Title - Confinement of Duty.
Category - Naruto
Themes – Angst.
Rating - Mature.
Warning - Implied rape, depression & death.
Disclaimer - I do not own Naruto.
Summary - It didn't matter how much she tried to be better, to be able to stand besides her boys rather than staring at them from here shadows. Everything seemed to be against her, including her own body. And a constant thought plagued her mind, what did freedom from duty taste like?
(Edited - 16th Feb 2018)
Tomorrow, you promise yourself,
will be different, yet,
tomorrow is too often a repetition of today.
James T. McKay
Sakura sighed, raking her hair with her fingers in a sign of frustration as she put down her last patient file in the nurse's seen section. Her tired eyes focused lazily on the growing pile of waiting patients files, knowing that she had to pick another one soon. Despite the war being truly over and her participation in both fighting and healing, it seemed that being accomplishing didn't matter. There was so much work left to do.
Sasuke was off doing Kami knows what, in attempt to redeem himself; Naruto was with the other member of Team 7 on a top important mission whilst she was stuck in the hospital. Stuck where she had been prior the war.
She had dreamed that one day she would be capable in standing beside her boys, her team instead of waiting patiently on the sidelines for their return from fighting again. It felt like she was always waiting for other individuals to remember her, she was an after-thought with no qualities apart from her appearance that made her stand out.
She became a medic, yet Ino and Hinata both work at the hospital as well.
Defeated a Astuski member with help, Shikamaru slaughtered Hidan without anyone's help.
She attempted to push herself and get better at training, but how could she compare to Lee and his taijustu skills. No matter how hard she tried, she would never get better and Lee actually chastised her the last time for working too hard. Where no matter how hard she worked, it seemed like she was never making any process.
She reevaluated her personality and tried to make amends from when she was a selfish child who didn't care about hurting the people around her as long as she gained the attention of Sasuke. Neji was one of the politest individuals that she knew, who would on busier days at the hospital always made sure she had lunch.
She was proud of her friends, yet it was suffocating. Ashe didn't know who she was anymore outside her roles to other people. She had lost count of how many times she had stared blankly at the walls when she was alone, wondering what she was doing with her life. The only reason she seemed to get sleep these days was the fact that she would make mistake at the hospital if she was sleep deprived.
It was unfair to her friends as they knew nothing but she could not help feeling bitter at her predicament. It was also ironic that her desire of being feminine for a guy who never looked twice at her had turned in being the characteristic that repulsed her.
How more feminine could you be than waiting for the men to come home from fighting whislt you care for the injured?
She never imagined when she was a child, a foolish naive child that she would grow up into resenting anything that related to femininity. She even hated how feminine her appearance was, her pink hair and curves that she never imagined she would have possessed when she was child made her want to cover up as much as possible.
Though apparently she wasn't good enough to be anything but feminine.
How many times has she heard Ino complained about her appearance and attempted different methods to make her look more feminine, with diet schemes, make-up routines and tight-fitting clothes. It just made her feel uncomfortable for when she looked in the mirror and compared herself to the other women in her life, she knew she was never good enough.
Despite her pink hair and green eyes that made her look exotic, Ino was the prettier one.
Her manners and grace could not even match Hinata, who had the decorum of a princess.
And she wasn't as comfortable with her body as Temari was.
Not that she even wanted to look like a woman anymore, she didn't want to remember the incidents of what happens when she looks feminine. All the missions that she had taken that none of her friends even knew about – the dirty tarnish missions that would never make their ways to those within clans or where considered too valuable to risk.
Something she was not.
She was expendable, useless to serve her country in any other way.
The missions she would get the orders for in the middle of the night by a sorrowful looking Tsuande (who people consider to be her mother-figure, what type of mother would send her on these world-crushing missions?) who knew the sacrifices she had to make for each and every mission.
She had to accepted due to duty. She followed the orders because of the duty ingrained into her from such a young age that it requirement to help keep Kohona standing for the men to return too.
"Just wait Sakura-chan, I'll treat you to ramen when we get back."
"I'll be home soon Sakura-chan, don't worry. You'll be the first person I come too when I'm back."
"Make sure to remember to water Mr. Ukki whilst I'm away."
"Don't worry, these bastards won't be able to touch us."
"We'll be home soon, don't wait for us."
Time and time again did she force herself to get up the morning after these missions and pretend that she was fine. To repeat her usual routine without
Pretending that she couldn't feel their hot breath in her ears as they whispered horrible things they wanted to do to her.
Pretending that she couldn't feel the phantom touch of their hands roaming her body as she when through the motions of work. To feel them whenever she is touched by a friend.
It felt like her mind, body and soul was splitting into two, when she is on those missions and the person she is around others. Those missions where affecting her, the effects slowly embedding it's way into her other life. The one where everything is mundane and she has no excuses for certain actions.
She didn't want to train, work at the hospital, hang with friends – she was too tired and just wanted to do nothing.
The fact was that she didn't feel like she was born in the wrong way but rather in the wrong era. How she hoped for a future where young women wouldn't have to take seduction missions that stole a bit more of her soul each time. Though her logical side scoffed at that naivety – as long as there was something that Kohona wanted, they will do whatever they can to get it.
