Summary: the war wasn't over for those who did not want to fight.

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It was an understatement to say that Sakura was tired. Hours spent running back and forth to the hospital at unseemly hours of the night. Miles walked around the battlefield, searching for injured shinobi. Miles walked around the battlefield collecting the dead. The scent of burnt skin and the sound of shallow cries and haggard breaths surrounded her in a constant, plaguing her nights with rapid heartbeats and quivering breaths.

Sakura was tired.

It was the job of a medic, to make sure that those around her were safe before she was. It was the job of the medic to stitch up gashing wounds and set broken bones. It was the job of the medic to do anything to ensure that her shinobi could keep fighting. It was a curse, she thought, it used to be a blessing.

What people did not understand about war was that the dead were the only true victors. You could fight, fight and fight until you were victorious but in the end you still lost. Lost your friends, Kakashi, lost your family, Naruto, lost your way, Sasuke. Yes, Sakura thought, it would be much easier to be dead in a war. Contradictory thoughts of a medic, a human being who solely dedicated her life to making sure that death did not greet them in the medic tents.

"Haruno-taichou, we are needed in section 7."

Sakura sighed, always needed, always going, and sometimes coming back. It was tremulous, exhausting and it got old quickly. They told her she was born to be a medic-nin, born to fix those who were broken.

She laughed quietly, some could not be fixed and she didn't accept that at 13 when she cried and cried and screamed, and woke up on a cold bench. She believed that if you really tried, if you wanted it with all your heart, you could fix them.

Sakura has learned that you can try, and you can hope and believe as much but one must be a realist. If you are broken, it's only by chance that you can be fixed.

"…taichou…?" Sakura turned her head to stare at her medic, blood spattered on his white medic vest and in his shaggy blonde hair.

"I'm coming, gather Mori and Shin." Her medic, Takeshi, nodded vigorously and ran off. Sakura turned once more to gaze at the sea of tents below her. Her friends were out there somewhere, no doubt trying to ease the growing tension with jokes and alcohol. Ino would be flirting with some of the shinobi from the alliance. Shikamaru wouldn't be down there as Tsunade had dictated him as her personal strategic analyst. Chouji, Kiba, Shino and Lee would be watching a game of shouji between TenTen and Sai. Hinata would be tending to Naruto's wounds and Sasuke…

Sasuke would be brooding angrily in the corner because he didn't want to be there, he was just waiting for his chance to break those who broke him.

Sasuke worried Sakura the most obviously, not because he put his fist through her chest or because even before that he choked her or even before that when he knocked her out and left her on a bench in the cold.

Sakura worried because he was broken beyond repair and she wasn't sure if she wanted to be the one to try and fix him.


my name is Q and i'm here to fuck shit up.