That night, when Sakura returned home, the quiet felt full, not empty. The kind that settles after a long breath, after a truth has been spoken somewhere inside you. Her limbs still ached from training, her shoulders tender beneath her shirt, but it was a good kind of ache, the kind that hummed rather than throbbed. It reminded her she was alive. Earning something. Becoming someone. She moved slowly through her room, the floorboards faintly cool beneath her bare feet, the windows cracked just enough to let in the breath of nighttime air, scented faintly with rain-soaked leaves and distant hearth smoke. She lit a small lantern, the flame flickering to life with a soft click and the smell of warmed oil. Shadows stretched across her desk like long exhalations. She pulled her chair closer and sat, her spine straight despite the fatigue sinking into her muscles. Her body was tired, but her heart was louder now, steady and unignorable. Reaching into the drawer, she took out a single sheet of parchment; smooth, thick, the kind she saved for things that mattered. Her fingers lingered on its edges for a second longer than necessary, as though steadying herself with the touch of something real. The inkpot was nearly full. She uncorked it with a soft twist, the scent of iron and soot rising faintly, grounding her. She chose her best quill, trimmed clean and fine at the tip. Dipping it into the ink, she watched the black liquid cling before tapping once, twice, against the edge of the jar. Her breath slowed. The paper waited. Empty, but not blank. Not after everything he'd written. Not after the way her chest had ached with the weight and wonder of being seen. Her hand hovered. 'What do I even say to a letter like that?' she thought, not with panic, but wonder. Her fingers trembled slightly, not from fear, but from something more vulnerable. The kind of emotion that came when the walls you'd kept up so long began to soften. Then she pressed the quill to the page. Not because she had all the words yet, but because she wanted to find them.

Naruto,

I don't really know how to start this, so I'll just begin with what I know is true. You deserve honesty. Not the kind wrapped in duty or obligation, not the half-smiles I've given you for years. Not the apologies I never said aloud. Just... the truth.

The ink pooled slightly beneath her quill, dark and deliberate. She could hear the faint scratch of the nib against the parchment, each stroke steady, though her pulse beat louder in her ears than she expected. Her hand trembled once, barely, before she exhaled and stilled it. The paper smelled faintly of cedar from the drawer where she'd stored it, and her lantern's soft glow warmed the edges of her desk in amber. Outside, the wind nudged gently at the shutters, but the quiet in the room remained undisturbed. It was a silence that asked her to keep going. 'This is harder than I thought,' she admitted inwardly, pausing with the quill just above the page. 'Not because I don't know what to say... but because I finally do but how should I put it?' Her throat tightened, but not with fear. With weight. With the shape of feelings that had been waiting so long to surface, they now felt sacred.

I spent so long building a version of myself that didn't need anything. Not even you. Especially not you. Because wanting you scared me.

She blinked once, hard, then dipped the quill again, ready for the next line. The truth wasn't just owed. It was overdue.

I think I used to mistake silence for strength. I thought if I held my pain quietly, if I acted like I had everything figured out, I could grow into the kind of person who deserved to be by your side, or Sasuke's, back then.

Her hand paused for a moment over the paper, breath catching lightly in her throat. The confession stained the page with more than just ink, it carried weight, the kind that sat behind her ribs and hadn't moved in years. The quill trembled between her fingers, not from nerves, but from release. From finally speaking what had never been said aloud. A curl of wind brushed through the cracked window, catching a lock of her hair and cooling the sweat at her temple. Her lantern flickered. Shadows danced along the wall, as if her room, too, was listening.

But what I've learned is that strength isn't silence. It's voice. It's will. It's choosing to rise again even when the world wants to see you crawl. And you've always known that. You've always lived that.

She swallowed, her throat dry. The words echoed with something that wasn't just admiration, it was awakening. Realization. A recognition of everything she had misjudged in him, and in herself. 'You never needed to be loud to be strong,' she thought, a flush rising in her chest. 'But I needed to be quiet to realize what strength actually meant, and all this time... you were already showing me.' Her next stroke of the pen was firmer.

I was just too blind to see it, and for that... I'm sorry.

The apology bled slowly across the parchment. Not an afterthought. A truth carved in ink. And as it settled, so did something in her chest, like a wound that had finally been named.

I used to think Sasuke needed saving. And maybe, in some ways, he still does. But he doesn't want it. Not from me. Not really from anyone.

