Oct. 2018… Currently under a re-write, please be patient will me…
This idea was inspired from reading a Tumblr posting on how Sakura's inner voice should make a reappearance once she was older and wildly rampaged her fleeting and centrally focused thoughts.
Please note that this is complete and utter fiction.
But, if you'd like to make sense of this fic, I guess you can say that this takes place somewhere when Sakura isn't with Sasuke, yet the Fourth Shinobi War is over, and she's already mastered the Strength of a Hundred Seal.
"The heart takes too long to figure out what the mind already knows. I hate that."
– (heart vs. mind)
Sakura gripped the vial closer to her chest, it's glowing purple contents rocking side to side, as a loud bell rang through her ears, temporarily drowning her senses in total deafness.
It was that shrilling noise that she had been battling with for the past months now. It had started two days after the bloody war had ended and Sasuke had disappeared once more. He was no longer on her mind now, knowing that he was safe and promised Naruto that he'd return to Konoha soon.
The loud splitting sound of a clipboard hitting the ground along with a voice she swore sounded like a whisper behind her retracted Sakura from her thoughts, bringing her back to the loud world taking place around her. The hospital, being busy as always, and the wailing of a newborn baby in the distance gave her a slight headache as it intensified in her ears.
She forced herself to move, squeezing the glass tube harder to the point of it receiving a small crack at the top.
It took her a few more minutes than usual for her senses to return along with her hearing. Sakura hated to admit that this was getting out of control. It was interrupting her work; preventing her from accomplishing her tasks.
More so, the headaches were worse at night.
Every blue moon, she would be jolted from her dreams and drenched in sweat. Tears would stream down from her glossy emerald eyes as her skull felt like it was being crushed, attempting to be flattened by that same bell-like noise pounding inside her head.
It was as if some unknown force was purposely tormenting her and she had no clue why. Then it would stop after a good seven minutes of hell that felt like an eternity.
Sleep was always lost on those rare nights. Her least favorite memory just happened to be the very first night she had gotten it.
She had silently sobbed the whole night, a fistful clenching the sheets around her and another hand occupied with pulling out her pink tresses. She prayed for those few minutes to pass, begging to whatever god was listening to make her fall back to sleep while miserably attempting to make the world stop shifting and spinning around her.
She had ended up falling out of the bed. Her knees were nuzzled tightly to her chest and when sunlight crept in, she discovered that her nails covered in dried blood. Purple scratches decorated her body from head to toe.
It didn't help that Sakura had no clue of what was wrong with herself. The doctor in her became obsessed with finding out why she was having such intense headaches and her research mode activated since that night.
She had tried every medicinal herb, experimented with new ones, and rummaged through all the scrolls in Konoha for an explanation or a remedy. However, she found neither.
Her only accomplishment was to subside the tingling migraines that came after, but nothing more. Her final resort, which she was hoping wouldn't come to this, was to find Shizune and confess to her the situation. Doctors weren't supposed to diagnose themselves in matters like these and Shizune would scold her, but she would need her help to stop these aches before they got worse.
'Sakura…' A painstakingly familiar voice echoed deep within her that she almost missed it.
She knew that voice and froze in her tracks just a few feet away from reaching Shizune's office. She needed to concentrate; needed to pinpoint whose voice it could be, swearing that she wasn't going crazy.
Sakura had truly heard someone call her. Yet, when she looked over her shoulder there was no one.
Maybe it was a just a trick of the mind.
Or maybe, that annoying ringing was due to the loud blasting of chakra explosions, tags, and her own punches of the earth from the war that had damaged her eardrums; yes, she thought, that had to be it.
With a scowl covering her features, she impatiently pried Shizune's door open with a little too much force, not caring that it had slightly unhinged from the frame. Typically, Sakura never acted with such force towards the hospital walls, but she was too preoccupied with the want of knowing the cause of her pain.
"Sakura?" Shizune surprisingly asked, long accustomed to her mood swings outside of work and towards her friends.
Ironic that it was, Shizune hadn't had the chance to get accustomed to Sakura's bursts of brutality that reminded her identically of Tsunade's personality. It was palpable that the girl had picked up more than just knowledge from the Legendary Sannin.
But, unlike Tsunade, Shizune sensed that this particular behavior was caused by built-up stress rather than that of sobriety. A 'bad mood' others would call it, but the brunette knew better from experience with the kunoichi. She had learned that Sakura's so-called moods rivaled Tsunade's very own, and much more containable, frustrations. Sakura's tempers usually ended with accidental destruction.
"What's wrong?"
"Headache," she grumbled the one word and sat down in the chair typically occupied by patients; the very chair the pink haired kunoichi despised.
Being a doctor, Shizune knew the incompetent feeling of surrendering yourself to be examined by another in the same profession all too well. It was never a good feeling and alarm bells rang in her head. If Sakura wasn't able to solve this on her own, then it was more serious than a normal ache.
