Author's Note: I do not own Naruto and Naruto Shippuden and am in no ways affiliated with its creator, Kishimoto-sensei-sama (yes, he deserves two titles). This story was written for entertainment purposes only and I am in no way profiting from it in any financial terms whatsoever.
Before anything else, I HAVEN'T READ THE ENDING YET so please don't pelt me with reviews complaining about inaccuracies, etc. I know it'd concluded already but I hadn't been ready to let what had my lifesource for nearly half my time here go when it was released. Also I couldn't stand contradicting canon so I had to get this personal invention out before knowing what happens at last.
I want my darling girl to achieve her own closure so here. Slight SasuSaku, of course (OH EM GEE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MAKE THIS CANON THE WAY YOU MADE NARUHINA CANON KISHI-SENSEI [asdfghjklqzwxecrvtbynumiop at friggin' last Naruto only took you fifteen years, you stupid siyete] I'VE WAITED A WHOLE LIFE STAGE FOR THIS AND I'M NOT GONNA ACCEPT A NO SASUSAKU IS JUSTICE AND LOVE AND LIFE DON'T YOU DARE TRY AND PICK A FIGHT WITH ME CANON OR I WILL GET VERY VIOLENT AND YOU WILL BE SO SORRY INDEED).
Anyways, today for me is the day it officially ends. I feel like I'm about to meet up with good friend who's been waiting for me to say goodbye so he could finally die in peace and fly off to where he'll get everything he deserves forever. A friend whom I feel simply utterly happy for even though I'm heartbroken to the highest degree.
Seven years is the longest time I've kept one after all, and now he, she, they're all leaving.
But really, it's their father who shared them with me I should be thanking. I feel like I'm supposed to make a speech or something, so here:
Kishimoto-sensei. I love you with all my soul. Thank you so, so much for everything.
There, that's it. Off to say goodbye now. I'll see you all in therapy (or maybe the nearest asylum).
Pahabol 11.11.14: Okay, I initially misunderstood the sealing away the Tree thingie; I've thought all along that they were supposed to touch it together with their seal-ed hands the way they did with Kaguya for it to die... not changing what I've put down here though. Too lazy.
Kishimoto-sensei, WHY YOU NO GIVE SASUKE THE CLOSURE HE NEEDS WHICH I ALSO NEED FOR HIM IT'S SO UNFAIR AND WHERE THE FART DID SASUSAKU GO A POKE TO THE FOREHEAD IS NOT FARTING ENOUGH I WANT FARTING MORE I CANNOT ACCEPT THIS
The Perfect Niche
Sakura didn't scream when she saw them at last, covered in blood and on the ground.
She made no sound when she realized each had an arm missing, nor when she got close enough to see their mouths moving in conversation ("Mine's slightly longer therefore my attack was stronger, bastard!" "That's only because yours is closer to your eyes, idiot."). She doesn't answer Naruto's expressions of jubilation when she touched down, doesn't warn them about summoning a boulder-sized portion of Katsuyu who split itself in half at once to cover them up to their necks with its healing chakra and hers. In silence, she shot a current of healing chakra to the end of their broken appendages until sufficient skin had stretched over their stumps of cropped tissue, bone and burnt flesh enough to stop the bleeding, and only muttered a mumbled "I'm moving us elsewhere," before transporting her slug summon's bodies with her chakra and its patients away and following herself.
(She didn't make a remark to them on the trickle of scarlet that flowed from the ends of their limbs, trailing down to pool between their bodies and join them together in place of their hands. She didn't make a single peep to release the joy that burst in her heart at the sight – not a gasp, not even a silent tear. And after deciding not to taint their unified blood with the touch of her skin, Sakura didn't know – nobody does – but one of the cherry blossom petals that swirled into existence as she teleported off surrendered to gravity in a slow dance, executing one final, perfect pirouette before ending its act with grace, to rest at the very middle of the bed of liquid crimson and sleep.)
She sat between them in that relatively softer field of grass where they could heal more comfortably, and therefore more quickly, this time targeting the bruises, cuts and fractured bones of their heads. She made herself think that the reason why she wasn't touching them was because she was afraid of making them feel pained more than they already were.