Her quill hesitated above the parchment, a bead of ink pooling at the tip. The words didn't sting like they once would have, they felt sober, settled. Like something that had finished aching long ago. The paper beneath her hand felt warm from the lanternlight, but her fingers remained cool, almost numb, as though her body hadn't caught up with her honesty yet. 'I clung to the idea of being the one to fix him... because I didn't know who I was without that purpose.'

And I kept chasing that need because I thought it meant something, that if I could just reach him, I would matter.

The ink pulled slightly as she wrote, dragging with the weight of memory. The late nights waiting on rooftops. The way her heart had once twisted when he turned away. All of it still lived somewhere in her, but not in the same way. 'I wasn't in love. I was holding on to a wound.'

But I understand now: I was chasing a ghost, a version of him that existed only in my memory, not the person in front of me.

The words settled with quiet finality. No bitterness. No resentment. Just truth. A truth that no longer needed to be defended.

And all the while, you were right there. Bleeding. Smiling. Carrying everything. Carrying me.

Her breath caught at that last line. The memory of him, bandaged and bruised, laughing like it didn't matter. Reaching for her when she didn't even realize she was falling. 'You were my shelter and the rainbow that comes after, long before I realized I was standing in the rain.' She dipped her quill again, but this time, her grip was steadier. Softer. Her heart full and aching in the best way.

I don't know the exact moment it shifted, but I do know this: I see you now. All of you.

Her pen paused for half a breath, the lanternlight flickering softly across the page. The ink bled just slightly into the parchment, like her words wanted to live there, permanent, unmoving. 'Not just the boy who shouted dreams at the sky... but the man who carried them through the mud, with bloody knuckles and a smile.'

And I ache with how long it took. You make the people around you better just by being who you are, not with promises or perfection, but with that relentless heart of yours that refuses to give up on anyone.

The tip of the quill trembled slightly, and she blinked against the sting rising in her eyes. Her lips parted on an exhale she didn't realize she was holding. 'You never asked anyone to become something for you. You just believed they already were, and people treated or still treat you terribly'

You never gave up on me. Even when I didn't deserve it. Even when I was too focused on the wrong things. Even when I couldn't see you standing right there.

Her thumb brushed over the dry edge of the parchment, grounding herself in the feel of it, something real, something now. 'How many times did you carry hope for both of us when I couldn't even lift my head?'

I think I fell for your strength first, but now... it's your kindness. That quiet, stubborn kindness that never demands to be noticed, but changes everything anyway. It's your unrelenting will to fight, not just for yourself, but for your dream, for others. For people who never even thanked you. For me.

Her breath caught in her throat. Her chest tightened, not with fear, but with something larger, something soft and fierce all at once.

And that... truly undoes me.

'Because if there's anyone in this world who deserves to be loved freely, fully, without hesitation... it's you.'

So now that I can admit it to myself, you need to know the truth, because things are changing. For me. For all of us.

She paused to let the quill settle, the ink glistening in the lantern glow before it soaked into the paper. Her heartbeat wasn't hurried, just steady. Sure. And for once, her words didn't feel like a risk. They felt right.

I've been training under Guy-sensei. I've opened the first two gates. I'm working on the third tomorrow.

Her hand cramped slightly from the pressure, but she didn't stop. She flexed her fingers, breathed in the cool night air threading through the open window, and pressed on.

The pain is real. And the healing is slow. Some days I feel like my muscles are made of torn wire. Other days, it's like my breath fights me every time I draw it in. But I'm not afraid.

'Not anymore.'

Because I'm not doing this to keep up with you. Not to chase Sasuke because I can tell he is itching to leave us for that terrible power. He fights himself for it more and more in this trance he is in. But I'm not going to let his actions stop me or keep me as the tagalong girl I used to be. Not to prove to anyone, myself most of all, that I belong.

'I know I do.'

I'm doing this because I believe in the life I want to protect. The people in it. The future that feels like more than just a mission now, and you're part of that life, Naruto. A big part.

She stared at that last sentence. Her lips pressed into a line, eyes burning again, but she didn't blink it away this time. 'You're the reason I move forward without fear. You're the warmth that stayed, even after everything else cracked apart.'

There's more.

Her quill paused at the edge of the line. The ink trailed off slightly, forming a quiet crescent at the end of the last letter. The air in her room felt heavier now, not oppressive, but thick with truth about to be spoken. She dipped the tip again and continued, slower this time. Not with hesitation, but reverence.

Her name is Sekhmet.

She exhaled softly through her nose, heart tightening, not from fear, but the weight of what came next.

