Sandbox / Quietus

This page is currently under construction, and as such there are multiple ZCEs in the folders below. Tropes will be outfitted with examples or culled as necessary.

Quietus is an ongoing, M-rated Fusion Fic by Seraphina Scribes ^note previously known as AngeLhearteD that blends Naruto and Greek mythology in a modern-day alternate timeline, first published on FanFiction.Net in 2011 and added to Archive of Our Own in 2014. It should be noted that this is not a professionally edited work and that the story at this time consists of an inital draft, as many fanfictions do. Initially a by-the-book adaptation of the Rape of Persephone, it has expanded over the years to incorporate the Titanomachy alongside the Uchiha Clan Massacre and Shinobi Wars from Naruto. The fanfic is best known for its focus on Sakura Haruno's growing and initially uncomfortable relationship with Sasuke Uchiha, though it also contains a myriad of subplots both original and adapted from the source material which are being addressed as the story enters its final arcs.

The tale begins with Sasuke as Hades catching sight of Sakura, a mortal girl, while collecting a newly departed soul from a funeral. Instantly obsessed with the blazing purity of her soul, Sasuke vows to claim her as his queen at all costs—even if it means ripping her off the surface and imprisoning her alive underground. And after two years of impatiently waiting and stalking her nightly, he does exactly that.

But Sakura is no ordinary human: her disappearance has triggered a premature autumn aboveground, and the other gods are beginning to suspect that one of their own has violated the natural order. What's more, she claims to dream of Sasuke in the company of a goddess named Kore, who bears a chilling resemblance to Sakura and about whom Sasuke can remember nothing at all. As he begins to investigate the origins of his unusual captive, Sasuke discovers that his missing memories of Kore may be connected not just to the downfall of his clan in the Titanomachy from eons past, but to a dreaded nemesis long thought sealed away for good.

A nemesis who is beginning to stir once more in his prison, high upon Mount Olympus...

As this fanfic borrows plot points from both Naruto and the Greek myth canon, spoilers will only be marked for plot points unique to Quietus while events, character traits, or revelations from either source will be left unmarked. Readers unfamiliar/up-to-date with Naruto or Greek myth should proceed with caution.

Readers should also take note that most of the characters go by two names in the text, their canon Naruto names (their true names in-universe) and their deity names based off Greek myth. To keep character identities straight, all names will be handled under the following rules:

• Characters will be mentioned mainly by their canon name in examples relevant either to the story as a whole, including personality traits and skills, or to present events in-universe. If the trope relates to their godly alter ego as well, both names will be used instead, e.g. "Sasuke-as-Hades".
• Mythological names will be given preference in examples pertaining to events set in flashbacks with canon names listed as needed—for example, "Hades (aka Sasuke)".
• No canon or mythological names will be spoilered out unless they are integral to the plot, whether in the past or in the present.^* Sasuke obviously gets a free pass here, since even the official summary states he's supposed to be Hades.

You can find Quietus here on FanFiction.Net, scrubbed of all sex scenes to avoid potential conflict with site policies regarding explicit content; readers curious and/or thirsty enough can alternatively find the uncensored version here on Archive of Our Own. A companion piece titled Quietus: The Appendices was additionally published on FanFiction.Net in 2012, containing bonus materials such as a sporadically revised dramatis personae.

Content warning: This work contains multiple tropes and examples related to potentially triggering content, including but not limited to abduction, stalking, physical abuse, suicide, mental injuries, and sexual violence.

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Quietus contains examples of:

