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jacksgreysays · 4 years ago

Note

Hi yes mix-and-match anon so if you're still interested in the asofterworld version of the prompt when I said 31 I meant 31 off of your old asw promptlist which translates to asw 621. If not interested this is just a hi glad you're active on tumblr again! I still love your writing!

A/N: Hello, mix-and-match anon! :D

I’ll be honest, I’m kinda cheating here because I’ve been kinda wanting to write this particular fic (or some iteration of this particular fic) for a while but I didn’t quite know how to construct it. However your prompt finally launched me in a direction even though it’s definitely drifted away from the prompt itself so thank you! I hope you enjoy even though it’s still kinda rough and I’ll probably be editing it over the next couple of days to make it more coherent and less of a bloated run on mess.

meeting and incidents unraveled

Haruno Sakura is not oblivious to the blessings and advantages she has in life.

Caring and supportive parents, a stable home life with all of her needs and a majority of her wants met. Tuition at a good school with an intellect and self-discipline to make the most of it. Pretty enough looks to be, if not popular, then well liked among her peers.

She also is not oblivious to the sort of future all of that will give her.

Acceptance at whichever university she chooses, leading to a solid, successful career in whatever field she chooses. Kind and caring relationships paving their way to a kind and caring marriage. A caring, supportive, stable future just as caring, supportive, and stable as her past.

How boring.

But she doesn't have it in her to rebel and break away, grateful for those blessings and advantages for all that they keep her on a track. There's nothing wrong with success and stability. She's not oblivious to that, at least.

She just wishes for something a little bit... more.

---

I love the way your face lights up

when someone says,

"It might be dangerous."

(I am glad we are friends.)

---

(it could have gone like this)

"Do you think she's lost?" Sakura asks her classmates, bringing their attention to the window. Clean up duties after school are hardly fun, so any distraction is a welcome one.

There's a girl standing in the shadow of the tree in the courtyard. About their age, maybe, but the school uniform doesn't match theirs at all. Almost as if she feels Sakura's gaze, the girl meets her eyes and smiles--but surely that's not right. Sakura is up on the third floor.

"What are you talking about?" Tanaka-kun asks, looking out the window and somehow failing to see. Their other classmates on clean up duty also look, but none of them spot the girl either.

"Oh, nothing," Sakura says, dropping the matter immediately. She doesn't want to be known as the weirdo who sees things that aren't there. "I can't believe Honda-sensei assigned so much homework over the weekend!" She deflects and her classmates follow the prompt easily, the new topic of conversation out of her hands.

When Sakura looks back out the window, the girl in the shadow of the tree waves.

---

Magic is better with three.

This is what Sakura learns after discovering magic is real, after discovering that she herself has magic.

Magic is better with three and magic has different Aspects and the different Aspects of magic resonate with different people.

Sakura's magic, she learns, has Aspects of Earth and Healing and Growth. Those are powerful Aspects, she's been told, she can do a lot of good with that even on her own.

But young magicians are put in teams for a reason. Magic seeks balance. The consequences of misusing magic--of overreaching with magic--are extreme at best and horrifying at worst.

Some lessons are learned the hard way.

---

(it could have gone like this)

"Oh, that's Shikako," Ino answers when Sakura finally brings it up weeks after the fact. Ino's magic has the Aspects of Mind and Flora and Adaptation which resonates nicely with Sakura's--perhaps in another world, they might have ended up on the same team, but in this particular world, well. Naruto and Sasuke are powerful magicians, but they're not very good at answering her questions...

"Shikamaru is one of my teammates," Ino continues, easily, "Shikako is his twin sister." Then her voice drops, tone a little more serious, a little more secretive. "Her Aspects never manifested."

Sakura hasn't fully absorbed all the nuances of magical culture, but this at least she can understand: without Aspects, Shikako can never use active magic.

"But she's absolutely brilliant with the academic side and she already has some research projects from the council," Ino says, quick to balance her words, and that along with the thinly veiled guilt is enough for Sakura to put the matter aside, moving on to other questions.

Still, though, it haunts her; somehow, simultaneously, in two different ways:

Shikako had been the one to find her. The girl in the shadow of the tree following a prototype magic seeker and finding a different girl who had never heard of magic, would never have known of the magic within her. Without Shikako, would she still be that magic-less boring girl destined for that magic-less boring life?

Alternatively, if Shikako had manifested her Aspects, would there even be a space for Sakura in this world of magic?

---

Uzumaki Naruto's Aspects are Sun and Belief and Present. Uchiha Sasuke's Aspects are Moon and Ambition and Past.

There was no doubt that they would be put on the same team.

Frankly, the only question was who could possibly match?

---

(it should have gone like this)

"Do you think she's lost?" Sakura asks her classmates. There's a girl standing in the shadow of the tree in the courtyard; about their age, maybe, but the school uniform doesn't match theirs at all. Almost as if she feels Sakura's gaze, the girl meets her eyes and smiles.