She's not a person in the way we understand it. She's... a goddess. Of war. Of healing. Ancient, older than chakra as we know it. Her soul was sealed into a weapon, an axe called Astra.

The memory flickered, that moment in the Forest of Death. The blood. The scream that wasn't hers. The surge of impossible power that had sung through her body like fire in her veins.

That weapon responded to me. During the Forest of Death, it woke something in me I still don't fully understand. Something divine. Something buried so deep it didn't feel foreign, it felt familiar. Like it had just been waiting.

'Like I'd never really been alone in my skin or true to myself until that moment.'

So now... I train with her. Every night. She finds me in my dreams, but those dreams leave real bruises. Real soreness in my limbs. I wake up aching, my heart pounding like I've been through another mission, only quieter. Inside.

'She doesn't coddle me. She reminds me.'

I'm mastering Astra's Purposeful Forms one by one. War. Healing. Sealing. Wisdom. Execution. Protection... and two more I haven't reached yet. Each one is a trial. Each one is a memory. It doesn't feel like I'm learning. It feels like remembering. Like I'm peeling back layers of who I thought I was, and beneath them, finding someone who always existed. Who always waited. Sekhmet believes I'm her reincarnation. And honestly... I'm starting to believe it too.

She sat back for a moment, pressing her hand flat to the desk beside the parchment. The wood was warm beneath her palm, like it had absorbed the weight of the confession. Her chest ached, but not with fear. With clarity. 'This is my truth now. And I want you to know all of it.'

She tells me I'm not just becoming stronger. I'm awakening.

Those words echoed even now, as Sakura wrote them. The ink bled slightly where her quill pressed too hard, her hand shaking just faintly, not with fear, but with the enormity of admitting it.

I'm meant to heal and destroy in equal measure.

Sekhmet said it with reverence, with certainty, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. But to Sakura, it still lingered like wildfire in her chest, something beautiful and dangerous all at once. 'What kind of place does someone like that have in a village built on peace through order?'

And I don't know how the village will see me when all of this comes to light.

Her eyes lowered to the page. The lantern's glow caught the curve of her cheek, the soft crease between her brows.

I don't even know if I'll still belong.

The admission sat heavy in the air. 'I'm not afraid of being powerful anymore. I'm afraid of what that power might make me in their eyes.'

But then, I know you'll look at me with the same honest eyes you always have.

A breath caught in her throat. Her lips curved faintly, unconsciously.

I trust that more than I trust anything.

'Even when I've been lost, you've seen me. Not the shinobi. Not the student. Me.'

I'm telling you this because I want you to know all of me. The young girl growing into a woman her teammates never saw behind the missions. The girl who held her heart together with trembling hands, who kept smiling while everyone else turned away. The one who still reached out, even when she doubted she was worth reaching back for. Not just the version who stood behind you on missions or cheered from the sidelines. I want you to know the girl who cried when no one saw, who bled to keep her team alive, who failed again and again and still got back up.

The quill trembled just once, and Sakura paused. Let the words sink in. Let herself feel them. 'I want you to know her... because I think I'm starting to love her too.'

I want you to know the woman I'm becoming.

She set the quill down. Her fingers were smudged with ink, her hand aching, her heart too full to contain.

And maybe... maybe when this war is over, when the gods are silent again, we'll be able to figure out what that means for us.

Her hand found the edge of the parchment. Her fingers traced the margin like it might anchor her, and maybe, in some way, it did.

You once said you'd never give up on me. I think I'm finally ready to believe that.

'And I'm not giving up on me either. Not anymore.'

Yours,

Sakura

P.S. I got your letter just after training, with Sekhmet in her Realm of Awakening, my whole body aching, my hands shaking, and then there it was, your handwriting staring up at me like a lifeline I didn't know I needed. And when I read that you'll be back in three to four weeks, I just... I couldn't stop smiling. I still haven't, not really. It felt like hope crawled up out of my ribs and bloomed right under my skin. Knowing you're coming home soon makes everything feel a little more bearable. The bruises, the work, the wait, it's all lighter now. And the pictures... Naruto, I looked at them until the lantern burned low and the sky turned violet. You're still as chaotic as ever, and Jiraiya-sensei's expression in that second one is seared into my soul, I will never unsee it. But it was the third photo that broke something open in me. The way you looked, not for the camera, but for something beyond it. I know now that was for me. I felt it in my chest like gravity. Thank you. For all of them. For thinking of me.

