a/n: au where the Haruno clan is the one that is slaughtered...except for one. as always, for my darling shannon.
When she is seven, she sees black.
Everything she's ever known, all the love she's ever had, is over and done with by the end of the day when the bloodied bodies are hauled out of Sakura's house. For some reason, the only things she can manage to do is empty out her stomach onto the concrete or shake so hard she can practically hear her bones rattle inside her. It takes Naruto's clammy hand in hers and a steaming hot bowls of ramen for weeks on end for her to understand exactly what she has lost.
Sakura hasn't smiled since.
.
When she is nine, she sees orange.
It's the nauseating orange of Naruto's jumpsuit, because he's pretty much constantly in her line of vision. He says they're friends even though they're breaking each other's noses half the time, but she doesn't deny it. She owes him, she owes them both, but she cannot afford to acknowledge it. Naruto is the one that keeps her feet on the ground and Sasuke is the one to push a plate of hot food in front of her, and she needs them. Of course she does. But there are things she needs more.
Like the blood of the person who killed her family. And all the broken noses and hot food in the world couldn't erase that need of hers.
.
When she is twelve, she sees green.
It is the green of Kakashi's jounin vest, the green of grass across the plains of faraway lands, the green of the beautiful dress Sasuke's mother gave her for her birthday. Sakura doesn't know why she erupts into a ball of sniffles and fat tears once the campfire dies, but she knows it has something to do with the way Naruto and Sasuke sandwich her between them protectively whilst they sleep. When she opens her eyes at dawn, she sees Kakashi's arm thrown over all three of them, his sleeping bag cast aside, forgotten. For this tiny part of her life, she forgets everything she's ever lost because it's like she never lost it at all.
But then the sun sits in the middle of the sky, she can see her mother's blood sprayed on the floor and her father's decapitated body in the kitchen, and somehow, everything that she thought was enough suddenly wasn't.
.
When she is thirteen...she sees black again. But it's darker this time, somehow.
This village is her home, but it cannot give her what she wants. She has a future here, but it is not a future she wants right now. There are people beyond all this, people who could offer her things - powers - opportunities she can take to get herself to the place she wants to be, where she needs to be. That's what she keeps saying, that she needs to do this, but-
"Stay," is the word he chooses, but Sasuke's voice has never sounded so defeated. She will not dare to look at him. "Stay here, Sakura," he tries, but she just keeps on walking, and she knows what he wants to say; stay with me. She passes him, because her feet will stop for no one.
"We could be happy," is what he says. Together, is what he doesn't say.
She'd listen, if listening didn't mean collapsing. But it doesn't, so she can't.
.
When she is sixteen, she sees white.
It is the white light of the sun that blinds her, but not enough to cover the spots of yellow and black in the distance. She's sure that if she could still feel things, she'd be feeling remorse at the look of their wide-eyed expression. The dense chakra that outlines her body and the thick cross painted over her face probably looks more frightening that it feels, but that isn't Sakura's problem. It isn't long before Naruto starts swearing and screaming and hurling a rasengan or two at her, until she grabs him by the wrist and hurls him some few miles away, that is. She was being polite, after all, by going so easy on him.
Something about the look in Sasuke's eyes makes her not want to touch him, not want to even face his way at all, and so she leaves it. And even years later, when she steps on the corpse of her family's murderer to walk away, Sasuke's serene expression is the one thing she cannot shake. That reunion is one that they laugh about over sake after she returns, faint-hearted and clean. That haunting expression is one that she confesses to Sasuke deep into the night, her fingers curled around the rim of his jacket.
She doesn't know how she wound up back here, but for the first time, Sakura is happy with where she is.
.
And when she is twenty-three, she sees everything. Every colour, every shade, because her eyes are finally wide with life.
She sees Sasuke's smush his piece of cake into Naruto's face when he attempts to give him wedding night advice, she sees her daughter for the first time, wriggling and shrieking as she gasps for her first bouts of air, and after eighteen years, she even sees her family huddled together under an umbrella at their doorstep, waiting for her to return from a grueling mission. Sakura has seen it all.
Sakura has seen enough.