AN: AU, what-if. It started with a beginning and an end; I really liked it but just couldn't find a middle to go with it. So as much as I loved the concept of this story, I spodged up the plot a lot. Warnings for choppiness, a plot that doesn't make much sense and just general weirdness. Oh, and reviews are always nice ;)
I find it extremely funny how when I type Sasuke, my spell-check tries to replace it with Sauce. Uchiha Sauce…heh heh heh.
It started with a betrayal.
"What's the point?" Tears streamed down her face, "I couldn't make him stay! I couldn't make him stay! What good am I?" She sank to her knees, hands pressed painfully into her face.
uselessuselessuseless
"Sakura-chan", a hand on her shoulder, "I'll bring him back, I promise!" Naruto winked and smiled with teeth shining artificially.
She only stared back with blank eyes.
--
After Naruto's departure, Sakura spent her days at home, picking out her hair one by one. The pink strands slowly amassed into a makeshift nest around her. Sakura's mom shrieked in horror when she saw but by that time it was already too late. Sakura's blood red scalp shone painfully in the light.
uselessuselessuseless
People stared after her in disgust when she passed them on the streets, but Sakura just didn't have the strength to care anymore. Her wandering feet took her to Kakashi's door but before she could even knock, it swung wide open. If Kakashi was surprised by her appearance, he didn't give any indication of it.
"Please train me." Sakura lifted her chin up resolutely.
Kakashi stared back at her stonily. "No," and proceed to close the door. Sakura leapt forward, wedged her foot between the door and the doorframe and with a surprising amount of force pushed the door back open.
"Sensei," she reached out and clenched her fist into his shirt, "You're all I have left."
Staring into her pained eyes Kakashi felt a kind of desperation and for a moment he almost gave in. Let her hate me, he thought, because I cannot lose another one.
"Sakura," he gently but firmly released her grip on him, "I'm not your sensei anymore." He stepped back into the shadows, and slammed the door in her face.
uselessuselessuseless
He pretended not to hear her cry.
--
When Naruto came back bloody and broken and Sasuke-less, something in Sakura snapped.
"Sorry Sakura-chan," Naruto whispered softly when she came to visit, "I couldn't bring him back."
No, she thought, it was because she was useless that she couldn't make him stay. It was because she was useless that Naruto came back like this.
"Let's stop Naruto." Sakura had covered her bald head with a wig and now hid her eyes in the shadows of the fringe, "He's not going to come back."
Naruto's mouth hung wide open. "You-you can't be serious Sakura-chan! We still have three years time to get stronger and bring that bastard back! We can't give up!"
Sakura shook her head, dropped the packed ramen she had brought on the table with a thud, and walked out the door.
Naruto left the next day.
--
Sakura began helping out at the Yamanaka flower shop.
"Ino," she said suddenly, while struggling to cut off a particularly stubborn thorn on a rose, "I'm going to quit being a ninja."
"WHAT?" Ino shrieked, "You can't give up Forehead-girl! Who am I going to compete against?"
"I have no team, I have no talent, and I have no ambition. I'm just not cut out to be a ninja." Sakura clenched her teeth furiously, "I'll only be a burden on the village."
uselessuselessuseless
Ino was livid, her face a brilliant shade of red. "You-you, I can't believe you! Just do what you want, I don't care anymore!" She threw down her cutters and stomped out.
Sakura refused to cry. It was Ino that shed her tears for her. The next day, a resignation letter found its way onto the Hokage's desk.
--
For the next two years, Sakura worked at the local grocery store. With her money she rented a small apartment and moved out of her parents' house. Her parents didn't put up much of a fight.
"Sweetie, are you sure it's a good idea?" Her mother had cooed at her, "You're only fourteen."
"Let her be," her father had gruffly said behind his newspaper, "she stopped being our child years ago." And that had been the end of that conversation. Afterwards she slowly lost contact with her parents, her friends, with anyone else that she knew. Once she saw Ino on the street, and dashed quickly into an empty store. Behind the glass she watched as Ino walked by with her team talking and laughing, a new chunin vest snuggly tucked under her arms. Sakura had felt her heart clench painfully.
She began buying an array of wigs with her pay. Short ones, long ones, curly ones, straight ones; she would wear a different one to work everyday. People slowly forgot about her and sometimes she would come face-to-face with a former classmate and not a single flicker of recognition would register on their face.
Shikamaru had looked at her oddly the other day, as he paid for his cigarettes, but merely nodded and said, "Nice hair," before walking off. She had been wearing a spiky blond wig. The smartest ninja in their class, and he couldn't recognize her. Sakura didn't know whether to cry or to laugh.