Naruto was talking, that she was sure of, but she doesn't give his words any of her attention until her name was said. "Sakura-chan?" His voice was blurry at the edges of her awareness. "A-are you okay?" Then, biting his lip, he asked, "Are you- I probably shouldn't ask, but- Sakura-chan…"
She forced her mouth to stretch upward. "I'm fine, Naruto. I'm glad you're both alive. You could rest now. Leave this all to me."
"Y-you are? I mean, that's great!" The grin the former jinchuriki gave her trembled at the corners. "That you're fine, I mean! It's… great."
"I know," was her reply. "It's great."
Silence kept their mouths shut, lips drawn tight over clamped teeth. The air around developed ice claws to softly grip them with, and the sensation did not leave until the hush was shattered by the person Sakura was sure would.
"Sakura-chan, I'm sorry."
She glanced up at the speaker, slowly. Feeling sadistic all of a sudden, she smiled, sweetly. "What for, Naruto?"
Hurt flashed through the boy's tan face and Sakura found pleasure at the sight. He bit his lip as if his life depended on it. "That- that you had to wait and worry over us yesterday," he played along with her, voice pained. "That you have to see us like this."
"I'm a medic, Naruto." Her smile and voice were cold. "This is like seeing a rotten tooth for me, or a week-old scab. Besides I'm too old to be scared by these kinds of things."
Naruto stared up at her, horrified "…S-Sakura-chan," he pleaded. "Y-you know what I mean."
She didn't answer him. But the terror in his face over the prospect of her no longer caring for them melts all her grudges like an ice cube on the sun
"Yes, Naruto," she sighed in defeat. "I don't like seeing you like this and I don't like knowing you've done this to each other." But it can't be helped, her inner self spat out. It can't be helped if I'm still no damned where near how strong you two are to stop you.
"I'm sorry for how I acted," she said instead. "But it's all over now." She felt empty somehow, like she was sharing in on treasure she hadn't risked her life for. "It's done. You've finished it." She raised her head to directly look at their other team mate but found she had no courage, not yet. "Haven't you?"
"For sure we have!" Naruto exclaimed, encouraged that she was back to her regular self. "We've settled it all out, Teme and I. Right, Sasuke?"
Sakura faced her love for the first time, cautiously. He hadn't been looking at anyone this whole time but she thought his eyes widened with Naruto's words. There was the weakest spark of color under the skin of his face and the dried blood all over his face was palest on the finger-thin paths from the outer edges of his eyes down to his cheeks. All the bitterness in Sakura was mercilessly slaughtered by an unspeakable elation that took its place as she watched, entranced, as his chin jerked down.
"Pfft," Naruto exhaled through curled lips. "You could try looking happier, Teme. It suits ya, ya know?"
"Tch," was all the other boy could throw back, face reddening. Sakura so nearly cried.
"Everything's fine now, Sakura-chan." the blue-eyed boy turned to her, the joy on his face now genuine. "You'll never have to be left out ever again."
Her eyes turned to slits at this, and her hands balled themselves. She ground her molars together to repress yesterday's horrors, but her best friend had already looked away, oblivious to the torment he had caused her (again – after all this time, she still hadn't been able to do anything than wait).
"But," continued Naruto, frowning at something Sakura couldn't see. "Before that…" Sakura prayed he wouldn't do it, opened her mouth to act, and-
"Bastard," the man hissed to his right, and the ice that burned in his eyes at his best friend were almost as real as anything. "I know we're good and all but there's one more thing you ought to do. Apologize to Sakura-chan."
It took Sakura her all to keep herself from punching him. How could he treat her like she was a child who couldn't speak up for herself! She opened her mouth to vent the knives that hacked at her insides but could do nothing to make them leave. Without her consent, salt water squeezed themselves halfway out of her eyes and teetered over her skin. Damn it to hell, this wasn't the right time for self-pity!
