her memories through the reincarnation process was a mystery in itself.
Mumbles of voices from the outside blurred with the liquid, and each voice had its tone. Both of them could only assume that the higher voice was their mother, considering the vibrations they were feeling. Babies can make out their mother's voice more precisely than any other voice because it's the closest one to hear.
The soft humming of their mother's voice soothed them back into a sleep that would last for another two months. The little energy their tiny bodies made was only enough to remain conscious for a couple of minutes at a time.
Both woke again, feeling more control of her limbs. They poked around the womb, feeling the round circumference of their mother's stomach. Upon hearing a giggle, Sakura stopped moving around (Sukuna didn't), knowing it would only agitate the pregnant woman. Sakura knew mothers got hurt when the baby pressed too much on their stomachs. The amount of anger from a pregnant woman was not something to mess with, and she would rather not hear her mother's raging voice.
Now that they could remain awake for small durations, the time spent here only got boring by the day. There was not much time left to spend in this place. Sukuna wondered if he could just break the amniotic sac and get birthed already.
He began to push on the sac with his foot, and suddenly gravity pivoted downwards. The liquid began to rush out, straining both into an uncomfortable position. He tried to resist the urge to cry from the pain he was feeling, but couldn't— f*cking humans and their low pain tolerance.Hours later, he was still in the same place. Screaming from the mother rushed into his ears as the contractions slowly pushed him out of his safe space. The pain began to subside as the cold airdropped onto his new (uncomfortable) skin. Next came his sister. She was a colic case of annoyance. She cried out as she took her first painful breath. After not breathing for the longest time, Sakura felt the two energies, situation and physical, in the air forcefully make their way into her system.
Sukuna felt the same way, but with a big abundance of the spiritual side of chakra, it was significantly less painful for him in that sense. The balance between the two energies used to make chakra was heavily imbalanced. He was born is a vast amount of spiritual energy vs. physical energy. Without much physical energy, he barely felt any of the chakra colliding into his coils and pathways.
Sakura's crying subsided hours after the chakra finally settled into her skin. The little amount she had begun to grow by the hour, until it was enough for her to remain conscious for a reasonable amount of time. She opened her eyes, staring at a male version of her. They could be labelled as fraternal twins. The result of developing from separately fertilized ova. Genetically, they share similarities but are nothing like paternal twins. He had a darker shade of pink hair and red eyes. Looking at him, a normal baby would have started crying with the responding look on his facial expression.
He looks like he wants to kill her.
A baby seems like he wanted to kill her. A baby. She feels sad for the little body next to her because he feels that way. So young and he already likes to kill something. She could only hope that he wasn't a killer in his past life, like her.
Sukuna was trying to ignore the thing next to him. Sukuna was a ruthless, sad*stic bastard. He thinks he is better than anyone else because he has enlightenment over basic human knowledge. Then there's this—a mortal body. He's trapped in a tiny bastard baby human body and there's nothing he can do about it. Moreover, there's a look-alike female baby next to him. There's a glimmer of sadness lingering in her emerald-green eyes. Like she was trying to make out why he was next to her or why he existed. He wanted to rip the skin off her face because the blasted sight of that thing irritated him.
Both were trying to make out the reason both had different, unnatural looks in their eyes that no baby should have.
On a windy night in the Land of Fire, in a red-light district in a big nameless village, a prostitute had given birth to two odd babies. No last name, just Sukuna & Sakura.
In the developing fifth month, they kicked.
In the developing ninth month, they screamed and took their first breath.
At ten months, both ran around like chickens with their heads cut off.
At one year, both speak in random syllables and sound out words with undeveloped tongues.
At a year and a half, both are potty-trained, constantly bickering, and can write complete sentences. Their hiragana vs. their spoken sentences are very different from one another. Sukuna writes with a dignified hand, with a shaky wrist here and there. Unlike him, Sakura ended up snapping many brushes in half out of frustration. Their brush strokes followed into their sentences. You would think the boy would be swearing like a battle-ready Shinobi, not the girl. For a long time, people have expected certain behaviours of the female population due to the era they were in. Their mother firmly believed to allow her children equal opportunity. If her daughter wanted to do 'boy' things, she would let her, but cussing wasn't one of them.