It was on her fifteen's birthday that Sakura finally realized that it was time to go. She received nothing, no cards, no presents, nothing. It wasn't anyone's fault, she was the one that had severed all contact with her past and moved on, but that didn't stop it from hurting. You're nobody's girl, that's what you wanted isn't it?
She packed up her stuff that night and left.
And when Naruto finally came back two and a half years later, stronger, older and eager, Sakura was nowhere to be found.
--
"She's a fifteen year old ex-genin! How far can she get?" Tsunade roared at the guards. "And why didn't anyone realize she was gone!?" When another team of ANBUs came back empty-handed, the Hokage had no choice but to classify her as a missing-nin. Even if Sakura is a civilian now, her ninja past still binds her to the village.
"Hokage-sama, according to the supermarket she worked at, she stopped turning up on March 29th. We assume it was then that she left the village."
"MARCH? She's been gone for nearly half a year? Why didn't anyone notice? Get me the guards on duty that day and send her parents to me as well."
After the ANBU disappeared, Tsunade sighed and placed her chin on her entwined hands. "You can come in now Naruto."
"Obaa-chan!" Naruto charged in, "Where is Sakura-chan? Why did she leave? Why didn't anyone notice?"
Tsunade stared at him evenly, "That's exactly what I want to know. But Naruto, Sakura, that girl, she's no longer the Sakura you used to know."
"What do you mean?"
"She quit being a ninja soon after you left."
"WHAT?" Naruto stared at her disbelievingly, "That's-that's impossible!"
Tsunade closed her eyes tiredly.
"Let me go look for her Obaa-chan! I'll bring her back!"
Before she could object, Naruto had already left.
Two weeks later, a battered, broken and exhausted Naruto turned up at Kakashi's doorstep,. "Why didn't you stop her, sensei? Why?"
Kakashi found himself once again frozen in the eyes of his pupil.
--
After that Naruto would sign up for every mission he could get his hands on.
"Well?" Tsunade inquired impatiently.
"I'm sorry Hokage-sama," Naruto replied quietly.
"Don't think you can get away with that! This is not the first time Naruto; once a mission is finished, you must return to the village immediately do you understand?"
Naruto looked up eyes ablaze, "But there was new information on the location of Sasuke and-"
"And you jeopardized the lives of everybody on your team!"
Tsunade drew in a sharp breath. "This can not go on any longer Naruto. They are gone." Something in her eyes flickered. "Do not go look for Uchiha Sasuke or Haruno Sakura anymore. That is an order. I will not be so lenient next time."
Naruto stared viciously at the ground.
After Tsunade dismissed him, the blond boy collapsed on a chair outside and sat with his head in his hands.
"You're not going to stop are you." It wasn't really a question.
"How can I?" Naruto looked up with blood-shot eyes. "How can I?" Kakashi looked away.
I thought I was saving her, but I was only saving myself.
Later Kakashi requested for permission to rejoin ANBU. At first Tsunade refused, but when Kakashi failed yet another genin group, Tsunade had no choice but to agree.
Naruto began signing up for solo-missions only.
--
When the word got around, Itachi Uchiha and Sasuke Uchiha dead; dead by each other's sword, no one was really surprised.
That day Naruto called it quits.
"Let's stop," he echoed to himself the words from long ago. It had been fifteen years since Sasuke left and twelve years since Sakura left and Naruto had finally given up.
The next day a mysterious note appeared in his mailbox.
I'm sorry Naruto, but I can't come home just yet.
He didn't show it to anyone, and kept it save in a box under his bed.
"I'm gonna be the Hokage," he announced the next day. Tsunade merely scoffed, "Well tough luck, I'm not going to die any time soon."
Naruto winked.
I can wait until the end of time.
--
When Sakura was finally found, it was pure coincidence. It was as if she wanted to be found. Appropriately, Naruto was the one to spot her. He was on his way back from a tiring mission and had stopped briefly to replenish his supplies at a small port-side village. At first he wasn't sure, her hair had grown back past her back and the pink had been bleached white in the sun. Twenty years had slimmed and aged her once round face considerably. But suddenly her eyes opened, and he had never been surer in his life.
"Sakura-chan," he appeared in front of her. She was sitting on a bench, facing the sea. "Let's go home."
He offered her a white-gloved hand.
She looked up unsurprised and hesitated.
"Time to go home," she said finally and smiled.
.
.
.
I stood at the edge of the world-
and thought about you.
fin