"Haruno Sakura

'Observer'

Origin: Konohagakure

Rank: S

Status: Missing-nin"

- Excerpt from Konohagakure's bingo book, last updated August, XXXX.

(i)

Haruno Sakura loved to love. That was never really a question, especially after she first learned to love - after she first found a person to love.

It started with Yamanaka Ino.

When Sakura was younger, she was alone. She was always alone.

So alone.

And people kept hurting and hurting and hurting her and oh god, it hurt so bad.

But then Ino came, and Ino didn't hurt her.

Ino saved her.

Ino stood up to those girls, those girls who slashed at her soul with their kunai forged of words then hid her blood underneath those disgustingly white smiles and perfectly sharp teeth.

Ino saved her.

Ino became her friend. She smiled for her and told her things would be okay, that Sakura was pretty and not so ugly that no one should ever, ever look at her.

God, how Sakura had loved Ino.

Then, there was Sasuke.

Sasuke, Sasuke. Sasuke, who had taken one look at those girls that stabbed her fragile heart (over and over and over again, please, please MAKE IT StOp) and turned his nose up in disdain, made them go quiet with a mere "only cowards hurt others to make themselves happy" and left.

Even when he was so young, Sasuke was always beautiful - the most beautiful thing that she had ever seen. Elegant, unearthly, untouchable.

Everyone loved Sasuke, because they could not have him.

She loved Sasuke because he was so strong, strong enough to be able to chase away the demons with just a few words.

Sakura never told him this, of course. By the time she had gained the confidence to do so, Ino had taught her two things.

One - love is as vicious as it is precious. Ino's love for Sasuke was stronger than her love for Sakura —

My love doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Why doesn't it matter, I thought you loved me, why don't you love me…?

— therefore, Sakura wasn't a friend anymore - she was a weak, weak obstacle. She had to be strong. She had to show Ino that she was strong. Show Sasuke that she was strong.

Which leads us to rule number two - all is fair in love and war and in order to be declared the victor of this disgustingly brutal game that the girls of the Academy were engaged in, one had to be aggressive.

Violent.

Red, after all, is such a delightfully vibrant color and it's very hard not to notice it. It was the color of blood, of Sasuke's eyes in the midst of battle, of her own dress and the liquids she could feel seeping out of her nonexistent wounds.

And so she became loud, noticeable, strong. She had to be on top, had to put up her shields so well that no one knew they were there, had to be so pretty that even Ino's words couldn't hurt her anymore.

(They did.)

But in her efforts to become strong, she quickly discovered, Sakura had become the wrong kind of strong. She may be beautiful, smart and confident, but she was weak.

Shinobi weak.

Sure, she was on a team with Sasuke. And sure, she had graduated as the top kunoichi by the strength of her written exam and chakra control.

But that didn't mean that she was any use in battle - that Sasuke and Naruto, of all people, didn't have to pick up the slack because of her weakness.

God, she was so fucking useless.

Sakura hated Naruto, for a while there. She doesn't now, but she did. After all, he was always alone and hated and hurt, just like she had been, just like that weak little thing that needed saving by another little girl who couldn't find any worth in her either, in the end. Sakura looked at him and on some level, she saw herself and god, it made her want to throw up.

But then, then she finally saw him.

He was brilliant, determined, radiant. The world spat at him and all he did was smile right back.

She doesn't know how he does it. She doubts she ever will.

He's strong in a way that she isn't, in a way that she should be, in a way that means that he can stand at Sasuke's side where she cannot.

She wished she could hate him or feel jealous, but she can't. All she can do is watch and act like she always does and hate herself because fuck, she doesn't know how to get better anymore.

She knows all of this about herself. Sakura knows that she's nothing more than a hindrance to anyone now.

But, that still doesn't mean that she's going to just let her utter idiot of a crush go off and be alone like she always is, for fuck's sake.

She can't. She won't. She can't be the weakest link anymore.

"Sasuke-kun," she begins as she stands in front of him, eye to eye. He looks tragically beautiful, she thinks, dark circles over striking obsidian eyes - fuck, Sakura, don't get lost, don't get lost - and paper-white skin stretched over chiseled features. He looks like a statue; carved from the strongest of stones, only to be beaten and battered over and over again until it was finally about to shatter right down to its very core.

"Sakura," he returns, and somehow she cannot understand the emotion in his voice. There is something there, but she cannot comprehend it. She can't reach across the ever-growing chasm and grasp it and cherish it as she should.

Perhaps that in it of itself is the problem - she can't comprehend him. She doesn't know what it's like to lose everyone she loves and while she does understand betrayal intimately, having watched her best friend slowly drift away and hurt her more and more until Sakura finally broke and declared them not as friends, but rivals, was an entirely different experience compared to, say, watching your own brother kill your entire clan.

