Naruto and Sasuke woke up in the darkness of a small room, the smell of which indicated that they were not in a hospital.
« Dobe ? » Sasuke's voice came out unexpectedly rogue. His mouth and throat were dry and his body felt soar. How many had he been asleep for ?
« Sas'ke » Naruto finally replied. He was incapable of moving. The blonde ninja also realized how weak his friend's chakra felt.A few seconds passed without any of them saying anything. Misguided by his phantom limb, Naruto tried to stand up until the realization that his right arm was missing hit him. He heavily sighed and fell back into the uncomfortable mattress he was lying in. What nightmare had he woken into ?
« I'm never going to be an Hokage now » he whispered. Despite the darkness, Sasuke could very well imagine a weak smile drawn on his friend's lips marking the irony in his tone.
« I'll take your spot then » the dark-haired ninja replied sarcastically.
« How can either of pretend to this role if we're missing an arm ? » Naruto defeatedly protested.
A little snore interrupted the premisses of this small quarrel. Both came to alert, trying to perceive the chakra of the other person in the room.
« Sakura-chan » the blond whispered, almost reassured.
They heard sudden movement, shifting,a low-voice mumbling, someone was difficultly making its way through the room's darkness. The curtains were drawn and in a blink of an eye, the space was flooded with the bright light of the afternoon sun. As their surroundings became clear, they realized that they had been put at rest in what looked like a modest inn's room. Sasuke glimpsed at Sakura who was standing by the curtain, rubbing her eyes while yawning. He didn't know how long they had been asleep for, but from her peaky looks and her thin silhouette, he could see that she had scrambled for days.
« Welcome back » she murmured while still adjusting to the brightness of the room.
« How long have we been sleeping ? » Sasuke asked.
She frowned. It was unusual for him to be so talkative, or even make inquiries at all. She turned around looking evasively out the window. The landscape hadn't changed much since the end of the war, since she had placed her two best friends in a room after spending hours operating on them. She sighed at the sight of the devastated world laid in front of her. It wasn't merely the horror of the unrecognizable landscape that frightened her, but rather her unflappable lack of distraught that this sight caused in her. She didn't know what day it was, nor how long her friends had laid here unconscious while she was running from room to room trying to stabilize as many patients as her two hands allowed her to. For the first time, it hadn't made her feel better to save lives. She hadn't found any relief because she knew that there was more to come, more lives to be saved, like the world had lost its ability to heal itself. She also knew that many lives hadn't been saved, that some lives could never be. During this blurry amount of days filled with the drudgery of saving lives, Sakura only felt as though the war was a tree hiding the forest that the recovery would be. She didn't how long the boys had been sleeping, but from the remaining amount of injuries to be mended, it clearly didn't feel long enough.
Not so long, she whispered bitterly.
Even if they had known the location of the inn, they probably couldn't have recognized it. It seemed like the war's destruction had reached every inch of land they once travelled into.
- We're in the outskirts of the Fire country, we needed an inn that was large enough to treat the patients that needed the most care and couldn't be transferred too soon. Tsunade-sama has a few things to deal with here that I need to help her with, Sakura pursued evasively with her forehead resting on the window. She turned to the boys who were holding on to her every words. « But if you guys are up for it, there are convoys bringing back injured to the village »
« We can help » Naruto protested while making another attempt at getting out of bed painfully.
« What are you doing ? » Sakura asked
« Both Sasuke and I are fine now, we can vacant those beds for those in needs and start help with the logistics of the transfer back to the Leaf »
« Hn » the dark-haired ninja agreed while imitating his peer and getting up.
« You guys are nowhere near recovery. Either you stay in bed or you take the convoy, there's nothing left for you guys to do here »
« Sakura ! », Naruto interrupted. « Saving lives is our mission too you know, we don't only fight the bad guys for the thrill to it. »
« Maybe we do », Sasuke rectified with irony
Both the blonde and the pinkette turned to him with a frown, and he simply shrugged. Something about his sudden break from silence felt somewhat uncomfortable. Naruto and Sakura had almost forgot what they'd fought for so many years : the return of their friend. It almost felt surreal that they finally succeed.
« It's not about saving lives anymore » Sakura interrupted them. « Most of the patients have been transferred to Konoha hospital. I've done most of the important surgeries already, I'm here to help Tsunade with the reports of those we couldn't save. There still are some bodies we're trying to uncover from the field before the ceremony. If you want to help fine, but don't overdo it. »
« Maybe you should take your own advice sometimes » Sasuke spat back
If it had been her twelve years old self, Sakura would have been unable to grasp the care in his phrase. She couldn't have decipher this bitterness into what is really was : concern. She looked at him, a bit taken aback and gave him a weak smile, trying not to blush although she was certain her skin had turned as pink as her hair. He was back.
