You! Are Not! The Mother!

Cradled in Sakura's arms as she leapt from tree to tree, Sumaru began to stir. The warmth and softness pushing against his body tugged at something deep in his subconscious— a comforting sensation he hadn't felt since childhood.

"Mum…?" whispered Sumaru in a husky voice.

Still groggy from his drug-induced coma, Sumaru's eyes fluttered open— only to be met by the soft rise and fall of Sakura's swollen breasts, straining to free themselves from her clothes, inches from his face. Noticing the change in tension in Sumaru's muscles, Sakura raised his head a bit higher so that she could talk to him.

Natsuhiboshi, why are you, so red?

I saw a sad dream last night,

My eyes are red from the tears I've shed,

Swollen as I cried…

Sakura's great big scarlet eyes reminded Sumaru of the lullaby his mother used to sing to him, and the red star in the sky that watched over him… even though Natsuhiboshi was really the planet Mars. But since the word 'hoshi' was a generic term that referred to all heavenly bodies, the distinction was not always evident without context.

"Hey, you're finally awake," said Sakura pleasantly. "Think you can walk? Probably not, huh."

"You're that kunoichi from the Leaf," groaned Sumaru, shuddering slightly. "What happened…?"

Sakura sat Sumaru down against a tree, and she went to sit on a fallen log. She then began recounting what had happened since his kidnapping, smoothly mixing the truths she had witnessed and the truths she remembered from her memories.

How Sumaru's mother Natsuhi had stolen the star to protect the children of the village; how the self-proclaimed Fourth Hoshikage Akahoshi had kidnapped Sumaru to lure out his mother; how Akahoshi had tried to eliminate the evidence by pushing both her and Naruto into the canyon, how Sakura had then saved him from his imprisonment…

"You're lying, my parents are dead, murdered by foreign shinobi trying to steal the star!" growled Sumaru when Sakura finished her story. "Lord Akahoshi would never do such a thing, and if the star training were really as dangerous as you say, he would've told us!"

"If you don't want to hear the truth, then that's fine by me," said Sakura, her voice growing cold. "But what have you got to lose by following me? Either we find the star and you return triumphant to your village, or we find your mother and you have your family again."

Sakura was trying to do the right thing here, but Sumaru was not making it easy for her!

"If I'm not walking into an ambush," began Sumaru, after thinking for a while, "then you won't mind me resting until I can summon my chakra again, right?"

Sumaru was overestimating his own worth— there was nothing to be gained by tricking a mere Genin from a backwater village.

"It's not that deep," replied Sakura irritably, closing her aching eyes. "I don't know what you're thinking, but there's nothing sinister going on here. Look, every second wasted here is another second Akahoshi could use to find your mother before we do. That's all there is to it."

In her first life, Sakura had lived a hedonistic lifestyle, going through her days happy-go-lucky, without a care in the world. In her second life, she had tried to live the same way, but faced with constant life-and-death situations, she had learned to truly value her time, knowing that each day might be her last. But even though merging with the original Sakura had caused the seeds of brand-new feelings to take root within her, Sakura had been wholly unprepared for the torrent of amplified emotions her new Uchiha bloodline had brought her. She was not yet like Sasuke, who had been raised to hide and restrain his true self, so she was quite literally drowning in the intensity of her own emotions.

"Well, whatever— whether it's Akahoshi by himself or the entire village, you'd still be no match for the three of us from the Hidden Leaf working together," said Sakura confidently. "You star shinobi think you're such hot stuff with your Mysterious Peacock Method, but you're so full of yourselves that you can't realise that nobody cares about your stupid meteorite!"

While it was true that star shinobi were frogs at the bottom of a well for failing to recognise their place in the world and toads lusting after swan meat for wanting to become the sixth great power with only a tiny village of under twenty houses, they were still allies of the Leaf… on paper, at least.

Despite their thinly veiled ambitions and overinflated sense of self-importance.

'Oi, are you even listening to yourself?' said Inner Sakura, for once the voice of reason. 'Your pride is growing out of control…'

Naturally, Sumaru opened his mouth to argue— but then Sakura's eyes snapped open, and she transfixed him with a glare. Faced with the Uchiha's sinister eyes, he shuddered, and he closed his mouth without a single complaint.

"That was rude of me," said Sakura, lowering her gaze. "I shouldn't have said that."

"No, I think I needed to hear that," said Sumaru, sighing despondently. "I was so caught up in Lord Akahoshi's promises and my dreams of becoming Hoshikage that I ignored my friends' suffering…"

"It shouldn't be too late to make things right," said Sakura thoughtfully. "As long as you don't keep the star training going, I'm certain Lady Tsunade will be able to cure everyone."

Curing the star shinobi would mean stripping them of their powers, since their special chakra could only be produced by their unhealthy cells. Naturally, Akahoshi would never allow this— he couldn't risk outsiders uncovering the secrets of his fellow villagers' bodies, nor could he afford to sacrifice their future strength in battle. Which meant that to save Sumaru and his friends, Akahoshi would need to be impeached…

Noticing that Sumaru still looked downcast, Sakura gently added, "Look, none of this is your fault. But if you still feel responsible for dragging your friends into this, then make it up to them— you can still become Hoshikage. You still want to lead everyone towards a brighter future, don't you?"

But just as Sumaru opened his mouth to reply, fireworks suddenly shot up into the sky above the treeline.

"That's the signal," said Sakura, her eyes glinting. "Are you ready, Sumaru-kun?"