"I need more than that, and you know it." Shizune motherly reprimanded while retrieving rubber gloves from a nearby compartment and turned to face the young women with her arms crossed, "All of it from the beginning or I'm not going to be of much help."
With a deep sigh that swept her long side bangs away from her face, Sakura explained, "There's a ringing in my ears that started a short while after the Fourth Shinobi War. I go deaf for a few minutes, the world spins and tilts, sometimes both at the same time, until it suddenly stops. When it does, I'm attacked by nearby noise all at once and I feel overwhelmed."
"Frequently? This had been going on for five months now?" Shizune wide-eyed asked, shocked that the pinkette had been enduring this pain for such a long time, "How many a week?"
"It was two every month and the aches were evenly spaced out from each occurrence, but I found that every month it gets stronger. There's been a difference this past week; I've gotten it twice," Sakura admitted, clenching the fabric of her bottoms in frustration and bit her lip before continuing, "I thought it was going to go away…When it didn't I began researching and testing, but I couldn't find anything on it. I never thought it would get so out of hand and progress this much."
"Did you evaluate yourself after each incident?" Shizune asked, her own hands lighting up with that greenish glow and proceeded to hover over Sakura's upper body.
"What do you take me for?" Sakura answered twisting herself to face the brunette so she could properly evaluate her head, "I always do after each occurrence to see if anything changes, but I never find anything out of the ordinary."
A few minutes of silence followed as Shizune focused on every vital blood cell and bodily detail operating inside the young woman while organizing her own thoughts.
Shizune realized that Sakura had a point, there was no sign of anything unordinary. Everything was accounted for, functioning, and reproducing properly. Just to be sure, the brunette hovered her chakra induced hands over the pinkette's ears and came to the same healthy conclusion.
With a sigh, her chakra faded away and she yanked the gloves off to wipe the sweat from her brows away.
Confused and a bit dazzled, Shizune finally spoke over the pregnant silence, "I'm not sensing anything strange. Luckily, Tsunade had me read a case about something similar. There was a patient long ago who's pent-up stress over time caused the body to rid of it through headaches now known as migraines. With your duties here at the hospital, you haven't taken any breaks since the war; it may just be stress or something along the lines of fatigue."
"Are you trying to use this as a manipulation tool to pressure me into taking a break?" Sakura asked with disbelief that Shizune was trying to take advantage of her state. Being a doctor granted her with a first-hand insight of this method, having used it a handful of times herself to get Naruto and Kakashi-sensei to catch up on much-needed rest.
"Don't be daft," Shizune scolded thumping the young woman on the head. She could be as stubborn as the boys in her life at times.
"Fine, what do you suggest I do to get rid of it?" Sakura asked guessing that one day off would suffice; it's not like she'll be magically cured by doing nothing for 24 hours. She needed a real remedy, not a miracle.
"Now that the war has come to an end, the hospital isn't full to the brim anymore. It can operate without you for the time being." Shizune hummed tapping her chin in thought before her tone turned lighter, one would think the brunette anticipated the remedy more than the patient, "I recommend that you take a vacation! We both know that a day off won't suffice for such a thing and you haven't even touched your sick days. Heck, you can even take a whole month off- actually, I'm not making this optional. I need you in tip-top shape and if that means the hospital is losing you for more than three weeks then so be it."
Sakura stayed quiet, thinking it through. Shizune's words rang true; her skills weren't needed as much as they had been when their job was to care for the wounded and fight against a callous threat.
"Tsunade once told me to take some time off from my studies to travel before getting strapped down in our demanding field of work. She once mentioned that a medic can learn a lot outside the hospital grounds; maybe even more than that during the war." Shizune wistfully lectured, "I don't regret it, but I was a fool not to do such a thing and I'm not going to let you pass it up as I did."
It was as if the older medic was persuading Sakura to take such an opportunity on her behalf as well.
"If that doesn't seem to do the trick," Shizune rambled onwards, eyes calculatingly moving from side to side trying to select on a verdict. After finally coming to another conclusion, her eyes lit up as she starred at the pinkette, "I would suggest meditating; it's like sleep when you can't get any. Then again, this could be something that has nothing to do with your body and more to do with your mind trying to tell you something."
"My mind?" Sakura vaguely repeated, unsure of what that really meant. "What could it possibly be trying to tell me? Whenever I get absorbed by the pain, death sounds like a better alternative for those few minutes. My body goes into acute awareness and it feels like I'm pulled back to the war all over again. I don't want to relieve those moments where everyone I care about are hurting."
Shizune quietly listened to the girl, lending her an ear to talk about her problems. Kami only knew how long the girl had been holding these feelings in for; it never did any good pretending to be fine, so she wouldn't worry anyone.
Shizune also took this time to further analyze the girl. Sakura may be reminded of the war, but her condition was not post-traumatic stress disorder or shell shock. She was showing no symptoms and her eardrums were as healthy as they could be for a ninja.
