Sakura at work, because damn it, medic-nin should be scary to fight.

The separate steps along divergent paths don’t change the fact that the destination remains the same.

Patience, Sakura decides, is for people who aren't holding lives in the space between their mind and their fingers.

His sister had helped him dye his hair before he started the academy, early enough that the scent wouldn’t register with any Inuzuka students. His mother had gone to the store and let him pick out what shade of nondescript brown he wanted. He’d chosen a brown almost identical to the great Fire Beeches that towered over their home, he’d love how tall and sturdy they were. How dependable those trees were.