Tropes #-D

• 0% Approval Rating: Just like in myth, Cronus aka Madara Uchiha has no fans among the other deities, especially not the Olympians he tries to oppress and destroy.
• Abduction Is Love:
  • Double subverted, surprisingly. While Sakura does eventually develop an attraction to Sasuke, who himself grows kinder and more considerate through her influence, she's not above calling him out on his cryptic demeanor and efforts to isolate her in her final conversation with him before she returns to the surface.
  • On the other hand, Kore and Hades invert this trope with the former being Sakura's past identity. Kore happily engages in her affair with Hades on the surface and is only abducted after Hades breaks up with her to protect her from Cronus; ironically enough, Cronus still manages to hold Kore hostage both to exploit (or rather, pervert) her life-giving powers and to twist the metaphorical knife in Hades' gut. She is shattered by Hades' rebuffing her and by the Uchiha clan using her as a pawn against her fellow Olympians.
• Abhorrent Admirer: Karin is characterized as one essentially from her introduction, no thanks to her ruthless and petty personality combined with her fanaticism toward Sasuke. There's a measure of irony in Sasuke, misanthrope supreme, being repulsed by someone who has no issues roughing up his mortal subjects to keep them in line, quite literally, as part of her guard duties along the Styx riverbank.
• Action Dress Rip: Sakura rips off the lower half of her ball gown with some reluctance during her fight in the Winter Ball against a host of mythological beasts.
• Action Girl: Sakura morphs into one when Sasuke begins training her in swordsmanship at her request, which she'd put forth as part of her ruse to borrow Sasuke's sword, and even gets some practice in combating a legendary creature via simulation at one point. After she returns to the surface, her friends and family continue to teach her everything they know about chakra and combat in preparation for the second war against Madara-as-Cronus, then during the Winter Ball she takes control of a panicking mob and doles out a couple of devastating punches to the beasts hijacking the dance at Orochimaru-as-Deimos' command. We later see her not only devise successful combat strategies and puzzle solutions on her own, but also back Sasuke in combat with her sword while he is fighting the griffins guarding the first of the four relics to be used in unsealing the surviving Olympians' powers.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: A downplayed version. Karin, who has shown some degree of sympathy for (and eventually befriends) Sakura in their home series, is completely determined to hate Sakura to bits in Quietus. It doesn't help that she has been clamoring for Sasuke's attention for years to no avail.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: As in their home series, Itachi-as-Thanatos frequently poked Sasuke in the forehead as a gesture of endearment when the latter was a child. Naturally, he does so one last time before leaving Sasuke and dying in battle against the Olympians.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Sakura invokes this trope throughout the story by secretly, and occasionally not so secretly, ogling Sasuke and internally gushing about how effortlessly sexy he is, both before and after she gets to know him. Upon returning to the surface, however, she briefly subverts this trope when she develops a mild romantic attraction to Kenji, one of her fellow medical students.
• All-Powerful Bystander: Chiyo embodies this trope as Hecate, prescient goddess of witchcraft and the crossroads. Due to her prodigious knowledge she has to avoid meddling with events as she sees them unfold, but it doesn't mean she's any happier about it.
• Always Someone Better: This accurately sums up Sasuke's past opinion of Itachi as a combatant and clan member, though his inferiority complex is justified by his inexperience, the latter of which gradually diminishes as he learns to exercise all of the Uchiha's abilities by himself.
• A Match Made in Stockholm: Well, it is based off the Rape of Persephone. Zigzagged up the wazoo though: Sakura initially despises and fears Sasuke for abducting her but grows to empathize with and even desire him, only to exploit their mutual affection to secure her escape after which she continues to pine for him. This is further nuanced by Sakura being Kore, Hades' former lover, reincarnated.
• Amnesiac Lover: Both Sakura and Sasuke count, what with Sakura not remembering her past as Kore and Sasuke-as-Hades not remembering Kore or his relationship with her at all. Later, we learn that Kore's and Hades' memories were locked away by Thanatos and Hypnos in order to protect both the troubled young deities and the life-death balance in the world.
• And I Must Scream: Thanks to Sasuke targeting them both for different reasons, Sakura and Sai fall victim early on to this trope.
  • In Sakura's case, Sasuke is keeping her against her consent in his kingdom as his companion and future lover. Since she's already in the realm of the dead, dying would only trap her in his domain as a shade under his eternal rule. Then there's her seemingly endless reincarnation cycle which is revealed to end with Sakura herself, who will either die as a mortal or ascend once more to her role as the underworld-dwelling Persephone. And speaking of underworld-dwelling, Sasuke eventually tricks her into eating a handful of pomegranate seeds which, owing to their extramundane origin, will remain in her stomach forever and tie her inextricably to his kingdom. Either way she's chained to the Underworld for good.
  • If Sakura is miserable underground, at least Sasuke cares for her wellbeing and general existence. Additionally as the story progresses, he demonstrates genuine remourse for his actions in the first two arcs of the story. Not so with Sai, aka Hermes: the poor boy bears a seal on his tongue, courtesy of Sasuke, that is cursed to terminate his existence if he so much as hints at Sakura's true whereabouts to anyone, his fellow surface gods in particular. On top of that Sasuke has no qualms whatsoever about physically abusing or stalking Sai to ensure the latter's complicity culminating in Sai nearly dying during his confrontation with an enraged Sasuke at the entrance of the Underworld. Nevertheless, this is complicated by the fact that Cronus manipulated Hades' mind and memories to make him irrationally hate and seek the ruin of the surface gods before he was sealed on Mt. Olympus. Hence, most of Sasuke's character development in the second part of the story is focused around learning what and who he can really trust.
  • Sasuke's general existence can be summed up thusly as well. Not only does he live alone in the Underworld, he has to run the entire kingdom by himself with no chance of retiring or quitting because he's preordained to wield all the powers of the chthonic deities alone. This only occured because Cronus felt that Sasuke would be easy to manipulate in the future and because Sasuke's family made calcualted moves to ensure his survival leading up to the war. If he dies, as had nearly happened once, the balance of life and death will be irreversibly overturned. His role is also critical in ensuring the survival of Sakura now, which appears to have been anticipcated in some way by Minato, Itachi, and Shisui 2,000 years ago.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: An inversion occurs between Kore and Hades during their final dance together, where Kore vows to despise him eternally for having toyed with her trust and cast her aside afterward.
• Attempted Rape: At one point Sakura stumbles upon a pair of nymphs beset upon by satyrs while wandering through a maze in Sasuke's gardens. She only manages to rescue one of the nymphs but is too late to save the other, who has already been raped.
• Author Appeal: The author has an eye for detail and enjoys providing descriptions of the surroundings and attire of their characters.
  • For starters, the architecture in Quietus tends toward the opulent side of things, featuring such elements as Palladian windows framed by silk drapes, ceilings covered in elaborate heavenly tableaux, and gem-encrusted double doors. This is not surprising considering that the story is about gods. Hades is the god of death and riches in Greek myth and the Underworld and its plalace reflect this wealth, abounding in opulence and beauty.

