You can never say you've been misunderstood.

Your intentions, however dark they were, were never open to interpretation. It's always been a relief, you think, to know as much when you were trying to tear the world apart at the seams. Naruto understood your pain, on some level. Kakashi, perhaps on a few more than even you've cared to admit.

They've understood you through shared experiences; shared pain and loneliness. That, you can grasp, even if it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth to think of how you're adding to their suffering as well as your own.

But, Sakura—

Sakura has always possessed an innate sense of empathy, and it's never failed to stun you.

She's a little girl, playing pretend with weapons too sharp for her hands to hold. This is the vision that you take with you when you leave; the one that soothes your temper when you think of the last living person that might unconditionally love you. It's the idea that keeps you up at night. Selfishly, you hope that she's given up her fruitless efforts and settled into the life of a civilian.

Out of harm's way.

You never imagine you'll see her again, let alone running into the scene with her fists clenched and her teeth gritted; her eyes blaze with the sort of passion you used to have, before the world turned you inside out. The idea of this girl—this girl in the knee-high boots, the leather gloves, and the medic-skirt with needles strapped to her thighs—

Now, you can't imagine her anywhere else.

She's the figure that haunts your dreams in every manner of speaking; a chimera of the girl begging and pleading—and the woman with blood and tissue caked between her fingers; poison under her skin. Where your mind fails to separate the two, your heart, wretched thing that it is, immediately makes the distinction between the pathetic stuttering of your pulse all those years ago when she declared her love for you, and the thundering in your ears at the mere sound of her name as of late.

The tale of Sasori's end makes the rounds at least once a month after Haruno Sakura kills him.

You never get tired of hearing it, because it means that on some level—

She understands you a little more.