Whatever this was, it's obviously something deeper within her; like the tailed beasts that resided within a few great ninjas. Not like they were similar in the least bit, but both are unexplainable by science and seem to be rooted more with the host's emotional well-being.
"Sakura, has it ever occurred to you that returning to the place where it seems to be revolving around might help them go away?"
"You're saying to go back to where the battle took place. The field where my hundred-seal activated in a vain attempt that it might just vanish?" Sakura incredibly asked with a small scoff. "I'd say that's wishful thinking Shizune."
"What if I never heal?" Sakura continued rambling, "I can't live like this! It's getting in the way of my duties. Its random interruptions are overbearing-"
"I'm starting to think that vacation time may do you some good," Shizune rolled her eyes and bonked the girl in the head with a nearby scroll. "You're too pessimistic."
"I'm just being rational," Sakura replied nursing her new bump, "It's what doctors are trained to do. I can't help it."
"Well, that's where you're wrong, Sakura. You're a medic-nin first, doctor second or have you already forgotten?" Shizune assured the girl with a light pat on the shoulder as she looked down and into those confused emerald eyes, "Nobody's perfect; we all have our own struggles we constantly deal with, ninja or not. Even if it never goes away, seek those who have similar challenges and ask them how they overcome it before giving up."
"Giving up!? Nobody said anything about giving up here!" Sakura frantically shouted, jumping to her feet before realizing that the chuckling brunette was teasing her, "You're mean Shizune."
"It worked didn't it?" The older medic replied with a small smile, "For a second I thought I didn't recognize that determined girl who managed to persuade a stubborn Tsunade – except for that blinding pink locks of hair covering your head. Now, go on. Leave. You're wasting my time Sakura."
Shizune shooed her away from her office, glancing at her clock as she noticed her break was over and needed to tend to an urgent patient in the shinobi ward, "Whatever bumps in the road you come face-to-face with, I know you'll overcome it. You are, after all, Tsunade's apprentice. Remember that."
"Thanks, Shizune." Sakura gave the woman a quick hug before leaving in a hurry to meet up with her own appointment that she was late for. Sakura shook her head knowing her lunch date was undoubtedly pissed for being this late already.
"Kazekage, there's a hawk for you," a guard announced after receiving the message himself, "It's from Naruto."
Gaara nodded once to the guard, his universal signal that provided any verbal confirmation to proceed with the process of retrieving the bird for him. It's not like this was new, he had been pen-pals with Naruto for a few years now despite the blonde occasionally doing most of the writing.
Within a few minutes, he found himself starring up from his work at the very comfortable golden hawk on his desk. It even had the gall to stare fiercely back at him without fear, knowing that the red-headed man wouldn't do anything to harm him without reason.
With a hum of approval for the creature's bravery, Gaara detached the scroll from its left leg and wondered what Naruto was ranting on about this time. As of late, Naruto had divulged that he had been avoiding his pink haired kunoichi by taking on missions one after another.
Gaara sighed, disliking the use of that possessive noun. It's not like they were dating for the girl to belong to Naruto; the blonde was happily courting the Hyuga Heiress.
His feelings of such dislike for the noun could've emerged after being released from the hold of the Shukaku and with Naruto's constant moral help, he had a new perspective of the world and an endless inquisitiveness to how people lived freely. Sometimes he felt like an intruder watching the lives of others around him, yet this has taught him that nothing and no one was truly another's to own.
It was just that Gaara wasn't sure how to refer to the girl without dragging Naruto into the fray because she had no relation to him.
Sakura wasn't his friend, she was Naruto's best friend and beloved teammate. She was his first introduction to love but was merely an acquaintance of the past to Gaara.
But apparently, Naruto hadn't received the memo that the girl was her own person. The blonde was over his head worried about his female friend's personal affairs after Uchiha's latest disappearance to who knows where. This was what Gaara dubbed as one of Naruto's precious people; someone the blonde took responsibility of caring solely for the reason because they mattered to him.
Garra didn't particularly care, it was none of his business after all, and he knew the kunoichi could very well look after herself. She had made it excruciatingly clear since the first day she confronted him during the chunin exams.
He was half transformed yearning to kill yet here she was, alive after all these years and all because of those determined eyes of hers. She had made him hesitate, leaving an opening for Naruto to attack and stop him in time before he really did something he would regret.
Then she had gone and defeated Akatsuki no Sasori during his rescue mission while saving his brother from the brink of death. She had even given his sister dating advice regarding Shikamaru according to Naruto's letters two months ago.
Without personally knowing her, she had managed to make her presence known in his life. There was no doubt that he was indebted to her for everything she had done, and continued to do, for him and his family.
With that in mind, he planned to advise Naruto that Sakura, in her own time, would get over the devastation Naruto seemed so hooked up on because she was strong. Hopefully, this would also help calm the blonde's overwhelming concern and keep the girl in the clear from Naruto's intrusive worry for the time being.
He owed her that much.