• Ballroom Blitz: After her homecoming, Sakura and her friends decide to decompress for an evening and attend the Winter Ball. They end up getting more excitement than they bargained for when Orochimaru-as-Deimos sends a hydra and a chimera to crash the party, hurling them into a brawl with the legendary beasts that threatens to unmask them as otherworldly beings to the other, decidedly mortal guests.
• Beautiful Dreamer: In the times that Sakura is asleep, during the time he was stalking her and in her time as a captive, he unashamedly takes his time to admire looks and peaceful atmosphere - wondering what is it that draws himself to her. He has to stop himself from doing anything else.
• The Beautiful Elite: Everyone in the main cast who lives on the surface is conventionally attractive, not to mention wealthy enough to live in mansions and buy (not borrow or rent) lavish outfits for special occasions like balls. Naturally, this gives them room to develop a plethora of personal issues that would not be out of place in a soap opera.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension:
• Big Bad Triumvirate
• Big Brother Instinct
• Big Brother Worship: Sasuke thinks his older brother "was just naturally perfect. At everything." Or so he did.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing
• Bodyguard Crush
• Boom, Headshot!: Tenten probably wouldn't have picked up that mysterious glass orb during the Winter Ball if she had known it was going to blow up in her face.
• Boy Meets Girl: More like "boy steals girl", given that it's based off the Rape of Persephone, but this does apply for Sakura's previous life as Kore.
• Brainwashed
• Break Her Heart to Save Her: Hades attempts to pull this off on the life-giving Kore, thinking that she will be shielded from Madara-as-Cronus if he severs all contact with her. Unfortunately for him and his ex, this leads to her being captured by Madara anyway—and as extra punishment she's turned into a walking dead zone that eventually kills her as well.
• Break the Cutie
• Broken Ace
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Sasuke and Sakura. Also applies to Naruto and Hinata, as in canon.
• Bunker Woman: Sakura spends a good chunk of the story in the Underworld from Chapter 5 onward; she makes a few attempts to flee early on, including nearly allowing some sirens to drown her. Then she knocks Sasuke unconscious with poison and makes her (mildly guilt-ridden) escape for real in Chapter 49.
• Cast Full of Rich People
• Cessation of Existence
• Cherry Blossom Girl: This version of Sakura could practically be the poster child for this trope! To wit:
  • She retains most of her canon characteristics associated with cherry blossoms: pink hair, floral name, birthday in early spring, and status as both healer and love interest.
  • Then she checks off the rest of the list with her connections to the cherry tree (her mother Demeter/Tsunade created her, fashioned her appearance, and named her after the blossoms), death (her lover and future husband is the Lord of Death himself), and fate (she is bound to Hades/Sasuke as the reincarnation of his first love). She also wears a lot more pink.
  • And there's the requisite invocation of traditional Japanese culture which she manages to fulfill partially twice. While her absence of affinity for traditional Japanese culture keeps her from being a complete Yamato Nadeshiko, she nevertheless comes off as graceful, polite, and nurturing yet fierce most of the time...and she also practices ninjutsu as found in Naruto.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Karin feels this way about Sasuke, not that he approves of her interest in him.
• Corrupt the Cutie
• Costume Porn: The author enjoys describing the characters' outfits, especially during Sakura's extended stay in the Underworld from Chapters 5 to 49. Downplayed since the outfits themselves aren't that over the top but still primarily designed to make the wearer attractive.
  • The Relic Arc involves and 'biker' attire as most of their travel is spent on motorcyles and they often sleep outdoors.
• Cradling Your Kill
• Crystal Prison
• Damsel out of Distress: Sakura starts off as Sasuke's helpless and hapless captive, incapable of any form of self-defense and overwhelmed by fear and confusion. By Chapter 50 she has managed to successfully trick Sasuke into ingesting poison so she can steal the Kusanagi, Sasuke's legendary sword and the only key capable of unlocking the gates of the Underworld, and leave for the surface through her own efforts instead of being rescued.
• Dances and Balls
• Dance of Romance
• Dark Fic: Just skim this page, and you'll see everything from abduction to mental injuries to death. There are lighthearted moments of friendship and affection throughout the story, but it is rated M for a reason.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Quite a few members of the main cast have severe trauma.
  • Despite her sheltered and comfortable upbringing in her current life, Sakura turns out to embody this trope hard thanks to all the horrors inflicted upon her past self as Kore. Let us count the ways:
    • Just when things were going smoothly between Kore and Hades, he broke up with her out of the blue and dismissed her feelings for him. As he had been her first love and sexual partner, this crushed her beyond belief.
