What We See
Chapter One: Crazy
By Dreaming of Everything
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto; not the characters, events or settings.
Author's Notes: This is, to a certain extent, a reaction to all the bad Crazy!fics I've seen. To start with, this is not actually a fic about crazy people, per se, at least not as they are in our world. It has a lot more to do with magic and translations of reality.
There may be potential SPOILERS for post-timeskip events. By-and-large, though, this is a very alternate AU/AR, and you shouldn't be spoiled too badly.
I hope you enjoy this! Please read and review. It makes me excessively happy.
Sorry about the linebreaks, quick edit was eating my old ones. AND, APPARENTLY, THE WORD 'QUICK EDIT.' (Help, help, I'm being repressed!)
Revised Note: There will be no pairings, and certainly nothing central to the plot.
oOoOoOo
The girl's pink hair made a stark contrast against the paleness of her skin, the whiteness of her clothes and the walls. The room she was in was almost totally empty, except for a simple bed and desk, and a door, everything simple, generic and impersonal.
She was relaxed in the sterile environment, chatting happily.
No one else was in the room. It might or might have been monitored; sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't. They never told her it was, denied it when she had asked, but she knew better. She was by no means stupid. She had also stopped caring that they watched her like that, secretly, years ago. She didn't let it bother her now.
"I need to cut my hair again—it's getting too long," she said, playing with a strand of it. "I need to dye it again, too."
She paused for a minute. "You know I don't like my natural color! It just doesn't feel right… I've liked it this sway since I was five. I know—Hey! It does not make my forehead look bigger!"
It was like listening to someone talking on a phone, when you can only hear half the conversation.
oOoOoOo
Sakura Haruno was insane. She had been in and out of mental-health institutions since the age of seven, when her brother had died.
It wasn't schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder or disassociative identity disorder. She wasn't bipolar. It wasn't because of her brother's death—she had had hallucinations previously, though they had hadn't been as severe, and they had been passed off as the imaginary friends every child has. It wasn't drugs or alcohol, brain damage or other physical abnormalities, any known mental disorder or condition. It was unlikely that it was genetic; no one else in her family had shown any such tendency. No one else, related or not, had had the symptoms she had at all.
For the past ten years, Sakura Haruno had hallucinated people. A whole community of them, complex and detailed, growing up in real time, totally different in appearance and personality from both her and each other, and the real people Sakura knew.
She had no other hallucinations. She was aware enough to realize that they did not follow the rules of reality. They never appeared around other people, only when she was alone, but she was withdrawn, preferring the company of her hallucinations to anyone else.
They had tried to find incongruities in her world, contradictions, something to stick in her mind and remind her it couldn't be real, that it wasn't. They hadn't found any.
They had tested her, trying to determine whether or not the hallucinations were fabricated, some attempt at attention or manipulation on her part. They couldn't prove it.
Ten years and a stream of neurologists and psychologists, doctors and mental-health therapists, the biggest names in the field, and there was nothing conclusive about anything. The only result was a detailed list of the figments of her imagination: when she met them, her interactions with them, how often they recurred and how they had grown over the years.
She was both insane and a genius, either way. Whether it was hallucinations so detailed that they trumped most people's perception of reality and lasted cohesively over a full decade and maybe longer, or a genius that could compose a story that was so persuasive, coherent and thorough at such a young age, but was warped enough to attempt to persuade the world, with no break, for a full decade, that she was crazy, remained to be seen.
oOoOoOo
For ten years, Sakura Haruno had been kept under more-or-less continual observation in closed environments, allowed limited (and even then, only supervised) contact with the outside world. In the beginning, she had spent time at her home, but her parents couldn't manage both their crazy child and the heavy ghost of their dead son.
Her time in hospitals and research labs and psych wards and recovery homes had been paid for by her parents, wealthy relatives and the state, but now she was 17. Nearly an adult. And nothing had changed, except now her parents were even more distant than they had been at first. She still spoke to thin air, when nothing was there.
She would have been discharged long ago, sent to boarding school or another relative or been hidden in her parents' house, but she was still considered "a potential danger to herself and others."