Sasuke just glared at the sky like she wasn't even there. "I told you," he drawled back, tone defiant and uncaring. "She would have just gotten in the way-"
"Don't talk like she can't hear you!" Naruto screamed back. "All Sakura-chan's ever wanted was to bring you back home and you repay her by acting like an ungrateful little-!"
"No, Naruto." The sound of her own voice surprised her into resurfacing from the anger she had been drowning in; she looked at them both and they appeared to be as startled as she.
She inhaled, feeling each square inch that the black weight in her stomach and chest occupied. The truth was a foul-tasting thing that burnt her tongue and heart but she could stand that so much more than the bearing the load of the lies she told herself. Was this the right time, now that she had their full attention, now that they couldn't turn away even if they wanted to? Yes, it was, and acting before nervousness could take a hold of her, she admitted: "Nobody should apologize to me because… it's never been my place to get in between you two."
Her stomach lurched at her words, intimately, painfully, but a pinch of the darkness on her person disappeared when she spoke as well. Swallowing dry air, she made up her mind, rage waning, vision clearing – it was time to get rid of all the self-blame she kept within her.
Slowly, she thought, one thing at a time. She could do this. She could do this. "From the beginning, I've blamed myself for not being able to stop you. I didn't understand, then, and the world was so small. My weakness was the only explanation I could find so I took that, and relished it. I would think of how I tried to be enough for you, and how I'd never even been close. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, after all.
"So I relied on you instead." She didn't say who you was, didn't look anyone in the eye, didn't turn even the slightest towards any of the men lying before her. "I made you swear to me you'd find a way to make us whole again. When you came back the first time, I vowed to become stronger for us to work together. But as our failures only kept adding up and you pushed yourself to breaking point, I began to think that instead of lightening your burdens, I only ended up becoming one.
(Here, Naruto started to protest, but Katsuyu had the tact send one of her duplicates to gag him until he relinquished.)
"I couldn't stand seeing you in so much pain. I couldn't bear to watch you lose yourself. So I tried to take the reigns and save you myself. I failed there too, spectacularly. I tried for the last time yesterday morning, and I ended up watching you kill me and die, over and over again." She wasn't trying to make him feel guilty. She was just trying to get the weight of the fact off her chest. She thought he might have turned away from her ever so slightly, but she could be wrong.
"Yesterday, while waiting, I worried again. I worried with everything I had and almost cried too. But there was too much worry in me for me to manage crying so I didn't. Instead, I moved around and… well, did things.
"I wanted to be as useful as I could be when the time you needed me came. I imagined you'd be in the worst-case scenario and had to be relocated back to camp at once so I had Kakashi-sensei teach me teleportation. Once I've mastered that, I summoned Katsuyu-sama to practice using it on live objects with my chakra in them. When I've learnt that too, I recharged the best I could, then summoned Katsuyu-sama again to help heal the injured when the roots of the Tree freed everyone." (Sasuke inhaled to say or perhaps ask something, but held his tongue.) "After making sure everyone would be taken care of, Kakashi-sensei led a search and sent me in this direction, and… well, here we all are now."
They lay there in silence, and, feeling with her chakra that their heads were no longer broken, she set her hands down on her lap and breathed.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is my efforts and emotions never really did matter these past four years. I'm not trying to make any of you feel bad for me. I'm just trying to accept that-" she gulped to push down her envy, "that I have nothing to say towards your bond and what you do with it. Only you two own it, after all. And in the end, I think, even fate has to respect that." She remembered their blood on the stone from earlier and she found she had already forgotten about the shape of the streaks, the boulder's location, its shade of grey. But she hadn't forgotten the way their life liquid conjoined, red that was the water of their souls and the fruit of their labors. She smiled.
"But that's over now," she declared again, heart lighter. She wasn't going to make a note on the bitter stretch of time and the final blow that led to this conclusion; that information and the emotions it evokes was theirs and theirs alone. She remembered the whole point of her speech and dropped down from her high again. "And now that it is, I… if you don't mind, as your fr- team mate, I… I'd like to be the one to take charge of you two now."
She drank in the confusion off their faces and felt her hands clench into fists to calm the shaking of her arms. She smiled for them both, lips quivering, and took in a deep breath for bravery.
