immensities
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(10)
She was right.
"Strength—" she gasped, lips cracked and sun blistering.
A smile tipped at her lips, and warm tears blurred her vision as she sunk forward to her knees. Her palms curled into the cool mud and water, and she knew.
This was it.
—
(1)
The memories engulfed her before she'd fully made it into the dream world. Ghost fingers at her neck, the milky moon, and the glow of green, green chakra. The palpitations thrumming in her heart slowed, slowed, vanished.
The ground fell away from below her like black tiles dropping from existence. She was pitched backwards into darkness. The air was thick, so thick that it might have been water, and the dulled noise and steady rhythm of waves around her only served to prove that.
She plunged.
The sadness that had constricted around her heart had all but floated away with the dark water she was drowning beneath, and it was the softest kind of death she could have imagined.
Her lips parted before her mind could stop them, and she exhaled, a rush of bubbles parting from her as she sank deeper and deeper. "Wh…what…?" her voice still came to her, though, and there was no force, no searing pain, no blinding heat.
Her bare feet touched the ground—where had her shoes gone?—and she stilled as the silt slid between the grooves of her toes.
Where had she gone?
There was nothing—nobody—to answer for her questions but silence.
—
(6)
She gasped at the deep sunset carving its way through the deserted canyon, and her fingers gripped at the hem of her torn shirt. She had to go.
Kakashi had been stumbling beside her but as the remaining scraps of chakra flooded her legs, she had all but left him in the dust.
She had wasted too much time, had wandered for too long. Hearts only ticked for so long before their juice ran out, and every inch that the sun lowered as an inch too much. Clouds blotted out the sky, and brilliant purples and oranges and blood red swept through them.
Visions of a blue, blue sky, the rooftops, and overwhelming desperation came to her in a flash. The injury on her shoulder stung as she slammed against a boulder to keep upright, raising herself and bringing more stamina and energy into her feet.
She ran.
—
(3)
She had been swimming for years. The question of oxygen had long since passed, and she had grown used to the push and pull of the tides, the distant, barely glowing light. The slick skin of an eel passed by her foot, and she thought to herself that there was no place that she had to be.
There was nowhere.
There was peace, the ocean, and the dank smell of brine.
Her fingers traced patterns in the wet sand, and suddenly in the form of an angry cry in her mind, she could feel the burning sun, an acid tide, the desert, land. She could hear the screams of what sounded like an inner soul locked away for too long, the desperate clawing at the insides of her skull.
She needed air. She needed life.
She needed—and visions of orange and black and leaves and a road left unfinished returned to her—them.
She exhaled again, and upon seeing the direction the bubbles floated, and she followed.
—
(7)
Everything in her felt like it was going to burst.
Sasuke was standing, ragged, over a defenseless, beaten Naruto, and the plea in those blue eyes felt like a knife through the heart.
She knew they were never the best team—they were so dysfunctional that it was hard to believe how Kakashi had passed them in the first place. But from years of ramen stand camaraderie to have turned into this—this civil war, this unbearable tear through everything that they'd ever build together in their toolshed—
It was too much.
He was cocking his arm back, the visible sparks of electricity breathing death and martyrdom into his movements, and she was going to be too late.
A strangled cry ripped from her throat, and she was sure she was undone.
"STOP!"
—
(-5)
"I'm…going to be Hokage!" a preteen cry split the silence, and the collective groan was almost too much.
He was too loud, too boisterous, too stupid. He barely passed the exam, and he thought he was going to be Hokage?
It was impossible.
A collective groan followed the announcement, and Sasuke muttered something inaudible but was evidently insulting enough for screeching to follow.
Sakura stared into her bowl of ramen and wondered if she'd ever survive this team.
—
(-4)
"You're letting her get away!" she shouted, gangly legs in green shorts at a full sprint after the target down the back alleyways of the Konoha marketplace. The walkie talkie was buzzing with static, and she sped around the corner, eyes rapt on the irritating black cat.
Her arms had claw marks all over them, her hair smelled like sweat, and she was not enjoying this. This was not what being a ninja was about.
Sasuke's panicked voice came through the other end of the talkie. "Where are you going?! This isn't part of the plan!"
She snarled back, finger practically crushing the button for communication. "It's a cat, Sasuke-kun. It doesn't go according to plan."
—
(-3)
They all fell out of the tree at once, leaves scattered and branches snapping painfully under their collective weight.
