The Weight of Shadows

Chapter Two: the crickets sing a song for you

Life #5000

Sparks of a fire erupted from the flint she had been trying to coax a flame with, and Sakura could only sigh in relief as it caught light on the kindling placed at intervals amidst the dry branches they had collected. Her fingers were cold, the winter biting at them until she shoved them back inside her gloves – her task complete. "Done," she announced to her companions, a wide smile on her face.

Elentir, the leader of their little expedition north, arrived back then, leading a group of men back with him. He was of númenórean blood, unlike a number of their small company, and it showed in his very bearing. Tall he was, his eyes an oceanic blue, his gait careful and almost silent. Sakura was begrudgingly impressed by the last. Admittedly, she could move just as silently without chakra, but she had lifetimes in which to practice that skill unto perfection. Elentir hadn't.

"Just in time too, it seems," she remarked, nodding to her leader as he came and sat with them, leading the last of the men to join them all at the fire's warmth. "Hail, and well met friends," she said, smiling welcomingly at the new arrivals.

"Do we bring whores on expeditions to slay dragons now?" one of the new arrivals enquired, scoffing at her. Sakura only rolled her eyes at the comment, even as Elentir spoke.

"She is one of my trusted companions who has seen me through peril and strife," he said, and Sakura was fondly reminded of the few times she had saved his life, whether from fell wolves which too often plagued Eriador, or the orcs who were growing increasingly bold as the skirmishes between Morgoth's corrupted maia and the free folk of Arda raged on in the Second Age. "I would take care not to refer to her as you have just, for she is not a woman to be trifled with."

It had been thousands of years since her last incarnation in that timeline, on the back end of the First Age and the very earliest years of the Second Age – before her body had mysteriously crumbled to ash. An effect, she had soon learnt, was due to how powerful her soul was. She wasn't meant for mortal bodies. She was an existence from outside Arda in every sense of the word, and Sakura had no doubt her body would have to be just as unique to contain her soul. Sadly, she was stuck in mortal bodies, but Sakura supposed that was what she got.

She unleashed her thousand-cycle rage upon the world which she thought seemed awfully similar, and now she was paying the consequences of her actions then. A sigh escaped her, low and long, and Sakura jumped in surprise as she noticed the calloused hand waving in front of her face to get her attention.

"Hey there." Whiskered cheeks split into a mirthful, familiar grin, locks of the brightest blonde spilling down his back so much longer than she remembered. "Your name is Lothien, right?"

"Naruto?" Sakura blinked, casting her gaze away from those azure blue eyes which seemed to shine as brightly as she remembered from all of her past cycles involving one Uzumaki Naruto. But that was impossible, because this wasn't a cycle in the Elemental Nations. She was in Arda, and as such, Uzumaki Naruto couldn't exist there. "Sorry... I don't believe I caught your name—?" her voice cut off, and she shrank back under the stare from the face which was suddenly far too close to her own.

"Sasuke?"

Sakura froze at the hesitant question, heart thudding so audibly as blood rushed to her head. "Impossible," she whispered.

"So it is you," Naruto chirped, a grin appearing on his face, but Sakura held a hand up, gesturing for him to stop talking before things became too muddled. She didn't understand what was going on. She'd never met anyone who had seemingly been reincarnated too... Sakura swallowed then, nervous. Did that mean she wasn't the only one?