When it seems like none of her classmates can spot the girl in the shadow of the tree, Sakura drops the matter immediately. She doesn't want to be known as the weirdo who sees things that aren't there. She deflects and the new topic of conversation swiftly moves out of her hands.

Sakura looks back out the window, the girl in the shadow of the tree waves. Sakura exits the building, the girl in the shadow of the tree looks at her expectantly.

Sakura could ignore her and keep going--she has homework, after all--but even if she doesn't want to be known as a weirdo amongst her classmates, that doesn't mean she wants nothing interesting to happen in her life ever.

She already knows what will happen if she keeps on walking, ignoring the girl in the shadow of the tree. Sakura will go home, maybe stopping by a store or a cafe on the way. She will do her homework and do her chores and take a bath and eat dinner and sleep and do absolutely nothing out of the ordinary because her life is predictable and that's just a synonym for boring.

So Sakura goes to the tree instead.

"Hello," Sakura says, because even if this girl is merely lost and not some guide to a more exciting world surely there's no harm in being polite. "Can I help you?"

"Maybe," says the girl in the shadow of the tree, lifting one hand palm up. Preemptively, she makes her hand glow with a pale, almost distant light. "Haruno Sakura, do you believe in magic?"

---

Nobody is born with fully manifested magic.

Active magic requires agency, will power and vision. Those are shaped by a magician's sense of self, their personality and convictions. Their Aspects.

There's more, of course. But sometimes more can lead to decisions a little riskier than predicted.

---

(it should have gone like this)

At first there is no team for Sakura which is a little disheartening but also, simultaneously, a relief. Almost all of the other magicians her age have been raised around magic, she already has so much to learn and catch up on that it's almost overwhelming! She can't possibly imagine what it would be like being introduced to a new world and then immediately thrown onto a team with strangers.

But her magical peers are supportive in their own way--most of them friendly, all of them definitely interesting. Their teams are well chosen, Aspects resonating beautifully, and whenever she has the free time in between diving headfirst into her magical studies and maintaining her grades at school she wonders what her teammates will be like. If they'll match her just as nicely. If she'll even have teammates.

"Don't worry," Shikako says with a smile, supportive and kind and definitely interesting. Behind her, her teammates bicker as ever--and while Sakura will admit, blushingly, that she was a little infatuated with Sasuke in the beginning, she would go mad if she had to put up with him and Naruto for too long--but Shikako appears as calm and as fond of them as ever.

"I found you didn't I?"

She did, yes. How she found the time in between her own magical research, high-octane team, and normal schoolwork of her own is baffling to Sakura. She's grateful, of course, but still. Sakura isn't even doing half as much and she's barely keeping up!

"Don't worry," Shikako says again, and if her tone turns a little vague, her gaze going beyond Sakura, well. Shikako is a very powerful magician...

"... you belong in this world. Magic seeks balance."

And Sakura nods, because that is one of the earlier lessons she was taught upon joining the magical world. For all the strangeness of Shikako's tone, it is reassuring. So Sakura nods and continues to voraciously consume all she can about this new world she belongs to so that when her teammates do appear she'll be prepared.

Shikako finds Yakumo first--her Aspects of Sky and Art and Acceptance--then comes Isaribi with the Aspects of Sea and Transformation and Trust. And Sakura finally feels like she actually belongs.

---

Magic is not completely a science, for all that there is cause and effect. It's not entirely an art, either, though some talented magicians make it seem that way. There are some parts of it that are understandable, quantifiable and predicable, but there is so much more that is beyond human comprehension. Even active magic which requires, in essence, humanity, can be beyond explanation.

Aspects are an attempt at doing so, but for all that they determine the futures of most magicians, they can't perfectly encompass the whole of a magician's power. Because magic exists beyond words and definitions. Even abstract concepts can fail. Trying to apply terminology to magic? Might as well punch a god in the face.

And so when a girl born to the magical world, even if her Aspects manifest a little late, if there already exists a place for her on a team where she resonates so powerfully, well.

Stars and Determination and Future are close enough...

... for a human, that is.

---

(but it actually went like this)

A few months after an ordinary day in which no interesting strangers showed up to derail Sakura's life, she is on her way home from school. She's thinking about maybe stopping by a store or a cafe on the way, but maybe not. She still has to do her homework and chores before she can take a bath and eat dinner and sleep and do absolutely nothing out of the ordinary because her life is predictable and that's just a synonym for boring.

A pair of boys--about her age, maybe, but in school uniforms different from hers--stop her. They've been looking for her, they say, and while the dark-haired one is handsome enough that she'd normally blush and think it romantic first words, his tone and the fact that his blonde friend is also there ruins that theory.

Also, they know her name and that's weird. She says as much, which causes them to start bickering, and in their distracted state she takes the opportunity to escape.

The next day, on her way home from school--along the same, predictable path, of course--she is stopped by a strange man. Both unfamiliar and unusual. Almost his entire face is covered and his hair is grey and he slouches as if in apology for his height. He asks her if she believes in magic.