Was it sad that she just hoped that she wouldn't be found dead in someone else's bed one day, she hoped that the truth of what she did, who she was never came out to her friends. Her friends who were protected from the dark side of being a ninja. More than anything, she was terrified that her memory would be tarnished, all she wanted was to be remembered as an average pretty girl who was an average ninja.
Was it so terrible that she yearned to be like the others, that she could fight on the front lines with her team instead of lurking on her own behind enemy lines, warming up beds for information. She wished that she could go back in time and see a bed for sleeping and not a place that haunts her. Lurking in her memories and the reminder of her duty, her sacrifice to her country.
It was her duty to Kohona - by finding out what knowledge their enemies had and disposing them if they knew too much in a manner that could not be tied back to the village.
It was her duty to her boys – to make sure that they had the correct information to fight on, so that they would come back home to her in one piece.
It was her duty to her friends – to make sure that they never have to go through what she does. She could never imagine their reactions at being ordered a seduction mission.
Then why did she feel so disgusting?
She was only 13when she received the maroon scroll for the first time, the team disbanded with Sasuke betraying the village, Naruto left to travel with Jiraiya and Kakashi who avoided making any contact.
A mission of vital importance, how naive and idiotic was she to feel proud of being chosen. The heartbreak she felt at Sasuke betraying them did not compare to the innocence stolen from her that night. When she had returned, her parents asleep and unaware of what transpired whilst she sat in the shower all night crying and scrubbing her skin raw.
Even now she can still remember him, he was more important than her first kill. Others mention details about their first kills, details that sometimes kept them up at night. His eyes were green or she had a weird laugh. Details given out over sake in the middle of the night when the eyes haunting you becomes too much. She could not tell you anything about her first kill, she simply doesn't remember.
But Daisuke, the man who first broke her soul, she remembers him with all of her chipped heart. A 28 year-old merchant with cropped brown hair and a small dimple when he smiled – a average person, who could have been likeable if he didn't have a preference for young girls. Looking back at it all, he didn't do anything extreme (he was properly one of the tamest people she had to seduced) he just groped her and whispered things that should never be said to a 13 year old. He liked her reaction, he watched as she squirmed in discomfort, laughing with his other merchant friends. She had gained a lot from him, she helped provide information for a trafficking ring where girls younger than her went through so much worst.
Her actual first time, the time she had once envisioned would have been of her wedding night with her husband, was nothing like she could have imagined. She was still considered too young at the time to conduct full-seductions mission with the intention of sex yet they had got the information wrong.
And she had to pay for it.
Her soul shattered, her heart cracked and her body – her fourteen year old body broken.
She was only supposed to meet and flirt with this guy to see if he had any ties to an already established crime ring. She was actually feeling better about her mission before hand as he was the closest person her age she had to flirt with, and when she actually met him she could not help but notice how handsome he was. He had such beautiful grey eyes.
The park was quite, nearly deserted due to the sinking sun. The weather mild, though on the grass cling drops of dew from the earlier shower of rain. It felt so easy talking to him that for a moment she forgot that he was a target, a mission.
He whispered in my ear, a joke or a compliment (the words faded over time in her memory) whilst your fingertips brushed and stayed connected to the outside of my thigh.
She laughed, attempting to put space between us as she pushed you away playfully, your fingers moved away as you gave her a disarming grin, a twinkle in your grey eyes.
Yet your fingers, actually your whole hand was back burning hot as her blood seemed to turn ice cold. This time when she tried to push you away, you didn't stop rather your hands moved upwards. And I tried, I desperately tried to push you away but you didn't stop.
She had tried so hard to block out the rest of that night, of what was done to her. Yet how could she, all that stuck in her mind was the fact she just became lifeless, unable to fight off anymore and felt her body being repetitively forced into the ground. At the end, you just walked off as if it was nothing whilst she had to wait to actually think about what happened and for her limbs to respond her to commands. She spent the whole night and the next day in the shower, attempting the scalding hot water to wash away what happened.
It was her duty, to pretend that none of this ever happened and for everyone to see a perfect pretty doll, not someone who was cracking inside. She had to be the reminder for everyone how wonderful life was because she is hidden away safely in the hospital where no evil could touch her and able to heal any damages from their previous mission. To be the friend that nags at everyone in order to express her love for them in making sure that they are safe and healthy, and is in return doted on like their little sister.
A little sister who you would never consider having sex, pure and unblemished.
She had heard the whispers and rumours that surrounded her, who her boys were so proud that they didn't have to fight off boys attention from her, that she hadn't found anyone to love. She heard the comments about how Sasuke had put her off completely or that she was waiting for him. Sasuke may have been her first love yet she would never love another. How could she, who would want her?
How much did they relax compared to other teams, when Hinata had started dating a civilian Kiba nearly had a heart attack and Shino had to be hunted down and stopped from hurting him.
But if they actually knew the truth, what would they think about her? How would they react?
