Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Author's Note: It's post-canon, and it has some mild SasuSaku. I'm not sure if it really counts as an ItaSaku, but oh well.
20 Truths
1.
Sakura takes a moment to thank him each day for everything he had given to this village that he loved. She hopes he would be happy to know, that a person who had never known him, has the utmost gratitude to him.
2.
Every time her fiancé flicks his eyes open to a deep crimson red, she is longer afraid. Because of the man called weasel, she's reminded that not everyone with blood for eyes, had blood on their mind.
3.
When her first child is born, she smiles when her husband suggests his brother's name. Her chest flutters a bit when she sees that he's finally at peace. She smiles a bit wider, since he couldn't be here in person, to see his nephew.
4.
Her little child wobbles towards her, with a big, goofy smile plastered on his face. He's the spitting image of what he was named after. The signature facial lines were even beginning to show on his face. She wonders if her husband would be flabbergasted to see that his son looks like his uncle more than his father. Nah, he'd probably be proud.
5.
Her son bravely puts up a apathetic face, but his habit of finger twitching tells her otherwise. Sakura puts the scissors down, and gives a dramatic sigh as she raises her hands in defeat. Maybe short hair wasn't for everyone.
She felt slightly alarmed that her son was beginning to become a living replica of the man he was named after, but her worries vanish when her husband returns after a year-long mission, and he bounces their son on his shoulder, despite the poor stitch work on his stomach. Her son, and him would never be completely alike because of that. She knows he's relieved that they aren't.
6.
Sakura asks her husband if he knew how to draw. He gave her a long pointed look. She remembers how Naruto caught him using his Sharingan to cheat in their drawing contest. Naruto still isn't letting him live that down. She gives a little smile when she secretly looks over her son's sketches, because no one in her family could draw either.
7.
When cleaning up their son's 5th birthday celebration, she's shocked to hear her husband murmur that it was his death anniversary as well. She takes out the piece of leftover cake, and places the least melted candle on top. Sakura settles into the lap of her husband and quietly sings a happy birthday. For a person was reborn, each time one thought of them.
8.
As young as he was, he maturely and quickly grasped the concept of what his parents told him. Sakura tried to tell her husband that he was too young to know the past and truth behind the clan, but there are things even she can't stop her spouse from doing. Despite her efforts, she couldn't stop her son from bearing the heavy burdens his ancestors created. She apologizes.
9.
Her baby daughter cooed happily as her son gently rubbed noses with her. He gave a little smile and wave in a familiar reserved manner, and made his way toward his first day at the academy. Even though he was barely 4'4, the strength and charisma in his gait, told her that he was more than prepared to protect the facade his uncle gave his life for, as much as it hurt.
10.
He is teased and tormented at school, and she's come marching to Iruka many times already, but the simple, honest cruelty that young children are capable of, is hard to stop.
Before she could even begin to fret over his cuts and bruises when he comes home, he squeezes her hand lightly, and says, "Don't worry. I didn't kill them." It's a sudden jolt of realization that he could've done that without batting an eye, but he endured the blows instead. With that, she knows that everything's going to be alright.
11.
Sakura thanks him in the back of her mind, for allowing her son to take after him in that aspect, instead of taking after his father.
12.
His father gives him the tattered forehead protector of his uncle when he asks for it. The slash in it sticks out like a sore thumb.
13.
That day, he asks to participate in the "Capture the flag" graduation tournament. She looks at him curiously, because he was already an unofficial jounin, and the only thing keeping him from obtaining official status and advancing well onto Anbu, was his parent's connection to the hyperactive Hokage. Nobody picks him for their team.
14.
It seems he already predicted that, and with everyone's eye upon him, he ties the taboo headband on. At that point, any notion of blue or red team subconsciously vanish, and the only separation are between him, and them.
15.
He moves gracefully, and efficiently, never wasting time with any extra motion. In a matter of moments, he has all 47 flags in his hands, and the only scratch on him, is the one on his forehead.
16.
He stands like a proud Uchiha, with the graduating class groaning on the floor. The only ones smart enough to not participate, were the children of the Rookie Nine, and that was only because their parents had forcefully kept them from going. Their parents are horrified, and are complaining loudly and rudely into her ear, about how he cheated with his bloodline.
She smiles and says that they have a right to complain only if their children trained a straight 6 hours each day, by their own will. Her husband smirks when she cheerfully rubs it in their faces that he didn't even activate his Sharingan.
His prodigious talents were tightly kept under wraps, in hopes of giving him a normal childhood, but she sees with a motherly eye, that this was his own way of declaring himself upon the world. She's never been more proud, and afraid.
17.
Soon after that, he advances swiftly through the customary rituals of Chunin, and Jounin, even though it's more than obvious he's overqualified for it. Sakura wants to hurl when the letter of "request" from Anbu comes. Sakura sees her husband yelling and arguing with Naruto near the hospital. She thinks about complaining to Naruto as well, but she knows that he probably already did everything he could, since he felt the same way as them.
18.
She laughs a bit ruefully, as she watches her son reject a girl as politely and kindly as possible. "Your father was a jackass to all of them, and he managed to score a fan club of 250. He still has one.
Being a nice guy isn't going to help." Even though she sympathizes, limits get pushed when poorly cloaked chakra signatures, and footsteps can be heard on the ceiling at 3 in the morning. Sakura thinks about setting traps that will hang them by their pinkie toes outside the front door in the morning.
She walks back in her house when she sees over 30 girls crying and wailing upside down outside her front porch.
19.
She makes sure he gets placed in the same squad with as much of the Rookie Nine as possible. He wasn't allowed to be in the same squad as his father, since according to the council, "had too much emotional bonds that could endanger the well-being of the mission."
Eleven was a young age. She wanted him to be with people who'd try to preserve that age as much as possible.
20.
Both father and son arrive home with blood soaked hair, and clothes. His father gives a little nudge for him to make his way into the house, and gives a little nod before vanishing off in a puff of smoke.
She is relieved upon so many levels that the blood isn't his, and frankly at the moment, she doesn't give a rat's ass about whose blood it was.
At least not yet. His little 5 year old sister stays up with her to wash the blood and mud out of his hair. She's a little trooper, and despite it being 5 hours after her usual bedtime, she runs her little pudgy hands quite alertly through the dark strands.
She only stops once to brush her black strands out of her face. After Sakura finishes washing the clothes, and she walks in the siblings' room to make sure the littlest one was asleep. Almost walking out, she catches a glint of metal in the corner of the room. It was him seated against the wall, with a kunai in ready position. He puts it away smoothly in frightening speed, but it was too late.
She kneels down with him.
"She's alright. They won't reach us here."
He doesn't raise his head up. She settles down next to him, and places his head down on her lap.
"Would you like to be eleven?" She mildly asks him.
He nods his head, and tears soak into the fabric of her pants.
She lays her head down on him and runs her fingers through his slightly damp hair.
"You've never had the chance to live your own life. Have you, Itachi?" She murmurs faintly.
She doesn't know which one she meant.