"I'm a medic after all. It's my job to heal my comrades, and, in a faction, my team mates." She added, teasing, already slightly desperate. "You're both pretty much helpless right now, so I'm not taking no for an answer until I've completely finished with you."
Comprehension fully bloomed at last on their faces – she wasn't just talking about physical wounds. One was full to the brim with hushed admiration and thankfulness, mixed with just the right amount of brotherly pride and wonder, the other had reluctance, so close to being fear, merged with screaming perplexity crawling subtly beneath a pale stretch of skin. Still, she didn't dare look into their eyes. Her tone and voice were lower when she spoke again.
"You've both come such a long way and need rest. Until you've recovered, please let me bear your burdens for you." Sakura felt the pulsing ball of emotion at the base of her throat hitch higher and gulped to try and subdue it. She failed. "I am willing, more than willing, because I don't want you to hurt anymore than you already are. And I want you to know that I could do that." She eyed them at last, flashing green against blue and black and purplish grey with rings. They stung from flashing too much, but she willed herself to be the last to blink each time. Drained for no reason, she looked away again.
"I'll heal you and help you with all that I can. I'll carry your loads and protect you. And when that's over – when you're ready… I'd like for us to work as Team Seven t-together again."
(Again? But there had never even been a "together". It was always the two of them from the start, and like Kakashi, she had just been a means for them to get together and continue to grow and compete. Two third wheels, or perhaps a pair of training wheels, to be cast away once they were no longer needed-
She shook her head at her own thoughts. You are wrong, you are wrong, you are wrong.)
"I know I didn't mean much before," she stated slowly, almost hearing them strain their ears to listen. "But this time around, I promise I would be useful." She swallowed, eyes burning, but she ground her teeth together tight. "I would be worthy enough for you to call your comrade."
The morning wind tugged lightly on her hair and clothes, and made the grass all around them dance. Katsuyu, on finishing with her patient's fronts', broke itself down into thumb-sized pieces to creep beneath them and heal their undersides. Once Naruto's hysterical, ticklish giggles subsided and both men learned to be comfortable on their squirming beds of white, nobody spoke or moved. Sakura just felt their eyes boring invisible holes into her face.
She smiled at her knees and shrugged. "I'll probably still insist no matter what you say. But if you'll let me, I…"
Fear finally caught a grip on her lungs and she tried to quell it with air. Please don't say no. Please don't push me away. "I will insist," she repeated. "But… if you could just- then I would- I…"
What was she supposed to say?
"Sakura-chan." Naruto cut her off, face and tone grave. "First off, I'll have you know I never, ever saw you as a burden. You know inside yourself that you aren't. And before anything else, I want you to fully agree with me."
He was sucking up to her, she knew. She felt something chilly creep beneath her bones. "Naruto-"
"Nuh uh uh," he insisted. "No but's. Say it, Sakura-chan. With feeling and conviction."
There was no hint of teasing in his blue, blue eyes, no sign of a prank or joke. Something blew in Sakura's chest and her eyes drowned in a lovely warmth she couldn't see. "I agree with you, Naruto."
"Good girl! And I don't want you to ever think of yourself that way ever again, 'mkay? Promise me, Sakura-chan."
She snorted; she couldn't help it, (Naruto giving her advice! How preposterous, how ridiculous could that notion ever get?) but said nothing to deny him. She acquiesced instead, with a nod.
"Sakura-chan. You know Kakashi-sensei sent you to us on purpose, right? 'Cause… well, he's our dad. And he knows just what we need to get up and going."
On purpose? Up 'til now, Sakura only thought that being sent to the Valley of the End was a lucky coincidence, but Kakashi was Kakashi. He knew things about her boys that she didn't, the way she felt intricate flurries of emotions for them that their sensei would never fully understand.
"Well, obviously. I'm a medic nin and you're both familiar with me-"
"Sakura-chan," her team mate cut in gently. "You don't have to dumb yourself down for me anymore, ya know."