P.P.S. I've included some photos of my own. They're not as wild as yours, but I thought... maybe you'd want to see me too. The first is from training, Guy-sensei said I looked like I was glowing, which I think was just sweat, but I didn't argue. The second... it's just me by the riverbank, where I like to rest after missions. You said you can still feel me, even from far away. Maybe this helps, and the last one, Guy-Sensei took that one right after I was caught reading your letter. My cheeks were still pink, and I was smiling. Just for you. Please come back safe. I'll be waiting.

After sending off the bird with her letter, her words still warm on the page, Sakura closed her eyes and let the weight of everything fall from her shoulders. The ache in her limbs from Gate of Life training, the fire that still burned in her lungs, it all gave way to stillness. The throb in her muscles softened into a distant hum, no longer screaming but singing, low and steady. Her heartbeat slowed, each beat sinking deeper, like a stone settling in a calm river. Her chakra unraveled, stretching out in golden threads that spun inward, thinner and finer, until it felt like silk wound through the marrow of her bones.

Then the world turned. When she opened her eyes again, she was standing barefoot beneath the skyless light of Sekhmet's Realm of Awakening. The warmth of her room was gone, replaced by a serene, breathless hush. It was neither night nor day here, only that soft, luminous in-between, like the moment between a held breath and its release. The stars shimmered beneath her feet, not like stars in the sky, but like constellations suspended in ink, swirling faintly with every shift of her weight. Each step sent a ripple across them, as though her chakra stirred the fabric of this dream. Ahead, across the stillness of the dreaming plain, Sekhmet waited. The Goddess stood tall, her presence both grounding and untouchable, as if the air around her bowed. Her rose-gold robes floated with weightless grace, untouched by breeze, yet moving all the same. Emerald eyes the color of deep spring fixed on her, unreadable but aware, and beside her, anchored to the plain, yet radiating power as if in motion, stood a weapon unlike anything Sakura had ever seen.

A massive bladed fan. It stood wide as a doorway, each blade polished to a sheen so luminous it caught the glimmer of the starlit plain beneath their feet. The edges were sharp, but not jagged, elegant, like calligraphy made into steel. Violet and silver veins ran through it like chakra channels, pulsing faintly, alive. The material shimmered like chakra-glass, but denser. Heavier. The kind of heavy that existed in memory more than mass. The fan didn't rest on the ground, it hovered just above it, untouched. Yet the air around it bent ever so slightly, like even reality hesitated near it. Sakura swallowed. 'This isn't just another weapon... it's a threshold.' Her fingers curled slightly, the starlight below her, grounding herself. The heat of awe bloomed slowly in her chest, familiar now but no less sharp. Her gaze flicked between Sekhmet and the fan. 'This is one of Astra's Forms. I can feel it in my skin. But it's not waiting to be wielded. It's watching.' The faint pressure in the air pressed along her collarbones and down her spine, not suffocating, but reverent. Like standing at the edge of a truth you can't yet speak. Her breath caught. Not from fear. From recognition. 'It knows me already.'

"This is the Deception Form," Sekhmet said quietly, and her voice echoed without sound. Not a whisper, not a command, something older, something that curved around Sakura's ears like memory rather than speech. "Godly Hindrance. You do not master this with might, but with understanding." Sakura stepped forward, her breath shallow as if the air had thinned. The fan radiated a low, pulsing hum, not of chakra but of presence, like it existed in several realities at once and each one tugged at her skin in passing. Her hand lifted slowly, instinct guiding her more than will. She reached for the fan. Her fingers brushed its edge.

The world fractured. Light warped violently across the mirrored blades, shattering and bending into reflections that flickered like lanterns in a storm. Each one showed her, not as she stood now, but as versions untethered by time. A child, hands stained with dirt and tears. A woman cloaked in shadow, laughter on her lips but hollowness in her eyes. Another cloaked in blood, her hands trembling around a blade. One wore a Konoha headband. One wore none at all. All of them looked at her. Not with judgment. With remembrance. 'These are me... every version I've been, every choice I could have made. Which one is the real me?' The weight of it made her chest tighten. Not from fear. From the gravity of being seen so completely.

"Not all battles are won with power," Sekhmet murmured, stepping behind her, the heat of her chakra brushing Sakura's back like a protective veil. "Some must be endured with cunning. With misdirection. The sharpest blade is confusion."