    • Shortly after that, his family kidnapped her as collateral in their campaign against the Olympians and put on display as Hades' dance partner during their final masquerade ball, where she confessed her undying hatred and resentment of him before attempting her escape. To no avail, unfortunately: she ended up captured again and poisoned by Cronus' power, causing her powers over nature to bring decay, the latter of which inevitably killed her as she was violating her divine duty.
    • To rub extra salt in her wounds, Hades stumbled upon her in her final moments with her best friend Aphrodite, and was visibly horrified and stunned by but unable to reverse what his clan had done to her. Worse, she spent most of her final hours pummeling herself mentally for falling for someone who discarded her like a broken toy after finishing with her, an impression that her ex could do nothing to challenge even as he watched her die.
  • Ino-as-Aphrodite. Poor girl has been spending the past two millennia growing up and regressing to childhood ad infinitum just so Kore's reincarnations won't have to be alone. And did we mention she held her best friend as the latter died in her first life? Or that her best friend's ex-boyfriend showed up during Kore’s death and was unable to do anything but watch? Additionally, most of her powers have been relinquished so she can protect Kore's mortal shells, making her one of the few Olympians unable to access even an iota of her divine energy and almost as mortal as Sakura herself.
  • Sasuke used to be a sweet (if slightly awkward) boy. Then his brother killed their parents and his clan leader led the rest of the family into slaughter, for reasons unknown to and deliberately hidden from him until eons after the massacre.
    • On top of that he has to run an entire kingdom on his own, with no formal advisors shown or even mentioned at any point. It's even stated later on that if he ignores his subjects for any reason, their endless entreaties (which only he can hear) will eventually drive him mad—which nearly happened when he first ascended to the throne.
    • He also watched his ex-girlfriend die in her best friend's arms while being excoriated for his apathy by said best friend and being unable to stop his ex's agonizing death.
  • In Naruto's past life as Apollo he had sworn to protect Hinata-as-Selene after the rest of the Hyuuga clan, save Neji, was killed in battle against the Underworld-dwellers, and his subsequent failure to do so continues to haunt him to this day. He was also isolated from his best friend when Cronus altered Sasuke's memories His parents scarified themselves to seal Cronus in Olympus as well and their bodies were then preserved in crystal by Cronus.
  • Sai-as-Hermes' bears a seal on his tongue that physically blocked him from revealing the truth about Sakura's abduction until Saskue released it. Moreover, he has been targeted and at one point nearly killed by Sasuke for intuiting, perhaps instinctively and unintentionally, where Sakura had gone. He also once had a brother who offered himself up to be killed when pitted against Sai during their first and only battle, mirroring Sai's canon story arc.
  • Some of the old(er) gods might count as well, particularly Tsunade-as-Demeter who not only lost her mortal lover to death in her youth, but has had to watch her only daughter endlessly die and be reborn for over two thousand years.
• Death and the Maiden: Tack "a love story" to the end of this trope, throw in some extra spice, and you have the romantic arc of much of the first half of Quietus.
• Defiant Captive
• Defrosting Ice King
• Despair Event Horizon
• Desperately Craves Affection: As the story progresses, this is revealed as one of Sasuke's reasons for stalking and abducting Sakura. Loving childhood or not, centuries of living alone in the Underworld, with only subjects and servants for company, has left him bereft of the unconditional love he misses.
• Disproportionate Retribution: One could argue that Itachi ripping off Orochimaru's arm falls into the trope, which mirrors the scene in canon, but this would ignore the fact that Itachi was well aware of Orochimaru's machinations and true intents toward his brother (i.e. finding a perfect vessel, as in Naruto canon).
• Distracted by the Sexy
• Distress Ball: Karin gets hit pretty hard with this in Chapter 68 when she accidentally looks into the harpies' eyes and is petrified while escaping from one of Orochimaru's bases.
• Divine Conflict
• Dogged Nice Guy
• Doorstopper: As can be seen on FanFiction.Net and Archive of Our Own, this story spans over 900,000 words and 70+ chapters (plus a prologue) and counting. Some updates span around 15-20k words in more recent chapters. As this is a fanfiction without a professional editing team and as this fanfiction began over ten years ago, the story and writing style have developed over time.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Zigzagged in Chapter 11. Sasuke doesn't kiss or rape Sakura after placing her in a trance, but he does touch her intimately and attempt to undress her while taking in the view and preparing to force himself upon her. Thankfully he does stop himself in time, mainly because he expects her to eventually submit to him.