Her favourite words were f*ck and sh*t with a side of motherf*cker. At least her son had a more refine way of speaking, but often called his sister a lowly human by sitting at a place that made him look taller, glaring down at her like a King would to their servants. It was an adorable sight to behold. Makes their mother wonder if her children were reincarnated souls, but she knew better than to believe such superstitions.
Sukuna's favourite thing to do was look down on people, while Sakura focused on reading and writing. The two of them had a certain disdain for each other. One thought the other unworthy to be his sister, and the other repressed the urge to punch the child who dreamt of killing her daily. Quite the pair, aren't they?
Everyone at the red-light district's best drinking lodge house would agree. Their mother's close friend, Cheza, thought they were very adorable despite their ferocious attitudes. Sakura cried every time the brown-haired woman dressed her in cute gowns, while Sukuna let himself sink into the woman's large breasts as she held him close to her chest. Their mother swore that her son was enjoyed that.
The Okiya's 'Mother' considered them to be an annoyance, but secretly held a soft spot for them. She allowed their mother to give birth to them because she could afford it. Any other child would have been aborted. Those two brats were lucky to be alive to tell the tale.
Writing down these modern Japanese characters was an easy job, but he had his own written language from the early Heian period, ancient Chinese writings. It seemed his sister had something similar, but in a weird symbolic nature. A lot of her scrolls were filled with peculiar symbols combined with each other, sometimes in a circle or what look closed to a barrier technique. At least his sister had some semblance of a brain. (Though most two-year-olds don't write up random Fuinjutsu seals, but Sukuna doesn't know that.)
His last twin was eaten by him inside the womb, and if this twin wanted to live as the Sukuna's sibling, she better step up her game in life. Otherwise, he wouldn't hesitate to absorb her power. Speaking of power, Sukuna could feel something within him stir to life as days went by. The more time that passed, the more he experimented with his cursed energy, or what he thought was close enough to be called cursed energy. His could see two sourced of energy circulating within him, one astronomically bigger than the other. He will call them spiritual and physical energy. One felt more connected to his soul, while the other to his mortal—he loathes that word—body. Despite being in a mortal body, he could feel his soul remain the same from each body that hosted it. It meant there was a chance that all of his techniques could be used in this life when this body could handle such flux.
Sitting on his usual spot, on the window ledge, dangling his leg outside of it, one-story from the ground. He held up his pointer finger and metaphorically sliced the air while aiming his spiritual energy at the tree dancing in the wind below at the closest branch. A clean slice ran between the branch and its owner. It fell to the ground as he stared at his hand, seeing the raw form of spiritual energy come to life in the palm of his hand. His clenched a fist, letting the energy evaporate into the air. At least at two-years-old, his body could handle using Cleave.
Glancing at the form sleeping on the futon five feet away from his, his sister was as still as rock, muscles tensing up as he sensed her energy stiffen. That was the sign of a nightmare. He wondered if his twin would ever wake up like a normal person and not have one of those annoying crying episodes. Those modern brats call it a panic disorder caused by anxiety and trauma, but what trauma did this girl go through? She's two. If her brain were that weak, she would not survive the real world. Especially in an era where females were considered nothing besides sex objects. Sakura would die or kill herself, and Sukuna would not stop either. He wasn't a sympathetic person, not now, never. Only the strong thrive while the weak die.
He was ashamed to call that thing his sister.
What killed her often haunted her dreams when her mind became idle enough to handle the transfer of one life's memories. She pieced everything together until she was three years old, frequently waking up from panic attacks and mind-numbing pain. From the tender age of one, Sakura found the child version of her disappear into the dark depths of her mind. The Sakura who had already died began to take control. Their mother noticed the slow demise of the girl who was her daughter, and Sakura felt like a parasite because of it.
The sight of her blonde teammate dying snapped the last string of sanity inside her heart.