She looked at him, and his eyes said he wholly understood everything she'd told them, that he was only answering her in code the way she had stated her request. Something jolted in her chest, spending sparks to fly all around her. Her whole being tensed, ready to pounce on and cling to his next words.
"That old man's part of Team Seven too. It's about as cheesy as heck but all he's ever wanted was for his kids to be happy. He'll never let us down or leave us for dead." He faced Sasuke while speaking, aware of how his old team mate was gleaning all he could of Naruto's words, peeking from the corner of his eye to find the hoax in the boy's whiskered face. He didn't.
"Which is why we have Sakura-chan with us now," Naruto continued, tone dripping with impatience. When Sasuke glanced at him, confused, he rolled his eyes to the heavens, theatrically. "Gosh, Sasuke, you didn't hit you're head too hard when we fell, did ya? Sakura-chan, real sorry about this, but I'm gonna have to be absolutely frank now since Teme here seems to be a little slow today."
Sasuke visibly turned to glare at him and Sakura let slip a chuckle at the whole nostalgic, heartrending exchange. She didn't miss how his eyes rested on her at the sound, flitting away when she looked.
"We're so spent and broken," Naruto's voice enforced the other's full attention on him. "and we can't move or fight or protect ourselves from, well, everything. The world. Time. So for now at least, we need someone to do those things for us, and make sure we're not just safe but sound until we're completely okay again 'cause heck if we haven't been through the worst fight of our lives."
Sakura robbed time of a brief glance at Sasuke: he was enraptured by his best friend's words and she knew by the look on his face that he understood every single microscopic thing buried within them.
"And 'cause we're sorta permanently damaged by all this," the speaker nodded down at the root of his severed limb and it took his healer several moments to realize he was looking at where his hand used to be, "we're still gonna need help even when we get out of refractory period. And because we're a more messed up than any of us would like to admit, that someone's gotta be extra special and capable in patching us back up." Mirrors of the sky slid over to Sakura and she automatically felt her heart clench.
"It should be someone who'll be there even when all the world abandons us. Someone who'll keep loving us no matter what we do. Someone who'll help us see our mistakes fairly and gently, then drag us all the way to Suna by the ear once when we're ready for it.
(Sakura thought she was the only one who noticed Sasuke's small flinch, but Naruto's mouth squirmed to push back a knowing smile.)
"Someone who's strong enough to carry the load of the world's two biggest idiots – shut it, Sasuke! – when they get tired or weak. Someone who'll take away that tiredness and give them needed rest. Someone who's brave enough to fight for them, and, although there's no way we're letting her, die for them." Sakura had to stifle a snort with a smirk.
"Someone who'll never give up on those two idiots… someone who loves them with her all. And that someone should be precious to us too, someone who's our family. Someone we treasure and care for and believe in with all our hearts, 'cause what's there to not believe in?"
Something hot pricked Sakura's heart and it only took a second for it to reach bursting fullness with her unshed tears of joy.
"And Sakura-chan here," said Naruto more quietly, smiling at his team mate. "well, Kakashi-sensei of all people should know she fits the bill perfectly. And you do too, don't ya, Sakura-chan?"
He stared up at her, the look in his eyes more encouraging than any words that could be spoken. This is what I think of you, blue spheres spoke to her heart. This is why I need you.
"Y-yes," she was forced to stammer, liquid glass meeting the air over where her sight began. "I guess I do."
"You know you do, Sakura-chan!" declared Naruto for the world to hear and know, "I do! And the bastard does too, don't you, Sasuke?"
The man in question flinched, almost shocked that the blonde should suddenly address him. He faced him first then her, evading her gaze as if gathering courage by staring at the pink of her hair. Their eyes met at last and he spoke: "Do I look like I have a choice?"
I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I'll try my best to deserve you.
His lover stabbed her lungs with some air as something wet slithered down her cheeks.
"Bastard!" bellowed Naruto, who had only heard and not seen. "How dare you answer Sakura-chan like that, you little-?!"
But Sakura heard nothing more because she had Sasuke in her arms at last; she could smell his scent and feel his warmth, his pulse echoed across her skin creating new ripples of the same heat every time they blended with hers, and she was holding him and he was so real that she finally convinced herself that she wasn't dreaming.