She decided to give them some privacy and told them she would see them later. Before exiting the room she turned around, observing the two boys she had grown to love and had looked up to. They were now two young men she was watching over. The irony of their evolution made her smile innerly. This was relief. Her relief, the certainty that from now on, things would be okay for the three of them. They were done fighting. The war was behind them. It just hadn't felt as such before because her friends were still in a coma and she had been busy fighting against death, busy preventing the casualties number to go any higher than it already had.
« What's wrong Sakura-chan ? » Naruto asked, while he was wincing and gesturing to wear a T-shirt on.
She retraced her steps and approached Naruto to tug gently on the cloth. When his face reappeared, with the goofy smile he always had, despite all the bruises that his face was covered with, her eyes watered into the ocean tears she had been holding back ever since they both fell into a post-operative coma.
« I'm just really happy you're okay » her voice was trembling, and she didn't have it in her to cry in front of Sasuke again. Instead, she abruptly left the room, almost running away.
Naruto followed Sasuke's glance and could notice how it was filled with concern, and perhaps with guilt too. Sasuke blinked a little and resigned to silently walk to the bathroom. Once he found himself alone, he realized how more comfortable he suddenly felt. He had been alone most of his life. Alone in his revenge against his brother, alone in his vendetta against Konoha. But he was no longer alone. The war had opened the world to him. It finally hit him how Naruto and Sakura had grown so close. It struck him even more how excluded their proximity made him feel. While he was in the shower, the hot water running through the scars of the last battle he couldn't but help but realizing the delicateness of Sakura's touch that materialized in every scar. From the numbness he felt after he finally stood up, he could tell how damaging the last fight had been for his body, but the precision in the scars and the mere fact that he was still alive proved how much of a talented kunoichi Sakura had grown out to be. Sasuke rubbed his face under the hot water, chasing away the thoughts of her proximity with Naruto. The war was over now and somehow so was his revenge against the world. The world he had grown to hate after his brother's demise was now in pieces. It was possible that no such endangering threats as the one they had known through the war would come their way in their lifetime. It suddenly hit him that a chapter had literally ended. His loneliness was over and he was now overwhelmed by the unknown of the coming future. In the midst of all this confusion and the obvious existential crisis that was slowly building in him while he was realizing the completeness of his initial life mission, Sakura's voice came running through his head. « Im just really happy you're okay ». Was it possible that she had meant it for him too ?
The rest of the day went by, slowly for the three members of Team seven. Sakura found herself confined in an office with missing people reports to fill and matching some of those reports with death certificate with Tsunade and Shizune. Sasuke and Naruto on the other hand spent their day on the shattered battlefield, picking up limbs or corpses. Most of the bodies had been recovered already, what was left on the field were just mere crumbles of the war's passage, minimal proves that a war had been fought and that people had died. They met over dinner at the inn's canteen. Sakura was quietly eating alone at a table, trying to stay awake while eating her Butajiru stew. The canteen suddenly got quiet as the two young men made their entrance, she lifted her head from her bowl and found Sasuke and Naruto both panting, and supporting each other, limping towards the kunoichi.
« I thought you were meant to take this easy » she said while pointing at their T-shirts that showed blood marks proving that the scar tissue had reopened.
Sorry » Naruto winced while sitting down. « You haven't taken your own advice either » he however mumbled while pointing the fingers of the kunoichi which showed signs of bleeding from excessive holding of a pen.
I want to leave soon. It shouldn't be long until the funeral by now. »
It wasn't their first funeral and probably wouldn't be their last, but this funeral was more than a simple burial of loved ones. It marked an end and a new beginning. It was among the many symbols that a war had happened and made its way through their lives with a signature that had become indelible.
Naruto looked down at his bowl of ramen, the meal that used to make him always joyful. The ramen were fine but it didn't feel right. Their first meal together should have been a dinner in Konoha with Kakashi like he had always envisioned their reunion. He looked back up determined. They needed to return home.
