Scars

Chapter 1

The-clinically-Insane

"Hello?" The pink haired medic pressed her ear piece in deeper to catch the distant voice calling through her static filled headset.

"Sakura? Just the girl I was looking for… Where are you?"

"Um, about a mile north of camp. Why?" She instantly recognized the labored voice as it came through in a more concentrated form and the words became understandable.

"I think we need to talk."

She swallowed thickly at the warning tone in his voice, immediately worried that something had gone wrong. "About?"

He paused for a moment before answering. "Do you love me?"

Now Sakura ran a hand through her hair, wondering why he would ask her that question. He didn't sound like he was in pain so she assumed he hadn't been injured. "Well, of course, but… what's going on?"

"How much do you love me? I'm not joking."

She licked her lips, smiling at his reminder, as if she always thought he was playing around. "I love you to death." She stated bluntly, almost sarcastically. "Now tell me what the hell is going on."

Another drawn out pause, his heavy breaths filling the silence and letting her know that he was still alive. "Nothing's going on. I just wanted to hear you say it, that's all. I love you too, by the way. Never forget that."

"What happened to not joking? You're starting to scare me." Sakura slowed her sprint back to camp and covered both of her ears up with her hands to block out all sound except his voice.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to. I just wanted you to know… I wish things had turned out differently. You could have been happy with me, you know."

"I am happy."

His dry, humorless laugh echoed in her head and she almost winced at the fake sound. "No, Sakura, no you're not. He was your life then, and still is now. I'm catching up to you, stop and wait for me."

Sakura stared up at the misty sky through unseeing eyes, as she distantly listened to what the Hokage, her Shishou, was saying.

"…Died saving someone he loved… to death."

Sakura blinked pitifully against the harsh reminder of some of her last words to Naruto. She didn't quite understand why she wasn't breaking down right now but took it as a blessing as she tried to blend in with the rest of the shinobi attending the memorial.

"He was returning from a simple border patrol along with Haruno Sakura when a rouge attacked them, and he jumped between the rouge and his teammate. The rouges attack killed him instantly, but the medic assigned to his team was able to avenge his death…"

Sakura stopped listening. This version made her seem much more… noble, and she almost wanted to scream out in anger that she hadn't even realized that she was under attack until the last second, when Naruto's lifeless body had slumped gently against her back. Wanted to point out that he had given her everything he ever possibly could and more, and in return, the most she could do was accidentally kill his murderer in an uncontrollable violent urge for revenge. An urge she didn't think through until afterwards, but one she didn't regret any less.

"Naruto! Oh Kami no!"

She spun around as his weight hit her back silently and she dropped to her knees, cradling his head in her lap. She checked his pulse with quick precision, but when she couldn't find it, pressed two fingers all along the vein in his throat, hoping to find some sort of indication that he was alive. She found none.

"You- you're…can't be… d-dead…?" In a flash she suddenly understood everything, from his confession of love, to wanting to hear the same from her. Naruto had seen the attack coming and had jumped in the way just in time to save her. He gave his life for her, had time to think it through, and still made a conscious decision to do so, and wanted her to know that he loved her with all his heart, even if she could never return the favor. To this day she could never figure out why he didn't just warn her that she was about to be attaked.

That small fact -that he gave it all up for her- just made it so much worse.

As she sniffed, holding back her tears but never once stopping the flow of green chakra into his lifeless body, cheap and hollow laughter rang through the forest, and she remembered the presence of Naruto's killer and stood to face him, a glowing hand still resting on Naruto's chest.

"Who the hell do you think you are!?" She hissed venomously, wishing for all the world that she were dead at that moment, in Naruto's place. Because he was her best friend, and she was just starting to feel the affects of his love, of what they could have been together… if she had, for one moment, just forgotten about Sasuke.

He just laughed more, the sound bordering on hysterical and insane and echoing against his reflective steel mask. "Who do I think I am? Kunoichi, I know exactly who I am."

She gasped as she recognized the voice, and it gripped her with fear, hatred and anger… something she would have never believed that sound particularly capable of.

"And your cause is hopeless. It's only putting more strain on you, and once you waste enough of your chakra on that worthless dobe, I will make his sacrifice be in vain."