And it was more perfect than anything she'd ever imagined.
"You're still annoying," he muttered into her ear in that familiar tone of his, the one his twelve-year old self had always used, dripping with half-hearted disdain, and she laughs despite herself, laughs through ecstatic tears because she heard so clearly what his soul had said, like he wasn't wearing a mask at all. It was a wordless message, one the brain and its reasoning could never comprehend, but if she had to convert it into logical thought, she would have said it was equivalent to two short words in the language of the physical plane. Smiling stupidly, drowning in bliss, she answered, "You're we- you're wel- th- that's why y- you love me, Sasuke-kun."
There was no answer, and she realized that she should probably feel awkward (she didn't). He didn't push her away. But he didn't acknowledge her ei-
"Aa," he whispered, like it was a secret. She sobbed harder and he was just about broken enough to clutch at her shirt by her waist. "Thank you."
Holding him like this wasn't enough, would never be enough. But she had a lifetime ahead of her to keep him close and so did he to reach the day when he finally opens his arms to take her into him himself. She had waited for four years, she could wait a little longer, and for now, this was enough.
A voice drawled out one forever later, one that reminded Sakura of the rising sun after a month of endless rain. "Heeey. A hero over here just fulfilled his Promise of a Lifetime. Don't you think he should get a hug too?"
"You absolute dobe," she gritted out through a grin, gently unwrapping herself from Sasuke to this time lunge at her best friend. Her fingers mess up his soft hair, and, with the help of Katsuyu placing its bodies on top of the others, Naruto managed to wrap blood-stained arm around her waist. "Thank you, Naruto."
"Thank you too, Sakura-chan." His voice was hoarse with unshed tears but that fact changed quickly, salt water now tenderly merging with the miniature stream on Sakura's cheek. After four long years their family was finally going to be whole again, and brother and sister embraced each other with their souls, eternally thankful to the other. Sakura could only be excited over spending the rest of their lives side by side with one another, equal and needing each other, but that was for later. Now, she was holding onto the loud-mouthed idiot who kept her alive with his smiles and she was glad that at last she could finally return the favor.
It felt like a lifetime until the silence was broken again. "Sakura-san," began a timid female voice. "They are both fully healed now."
"Oh yes, of course." Sakura sprang up and wiped her tears while Katsuyu's clones gently laid its patients down on the grass. "I've ran out of blood pills and puh-pain meds so we'd b-better get back to camp. Everyone's- hic- everyone's waiting for you."
"Everyone? They've all woken up?" asked Naruto, jubilant. Sakura didn't miss the way Sasuke tensed at this and regretted at once what she had to say next. "Yes. K-Katsuyu-san and the rest of the unhurt medics are taking care of the injured. A fourth of those who are all right were handling the dead when I left. Another had been sent to fetch rations from camp and hunt and fish in the nearby forest, and the remaining ones are guarding both factions."
Her explanation woke her up fully, and she wiped the last tear out of her eye to say, "Katsuyu-san. I'll transport you back to the others now. Please continue helping the medics." Sakura formed a ram seal as her summon voiced its assent.
"Thanks a lot, Katsuyu!" Naruto beamed at the duplicate that had gagged him.
"My pleasure, Naruto-san." A hundred slugs bowed low before vanishing in little pinwheels of smoke.
"One question though," Naruto queried after the clouds of air had cleared and before anybody else spoke. He held up his limbless stump like it was the heaviest thing in the world, shook it around then made a face at the results. Sakura nearly giggled. "This isn't it yet – the question I mean – but…" He made a face like he wanted to vomit and cry. "Sakura-chan will we ever-!"
"I'm a medic, Naruto," she answered, offended. "Did you honestly think I'd let you two stay this way forever?"
"C-course not, Sakura-chan!" the whiskered boy tittered nervously. "I- I bet you could find a way to grow 'em back three days tops!"
"Two," she promised him, smiling. He sighed then grinned in relief. "Yup. That right there is Sakura-chan for ya!"
"Oh, don't be a suck-up."