Her hallucinations seemed largely benign, but the conversations she had when she was both halves could become graphic, describing violent deaths and cold-blooded murders, assassinations and worse. Horrific monsters, human and not. And then there were the nightmares…
Most of her hallucinations were recurrent, but one 'person' had only been mentioned once. She had been terrified by the specter, shaking and panicked, and she had scored deep cuts across her left arm and leg, running a painful scrape against her cheek, staining herself with blood. She had said that it had tried to kill her, that he had been fought off before he could do it, that she had needed to defend someone— She had switched how she had referred to the figment, it and he, alternating between the two.
She had been twelve, then. All they had to connect to that incident was a name: Sabaku no Gaara, Gaara of the desert.
It was the last time she had been left unsupervised for years. It was the last time she had been allowed near anything sharp, anything she could lift, anything she could hurt herself with. They couldn't risk her hurting herself or others.
And nobody had any idea of what to do with Sakura Haruno.
oOoOoOo
"You're quiet today," said her therapist. The latest of many.
She reached for her left arm, nearly unaware of the action, cradling it. "Today's the anniversary."
The therapist had known that. She had wanted to see if Sakura remembered that, though, as she had the past four years.
"Why is this continuing to haunt you? Why can't you let it go?"
Sakura frowned, eyes troubled, subconsciously worrying at her lip, chewing on it until she threatened to break through the skin.
"I was safe, before. When I'm alone, there's nobody who bears me any ill-intent, the only animosity is mixed with friendliness… Here, I am tested and retested, worked with and ordered and prodded in the 'right' direction; you try to fix me when there's not anything broken."
The counselor swallowed reflexively. Nobody had wanted to think about the chance that the problem had been exacerbated by their attempts to help… It had been hinted at before, but never this clearly, and there was very little they could do without Sakura's parents' permission.
Sakura had continued, unaware of the therapist's wavering attention. "And then… He came. I hadn't been expecting that. He scared me when I first saw him, but I had been with the others and he had been more—more controlled. And then he changed, and something snapped inside him… He was going to kill Sasuke. I had to do something. He had already tried to kill Lee."
She paused, eyes troubled and brooding. "He watches me, you know. I haven't seen him since then, but in the past year I've felt him watching. I think some of the others feel him too, but I don't know what they think about it, now. They don't talk about it, anyways, so I don't know. But I don't like the feeling that there's always someone watching…"
The therapist hoped so badly that they weren't the ones who had sewn this into Sakura, made it a part of her.
They had been trying to help. They had always only been trying to help…
oOoOoOo
Sakura woke in a cold sweat. At least there was that… If she was waking up, she had been asleep, and it had been a dream, and dreams weren't real.
But she could still feel the eyes, watching her.
"Hello?"
No use pretending if someone was there, and she was almost positive there was. If there wasn't, at least there wasn't anyone to hear her but herself.
She caught a flash of green eyes (shrunk to pin-point dots and the whites expanded stark against the dark lining and that smile, fixed and horrifying and promising all the pain he was capable of causing—) and spun around to meet them, trying not to shriek, not to bring anyone else running, the doctors and the orderlies and the janitors who came in during the night, so he couldn't kill them along with her, and there was no Naruto, no Sasuke, not even Lee or Ino or Shikamaru or Hinata or Neji to save her now, no one was there, she was all alone—And then she caught the whirl of pink hair and raised her eyes to meet her own reflection, caught in a mirror, her eyes wide with fear and nearly the same color that his (but not as cold and broken and deadly, like thin ice shattered when you walk too far out, and the water underneath it, cold and deadly—) and she deflated, turning around with a sigh, berating her silliness, tension draining out as she relaxed her body—
And turned to meet those eyes where there was no mirror, and the paleness of skin and the fall of red hair against it, darker in this lighting, like the color of dried blood, nearly black and rusty and unmistakable. Her body froze, breath stilling in her throat, heartbeat sounding as if she was already dying, already drowning, muffled and wet in her own ears. She clinically noted that she was hyperventilating. At least she wasn't crying.
He frowned at her, the slightest twitch in an expressionless face, and she knew her eyes had contracted with fear and she was prey like this, helpless, in this weak body that had never felt right, she knew that, she should be able to attack and defend and escape, if need be, like she needed to now, but she couldn't, it wasn't right, like the blonde-brown-honey color her hair was naturally, and why was she thinking of hair now? She needed to dye it again, the roots were starting to show, and at least nobody would miss her very much when she died—
"Sakura Haruno."
It was not a question. She tried to respond, an automatic response to her name—of course you answer when someone calls, it's only polite, reflexive now—and the fear, anything to raise her chances of surviving, not that multiplying zeroes made any difference in the end.
