I've always like to think that Sakura had more steel; it always bothered me that she chickened out of killing Sasuke. It would have totally turned her character around- she wouldn't be bitchy, she'd stop doubting herself and maybe she'd have more self-confidence.

On the flip-side, Naruto might not take to kindly to it... so this is my interpretation of it. It will be multi-chaptered. It's Sakura-centric, mostly, with Naruto popping in occaisionally. There may be slight NaruSaku...

Sakura kept her chakra closed around her like a blanket- so tightly compressed that not even the chakra that lived in every human being could be detected. To the senses, she didn't exist.

She didn't exist.

Down below, she could see Kakashi crouched on the floor, recovering from using his Sharingan. He was shuddering from exhaustion and from grief- from having to kill the boy he had imparted all of his wisdom to, the man whose kin he owed his life to, his own protégé…

Sakura's resolve steeled and she pushed herself forward, ignoring the subtle warnings that Kakashi was giving him with his wide, grey eyes.

She could almost hear him screaming at her to stay out of the fight, to stay safe, to let Sasuke's blood be on his hands… she was tired of being protected.

It was time she protected someone for a change, even if it meant killing Sasuke. She… she couldn't sacrifice her happiness and her precious people for the boy who had ran away from Konoha when she was twelve. That boy was dead, sucked dry by Orochimaru, and this man… this man deserved a slow death.

Her fist tightened.

The only thing she would give him was a quick kill.

She dropped from the ceiling like a shadow, her chakra flaring slightly as it released, landing silently right behind the surprised Sasuke. Blood from his eyes kept him from reacting- he was a split second too slow.

All she needed was a split second.

Her punch went clean through his body, her chakra-laden fist having been spearheaded by a refined blade of medical chakra. She felt his spine shatter, his organs liquefy, and his hearts stutter to a stop, all in the space it took for a breath.

His jaw flapped open, part astonishment part death, and she knew his eyes, onyx, arrogant to the last, had gone misty with death. His legs buckled as his body grew limp and he slid to the floor. Sakura let his corpse slip off her arm with the sound of wet suction. Her glove was stained dark maroon and she was coated in blood up to her forearm.

She felt so tired…

"SASUKE!"

She looked blearily back the way she had come, and blinked slowly as she saw the orange, blonde, yellow, and red. Naruto.

His eyes, his impossibly pained eyes, widened at the sight of his best friend lying on the ground, dead. Sakura's heart clenched and she felt her lungs hitch. His face was a mask of despair, a grief so profound she felt her numbness recede a little, and touched an inkling of his pain.

She shrank back.

"C-chidori?" Naruto turned to Kakashi, his blue eyes expectant and readied. He was braced for the news, he had prepared himself for Kakashi to tell him he had ended Sasuke's life. She could tell he would hurt, but could accept that from Kakashi.

But Kakashi hadn't killed Sasuke, she had. No amount of her love would erase that fact, and she knew it would haunt them forever.

Her eyes fell to the ground.

She wondered idly if she was doomed to unrequited love, and stoically shored up her defenses. The storm as not long in coming.

"No." Kakashi shook his head, leaning heavily on the stalwart blond. "Not… Chidori. Sakura."

Sakura could see it, in the subtle tensing of his shoulders and blank surprise that he'd never have imagined it in a million years. Even if it was unconscious, Sakura knew he'd already discounted her as being too weak to kill the Uchiha- the crush of her younger years.

"Sakura…?" Naruto asked in a whisper, his shock palpable and haunting. He took in her blood-soaked arm and spattered face and clothes. "You… you killed him?"

Sakura closed her eyes, savoring what she knew would probably be the last comfortable moment between them before nodding.

Sakura hears his sharp intake of breath, his hiss of disbelief before walls came slamming up, and he tensed. She feels it, then, the undeniable feeling of chill creeping between them, separated by Sasuke's cooling body and a pool of blood, and knows that nothing will ever be the same again.

Her eyes are hooded, jaded by death, and she turns away from the second man she gave her heart to, standing over the broken body of the first. Irony, saturating the air, presses on her throat.

She turned away, eyes hardened. "Kakashi-sensei," her voice is steady. "Orders?"

Kakashi swayed, before steadying. "Sakura, Naruto." His voice was calm and measured. "We retreat. Our mission was… accomplished." Only the slight pause in his words reminds them of Sasuke, still face down on the floor.

"Hai, sensei." Sakura mumbled, turned to pick up Sasuke's limp body-

"Don't touch him!" Naruto snapped; his eyes were hard as flint as he stepped between Sakura and Sasuke's remains. He is wearing his most serious face, the face he reserves for his most dangerous of enemies. "You lost that privilege when you put your fist through his chest." His voice is sharp, and Sakura can hear the slight double timbre of the Kyuubi growling in his chest.

Sakura recoiled, almost as if she'd been slapped. Her face cycled through her emotions; hurt, pain, regret, sadness… and then resolve. The type of resolve that had gotten her through the Forest of Death, had forced her to survive Tsunade's teaching, and would get her through Sasuke's death.

"Funny," she said softly as she moved to Kakashi's side to heal his electrical burns. She didn't know what moved her to say this, but she knew it came from the fragile –crushed- part of her heart that had spawned her infatuation for Sasuke and her love for Naruto, a part that was crying for retaliation. "I don't recall you revoking those rights when Sasuke put a hole through you." Her eyes glittered through her lashes. Despair gaped like a pit. Sasuke; gone. Naruto; going- she was all alone.

Again.

Naruto's face tightened and he turned away, bending to carefully place the other man across his shoulder. As if he was still alive.

"Let's go." Naruto's voice was emotionless and flat; and Sakura took it to mean that Naruto, loyal Naruto, had forsaken her.

Why did the people she love hurt her the most?

She sighs, resigned, and turns away, toward home, Naruto close behind. They do not speak.

It is quiet for a long time after.