A/N: Written as a Multifandom Drabble 2018 exchange gift for Mornelithe_falconsbane.
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Death
The world around her spins and spirals. She doesn't know where she is. She sees red, though, lots of it. Sakura has never seen so much red in her life, near her, on herself.
In a way, it's pretty, like a freshly bloomed flower in June. Her survival instincts scream.
Sakura fought valiantly. She is strong, but not the strongest of Team 7, and she knows that. But can she die, knowing her downfall?
The energy in her body drains. There's howling. Sakura's name, perhaps? But she's lethargic, and darkness reaches, cradling her like a newborn baby in its embrace.
Where Am I?
Sakura glances at her transparent hands. They glow green, as does the astral floor and makeshift shadows and tendrils creeping around her. Otherworldly echoes call out to her, welcoming her, far away.
She knows where she is, but she is oddly intrigued by her own soul. There's a purity of chakra and essence that she had never admired while alive. She trails her hands down her sides, feels her soul glitch and wisp under her ministrations.
Sakura feels light like a kite soaring above the gravity of Earth. She can do anything.
Now, she must make the most of it.
Revival
At first it's harder than she imagines. She pushes herself, her chakra, grasps for the way back to where her physical body is.
Sakura doesn't remember who she was helping, or fighting. But that is no brush-off excuse; a kunoichi has a mission whether the instructions are clear or obscured through the lens of death.
She wills herself to breathe. Yanks back onto threads of life that are snipping, dissipating, trying to cut loose.
Sakura heaves air like a dying fish. She grasps for solid Earth. Blood is there, still warm, her connection to life. She begins to heal herself.