While Sasuke laughed at his victory; she knocked out Kakashi, who was already near chakra depletion. He had to live through this even if they weren't going to, but he didn't need to see their deaths. Something snapped within Sakura, bringing her mind to—her brain programming itself to shut everything down to complete her next task.
She body flickered in front of him, catching him off guard. Her chakra scalpel went through his chest as she trusted her hand from his heart in a diagonal line towards his sternum in such a brutal fashion, Sakura thought she had no right to call herself a medical ninja any more. At the same time, Sasuke pushed his hand through her chest, grabbing a hold of her heart as she reinforced the area with chakra so that he couldn't crush it like he intended. Blood spilled from the sides of her lips as she coughed it onto his face, sneering like a caged dog at their abuser. She was aware that both were depleted beyond healing, as there was no remaining chakra in her seal from Katusyu's summoning and network healing among the Shinobi alliance.
“Sakura… You are so f*cking annoying,” Sasuke rasped out before collapsing onto her.
Her body fell backward from the weight of his.
Look up at the sky, she whispered: “No, we both loose.”
Sakura couldn't take it any more. Pretending to be someone else wasn't going to cut it any more. She decided to make use of her time and figure what era she was reincarnated into. From the looks of it, she was in some ancient timeline before her own. The way that people dressed, acted, and talked gave it away.
At three and a half years old, she started to sense her chakra coils developing faster than they did in her old life. Typically, civilians developed around the age of six or seven, but a clan kid was much earlier. Sensing that development, she was the bastard of some Shinobi. It was a far jump from her last life's genetics. The question is: from which clan? Couldn't be Uchiha. She ain't got black hair, but she is a bastard child, but even those had something genetically dark, and her eyes don't have any secondary chakra waiting to awaken. Parts of her wants to know, but another doesn't really care. Her current issues were getting back to the strength level she died at.
Easily, she could tell this era was before Konoha. Additionally, the history books were brutal.
Sakura was four when she decided to say f*ck-it and try out chakra control. She was a bastard of a clan and would put it to use. It was an excuse to get away from the booze, drugs, and sex smells. After walking around for an hour, keeping out of plain sight, she treaded carefully to an area covered in trees. Just when she thought that nobody would be there, she heard the distinct sounds of muffled cries. She tried not to think about it, she really did, but curiosity got the best of her.
The scene before her was something you would only see in war when a medieval army raided a village to take everything, including the women and children, as their own. Before Konoha, sh*t like this probably happened because war was a part of everyone's daily life. War raised child soldiers into savages where their mindset is stuck in that pubescent stage. Furthermore, the drugs the red-light district offered influenced that savage behaviour. She had never seen such an offence happen in front of her, which caused her to freeze like a deer in the headlights, but she had worked with victims. Witnessing it happen was a different story.
Seconds ticked like minutes as her eyes refused to close. After dealing with the worst of blood and wounds, this was nothing compared to it. The memories of the traumatized victims flooded her mind, which fuelled the flame. Her green eyes met the blue of the woman's wide-eyed, teary glance. It begged her to help. At that point, she didn't care if it was a child helping her. When the woman noticed Sakura, the man did too. He subjected Sakura to a leery diagnostic.
He can't possibly assume a child— “You must be one of the brats in Mother Akuma's houses.”
Sakura was dressed better than most in the district because of her mother's income, but still, that shouldn't mean anything. f*ck. Sakura's morals were fighting. Try to save this woman and get raped, or save herself and leave the woman behind. Judging by the armour discarded on the ground, this man was likely a Shinobi. He would easily have the upper hand. Sakura was still training this body; she didn't stand a chance.
Slowly taking himself out of the woman, he noticed Sakura staggering a step back, on autopilot, turning to run before her wrist was caught in his dog-like bite of a grasp. He encircles a hand around her neck, no matter how much she struggled, she was trapped. “You have to be one of Mama Akuma's; no little lady goes around town lookin' like that.”