She couldn't find the air, a panicked sigh that should have been words, been screaming or pleading or denial or refusal or anything, and she could feel the sobs of crying now, if not the tears.
Her body shook, plunging with the motion of dry sobs that had no air to back them up, nothing in lungs that were exhausting themselves with hyperventilation, her body twisting into paroxysms, and at least there was nobody to miss her, that was important—yes, that was most important. At least there will be nobody to miss you.
She could feel the world grow light-headed around her, darker at the corners, and funny that she would save herself from being present at her own execution this way, betrayed and saved by panic, and time must have changed because she wasn't dead yet, and she knew she should be, should have been dead five years ago, just goes to show how Death always took what it was due, like the ocean, like soldiers buried at sea and the water takes what its owed, in the end, the water and death, and sometimes they're one and the same, the water and death, she knew that loss, it took him.
Some part of her mind took control of her body, took over because she couldn't, lungs slowly calming, taking in the air she needed, though she wasn't sure whether passing out wouldn't have been for the best anyways.
He was still there, eyes shuttered, inscrutable and she couldn't help meeting those eyes, body still heaving and attempting to gather enough breath to speak, to scream, to live, and god how she wanted to run, but it would do her no good and there was nowhere to go. At least there was no one to miss her, and she wouldn't end up being taken by the water—
She couldn't look away. A bird staring at the serpent, helpless, sparrow and cobra, with no chance if it could fight and no chance to fight because of that fixating gaze, keeping her immobile with panic, and now she would die like this, like a sparrow, with no chance and no hope, because sparrows don't die in a fight.
"Don't—" he began, extending an arm, and she would have screamed then, but she couldn't, didn't have enough air or couldn't control her own body right anymore. He withdrew the arm and folded them around himself, defensive, face set as stone, and something was wrong…
"What—what?" gasped Sakura, words still weak and breathy, but she had spoken, and that minor victory was enough for her right now, and she didn't want to think that she would die, about how she would die. At least nobody would be there to miss her when she died, when she fell into the water, the ocean…
"Sakura Haruno," he said again, and she latched onto that name, let it give her groundless, irrational, pointless hope.
"You tried to kill me," she said, because he had. "And Lee. Naruto, Sasuke."
"I did." There is no emotion in that voice, and she feels her hope ebbing, more rationally, but is it rational if there was nothing to give that hope any validity to start with?
"You're going to kill me." She wishes it was a question, but she doesn't want to die imagining that she might not. She doesn't want to—make it hard to let go, let go, don't cling, don't hold on for my sake, Sakura.
"No."
"Why not?"
He doesn't answer. He might be planning to, but Sakura doesn't let him, doesn't want to let him, and she revels in this pointless little victory.
"Why not kill me? Why come here then, why come? Have you killed someone else? Who else is dead? You tried to kill Lee twice. Three times the charm? Saw Sasuke as a challenge. Who else is dead? If not me, who? What have you done that could be worse than you killing me, why else would you let me live?"
She is hysterical. She knows this, can hear it in her voice. She doesn't want to die that way, but supposes that, in the end, it doesn't really matter if she does. How you die doesn't matter unless it's the water slipping over your head that does it, clutching you to itself, all around, implacable protector and executioner,, did you really mean to kill him?
"Stop," he says. She realizes that he had flinched, imperceptibly, at her words, and wonders why. What he wants her to stop doing. To stop speaking…? She does stop that. Not much else to say, nobody to say any last words to, at least, nobody who will still be able to let go. And that's important—the letting go.
His eyes are widened, unfairly young, unfairly lost. He shouldn't look like that, that innocent. Not with what he's done, what he will do.
"Why come here?" she mutters, because there's nothing else to say, and she has no hope no matter what.
When she looks up, he's gone. She's alone for the rest of the night.
She doesn't sleep.
oOoOoOo
Author's Notes: Ummmm. Yeeeeaaaah.
That ending half was purposely disjointed, half because of hysteria and shock and half because of things you don't know yet.
You might well have realized that, well, there are people who are going to miss her, right? Well, yes. You'll find out more about this later.
Next update we get Sakura interacting with actual characters beyond Gaara, and hopefully something more in-character for Sakura, and maybe something else. It remains to be seen.
Please, please read and review! Reviews are my crack.