Tropes E-K

• Eating the Eye Candy
• Emotional Fainting
• Endless Winter: A downplayed version, but Sakura's imprisonment in Sasuke's realm beginning in Chapter 5 precipitates the arrival of autumn on the surface. Scientists around the world are baffled by the abrupt drop in global temperatures as well as the accelerated decay of plant life, blaming it on climate change in absence of a better explanation. It's eventually revealed that the surface world has fallen into a famine because the divine essence of spring within Sakura is unable to maintain plant fertility while she is underground, which leads to Sasuke planning to let her go if only to maintain the life-death balance.
• Entitled to Have You: This is Sasuke's modus operandi for the first arc, where it seems like he's a Type A (he wants Sakura to sleep with him/return his affections because he is a god and he says so). As the story progresses he turns out to be a partial Type D as well (he's been isolated underground for so long that he has virtually no social skills, on top of subconsciously recognizing Sakura as the reincarnation of his lost partner). By the end of the Underworld arc, though, this trope no longer applies to him.
• Everybody Loves Zeus: Played straight with Minato-as-Zeus, whose philandering and vindictive ways are noticeably absent in this universe.
• Evil Gloating
• Eye Scream: While trapped in one of Orochimaru's underground labs, Neji ultimately sacrifices both of his eyes to save Hinata from losing hers to Orochimaru. He dies shortly after from severe blood loss.
• Flashback Nightmare: In Chapter 76 Sakura finally dreams of her last moments as the mortally wounded Kore: She is freed from the Underworld—and by Hades of all people—and runs home, only to discover she is both poisoned and poisoning the earth around her. Cut off from her main source of energy and forced to go against her divine prerogative, she soon succumbs to her internal injuries and dies in agony, cradled by her best friend Aphrodite. Then Thanatos and Shisui show up to lock away her divine essence, memories and all, to hide her away from Madara.
• Flower Motifs: Shows up more prominently in early chapters.
  • Sakura dreams of standing in a field of carnations while holding a red one, representing intense romantic passion, in Chapter 2. Later in that chapter, Sai shows her an eerie replica of the carnation field from her dreams in his sketchbook.
  • In Chapter 14, she mentions peach blossoms (meaning captivity) and cypress (death) in her letter to her mother as a subtle warning that she is currently being held hostage by the Lord of the Dead. The letter sadly never makes its way to Tsunade, thanks to Sasuke burning it.
  • While in fruit form rather than floral, the pomegranate pops up on a regular basis as a symbol of both death and desire.
• Force Feeding: In her despair and frustration over her abduction, Sakura attempts to go on a hunger strike when presented with a lavish meal in Chapter 11. (She even trashes the table to vent her anger.) Sasuke rewards her tenacity by sticking her in a genjutsu (trance) and ordering his servants to feed her until she's sated.
• Forced Kiss: Sasuke to Sakura in a few situations much to her anger
  • In chapter 33, he is unable to help himself with his satisfaction and lust and kiss her after she innocently eats the forbidden pomegranate which bounds her to the underworld and thus to him. She is understandably surprised and upset that her 1st kiss was stolen by him which leads her to ask if this was the reason he uprooted her life.
  • It happens again in chapter 39, in which he loses his control during a sparring match with her, when he pulled her towards him, and kisses her. This time, however, he earns a slap as well as she is angry that his is doing whatever he wants to her again without her consent.
• Fortune Teller: Sakura consults a fortune teller, Madame Mystic, at the second Spring Festival in Chapter 67. The fortune teller proceeds to tell Sakura she is marked by death and must die to be released from her cycle of mortal rebirth.
• Fusion Fic: A mix of Narut ninja lore, Greek mythology, and Abrahamic angels (seraphim in-text).
• Gilded Cage
• Go-Getter Girl
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Sasuke plays this trope straight in Chapter 64; his sorrow over his family’s obliteration among other things overwhelms him and he engages in self-injury alone in the throne room. Later he is so enervated by his trauma that he lies catatonic on the floor, waiting for death to release him. Then Chiyo shows up and snaps him out of it.
• Grand Staircase Entrance
• Green Thumb: Kore can command plants to grow as she pleases on the surface, being a spring goddess in charge of plant fertility. Then in Chapter 60 she gets trapped in the Underworld, where the plants defy her command, likely as she was already poisoned by Cronus at this point.
• Guardian Angel: Some members of the cast, like Neji and Lee, are seraphs.
• Hate Sink: The main traits associated with Karin are her obsessive devotion to Sasuke, her irrational disdain for Sakura (whom she sees as a romantic rival), and her belligerence toward most folks, Suigetsu in particular. Although, she has slowly been developing away from this with the participation in Team Hebi.
• Heel–Face Turn: Sasuke eventually undergoes this as he learns to care about Sakura as a person.
• Hellhound: Cerberus reprises his mythological role here in Quietus, though he's plenty affectionate around his master Sasuke.
• History Repeats: The brewing Titanomachy in the second arc? Yeah, it's not the first time the gods have gone to war with each other.
• Hopeless Suitor
• Hypnotic Eyes: The Sharingan, of course—it offers the ability to entrance just about anyone with a single glance, among other less mundane abilities.
• I Am Not Pretty
• I Have Many Names: Downplayed, but many members of the Naruto cast are known by both their canon names and the most commonly used names of the Greek deities they're intended to personify.^* "Kore" is a partial exception to the latter, being one of Persephone's many epithets.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Sakura starts off as this—the text pretty much enforces it too. Then she slowly comes to subvert this trope, initially under Suigetsu's instruction, as she uses her genuine curiosity about the Underworld to make Sasuke open up to her, culminating in her poisoned Kiss of Distraction in Chapter 49.
• Informed Attribute
• The Ingenue
• The Insomniac: Sasuke rarely if ever sleeps thanks to his memories of the Uchiha clan massacre (among other traumatic events) haunting him every time he tries.
• Inspirational Insult
• Ironic Name:
  • When written with the same kanji as those used for a certain famous ninja, Sasuke's given name can be roughly translated as "assistant", a surprisingly humble name for a divine king. (Both kanji^† 佐助 if you want to know also mean "to help, to assist".) Too bad he's anything but helpful toward the Olympian gods, especially during the quest for Minato's seals beginning Chapter 71—though he's showing signs of being more cooperative and collaborative as of Chapter 76.
  • Hinata Hyuuga's name means "facing the sun" or "place in the sun", and she's also the in-universe incarnation of Titanian moon goddess Selene. As a bonus, Hinata's forename and surname are alternate readings of the same kanji.^‡ They're 日向 for those curious.
• It's All My Fault
• The Jailbait Wait: Mainly applies to the Prologue, but Sakura is no older than sixteen when the physically-twentysomething Sasuke begins stalking her every night. (It's even more apparent in the Appendices side stories that he finds her irresistible despite her tender age.) Largely averted by the main text, though, as Sakura is already eighteen by the time Sasuke yanks her off the surface.
• Jerkass Woobie: Sasuke is practically the poster child for this trope.
• Ki Manipulation: Chakra shows up here in virtually the same form as the canon.
• Kiss of Distraction: Sakura administers a poisoned version on Sasuke, doubling as a Kiss of Death, as part of her grand escape in Chapter 49.