Kakashi blinked, turning around. "Oh! What are you three doing here?"
Sakura's face pinked, and Sasuke turned away with an irritated grumble. Naruto was the first to make the words happen. "We want to see what's behind your mask!"
"Idiot!" Sakura screeched, kicking him in the shin. He dropped to the ground, whining in pain, and she continued to lecture about not following the plan.
But to their surprise, Kakashi shrugged. "Okay."
They all paused in their movements, rapt on the way that his fingers tugged at the corner of the black cloth. "Behind this mask…" he began mysteriously, and he tugged down abruptly, revealing a lighter gray mask. "…is another mask! Pretty cool, huh?"
—
(-2)
"I may have many friends and family, but…Sasuke-kun, if you…if you were to leave, to me…to me, I would be just as alone as you are. I love you with all my heart! If you stayed, there would be no regrets. We'd do something fun every day! We'd be happy! I swear! Just…please…"
The leaves rustled, and her tears fell to the concrete.
She wept through her words, voice breaking. Her head pounded louder than her heart. "…stay. Stay with me."
—
(5)
Her head broke the surface of the water at the same time her hands made the seal to release the genjutsu, and the illusion shattered, memories falling back into her mind like rain.
She hunched forward, mind scrambling to catch up to the instinctive tug of her body to get up and go.
"You've woke up?" Kakashi's voice was hoarse from beside her, and her limbs felt heavier and weaker than she'd ever remembered them being.
They'd been fighting for years.
Weariness wept through her bones, and she felt so exhausted, so sad. They'd been fighting this war for years. They'd fought for justice and peace and for Sasuke.
This time, though, would be different.
She was fighting for Team Seven.
She squinted at the setting sun, and then the panic that had been quelled rose to the surface like hot gas. "Is it already nighttime? Where …what happened to Sasuke-kun and Naruto?"
Her old sensei gave her a steady look. "I suppose, in order to settle things once and for all, they're…fighting their final battle."
Her face turned chalky.
"We have to go."
—
(-1)
The hospital rooftop looked empty at first. Her hair was a mess, her gaze was panicked, and even though the chain link fence looked like it had been undisturbed, the noise told her otherwise.
Their shouts.
She tore a path down the asphalt, ankles wobbly and eyes wide as she saw them both come in through her peripherals, Sasuke's brilliant new Chidori crackling down his arm, and Naruto's swirling blue Rasengan as pure as the sky.
This wouldn't be an awful way to die, she thought to herself as she pushed more energy into getting there in time.
That's all that mattered.
Saving them.
Their eyes widened in horror at the flash of pink about to dart in between them, and she shut her eyes.
—
(9)
The lightning felt sweet as it tore through her skin and grabbed at her bones, and the sky seemed to light up in bright, bright stars. Bright white curled at the edges of her vision, and she hunched forward just as the last wisp of chakra left her body.
Sasuke's fingers slid out from her body, slick with her blood, and Naruto, just behind her let out a broken sob in horror. Kakashi, who had finally caught up, had pulled off his own vest and moved forward to push it into her gaping wound, a garbled choke in his voice.
Her eyes met Sasuke's mismatched ones, and a smile pulled at her pink lips.
"I made it," she gasped, iron and rust on her tongue, "just in time."
His fists clenched, and he looked at her like she was a phantom made of dreams, evaporating like smoke. There was something raw in his gaze, like he'd discovered who she was for the first time.
"I made it, and I was right."
—
(0)
"This time," she began with a hopeful, determined look in her eyes, and Naruto quirked an eyebrow. She stood with her arms tucked behind her back, headband pushed to the crown of her head.
There wasn't a cloud in the sky.
"Hm?"
"This time, we'll bring him back together."
—
(10)
Her gaze focused on the cool water, and Naruto scrambled to pick her back up, to wrap her wounds, to do something. His hands were everywhere, his tears were warm on her skin, and she could feel the hug in his touch.
She grabbed his wrists. "Hey," she said, and her voice was gravelly. "It's okay."
He shook his head, and Sasuke stared at the blood on his hands.
"Strength," she started again, "is and always has been…"
She took Sasuke's hand in her own and pressed to her lips, curled her fingers through Naruto's. Kakashi's rested on the crown of her head. "…born of love."
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notes: for the most recent chapter! everyone's having these beautiful dreams of sakura hugging sasuke from behind again and meanwhile I'm over here in my corner of doom and gloom imagining her getting stabbed through the chest
...yep