"- you're in the way."

Wasn't she always, though?

"I know," she says simply. The Forest of Death had been an eye-opening experience. Sakura had been powerless, utterly powerless, when Sasuke was on the receiving end of that seal. She had been powerless in battle, powerless in life. But then, then that team from Sound had attacked and suddenly, with his curse-addled mind, Sasuke had come to her defense.

Had nearly killed for her.

And perhaps more importantly, he had given her the power to stop him.

Stop him, she had.

How was it, she wondered, that only when Sasuke was at his worst, when his mind was at its most baseless form, did he finally let her in, if only for a moment? Did that not mean that she did have some kind of worth in his eyes? That she did have some influence?

That perhaps, without the barriers that he has so stubbornly put up, perhaps he does care for her?

(Care, not love, not love, no one loves her, not him, not Naruto, not Ino, not - )

Something deep inside Sakura is screaming at her. Screaming at her to get down on her knees, to beg him not to leave her behind again like he and Naruto had done for that month of training. She's half-tempted to listen.

But no, that's weak and that's useless. She is a kunoichi. She can do better.

"Sasuke-kun, can I ask you a question?" she says instead of begging like some kind of worthless zealot.

He raises an eyebrow. Sakura takes that as a would you not ask it if I said no?

She's gotten pretty good at reading his little ticks, she thinks.

Sakura nods, whether it is to herself or to him or to both, she does not know. "Why do you want to be alone so badly?"

Ah, there it was. The question that had been tearing at her heart for the better of seven years, the question that had always been on the tip of her tongue, battering against the cage of her lips and her reservations and her fears.

The fear that she was saying too much, that he would lash out and hate her (even more than he already did), that he would leave her too, now that they were at last, in some way, together.

But now, here he is, about to leave her, getting ready to leave her crying in the dust, she finds that there is no reason not to ask. No barrier, no bitter reservation or any more terror clawing at her than there already is.

She's too weak to make him stay, she knows. Her love was never enough to make anyone stay for her before, either - why would that change now?

What difference would 'I love you, I love you, I love you, please stay and make a life with me' make now?

Sasuke considers her question and for a moment, all Sakura can see is a tired, angry boy who's lost too much to stay afloat. "I need to be strong," he says and she cannot find it within herself to be surprised. "Bonds will only tie me down and make me weaker."

No! she wants to scream. They don't! They make you stronger! They make us stronger!

They make me stronger.

You make me stronger.

But somehow, that look in his eye, so determined and defeated and beautiful, smothers her fire. How can she argue with that? Her knees feel as if they are about to buckle.

"Is that really what you think?" she whispers, the words escaping from her mouth without even so much as a thought.

"Aa."

Sakura resists the urge to laugh. Damn Sasuke and his inability to speak in full sentences whenever he doesn't feel the need to be having a conversation - which was, essentially, always.

She once found it mysterious, his incessant need to keep his every thought a secret - what is he thinking? Is it about me? Maybe, hopefully, I wish…

But now, on this dirt road near this damnable bench where no real barriers exist between them but the ones that they created themselves, she finds it kind of sad.

"Aren't we supposed to be teammates?" Sakura wonders aloud. "Isn't the point of being teammates to make each other stronger? Better?"

Well, maybe that's the point of being teammates with Naruto. Being teammates with Sakura is basically like being a glorified bodyguard, but that's beside the point.

Sasuke snorts and it's terribly unfair that such an undignified sound could possibly ring in such a dignified manner. "They are distractions," he informs her and somehow, Sakura gets the terrible feeling that he is trying to convince himself more than he is trying to convince her. "I need to get stronger," he repeats. "You know why."

Yes, yes. I want to kill a certain man.

How many times have those words run through her head as she attempted to solve her way through the puzzle that is Uchiha Sasuke?

She remembers reading in a book, once, "There isn't only one way to get stronger, Sasuke-kun."

Typical Sakura. Always falling back onto books when the going gets rough, when she doesn't know what to do, even if books are utterly worthless in that terrible thing known as reality.

"This is the fastest way. I have to."

Sasuke isn't very composed this time, she notices. It's odd, but she suspects that he hadn't thought that he'd find anyone legitimately questioning his decisions here.

Certainly not her, not Sakura who had always followed behind him without question, who had always taken his side, always defended his words.

But this Sakura is an entirely different beast.

This is the Sakura who was left behind by the two people she was supposed to trust and rely on most. This is the Sakura who was forced to see her own weakness, time and time again.

This is the Sakura who had to watch the two people she cared for most rush at each other with techniques meant to kill.

This is the Sakura who has finally had enough.

"But, why?" she asked again. Why couldn't he stay and do that here? Get an apprenticeship, learn with the team, spar with Naruto and maybe her if she got better quickly enough?