"But here's my question," he said, the smile dropping out of his face and what was left of his arm dropping out of the air. He looked to where his hand was supposed to be if he still had it. "I guess you don't know any better than us, but since your smarter and got the best ideas, Sakura-chan… weren't the Teme and I supposed to be touching the Tree?"
Sakura shrugged. She received his compliment with a blush but didn't understand the phenomenon in question as well. "An explosion reached us last night, from the direction of your fight. But even there, three miles away from the Valley, we experienced an earthquake. Soon after that, the Tree shrunk back underground before we'd been able to do anything about it, and everybody trapped was released and woke up. Your attacks' chakra must have reached it all the way there, but I don't know for sure."
"Just be grateful it's happened," said Sasuke to the asker, eyes determinedly fixed at the sky. "Otherwise, they're never getting out." The other two cringed at the thought. He looked around, as if for show, and, to change the subject, asked, "Where are we anyway?"
"Halfway between camp and where you'd been," she answered promptly, wrestling with the overexcited throbbing of her heart over him acknowledging her in such a Sasuke way. "I hadn't had enough chakra to take us back all the way then, but I'm ready to go once you two are."
"Yeah!" cried Naruto. "I'm starving. You said there'll be breakfast, right? I feel like I haven't eaten in... what, four days? Or is it years? And it's my birthday, too! Or had been, but anyway, we should at least have a ramen buffet, but if we can't have that, any other kind'll do!"
Sakura shook her head in happy exasperation. Leave it to Konoha's finest ramen-slurper to remind the rest of the world of the concept and existence of hunger. She did have dinner, roasted fish from the nearest stream, last night but hadn't been able to take more than two bites out of tension…
"-could totally beat you in a breakfast-eating contest, though," Naruto was saying. "Then, as my reward, you're gonna have to free the bijuu-"
Sakura stabbed the shorter man with a warning look but Sasuke beat her to it. "You haven't even won yet, moron," he muttered, frowning at the clouds and slightly pink to the face. The man beside him presented him a grin in thanks, to which his blush deepened and the scowl he was wearing twisted more uncomfortably.
"Good boy!" declared Naruto, looking like he wanted to pat the other boy on the head. "The moment you get you're chakra back, then. Then after that, just as I said, I'm smacking you on the head with all I've got in everybody's pla-"
This time, Sakura didn't need to glare; Naruto himself looked horrified with what he had said. "H-hey," he caught up lamely. "I meant- I didn't mean…"
But the damage had been done. Sasuke still looked at no one but his eyes were now glazed over, anxious fear threatening to overpower his clenched jaw and dominate the rest of his face. Sakura wished he'd lost his other hand instead so she could hold on to the one closer to her.
"Hey, now," Naruto coaxed with a soft smile. "I'm sorry alright. You know I was just kidding. But it's not like we're gonna let them drown you or anything." taller boy only seemed to shrink a little more.
"Naruto's right," Sakura added quickly. "I'll reason with them, and Kakashi-sensei too. I – we – won't let them hurt you."
It sounded childish even to her ears, that last reassurance, and to the extremes, maybe even wrong. But even now, her patient's shoulders weren't set as tight, his breathing not as hushed. "We've waited this long to have you with us," Naruto seconded with a soft smile. "We're not letting anything take you away from us again."
Sasuke looked at the speaker, cautiously, eyes begging that his friend was telling the truth. He sought Sakura soon after, expression halfway through transforming from hopelessly relieved and grateful into desperation once more. She smiled down at his mismatched eyes and squeezed the hand that was no longer there tighter. Somehow, she thought she felt him return the pressure.
"Aa," he mumbled in reply, not looking away from her. There was still worry in his mismatched eyes, but there was hope this time too, faint and flickering but there. Sakura felt her eyes go hot again, and said, "I'll take us home, now."