Tropes L-R

• Laser-Guided Amnesia
• Longing Look: Sasuke is deeply infatuated with Sakura and he is often, and unwittingly, giving her passive yet intense stares of desire right to her face which leaves her nervous and embarrassed. She later lampshades this, in Chpt 46/47, during an argument about his overall selfish behavior in pushing his feelings onto her considering their situation.
  Sakura: I was- you confuse me! Sometimes I feel like I can't even think when you…
  [Sasuke stares at her]:...
  Sakura [gestures frantically at him]: When you look at me like that!
  [Sasuke scowled, and bristled defensively] What was she talking about? He wasn't looking at her like anything.
• Long Runner: First published in 2011 (2014 on Archive of Our Own), this story currently spans nearly eighty chapters with semi-regular updates. The ending is planned, but it is unknown how many more chapters there will be.
• The Lost Lenore
• Love Redeems: This appears to be the fulcrum of Sakura's and Sasuke's relationship arc, though it may take some time to get there. Thanks to Sakura's influence, Sasuke goes from allowing mortals to die out of spite to personally slaying a pack of mythological beasts attempting to massacre Sakura and her fellow mortals, the latter of whom he additionally protects by wiping their memories of the attack.
• Lust Object: Sakura to Sasuke to Karin. Sakura subverts this when Sasuke develops a genuine affection for and interest in her.
• Manipulative Bastard
• Masochism Tango
• Masquerade Ball
• Meaningful Name:
  • Applies to Sakura, natch. When read last name first, her full name Haruno Sakura means "spring field of cherry blossoms" in Japanese.^note At least it does when written 春野サクラ Haruno Sakura as in the canon, where 春野 Haruno means "spring field". Coincidentally, her name can also be interpreted as 春の桜 haru no sakura, or "cherry blossoms of spring". Considering her role here as an endlessly dying and reincarnating spring goddess, the name suits her to a tee.
    • The divine names Kore and Persephone count as well. Kore means "girl, maiden" among other things in Greek, and folk etymology, while in no way completely reliable or accurate, glosses Persephone as "bringer of death". The latter name is especially ironic considering that Sakura's past self as Kore had spent her final moments coerced into withering plant life. Not surprisingly, the poor goddess couldn't withstand the strain of shirking her divine duty and died soon after her brainwashing.
  • Hinata's name also falls under this trope: Her name can be translated as "facing the sun" and she just so happens to be in love with resident sun god Apollo, aka Naruto.
• The Mole: Upon learning that Sakura wants out of the Underworld, sea god and fellow prisoner Suigetsu suggests that she pretend to reciprocate Sasuke's interest in her so that she might borrow the Kusanagi and open the gates, which she had failed to open on her own. Sakura reluctantly agrees out of her desire for freedom and eventually learns, and learns to care, more about Sasuke and his realm than she ever anticipated.
• My Beloved Smother: Tsunade as Demeter is this to Sakura, to the point where the latter feels as though she is constantly being chaperoned even by her own friends. She eventually loosens up, though.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In chapter 46, Sasuke experiences a massive one when Sakura almost died as a result of her body trying to activate Spring while in the underworld. He realizes that he was essentially the cause of her severe "spring" attacks and almost killed her as keeping Sakura in the underworld instead of the surface, where her abilities are suppose to natural flourish in spring, will inevitably lead to her death. It hits harder as he has already tricked and bounded her to the underworld for 6 months via the Forbidden Pomegranate Fruit.
• Naïve Everygirl
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Who'd have thought holding your crush/long-lost love underground would reignite the war between the gods? Not to mention said love interest is in reality the reincarnation of a dead spring goddess whose disappearance from the surface casts the mortal world into an indefinite famine.
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Just like in canon, Karin wants in Sasuke's pants, and how. Sasuke, on the other hand, only has eyes for Sakura who is considerably more off-limits.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Sasuke is only this way with Sakura. He can't stand being touched by others after the death of his family.
• No Social Skills: Well, how do you expect Sasuke to develop any when he's been surrounded by shades and servants for centuries?
• No Sympathy: Chiyo's response to Sasuke nearly succumbing to grief and severe depression in Chapter 64 shows signs of this. In Chapter 69 she averts this completely in her final meeting with Shisui and Itachi, the latter of whom pleads for her to protect Sasuke from their family enemies (but especially Madara/Cronus) in his stead.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy
• "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization
• Not Like Other Girls: Sakura starts off as this thanks to how she is framed by the text in early chapters. She's characterized as "exotically beautiful" despite having zero interest in her looks on the surface, intelligent and bookish (Chapter 1 has her correctly identify a visual illusion when her classmates fail and spend her lunchtime reading), uninterested in the boys around her, and unusually pure of heart to the point where her soul glows. (That last one turns out to be because she's actually a spring goddess reincarnated.)
• Not So Stoic
• Obliviously Beautiful
• One-Hour Work Week
• Ordinary College Student
• Plant Mooks
• Please, Don't Leave Me
• Plot Coupon
• Poor Communication Kills
• Power Nullifier
• Power Perversion Potential
• The Proud Elite
• Questionable Consent
• Quit Your Whining
• Rape as Drama: Sakura nearly falls into this trope along with a random nymph in Chapter 34. Luckily for them, they escape intact thanks to Sakura's self-defense skills. The other nymph at the scene of the crime, on the other hand, is subjected to this trope and promptly exits the story in the next chapter.
• Really 700 Years Old: Pretty much all of the gods and seraphs. Double subverted with Kore, who has been dying and being reborn in a mortal shell for a couple thousand years. Sakura is her final life and apparently the one most closely resembling Kore in personality and appearance.
• Reincarnation Romance: The alpha couple, by virtue of Kore dying and being reborn over eons. Overlaps with Resurrected Romance.
• Rescued from the Underworld: Sakura's friends and family try to invoke this to no avail. Eventually Sakura manages to abscond to the entrance on her own, but is rescued by Sasuke as Suigetsu was planning to imprison her again for leverage. Sasuke then releases her but first flings her into an illusory version of Tartarus and she wakes up on the surface shortly afterward.
• Resurrected Romance: Overlaps with Reincarnation Romance, thanks to Sakura more closely resembling her original self as Kore than any of her past rebirths.
• Romanticized Abuse: Zigzagged.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: Sakura, even more so than in the canon. While she's still a little boisterous around her friends (particularly Naruto and Ino), her sheltered and peaceful upbringing under a doting mother has amplified the softer and sweeter aspects of her personality.

