"You're driving him to keep a promise that will ultimately kill him. If that's not cruelty, I don't know what is." Tenten hears a fragment of a conversation, and acts accordingly.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.


Tenten bites her lip as she listens to the conversation going on inside of the hospital room.

"I haven't given up! Listen, I'm still gonna keep my promise! After all, it was the promise of a lifetime, right? I meant it!"

Tenten closes her eyes. She's not sure what happened before Naruto said this, but from what it is, it sounds like Sakura was giving him a pretty hard time. Why? Oh, why, Naruto? Why try to bring back a boy who tried to kill you? You've done enough, more than enough.

God, Sakura, why are you hurting him this way? Even I can see it.

A long pause follows.

Sakura's voice comes through the door, strangely quiet and calm. "It's okay, Naruto." Her voice become even smaller. "Really."

She's lying, she's lying, I know she's lying.

Shikamaru cuts in. "He tried, Sakura!" The apathetic chunin sounds unusually angry, and Tenten feels a shoot of gratefulness for Shikamaru.

"If I say I'm gonna do it, that means I will. 'Kay? Don't forget, my way of the shinobi means I always stand behind what I say!"

It's pathetically cheerful, and Tenten can hear the tears behind the words, threatening to escape.

Stop hurting him, Sakura.

The door opens, and out steps the little pink-haired genin.

Sakura starts to notice the older girl leaning against the wall, her arms folded against the wall. "Oh, hello Tenten-san. You're here to see Neji, aren't you? He's down the hall, on the left—"

"How can you be so cruel?" Tenten blurts out the words before she can stop them. She didn't mean to say it, she just wanted to leave something unsaid for once, but no…

"What?" Sakura looks confused, and quite frankly affronted. "What are you talking about, Tenten?"

Tenten scowls and flicks her head in direction of the door. "You know full well what I'm talking about, Sakura. Naruto, and that promise you're making him keep."

She blushes in anger. "I'm not making him do anything, Tenten. I don't want Naruto to keep a promise if it gets him killed. I'm not being cruel."

Tenten's brown eyes narrow. "You're driving him to keep a promise that will ultimately kill him. This will kill him, if it's allowed to go on. If that's not cruelty, I don't know what is."

Tenten has always had select ideas about what is cruel.

Cruel is someone who bullies others for any reason, most of all the sake of bullying.

Cruel is someone who abandons their comrades to their deaths.

Cruel is someone who drinks his life away then comes home to beat the living daylights out of his two daughters (Tenten's father was a very cruel man).

Sakura is not a bad person. Tenten knows this. But everyone has lapses. Everyone.

Tenten has a new definition for cruelty. Cruel is someone who makes their comrade keep a promise even at the cost of their life and soul.

Maybe, just maybe (Tenten hopes not), this makes Haruno Sakura a cruel person.


Amazing what happens when a person only hears part of a conversation, isn't it?

This isn't Sakura bashing. The way Shikamaru reacted in the hospital showed that at least one person thought Sakura's treatment of Naruto was uncalled-for. Personally, I think she made a bad decision in not trying to at least get Naruto to let up. And if someone heard only that part of the conversation, things could have been misinterpreted.