She knows a creep when she sees one and runs in the opposite direction. She'll take the long way home.

The next few days she changes up her route going home because, yes, sometimes she's naïve but she's not completely oblivious. It still doesn't really help though, because this time its a trio of strangers--thankfully around her age--but still not great.

"Those idiots," the girl says, flicking her long blonde ponytail in fashionable irritation, "I can't believe they messed up this bad. What an awful first impression, she's already spooked."

One of the boys, dark hair and sleepy eyes, just shrugs and responds, "Well if she's really going to end up on their team, it's not like her second impression is going to be much better."

If they're talking about who she thinks she's talking about she's not exactly pleased with them either.

The other boy, reddish hair and round cheeks, looks her in the eye and gives a friendly smile. Despite the situation, something within Sakura relaxes a little. "Would you like to try out that cafe? Our treat," he says, and its not an entirely unwanted offer. She doesn't have too much work waiting for her at home and she deserves something nice.

"Okay," she says, and lets them pay for her anmitsu while they tell her about magic, the magical world, and how she fits into all of it.

---

Humans are not the only beings capable of magic.

---

(but it actually went like this)

Sakura is worried and overwhelmed and frustrated and she knows she shouldn't complain because she does honestly enjoy magic and the world its brought her into and she wouldn't dare go back to that ordinary, predictable, boring life.

But she wishes that her teammates weren't so abrasive and prickly, that her teacher were a little more engaged. It's been months already since she joined Naruto and Sasuke's team. She doesn't know why they're being so difficult when she hasn't even done anything wrong!

She's headed to the training grounds but in a wandering path, if she's honest. She's normally a punctual person, but Kakashi-sensei has never once been on time and she can just as easily not talk to her teammates here as she can at the training grounds.

The part of the city she's in isn't so urban as to have skyscrapers, but in this district the buildings are all at least several stories and practical, blocky metal and cement. The looming structure made of curving wood and stone looks more like a tree than anything else.

There is a girl standing in the shadow of the tree that isn’t. She meets Sakura's eyes, smiles, and waves.

Sakura has been studying the magical world. Knows about the dangers young magicians can face in a world that wants to eat them alive. Knows that nice exteriors don't necessarily mean kind hearts.

But she also knows, somehow, that if she walks away now she will never see this girl again.

"Hello," Sakura says, because there's no harm in being polite, "Can I help you?"

"Maybe," says the girl in the shadow of the tree that isn't. "Haruno Sakura, do you believe in destiny?"

---

Gelel: Light, Unity, Creation.

Jashin: Void, Suffering, Destruction.

Magic seeks balance.

Magic is better with three.

---

"If you could," the girl begins, a wistful sort of smile on her face, "tell them I said its not their fault. It was entirely on me. I overreached and had to face the consequences."

"What did you do?" Sakura asks before she can swallow down her curiosity

Shikako says, "Some lessons are learned the hard way..."

At first, Sakura thinks that's all she will say, a dismissive sort of answer, but then Shikako continues:

"...but perhaps not all of them. Hopefully you’ll learn from my mistakes," she says with a small bitter smile, gaze going beyond Sakura.

"I foresaw danger and thought I could prevent it,” Shikako says, almost a confession. “But the more magic I had, the more danger arose, until I found myself trying to make a deal with the Shinigami."

If any of the horror Sakura feels is showing on her face, Shikako doesn't let that deter her.

"Unsurprisingly, the Shinigami is very good at making deals and somewhat overworked." Shikako's smile is wider now, more real. "I asked him for the world where all of my friends and family lived. He said I should make it myself."

"So now I'm Death's apprentice," she shrugs, almost casual about it even though the very concept is giving Sakura a headache. "Shikabane-hime, the Lady Cosmos, the Space-Time Witch, whatever," she lists, rolling her eyes, impossibly blasé about her various titles.

"It's not so bad, I guess. But I do miss my friends and family."

Finally, something Sakura can wrap her brain around! "Do you want me to tell them that, too?"

Shikako blinks, almost surprised, before she tilts her head. "Maybe? I mostly meant that, well... I know in this timeline I’m just a stranger, but it's nice to see you again, Sakura. And just in case you had any doubts: you were always destined for greatness."

A/N: If you couldn’t tell from this mess, it was supposed to be more xxxholic/CLAMP than Madoka Magica (which I haven’t actually watched) but from what little I know of the latter, I wouldn’t blame anyone for getting that sort of vibe. Don’t worry, it’s kinda a good ending. I mean, Shikako literally made a deal with multiple gods in order to make it so.

edit: I have come up with a title/tag for this

“meeting and incidents unraveled”

#jacksgreyson #anonymous #prompt response #wrting #fanfiction #could should actually fic #a softer ask box #dreaming of sunshine #naruto #xxxholic #sakura haruno #shikako nara #meeting and incidents unraveled

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