« Naruto, I have stuff to finish here. I can't just leave. »
« Sakura, you're killing yourself and I can see it. Stop doing this to yourself. You're a medic-nin, not Tsunade's administrative assistant. That's Shizune's job. Your job right now is to be with your friends. Sasuke is back now and we lost people too. It's okay to grieve and be happy at the same time. » Naruto said in his most serious tone, the one he'd usually take in the battlefield. The one he confronted Gaara, Sasuke, Itachi, Pain, Tobi and Madara with. This was Naruto being a ninja. This was expressing his nindo.
Sakura looked at Sasuke, interrogatively. He didn't expect her to expect any additional thing from him. He shrugged and silently acquiesced. Sakura grumbled, annoyed at the lack of support from her returned-from-exile team member.
« I'll see how early I can leave »
Early turned out to be, as Naruto expected, the next day. Tsunade dismissed Sakura in the morning as she would also be leaving the inn with an ANBU team the following day. The three members decided to leave after lunch, after Sakura had made it very clear that she would leave if the boys would comply to her medical recommendations. They travelled fast-paced through the dismantled wood of the Fire country. Each of them silently wondering how far the war's destruction had stretched.
After they had taken camp and eaten, Sakura was washing the dishes by the camp fire. The boys were sound asleep, or so she thought, until Sasuke's shadow appeared hollowing in front of her.
« You should really rest. »
« You should really take your own advice. »
« I'm fine » she persistently retorted.
« So am I » he wittily replied while grabbing a bowl she had washed and a rag to wipe the items she was cleaning.
While they were kneeled by the small basin of water, they both acknowledged that this was the closest they had ever been since the night he left her on a bench. It felt like it had been ages that they weren't trying to kill each other.
« You had multiple ribs fractured, a part of your left arm literally exploded, your kneecaps were dislocated, you broke a cheekbone, suffered from internal bleeding, your ear-drums were pierced in the last blast and now one quarter of your body is covered in scar tissue. You are not fine. » she enumerated
« Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue »
She frowned at him and sighed heavily. His metaphor took her aback. Was he implying that the war hadn't weakened him ? Was he implying that the war had made him less sensitive, if that was ever possible ? She was done with the dishes and resigned on solving a new Uchiha riddle but before she could stand up, he held her with his remaining arm.
« Sakura »
« What ? » she retorted, vindictively turning her glance to him. It was scornful.
It startled him and he almost asked her what he had done to upset her so much in one day, but refrained from sounding inconsiderate and oblivious. The war was over. Only hurt, loss and unspecified things remained. The animosity between them would be a hard habit to break.
« I'm sorry »
« You've already said that » she replied with less anger while standing up and helping him doing so
« I fainted a little while after. »
She looked back at him « What are you sorry about ? » was written all over her emerald glance in which the flames of the dying fire behind them were dancing.
« The life that I chose » he later on added after a few seconds of a silent exchange of glance.
« That doesn't have anything to do with me. » she sighed while turning to him and unwrapping her sleeping bag
« It still affected you in a way that's intangible. »
She clung on to the cloth of the bag. Naruto was asleep right beside them and he needed to rest. She had spent her morning running administrative duties, her lunch preparing logistics for an exhausting journey and the rest of her day running through a destroyed forest. She was barely keeping her eyes open so even if she had dug deep inside her chakra reserves, she wouldn't have found the strength to fight with him, to shout at him, to let him know how she felt. She felt frustrated, angry, confused. She needed to tell him how things went for her, how he ruined her teenage years by stealing her innocence on the day of his departure. She needed to tell him that spending days operating on almost dead bodies, his included, after spending two days in one of the most historic fights of Ninja history had left her scarred for life, and yes her scar tissue was stronger. She wanted to tell him that he had no control in who she turned out to be, although that was only half-truth. She wanted to tell him that she felt stronger than ever and that for the first time, this strength didn't have anything to do with what she felt like she needed to prove him. She wanted to tell him that she was moving on, or at least she had decided that she would, because she had spent half of her life dedicating her time to a man who had never cared for anything but himself and she deserved better. Sakura Haruno had never lost a relative, never lost a close friend, but she had lost herself over a man, and she swore never to lose that person again. She turned to him, and mimicked the same punch-deserving smirk he had given her a few moments earlier.
« I'm fine »
Of course, he knew she wasn't. He knew that there was a river of unspoken words that had travelled through her mind as she had gathered her thoughts before this last phrase. But Sakura wasn't as forgiving as Naruto, because she hurt more, because she felt more, and if there had ever been a device translating Sakura's language, Sasuke was convinced that she had very well just told him to fuck off because, to her, he had long lost the privilege of apologizing and feeling concerned.