They didn't know the truth about the lengths men and women would go to gain sexual gratification,
They had no idea how horrified and scarred she had become that she could not help but refuse to become intimate with even the people she trust – ducking from hands coming to pat her shoulder or head, pretending to have something to do to escape being hugged. The ethereal beauty of her close friends, so beautiful and pure make her heart ache and she cannot help but push them away for she would taint them. Whenever Lee confess his love for her, her heart aches and she has to blink away the tears for he is too good for her. She pretends to be oblivious to the advances Neji makes for she cannot deal with the idea of him falling for someone like her. They all deserved better.
Those whispers, those claims that she was saving herself to be Sasuke's submissive wife were a joke. The actual idea of having sex was repulsing, the femininity that she once strived for as a child, the one that had made her the ideal candidate for those missions destroyed any chances of a future with someone else.
Turning 'what ifs' into 'what could have been'.
Not just for Sasuke, but Naruto, Lee and Neji.
How she wished that she never accepted that first mission, that she had been born free from this fate she was trapped in. She wanted to run as fast she could and scream at the civilian academy students that this was not the path they should choose. She wanted to prevent any other girl from going through what she did. She wanted to tell them the horrors they would face and that by crossing the line from civilian to ninja meant giving up everything you hold dear.
That you would avoid your parents out of shame, for you should have listened to them and not gone down this path.
That you would lie to yourself and everyone around you that you are fine, that you can live without what happened affecting you. Though she just wanted to be strong enough to be apart of the front-lines where her boys were. She wanted to strong enough to fight at their sides, where she could never have imagined what seduction actual entailed. Where she could have enjoyed life.
The thought of what freedom tasted like becomes quieter and quieter. It wasn't hard to realise that one day, any thoughts of freedom would completely vanish. When that day comes she know that she would just be an empty broken shell of a girl who just wanted to make her boys proud to say they were her teammate.
She promised herself that today was the last day she would accept seduction missions, that tomorrow would be different, she would be free. Yet she was too good at being dutiful, being compliant for the needs of the village to make it the last day. She knew how much the village and her friends loved the projection of her and the fact that was deeply embedded in her soul, thats she would die for her friends and her country in a single heartbeat.
It was just the fact that this heartbeat had lasted five years, and she wasn't sure how many years it would still last for.
Another five years?
A year?
A month?
She just hoped that her true tomorrow would be glorious, that she would feel free of all of what she had done and what had been done to her. That her tomorrow would be full of laughter and she could look at her friends and family with her head held high. That she would bypass her loose clothes and feel comfortable wearing well-fitted clothes and actually respond to Neji's advances, unafraid of romance.
Yet how could she drown the voices that her true tomorrow would be when she's dead?
That she would be stick in this routine of deceit, hatred, horror and doing what's right for the village until a mission would finally take her. Was it terrible if she hoped that she would die on a sanctioned recorded mission with a team that she was friendly with but knew no one too deeply – that her death was inevitable but had helped save the rest fo the team.
It was the only way she could think of that her boys would be proud of her, that she followed their mantra until the end. She knew that Kakashi would blame himself for her death – by not paying attention, by thinking they all had more time together, by teaching her to put her teammates first – and spend every morning tracing her name at the memorial alongside the other people he head lost. That he would loss himself in all the mistakes he has convinced himself he's made, shutting himself off from everyone else until he finally start opening once again, though with a new quirk that he reminds him of me.
Perhaps he will start reading medical books when he's not reading his porn, perhaps he will become more temperamental and hit Naruto so hard on the head that he flies in the air for the minimum of four seconds.
She hoped it was a sanctioned mission, one where the truth never comes out. She knew there were records of what she has done but are hidden deep in the heart of the records building. If her friends ever found out what she was, what she has done they would be horrified at the news. Their illusion of her would shatter and no longer believe her death would be felt when they had grown old, nor would they reminisce fondly about her. The funny scenarios would fade away and become echo's of their former selves hidden in the mass of their memories. They would forget how she had met the Fire Daimyo for the first time covered in fish scales and guts.
They would just be disgusted.
She knew deep down that Tsuande would blame herself, that she already blamed herself for all the seductions mission she pushed her way instead of choosing a girl she hardy knew well. Someone who she couldn't see the effects of the missions overwhelming her. Yet this would all be before she would have to choose my replacement, that she would hate having to put another vulnerable young girl in the position. She can already imagined that she would become sullen and spend a week not talking to anyone but spending it in a sake-induced haze before convincing herself that he mourning stage is over - just like she did everything Dan's death anniversary came around. The truth was that she would gain another demon that haunt her mind that she couldn't hide from.
Whenever she thought about how Naruto or Sasuke would react, she could never envisioned it. Perhaps that was for the best.
Until tomorrow, until her freedom in her death she would keep doing her best to keep Kohona safe from her enemies. She would taper down her hope for tomorrow, burying it deep so she doesn't make any rash decision and endangering her life more than normal for she doesn't want the girl replacing her to go through what she does. That she can hold on, allowing that girl to grow up a much as possible.
She will hold onto the illusion that she can cope with the mission, with the loathing and guilt. She could pretend that everything in her life was fine, that the worst thing for her was when the boys took longer than expected to come home.
She could pretend that she wasn't too broken.
Until tomorrow.