The air shifted again. The mirrored ground beneath them splintered, cracking with a soundless quake. It rippled outward like paper folding into a new shape. The battlefield emerged in pieces. Jagged terrain. Craters still smoking. Scorched stone littered with broken kunai and shattered masks. Shadows began to rise, figures made of chakra and menace. Shinobi twisted by cursed seals, hands clawed and eyes wild. Rogue nin missing their headbands, stalking with inhuman grace. The air buzzed with killing intent, hot and sharp in her nose like burned ozone. Twelve of them. Maybe more. She was alone, but she wasn't afraid. Her pulse slowed instead of quickened. Her chakra coiled low and deliberate, like a cat ready to spring. 'This is what it means to be unshaken.' The reflections from before still flickered faintly in her mind, echoing behind her eyes. She did not banish them. She accepted them.

"Begin," Sekhmet said. The first lesson was subtle. Sekhmet's voice drifted through the stillness like the hush before a storm. "Do not be loud with your chakra. Be intentional. Let them notice only what you allow." The battlefield around Sakura shimmered. Illusions moved like smoke, rogue shinobi with jagged scars and leaking chakra signatures, their snarls breaking the false silence. But she didn't flinch. Barefoot in the dust, she crouched low and pressed her palm to the ground. The earth was warm beneath her skin, grainy with crushed stone and ash. Her fingers moved in a slow spiral, deliberate, each stroke etched with concentration. Violet chakra laced through the grooves like liquid fire, pulsing once, then disappearing as if it had never existed. A heartbeat passed. Then another. The nearest shinobi stepped forward, lean, with a twisted shoulder and a burn scar slicing from temple to chin. The moment his foot crossed the space where her chakra had sunk, he jerked. His body froze mid-stride. Muscles stiffened. Breath locked. His eyes widened in horror, staring not at her, but at something she couldn't see.

"Ink Seal," Sakura whispered under her breath. Her chakra had pulled from him what she needed: the faint trace of scorched cloth, the way he gritted his jaw before every movement, the rhythm of loss in his step. She hadn't needed the full story, just enough. Enough to tether him to a moment he couldn't look away from. Sekhmet's presence hovered behind her, a steady heat.

"Memory is more dangerous than steel. You gave him his own fear and let it wear Sasuke's face." Sakura watched the man tremble. His lips moved soundlessly, caught in some forgotten moment where the name Sasuke meant absolute fear. She didn't feel pity. Not quite. 'It worked,' she thought, the pulse in her wrists slowing. 'I didn't overpower him. I turned his own mind into the weapon.' Her eyes narrowed. 'If deception is a form... then this isn't hiding. It's choosing what they see.'

The next simulation came harder, faster, louder, chaos blooming like firecrackers as enemy chakra signatures surged in from every angle. Too many for traps. Too sharp for hesitation. The air pulsed with their bloodlust, and the ground trembled beneath the weight of their charge.

"Remember," Sekhmet's voice cut through the din like flint striking steel, calm and unmoving. "Perception is your weapon. Not illusion. Certainty." Sakura didn't blink. She opened the fan. It hissed wide with a soft resonance, the glass blades catching what little dreamlight existed and fracturing it into warped reflections, versions of herself rippling across the battlefield like sunlight broken across water. Her real form vanished entirely from chakra perception. No flicker. No pulse. Gone. The enemies halted, their feet sliding to unsure stops in the dust. Confusion rippled through their ranks. One of them, a tall shinobi with a crooked scar down his cheek, turned sharply, his eyes darting between the fakes. 'Don't guess. Don't think. Just move.' Sakura stepped silently beside him, breath even, her sandals kissing the earth with barely a sound. The fan brushed her sleeve. A sliver of its clear chakra-glass shimmered as she passed it onto his arm with the faintest tap, like static on cloth.

"False Familiar," she whispered, barely louder than a breath. The man's spine locked. His pupils shrank. His jaw quivered. And then he fell to his knees as a woman stepped from the trees, one only he could see. Her voice broke the silence, brittle with disappointment. The scarred shinobi clutched his chest like a boy again, mumbling something to the hallucination, hands trembling as if trying to reach and push her away all at once. Sakura didn't watch him crumble. She was already gone, already stepping toward the next. 'I don't need to strike them. Just make them see what they're too afraid to face.' Again, and again. Each time, Sekhmet stood silently, then raised a single finger or tilted her head in slight disapproval. A breath too long. A flicker too short. She corrected everything with the precision of a blade smith, forcing Sakura to repeat the motions until her body moved without needing thought. Until the illusions no longer came from her chakra, but from her understanding, of grief, of shame, of memory. Only when the last few enemies rallied, drawing together with focused intent, did Sekhmet nod.'Now.'