Tropes S-Z

• Sacrificial Lamb: Tenten, portrayed in text as one of Sakura's best friends as well as a cheerful and kind person besides, becomes one in Chapter 62 when she sustains critical neck and head injuries leading to her death by blood loss during the attack on the Winter Ball.
• Said Bookism: The author uses action verbs as speech tags, especially in the chapters published before 2015. Once more, though, this is a fanfiction with no formal editing team and the author's writing skills have improved over time.
• Scenery Porn: Prominent in Sakura's time in the Underworld (spanning around Chapters 5 to 49). Later chapters particularly those revolving around Minato's lost seals still contain some detailed depictions of the characters' surroundings, but not to the same effusive extent as in the Underworld arc.
• Semi-Divine: The Olympians may count in their mortal forms, what with their full powers being sealed away. Sakura herself plays with this trope—her human body is fully mortal, as is the majority of her soul, but she contains the essence of the dead goddess Kore and has been reincarnating ad infinitum over the past two thousand years.
• Ship Tease: Ino and Shikamaru start off as this then abruptly switch over to other targets (Sai and Temari, respectively) from Chapter 66 onward, presumably to comply with canon.
• Shrinking Violet
• Shut Up, Hannibal!
• Silk Hiding Steel: Sakura eventually morphs into this; she never quite loses her polite and nurturing demeanor, but she learns to stand up for herself, occasionally in underhanded ways, and to channel her anger in the face of despair.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Karin to Sasuke to Sakura. Sakura somewhat avoids this with her casual dating of resident nice guy (and original character) Kenji.
• Skewed Priorities: Ino has a screaming match with her personal hairdresser in Chapter 4 after her car crashes into a ditch, and even Hinata gets roped into it. They are both so distracted by the ensuing brabble that they look away just in time to see Sakura wandering alone into the nearby forest. Needless to say, this does not end well for any of them.
• Smug Snake: Orochimaru aka Deimos, god of dread and terror, natch. He's essentially the same villain he was in Part 1 and early Part 2 of his canon series. He is compliant with canon (otherwise characterised as 'In Character').
• Sssssnaketalk: Orochimaru speaks this way for the most part, albeit he doesn't drag out his S's to outrageous lengths. Still justified in that he's a Snake Person here as in canon.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Describes Sasuke to a tee. Doesn't help that he's also been living essentially alone for eons either.
• Stalker with a Crush: Sasuke is fixated enough on Sakura to haunt her from the shadows for two years, to say nothing of nabbing her off the surface to keep all to himself, but the depths of his obsession are even more thoroughly reinforced by these three chapters of the Appendices. Further keeping tabs on her when she returns to the surface is done to as minimalistic a degree as possible, as he is remorseful for his former actions.
• Stalking is Love: Sakura downplays this trope in her views of Sasuke; she starts off less than flattered by his tracking her every movement, but in time her growing affection for Sasuke begins to edge out her dread of him. This is largely the result of her seeing Sasuke's character development and learning that his memories and, hence, personality has been manipulated by someone in the past.
• Star-Crossed Lovers
• Stern Teacher: Sasuke becomes this to Sakura once the swordplay lessons begin, right down to the steady stream of sarcastic takes on her mistakes.
• Stoic Woobie
• Taking Over Heaven: Madara attempted this on Olympus once...and was ultimately imprisoned in his new domain.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: On top of possessing divine good looks, Sasuke is also given to offering acerbic observations of others’ incompetence or letting his visible silence speak for him. He is as he was in canon.
• The Tease
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork
• Title Drop: Present in Chapter 67 when Sakura is consulting with a fortune teller at the Spring Festival.
  The Madame's eyes locked right onto Sakura, as if looking through her. "You must die," she murmured, breathing heavily. "Quietus. It is the only way to achieve release..."