Sakura growled and with inhuman speed that she had acquired form training with Lee, was on the last Uchiha, her fist burying itself into his stomach, wrist deep in his flesh. The power behind the blow ripped through his skin.

"How dare you!" She screeched out in anger and uncontrolled emotion...it was distinctly hateful and her powerful rage blurred her vision. With malice she never knew she possessed she growled out her affliction in words almost impossible to understand: "I hate you! How could you kill him? He was all I had left!"

With her chakra infused hands she was able to slice open everything she could reach as she pounded him into the ground, tearing his unresponsive body apart.

He didn't even have a chance to be surprised before his life slowly bled away on the ground.

Sasuke… I've finally learned that my obsession with you was purely out of habit. I've finally realized that it was Naruto I loved all along, and no longer you.

I hate you…

"C' mon, Sakura!" Kiba whined desperately, ignoring all the annoyed stairs the villagers gave him.

Sakura blinked and looked up at him with empty eyes. "What?"

"You know what! You're too slow! You aren't going to be able to save him if you don't get your ass moving!" He complained as he grabbed her wrist and began to drag her toward the hospital. She just rolled her eyes, trusting the medics on duty, the ones she trained, to be able to keep Shino alive just as well as she could.

"Kami, you lifeless lump! You've been like this for a year already, just get over it and start doing your job!"

Sakura froze, and stared at Kiba in shock, not even noticing the insistent pull on her wrist. Slowly, she turned away from him, easily breaking his weak hold – in comparison to her strength – and shaking her head as she began to walk away.

"What?! No, Sakura, I didn't mean it, please come back! He'll die without your help!"

Sakura just pursed her lips. "Yes you did mean it, no you are not sorry, and I have full confidence in my medics abilities, even if you don't. Get out of my sight Inuzuka."

Kiba groaned, but otherwise remained speechless, staring after her as she walked away.

"You wanted me, m' lady?"

"Hm? Oh, right." Tsunade easily set aside her 'oh-so-important' paperwork and directed her attention to her former apprentice. "I wanted to discuss the possibility of you joining in on a… murder of sorts. I've always wanted to know how important someone has to be before their murder is considered an assassination, but this would be a case where I wouldn't dare question it. We have a tight location on an Atatsuki member, and I want him dead, as soon and as cleanly as possible."

Sakura blinked her large empty green eyes and nodded her head that she understood. "Hai, Tsunade-shishou."

Tsunade sighed and shook her head. "I'm worried about you Sakura… Which is why I think you should take a break from normal ANBU duties. This mission will be undercover, and could last anywhere from a year to five. Do you have any attachments in this village?"

"None but the village itself."

Tsunade sighed again and reached up to press the heel of her hands into her eyes. "That's what I thought," she said, laughing bitterly. "You're ruined, and I want you to have a break. You will be doing this as a team, and you are to do everything in your power not to blow your cover. And you won't kill him. I'll have an assassin assigned to your team, and only he will do it, understood?"

"Hai, Tsunade-shishou."

"Alright, Shizune, I request that you do something, anything, with the girl's hair. Much too obvious… and her tattoo's as well, I think. Sakura, I want you to start eating healthier so you'll gain a little weight, you look like you're starving, and you really need to get a tan. Dismissed, for now."

Sakura,

I really hope everything's going okay down there. Kakashi actually seems worried about you, he keeps coming in the flower shop to ask how you're doing. You need to come out unscathed for his sake as much as yours. You're all he has left, you know. Shino is still in a coma, and Kiba is in denial. Now he keeps blaming you, no matter how many times Shizune tells him you couldn't have done anything more for him than she did. Shikamaru said I shouldn't tell you that, but I think you have a right to know. Asuma is doing really good, you should see him! He's getting so big, and he says he miss's you lots. Hinata wanted me to tell you to tell Neji that she needs him, and wants him to hurry up with this mission and come home. Lee's been going home to an empty bed lately as well. He won't admit it, but I don't think he believes Tenten's going to make it. Tell Genma I miss him, and –here the handwriting changed, from Ino's elegant script to Shikamaru's scratchy drawl- that he better keep his hand off my women. That goes for you as well, Sakura. We miss you, and the others, but Ino won't go to sleep so I'm cutting this short. Please write back quickly, she needs to hear from you.