Sasuke's eye twitched. She was getting to him. For someone so utterly composed all the time, he had a short temper. Especially with Naruto - Sakura found it kind of cute. This evidence of the humanity of the object of her affections.

"Damnit, Sakura," he growls and she has to fight the fond laughter again - geez, she really has lost it.

It is as if everything has finally come crashing down on her, the hurt and the fear and the worthlessness and in the wake of her overwhelming feelings, as the wave finally melted away, almost as if she is detached from the events that surround her.

After all, it's not as if anything she does ever makes a difference anyways.

"I can't stay here." There is a sort of finality in the words, like it was some sort of previously unspoken fact, law.

Unwittingly, Sakura's eyes were drawn to the nearly unblemished skin of his neck.

Unblemished by anything but the scar of evil, of Orochimaru's disgusting desires, whatever they may be, of that damnable curse.

Sakura wonders about what kind of evils the seal is feeding his mind. She remembers the Sasuke that had been produced when the seal had been fully activated - the anger, the hate. Had it always just been simmering below the surface, waiting for an excuse to be let free?

In a way, Sakura thinks she might be able to understand why he can't stay here. How could someone stay in the place where all his loved ones once lived day by day, be assaulted by all the memories of people who he had last seen as brutally murdered corpses?

It's a wonder that he hadn't broken before.

But, somehow, she couldn't just accept that. She couldn't let him go.

Call her a selfish brat, a narcissistic prat, a damnable wretch, but she couldn't do it. Damn her and her love, but she couldn't.

"I see," she sighs, softly, but not defeated. Not yet.

"No," he says and there is something not completely unlike venom in that smooth voice that had always caressed her senses, even as it brought her down again and again. Annoying. "No, Sakura. You don't."

"Probably not," she agrees easily enough. "But that doesn't change anything."

"Hn?"

"Take me with you, Sasuke." For once, there is no room for honorifics or any other obstacles between them. It is him and her, teammates. Her life was his the moment that Iruka-sensei had announced the team assignments on that fateful day, just as his belonged to her.

Just as they both belonged to Naruto.

Naruto.

Those who break the rules are trash, but those that abandon their comrades are far worse than trash, Kakashi-sensei once said. The most valuable lesson he had ever taught her, she thinks, given how precious little techniques he had taught her before sending her off to that death trap of an exam that only Sasuke had been even remotely prepared for.

Damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. Leave with Sasuke and fight to keep his sanity from being broken by whatever it is that he's running off for and suddenly she is worse than garbage for leaving Naruto.

Stay and watch Naruto rise to the position of Hokage and she is worse than any scrap of waste lying on the pavement for leaving Sasuke to his fate.

But it'll be okay, probably. It's Naruto. Adversity means nothing to him - every obstacle is burnt away by that blindingly pure smile and every opponent is swayed by his utter brilliance.

He is strong, he is resilient. He can make friends and get support and become Hokage - he has no need for Sakura for any of that. Sasuke, maybe. Sakura, no.

Sasuke stares into Sakura's eyes, boring into them as though he is searching for her sincerity. Sakura figures that if that's what he's looking for then he'll find it easily enough - all she has is her sincerity, nowadays. "No."

So stubborn.

Is she really going to do this? Sakura bites her lip. She is a kunoichi. She does know the basics of emotional manipulation - it's a specialty of her kind, one that has been drilled into her since she was seven at the academy.

Morals have no place in survival, after all.

But then again, is she really supposed to use this against her teammate? Until now, the idea of using what she learned in her kunoichi lessons against anyone from Konoha had never crossed her mind. It was disloyal and amoral - her allies deserved nothing but her honesty.

Her trust.

But then again…

Morals, or Sasuke.

Morals, or Sasuke.

Well, when she puts it that way…

"But, Sasuke -" oh yes, she is definitely going straight to hell for this "- aren't you just playing into his hands, by leaving us like this?"

Sakura's logic was simple - Uchiha Itachi killed everyone in his family, except Sasuke. Thus, Sasuke wants revenge, right? But if Itachi's goal was to kill the entire Uchiha clan, then leaving Sasuke alive makes no sense. But, knowing Sasuke's angry, obsessive about strength to the point of self-destruction nature, it's easy to come to the conclusion that Itachi figured that leaving Sasuke to his own devices was just as good of a killing method as any.

In other words, the stupider Sasuke's decisions get, the more likely he is to die. The more likely Sasuke is to die, the more likely it is for Itachi to win.

God, Sasuke can be so dumb. Brilliant, genius, resourceful, but dumb.

Her boys are both terribly dumb. Why does she love them so much again? (And yes, even Naruto, though hell will freeze over before she actually admits that he's grown on her so much).