Sakura exhaled and raised the fan high, the clear glass glowing with threads of silver and violet. Her pulse didn't spike this time. Her fingers didn't shake. She stepped forward, calm at the center of a storm, and let the final lesson begin. "Godless Silence."

A single, soundless pulse echoed outward, not with noise, but with absence. The dream-realm shuddered. Then... everything died. Not in blood. In sensation. Chakra stilled. It didn't flare or dim. It vanished. Sakura felt it like a breath caught in her throat and then gone, like the world itself had exhaled and forgotten how to inhale. The battlefield dulled to shades of gray. No sound. No chakra threads. No heartbeat but her own. Even her breath didn't echo in her ears. It was as though creation itself had been muted. 'They can't feel me. Can't see me. Not even with the Byakugan... not even the Sharingan would find me here.' She moved, but not like a kunoichi, not even like a shinobi. Like smoke caught in still air, curling and dispersing without sound. Her sandals kissed the earth with weightless grace. Her body shimmered faintly beneath a veil of layered chakra, so thin, it was more suggestion than substance. Petals drifted behind her, pale pink and translucent like ghost-bloom in moonlight, each one dissolving before it touched the ground. Her eyes gleamed, low and steady, glowing softly with lavender-pink light. The only brightness in the void.

The fan trembled slightly in her hands, not from weight but resonance. It hummed at a frequency only she could feel, a ripple in the silence. She stepped forward and traced her finger into the earth again, painting another seal. The dust obeyed, forming shapes under her fingertip, carried by intent rather than pressure. It glowed for a moment, then faded into invisibility. One by one, her enemies slowed. They stepped forward like sleepwalkers, unfocused, uncertain. Their eyes twitched, searching for something they couldn't name. Their chakra signatures were gone, and without that, they were blind. Vulnerable. Human. 'This isn't just stealth... It's temporary erasure.' One staggered forward, foot sliding directly over her mark. He froze. Mouth parted. Mind snagged in the script she'd carved with nothing but will and memory. He dropped to his knees, gasping soundlessly at something only he could see. Another turned on instinct and swung at a ghost-image. Missed. Panicked. The silence unraveled them faster than blades ever could.

When the pulse finally faded, the world snapped back like a taut string pulled too tight. Sound rushed in like a wave. The heartbeat of the realm resumed. The wind returned. Sakura stood alone in the center. The fan sagged in her grip now, heavier than before. Her legs shook, not with fear, but the dull, aching aftermath of control. Sweat traced a line down her spine. Her heart was pounding, hard and fast. 'I didn't beat them with strength... I broke the rules they thought were absolute, their perception.' She looked to Sekhmet, and Sekhmet was smiling.

As the simulation dissolved into mist and starlight, Sekhmet stepped forward, her movements fluid as wind brushing over tall grass. Her silhouette shimmered faintly, her golden sandals whispering against the glass-still plain. The silence between them wasn't heavy, it was sacred. A silence made of understanding. She no longer smiled, and she did not praise. Instead, she lifted her hand and pressed two fingers to the center of Sakura's brow. They were warm, not burning, but weighted with something ancient, like pressed sunlight or memory incarnate.

"You saw beyond the blade," Sekhmet said. Her voice was low and level, vibrating in the marrow rather than echoing in the air. "You understood the mind." Sakura's breath caught in her throat. The fan still hovered behind her, suspended like a truth not yet dismissed. She lowered her head, her knees nearly buckling from the quiet intensity of it all. Her skin was damp, her heartbeat slow but deep, echoing in her ears like the ocean.

"It felt like I was holding a mirror to the world," she said softly, her voice not quite hers, "and it shattered." 'Not just them. Me. I shattered too.'

"That is the nature of deception," Sekhmet replied, stepping back into the void. "Not to destroy. But to reframe." The dreamscape folded in on itself like paper dipped in ink, and Sakura stirred in her sleep, her real body shifting beneath the covers. The linen sheets clung to her skin, slightly damp with sweat. Her fingers twitched once, then stilled. The muscles in her back tensed, pulling at her shoulder blades as if remembering the weight of the fan. A sharp tingling buzzed just beneath her skin, flickering like phantom chakra lines trying to realign. Not painful. Not quite. But unmistakably real. A scar, in its own way. 'The battlefield looks different now. Like I peeled back something I didn't know I was allowed to see.' Her breath deepened, but not fully. Her chakra spun unevenly in her coil, slipping by just a fraction, off-kilter. She didn't wake, but her sleeping mind throbbed with awareness. Godly Hindrance had left no blood on her hands. But it had left her changed.