With all our love,

Ino and Shikamaru Nara

"Sakura! We need you now! Our patient isn't responding!"

Sakura jumped up from her bed immediately and snatched her headset up off the ground where she had dropped it just two hours earlier. She was used to getting up on short notice and having to work on barely any sleep. It was kind of exciting, waking up form an exhausted and deep slumber, only to be thrown into emergency surgery or called in to remove poison, which was her specialty.

As she sprinted down the stairs to the lower level hospital wing of their mansion, Sakura set her headset up properly, responding to her earlier call with ease achieved only through her experience at the 'mansion'.

"I'm on my way, just keep him alive."

She pushed her way into the main room, ushering people out randomly. There were at least a dozen empty beds with stiff white sheets, but one held a dark haired man, writhing violently and fighting at the shinobi holding him down.

"Sakura! Oh thank Kami, I think he's having a heart attack!"

"Kaori, you weren't able to take care of him?" Sakura seemed perfectly level headed amid the sobs, screams, and chaos around her.

"No, I couldn't even keep him still! Neji, Tenten and Chouji heard me over the radio and came to help just before you got here." Kaori worked under Sakura, and was second in command of the medical team at the mansion.

"Okay, guys thanks for the help, but you can go, I've got this. Kaori, you stay, just in case."

With raised eyebrows and amused looks the three ANBU let go of the struggling, unconscious man and watched as Sakura blindly stuck a needle into his flailing arm while leaning back to pull a folder out of a filing cabinet. "He's not having a heart attack… he's having a seizure… hmm…"

She placed a delicate hand over the man's chest and began to carefully push her chakra into his system while flipping through his folder and humming quietly to herself.

"I wonder… yeah… he's… okay, lets kill him, then."

Her glowing hand retracted easily from his body and she slid a pair of kunai out of her leg holster from where it lay on a table, removed in her rush to get some sleep earlier that morning. It seemed her wish would once again go unfulfilled as she fought off her drowsiness.

Calmly slicing open his throat, she gave him time to bleed out before healing the wound and making a face at the bloody mess all over her table.

"Someone clean that, it smells," she said absently, referring to the body and waving her hand around the room at her teammates.

"Who was he?" Neji asked knowingly, motioning for her to follow him out of the medical room while Tenten and Kaori straitened up the mess and Chouji disposed of the actual body, carrying it down to the morgue to be examined later.

Sakura grimaced and scraped her tongue on the roof of her mouth, like she just tasted something bad. "Our prisoner."

Neji looked at her with an annoyed frown.

"Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. He was some ANBU leader's son. That's why we took him prisoner. Genma was leading that raid though, so I guess you wouldn't know unless someone brought it up. We expected his 'daddy' to give up anything to get his son back, but apparently not. His dad called him a traitor for letting himself get caught, and the entire time he was locked up he had these nightmares of his dad killing his mom. I just thought I'd put the poor kid out of his misery."

Neji just shook his head. "We're not here for charity Sakura, you know that."

Sakura shrugged. "So? It's all I have left, knowing that I can save these people."

Neji stopped walking and looked at her for a moment. Sakura gazed back at him, not knowing what to expect.

"I know… you must miss them. "

"Always. But this – all of it – can sometimes make me forget. Forget that it was me, who tore us apart, forget that if I hadn't gotten in the way, that they could have had a real fight, not some by-chance accident that resulted in two peoples deaths."

"Is that what you think?"

"Yes. Because it's true."

Neji didn't respond, turning away from her to walk back to his room in the other direction.

Sakura sighed and rubbed at her eyes, pushing her glasses up on the back of her hand. It was around two, at least as far as she could tell by the moon, and she couldn't remember ever being as tired as she was now, after skipping sleep the night before in lieu of a quick scouting mission at one of the local bars. After realizing, several seconds after she heard the loud smack, that she had dropped her book on the cold linoleum, she decided she should get some sleep.

She'd been trying, in vain, for the past week to figure out a way to keep the medics alive in the heat of battle, without having them using all their chakra to defend themselves. The obvious, would be to assign them bodyguards, but the guard could be killed as well, and they really didn't have any ANBU they could spare.

