What I Noticed
By: Lady Eclipse
Standard Disclaimers Apply
It was a topic danced around a lot weeks and months after my team drifted to the four winds lost to their own goals. Poor Sakura, not only abandoned by her team, but also by her sensei who could not be bothered to waste time on someone with no bloodlimit or special techniques.
I admit that there is some bitterness there and it was reflected in unstable anger fits in my early days with Tsunade. I was so aggressive in my training and fighting that I would horribly damage my body in the process. There was the ever driving need to prove to him what he forgot. To shame him for what he brushed aside.
Tsunade was surprisingly understanding of these fits never trying to stifle or stop them. Rather, she just directed them into the training and intensive learning helping me to utilize the strength of my anger and honing it to the monstrous power I now have. I always remember the glint in her eyes as I pushed myself to new heights with a voracious appetite to learn more and perfect techniques that had other mednins gaping. Her eyes were hard, and understanding, and sad. She was always buried neck deep in the needs of leadership and ensuring that the medical skills in Konoha were beyond anything that any other nation could touch. Despite that, she always made time for my training, followed up on my studies...and held me while I cried in my rage and loneliness. Tsunade always understood.
In this, she showed me that I could be accepted and strong as myself without compromise or shame. I could cry, rage, and heal in the same breath and be the better for it. On one late night while drinking some good vintage sake from a grateful daimyo, she had laughingly said that some of the rules of shinobi were total bullshit and only applied to those who not only lacked creativity but needed a place to pigeon-toe themselves due to the colossal stick up their asses.
"The only rule, my girl, is to get your damn mission done and come back alive. Screw the logistics past that! We are both hurricanes and no one can berate a hurricane for the noise when it completely decimates all that stands before it." She paused to take a heady swig and grinned conspiratorially, "And only the stupidest of bastards are the ones who don't see the signs of the storm coming. They are to ones helpless to stop the beating when it does!"
Those words, and the endless support and kindness, helped to ease the pain of abandonment. Instead of dwelling, Tsunade immersed me in the complex word of physiology, manipulation of the very atoms of life in every creature to bring them back to homeostasis. The intensity of the chakra control necessary to harness this delicate task not only perfectly but swiftly took up every waking moment giving my mind no time to ruminate. I didn't have time to watch Kakashi come and go from missions with only a halfhearted wave of greeting in the streets. My studies also helped to give me perspective on a much grander scale from the micro to macroscopic. I met such a vast array of people with so many different stories. Most of the shinobi had multiple tales of heartache and personal devastation. I even managed to hear a tale or two in passing about Kakashi. He is a favorite of gossip after all with his insistence to be damn near covered head to toe at all times. With age and distance I was able to notice a few things outside of the red of hurt. My early morning laps to build stamina had me pass the memorial stone where I always saw Kakashi staring at it with a blank expression. Not the stoic or apathetic one he displayed when with others, but a completely empty one like a man drained of all purpose. Kakashi was a man abandoned many times in his life and was rather like Naruto in his need to throw every ounce of himself into a task he feels important. Unlike Naruto, his instincts about what is a good direction to fling himself are not always good and he lacks the stunningly endless well of optimism to survive the lapses. In his horrible devastation about his failure with Sasuke, a repeat of history from his younger days, coupled with his stunted emotional maturity, he simply shut himself off and ran away. I saw a fair amount of the training rosters in my role of assisting Tsunade and he tried his damnedest to be on as many solo missions as she would allow.
I didn't know what to do with this growing awareness through the eyes of new found maturity. I toyed with the idea of speaking to him or offering to train, but my heart still ached in a way that glued my tongue to my teeth. I was afraid that should my attempts to reconnect with apathy, it would break what I was working so heard to rebuild.
It was the fear of ruining her too. I could see the unconditional trust in her eyes every time she looked up to me with that intense focus and eagerness to learn everything that I could bestow. It terrified and thrilled me to know I had such power over another. Sakura was more like a blank canvas than the boys. They were both already filled with their bloodlimits and backgrounds rushing like speeding trains towards their destinations. All I could do was try to alter the tracks so they could use their abilities to attain their goals in the least destructive way. But not her, she had none of this but had all the perfect components to be something, anything, amazing. She was poised for greatness in any direction with all the grace and skill ready and waiting for a hand to begin molding away the insecurity and distractions of youth. Her chakra control, intelligence, and determination just begged for direction. Ibiki told me while the genin were in the forest of death about how Sakura was the only one in that test who wasn't a plant who could answer all the questions correctly. He had shaken his head and said he didn't envy me trying to keep a mind like that occupied. Sakura had been put on the back burner for just that reason. She would need careful time and grooming and I wanted to observe her carefully like an artist circling the clay block to determine what amazing creation lie underneath. She was always so dedicated and stable that I felt I could set aside that fun process for later to focus on my runaway trains. Especially Sasuke who already reeked of a terrifying need for power and the bitterness to not let morals get in his way.
But I failed. Nothing I tried slowed the Uchiha down and only served to strengthen him before his defection. Naruto was loyal to a fault but I lacked the energy to keep up with such a force of nature. My hopes of eventually harnessing and focusing that energy were derailed when I saw Jiraiya's fierce grin of determination and burning light in his eyes that he had found his own block of clay to mold.
By then, I felt I was spinning out of control, and the black walls of self loathing crept in. Every past failure towards a teammate crashed down upon me until there was nothing but the horrible guilt that I could do nothing but ruin those close to me.
Now all that was left was Sakura, my blank slate, with so much damn potential and such a bright innocent smile. Better she become a civilian than risk what awaited her at my hand. I can admit now how selfish and cruel those thoughts had been as I gave her the those same feelings of abandonment that I was suffering myself. I did the only thing I had ever known. Wither up into myself and continue to throw my life as hard and fast as I could on missions because I knew of no other way to atone.
Gone but not forgotten, Sakura would never know that I watched her carefully regardless. She would never know that after I heard that she petitioned Tsunade herself (because Sakura was a force of nature herself) I had also approached her and plead (as much as I'm capable of such a thing) for her to accept my blank canvas. Tsunade stood a much better chance of not only bringing forth the beautiful masterpiece within, but was far less broken and less likely to damage that bright star in the process. Sakura would never know (but Tsunade did) that I kept a very close eye on the mission rosters to know exactly when, with who, and what missions she had. I would carefully mark the days of the anticipated length of the mission and be sure I knew when Sakura returned through those gates alive if not unscathed. She would never know that the careless wave and greeting I bestowed upon her as our paths crossed, involved a careful scan to ensure she looked healthy. To ensure that the brightness and openness of her eyes never faded even if hurt burned within them in my presence. She would never know that some nights I sat in the tree outside her window watching her sleep holding on to that peaceful sweet smile as a touchstone that there was something worth returning to.
All these things I cherished, but was unable to speak. Just a few words to begin rekindling our friendship. A few questions and praise to show she mattered. But the words never came, the guilt and fear pushed me down, and I just waved as I walked by with a fake happy eye crease.