She went to Naruto first, helping him wrap an aching arm around her shoulder and hoisting him up by the waist ("Chakra depletion," she muttered the first five times he winced over the slightest movement. "With some rest, you'll get better.") She moved on to Sasuke, slower this time to let her load catch his breath, and had him hold her by the waist, using what little spare chakra she had to keep him glued to where she was clutching him against her for support. Naruto moved his forearm to give his fellow invalid extra space and he sagged against Sakura the way his best friend did, without qualms and unabashed as the other boy let his hand rest on the dark-haired man's left shoulder. She was so pleased that her boys should rely on her like this, let her hold them up, let her take the lead. If you were to ask her years later, she would have told you this was the proudest moment of her life.
"Ne, ne, you guys know something?" asked Naruto. The other two turned to him the best they could. The way his mouth reached for the sky serious yet light, and when he spoke, his tone and voice came from deep within the heart. "I think we're the best team to ever exist. And will ever exist. Forever."
Team. Not duo but team. Bliss threatened to spill over Sakura's eyes. "I think so too." Oh, if only their Kakashi-sensei was a part of this embrace too!
Naruto let his smile touch her cheek, much to her delight and, for some reason, pride. She would do the same to him once they were alone, she decided. "Ne, Sasuke!" he cried now, poking the side of his best friend's head the best he could. "Don't you think so too?"
He looked at the shorter boy strangely ("It was friendly and you know it," Naruto gritted out out of context, faintly red. "I don't take what isn't mine." Color sprang to Sasuke's cheeks in turn at this and Sakura did not understand the whole exchange at all.) then at her. His gaze slipped down to the ground and stayed there, and they were about to give up on him and get a move on when his mouth opened for a single syllable: "Yeah."
His team mates sought each other's eyes; spring green clashed with sky blue and neither of them said a word. Sharing the same knowing smiles and flight of hearts was enough.
"Hmm? Wazzat?" Naruto taunted, jovial and ecstatic, craning his neck forward to properly see paler man (his head was bowed, nose grazing Sakura's hair in a way that made her face burn in the most delightful way, eyes closed with the corners of his mouth stretching to the sky). "Whadja just say, Sasuke? I don't think I heard you clearly, you should speak up a little loud-"
"I'm glad."
There was no way anyone or anything could make those two words sound more perfect. To plug her tear ducts with distractions, Sakura gently took after their other team mate's example. "You're glad what, Sasuke-kun?"
He looked down on her, confused as to why she would ask a question he knew she knew the answer to, but he discerned the teasing light behind the color of her eyes and changed his expression. It was one the rest of Team Seven was familiar with, that special look reserved for them and them alone: contentment, expertly masked with bored exasperation and his signature (almost a) scowl for his lips, a flimsy layer of feigned irritation stretched over the sincere – and, in Sakura's case, electrifying – warmth in his eyes. It was the one that sent the medic's heart soaring within her chest each time she looked, and learning that she still hadn't been able to get over its magic effects four years after its absence didn't surprise her.
"I'm glad…" Sasuke whispered, like confession. "that you're my family."
It was the most beautiful moment of Sakura's life.
"Us too, ya know." "Us too, Sasuke-kun." Naruto and Sakura spoke at once then exchanged looks, tittering once their gazes collide. Sasuke smiled at them, but Naruto rumpled his black spikes so hard until he himself had to fight off a snicker, and on failing, they were laughing altogether, holding on to each other so tight that Sakura found it so easy to imagine, no, believe that nothing could ever make them come apart.
One eternity later, when they had calmed down enough to stop, Sakura let her energy sink into the two people she loved the most, and she relished how their own life sources embraced hers, mirroring all too well what she felt for them in the deepest, darkest chamber of her soul. Their battle as Team Seven wasn't over yet, she knew – they had the rest of the world to deal with and scars left to heal, still tender, deep and raw. But she knew she was strong enough to fight alongside her family this time around too, bursting with a unique strength that only she could wield and put to good use. She would be useful like she was right now, holding them up and supporting them; she would heal them and be with them, and they would cherish one another until the end of their days and beyond. Standing side by side with Naruto and Sasuke and trapped within their arms, Sakura thought there was no other role she'd rather fulfill than the one she made and decided for herself for the men of her life.
"Let's go home," she whispered to her family.
But she was wrong. As it was, all three of them were already there.