• Together in Death: Subverted by the alpha couple, seeing as one is a full-blooded god and the other the reincarnation of a goddess.
• Took a Level in Kindness
• Tracking Spell: The golden shackles on Sakura's ankles serve as this, which comes in handy for Sasuke during the times she finds herself in danger from the Underworld's denizens.
• Trauma Conga Line: See everything under the Broken Bird page, especially for Sakura's past life Kore and Sasuke/Hades. This is recognised to be an angst-heavy fic.
• Trickster Mentor: Chiyo is a downplayed version, since she doesn't exactly serve as anyone's teacher. That said, she pops up every so often to offer information that moves the plot along.
• Troubled, but Cute
• Universally Beloved Leader: Cronus's fellow chthonic gods happily pledge their fealty to him as their patriarch due to his charisma, ambition, and steadfast loyalty to the clan. ..or at least, most of them did when they were still alive, having known nothing about Cronus' true nature. It turns out Thanatos and Hypnos (Itachi and Shisui, respectively) had allied themselves in secret with Zeus (aka Minato) in a vain attempt to halt the impending Titanomachy, thereby subverting this trope. Hades (aka Sasuke) had also grown to distrust Cronus after witnessing the latter's indifferent, even disappointed, response to his parents' murder.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Sasuke and Sakura in pretty much all the scenes where they're together.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid
• Villain Protagonist: Downplayed example in Sasuke, who is actually more of a villain-cum-anti-hero deuteroganist. He does start off as more of a villain though, if the tropes concerning him on this page are any indication.
• Walking Wasteland: Sakura's past self as Kore was tasked with protecting and nurturing plant life as the embodiment of spring. Then it is revealed in Chapter 64 that Madara poisoned and brainwashed her into inducing vitiation in vegetation as an opening shot against the Olympians, whom he sought to overthrow. Having no choice but to violate her divine operative, she perished not long after.
• Warrior Prince
• Was It All a Lie?: In Chapter 70, Sakura attempts to confront Sasuke in his cell for holding his tongue during his and Suigetsu's trial before the High Council. He responds by accusing her of leading him on during her stay in the Underworld.
  "You would know," he finally intoned coldly, his voice low enough to ensure only she heard him. "About telling lies."
  Sakura flinched despite herself – before bristling indignantly. [...] He thought her a liar. He doubtlessly believed now that she'd just gone along with Suigetsu's plan, and had faked everything – even her genuine interest in his world.
  [...]
  Sasuke's intense gaze held hers for a few seconds longer – before slipping dismissively back to the floor. As the ANBU reached the door, Sakura swallowed, and shook her head in frustration. Then she turned away.
• We Used to Be Friends
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Strongly implied with young Sasuke—at one point in his childhood he breaks a sword during training and has a minor meltdown over potentially disappointing his father Fugaku. Itachi offers to take the blame off him and hide the truth from their dad.
• You Do Not Have to Say Anything: Sasuke deliberately exploits this trope in Chapter 70 during his trial before the divine High Council. Upon being informed that his silence will be seen as an admission of guilt, he chooses to remain largely silent when prompted to explain his crimes against Sakura and his fellow gods, despite Danzou's unsubtle attempts to bait him in the trial. Sasuke admits to having done this as he feels that he is guilty and punishment is warranted.

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Everything below this line will be added to its respective page once the main tropes go live on the Fanworks namespace.

Trivia

• Babies Ever After: According to some of Seraphina's tumblr posts, this is Sakura's and Sasuke's eventual fate in line with their canon selves.
• Recursive Fic: The fanfic has also spawned an entire deviantART community just for fanworks, mostly visual ar. At one point one fan on tumblr even created an indie game inspired by this story.

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