Sasuke practically bristles at her implication. "I -"

Sakura holds up her hand. "No, just listen to me for a second here." Her voice is trembling and weak under the pressure of her task. Weak. Why is she like this?

Sasuke's eyes are narrowed and she can see the fire burning in them again. Nothing can get him to burn the way that Uchiha Itachi can and Sakura hates it.

"Just… just think about it. Isn't this what he wants? For you to destroy your own life and kill your own spirit so that he doesn't have to?" The tremble diminishes. She is gaining momentum with every word and god, her emotions and desperation are overflowing like they always do. "And then you'll kill him and when that happens -" because it will, she knows "- you're not even going to really be alive! What is there to live for if you only have one goal and suddenly it's been completed? Meaningless strength and power? A family that you won't even have the social skills to create?!"

Sakura takes a deep breath, her cheeks reddening in her anger. Sasuke opens his mouth to respond, but she doesn't care. He needs to hear this and she needs to finally, finally say it. "And, and you keep on forgetting that you're human too! You can't break bonds so easily, no one can! So, what if you leave and then he comes and then he kills us because you weren't there to help us get away alive? Because you broke our goddamn team?!"

"Sakura -" Nope, she is on a roll here. She finally, finally gets to say the things that have been nagging at her mind behind the love and ridiculous infatuation, the things that she was too afraid to say before in fear of losing his favor.

"I'm not done yet," she snaps and god, does it feel good. "You can't do it - you can't just stop caring for me, for us, unless there's nothing left to care for, unless you kill us!"

"And if I do that?" Sasuke challenges, obsidian eyes fixed into a passionate glare. "If I kill you now? You're practically inviting me to prove my resolve, Sakura. Is that what you want? You know that I will do anything to achieve my goal."

"Even if it means killing me?" Sakura questions, quieter. God, what an idiot…

"Even if it means killing you."

"Then… you're no better than he is."

And all at once, it was as if all the blood drained from Sasuke's face, as if he was as dead as the rest of his family, rotting away six-feet under. Gone was the passion and in its place was an eerie, blank horror that did not belong on such a perfect face.

Sakura almost felt guilty. Almost.

But really, it just felt too good, to be listened, to be relevant and not useless, for her to actually care. Even if it was horrible that she was using his past and his emotions like this.

Really horrible.

God.

The silence stretched for a few long moments and for just a second, Sakura wondered if she had actually killed him, this love of hers. Should she check his throat for a pulse, for the curse? Has she finally -

"... you're right." His voice is barely a whisper and yet, it carries to her ears like the soft tune of a pleasing lullaby. "You're right," he repeats, as though he can hardly comprehend what is leaving those lovely pale lips.

"I know."

"I'm a moron."

"Mhm."

"I almost became…" He cannot finish his sentence and Sakura understands, for once. The dawning horror that comes with understanding that you have become exactly that which you had previously despised.

Oh, how she understands.

"Yes," she nods, unable to refute it.

Sasuke takes a deep, shuddering breath. "... let's go. We can't stay here."

Sakura nods again. She won't make him stay here, where the reminders burn through every passing second, now that she has realized the torture it must be, living in Konohagakure. "Have you packed your supplies?" She has hers, as usual. It never hurts to be prepared.

He purses his lips slightly. "...I really haven't been thinking very much lately, have I?" he admits, almost sheepishly, but not quite. If Sakura didn't know any better, then she would say that he was about to burst into hysterical laughter at himself, but this is Sasuke and he's not that far gone.

Probably.

Sakura shakes her head, a fond smile playing at her lips. She doesn't know what she's feeling right now. "And here I had thought better of you, Sasuke…" she teases, free, for suddenly, somehow, it is as if her words had finally torn down the barrier.

Oh, it feels so good.

He rolls his eyes and Sakura can see the tremble in his wrist. She nearly reaches out to hold it, but stops herself. She isn't that far yet, after all.

They turn around, towards the Uchiha District, she thinks. They walk in silence across ghostly streets, damaged and broken and hurting just like they are.

The invasion hadn't been kind to the village, after all.

And what does that say about them, she wonders, that they are oh so willing to go off into the waiting arms of the man who did this all?

To the deadly viper whose poison had destroyed the very foundations of the village they had sworn their lives to?

After all, it isn't hard to guess where Sasuke had intended on going. He needs power, Orochimaru has it. It's simple enough.

The thought disgusts Sakura, burns acid through her blood and makes every step heavier. But it's okay, really.

She loves Sasuke.

It has to be okay.

The shattered streets and bloodstained pavement engrave themselves into her memories and for a moment, she can almost imagine them as they were before when they were clean and bright and lovely in the daylight, as they were tread upon by herself, Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke and -

"Naruto."