"Shouldn't you be asleep, medic? Your orders, you know."

"As it so happens, I was just going to head upstairs, but shouldn't you be in bed as well, captain?" Sakura sat her glasses on top of the counter next to her and stood, stretching and making her back crack, the harsh sound echoing loudly in the quiet room.

"Hey, I got sleep last night thank you very much, and you didn't. You're dead on your feet. Come on, I'll walk you to your room."

Genma offered her a hand, and she blearily looked at it, blinking slowly and yawning. "Carry me?" She asked sleepily, loving the soft warmth he radiated as she ignored his extended hand and leaned into him.

He laughed quietly, the sound reverberating through his chest and causing her to whine lightly at the vibration. "Alright, but I don't want Kakashi over here killing me."

"Ka-ka-shi?" She asked in a confused manor, carefully sounding out the syllables of his name as her voice stumbled over the sounds. Kakashi wasn't ever supposed to be near her again.

"Oh, yeah. He's really the jealous type, isn't he?"

"Um, no?"

Genma laughed at her. "I'm just joking Sakura, but obviously you're a little to tired to appreciate it. C'mon, I'll carry you up, just go to sleep."

"Mmm…?"

"Waaaake upp, Sakura-chaaan," Someone hummed in a singsong voice near her ear.

"Five more… min… utes…"

"I've given you five more minutes 6 times already Sakura. It's time for you to get up, you have some patients to look at, and some jounin with checkups that are long overdo. Like mine!"

She huffed into her pillow and groaned out a "fine! I'm up!" as she pushed her way out of Genma's bed (She'd have to ask him about that later), and past Tenten, just to fall flat on her ass again when she hit his doorframe. Utterly defeated, she just lay there miserably, drowning in her self pity at once again not getting enough sleep.

"Sakura, are you okay?"

"Great. Wonderful. Just magnificent, thanks for asking." With a groan she covered her eyes with her forearm, effectively blocking out the harsh light from the sun shinning brightly through a window that she believed really didn't belong there.

"Is that sarcasm I detect, Sakura-chan?"

"Wha- Kakashi?" Shielding her eyes with a hand she looked up at him and realized it hadn't been Tenten that woke her up like normal, but her old sensei. The one that was supposed to be back at Konoha. Far, far away from her. Feeling sorry for himself because all his students left him without a second thought.

"The one and only. I think. I hope."

"Kakashi?"

"Um, is that a question? I thought I already answered that… I'm a little drunk, I admit, but hearing things is just a little much… I normally only see hot pink fireflies." Was he on Acid?

Sakura interrupted his confession with one of her own. "I'm mad at you! Get out!"

"Why are you mad at me? I didn't do anything."

"Exactly!" She hissed, still on her back and virtually blind to her surroundings.

"I'm sorry?" he offered lamely.

"For?" she prompted, peeking out at him and glaring weakly. He couldn't help but notice that she looked sick.

He finally took a deep breath, and she raised her eyebrows. "I'm sorry you lost them. I know how much Sasuke meant to you, and-"

"What. Did. You. Just. Say." She ground out between her teeth.

"Um… I'm sorry you lost them…?" he sounded like a frightened child, afraid of the belt in his mother's hand.

Her voice dripped venom. "After that."

"I know how much Sasuke meant to-"

"You know nothing, Kakashi-sensei. Sasuke meant nothing to me; it just took a while for me to realize it. Did you even go to his memorial?"

He looked shamefully at the floor somewhere near her ear. "No."

"I didn't think so. If you had, you would know that I killed Sasuke. I didn't just loose him, I murdered him. Naruto was the only one that ever gave a shit about me, and it was him that I lost that day."

"You ki- what?"

"You heard me," she growled, still shielding her eyes from the rising sun.

"Does the light hurt your eyes? I can close the window if you'd like."

"No, and don't change the subject! Or better yet, just leave!"

"Are you drunk to, Sakura-chan? I think I'm starting a new trend." Oh, she was so not going to help him with his hangover the next day.

"Get. Out. Now."

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Fine. But you will have talk to me later. Oh, and why are you in Genma's room?"

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