Sakura in on the ground, a hand around her neck as the man straddled her like a horse. The woman, from before, purges her entire body into him in an attempt to save Sakura, but the man backhands her to the ground as she cradles her cheek with tears in a fetal position. Sakura froze as his hand lifted her robes and his eyes focused on her again. Something allowed her to retreat to the back of her mind so she wouldn't have to face what was going to happen next.
Only then does she realize the actual cruelty of this world. Sakura had been a Shinobi and had killed a few times before, but medical ninjas don't usually kill. She was in the medical bay, healing the wounded, for most of the fourth Shinobi war. Killing this man was not a problem, but there was no way to do it in one punch. She had control of chakra, but could her body use it without repercussions? Since this was a new body, she had to relearn everything. Without the correct practice, chakra-enhanced strength would likely break her tiny hand or damage its chakra coils. She'd never been in a situation like this before, and every medical ninja morale she had was running thin. Medical ninjas don't kill, but Sakura doesn't want to get raped. Sakura wanted to pound this man on the ground, but what use were these little arms when she barely had the basics?
She's scared sh*tless. Dying and being reborn into this life means learning how to survive differently. She had to keep her guard up at all times. There was no safe, hidden village where she could put her guard down any more. No help was coming for her; her screams would be mistaken for pleasure in a district like this. Konoha was non-existent, and no teammates could get her out of this. Sasuke and Naruto were dead, not born yet. Reality hit her like a brick at the realization nobody would save her. Sakura had to save herself.
“Now—now. Mama Akuma will understand our encounter here, and I am a very loyal customer,” the man tried to sooth.
Sakura craned her head so that one of her eyes was looking at him— not in fear, but with pure ignominy. Through the tears, she bared her teeth at him like a rapid wolfing, itching to sink her fangs into his neck, and eager to taste the blood of the corpse. This was not a human, but rubbish that needed to be disposed of. She had to eliminate him, even if her medical ninja morals said otherwise. He didn't deserve to walk this earth any longer.
“Let me teach you how to please a man.” His smile forms a malicious chuckle as pushed a hand into her koshimaki. “It's what little girls are trained to do around here, anyway.”
She kicks. She screams. Then there's the crying of that woman in the background.
The pins holding her long pink hair fell out, letting strands dribble out of their places.
Sakura froze when cold fingers brushed up against her skin.
She loses it.
Her chakra spiking is involuntary as she dislocates her shoulder to grab the man's face with one hand. She pushes an expanse of medical chakra inside his brain, forcing his cells to multiply until they became cancerous. Tumours grow from the organ, bulging his skin before his body collapsed on top of her, which she pushes off.
Rage. That's all Sakura's mind was drunk on at that moment. The man was dead, but his cold touch was lingering. Stoically, she stood up to walk over to his body. She scanned it, glared, and stomped on his fingers until she felt satisfied. The woman from earlier fainted from the disgusting sight. Bones coated with blood and blood mixing with flesh, no matter how much her feet hurt after that, she couldn't care less. At some point, her shoes had been discarded.
Sakura's eyes widened at the sudden realization that she killed someone not because she killed, but how she killed. It wasn't with medical ninjutsu, but with a f*cking wood release. She was born a second time, not expecting to awaken any bloodline. Though she was the daughter of a whor*, and she had no clue who her father was. He had to be someone from the Senju clan.
She grits her teeth angrily, digging her fist into the dirt, silently screaming inside.
Sukuna feels his sister's presence leap on the window. The scent of blood jumps into his nose like an aphrodisiac—how sweet. He looked at her form perched on the window ledge, her shoes were missing, blood painted her feet and fancy butterfly printed kimono like it was meant to be.
He had been in the middle of writing some poetry on his mother's bundai (writing desk)—not much else to do besides take up some old hobbies—when Sakura looked at him darkly. First, she paid no attention to it until she smelled the blood. Secondly, excitement flashed through his devilish eyes at the sight of his stupid twin. The one response he got was not fear, but a mind-your-f*cking-business glare. Sukuna smelled the difference in the blood—meaning the blood was not hers, but someone else's. He couldn't be any prouder.
They didn't exchange words that night, but they recognized something in each other. Something akin to an agreement—don't ask and everything will be fine.
