#3: Photograph
-Sunpies-
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, et, al.
/Smile/ When Kakashi-sensei finally (it's been two months!) gets the team picture developed, she realizes that her eyes are closed and her hair is doing that weird thing on the one side. But that's okay because number one, she's a kunoichi now and, number two, she's got a picture of Sasuke.
It's a bummer she has to share him with Naruto (who smells gross), but she can overlook that because this picture symbolizes that they'll be a team forever.
She thinks that this is probably the best picture in the entire world and puts it in the green and white picture frame Ino gave her as an Ochugen gift before they had to be rivals.
/Smile/
"All right, good!" Tazuna's camera is old but he assures them that he can still develop the picture ("Even if I have to do it myself, dammit!"). The picture is taken right as Kakashi-sensei is leading them towards the bridge out of Wave Country so that they can start the journey home.
When she gets the picture back (she's the second one to get it; after Kakashi), she's ecstatic. It's a really good picture of the three of them. She's tucked up against Sasuke who doesn't look nearly as irritated as he normally does. This time though, it's Naruto who's hogging the spotlight. He's jumping out in front of their team, grinning like a madman and blocking out Kakashi-sensei (though she wonders if Kakashi-sensei did that on purpose).
It's a great memory of an important mission and it's harder to give it to Naruto ("you have to give it to Sasuke right away! Don't Lose It!") than she thought it would be.
The picture moves full circle through their team before it comes back to her a few months later. By then it's got a folded edge and someone -Naruto- has spilled something sticky on it so that "The Great Naruto Bridge" and all of the surrounding scenery is blended together in a smudge of red, gray, and blue.
She keeps this photo on her window sill, face up to the sun, hoping that it dries or... unstickies? But it never does. Instead, the colors fade and mellow until her memories are more vivid than the faces on that little square of paper.
But she can't bring herself to throw it away or even pick it up these days. It seems so fragile.
/Smile/
She failed the chuunin exams, but she can't help the surge of pride she feels at the un-glamorized shots of those few shinobi running out of the Forest of Death with Heaven and Earth in their hands. Especially when her shock of jaggedly cut pink hair is among them.
The pictures stay posted on a large corkboard in the halls of the academy until the next round of chuunin exams take place.
She doesn't lose that time.
/Hold it/
It's three in the afternoon on a Wednesday. This means that everyone is out on missions which in turn results in a rare moment of tranquility for the hospital staff. Anyone could tell that such a rare moment would find Sakura, ordered away from healing and towards a different sort of project: cleaning out one of the storage rooms attached to the Hokage's office.
(If Sakura was being unfair in her accusation then that was too damn bad! Tsunade had promised that she'd be teaching Sakura this morning. Instead Sakura found the older woman slumped over her desk nursing a hangover and an empty bottle of sake).
For the most part the documents are odds and ends of old mission reports, a few invoices that never got mailed out to the clients (who were probably dead, if the dates are accurate), and a couple hundred photos.
Initially she sets everything in one pile or the other, careful not to look too closely at any of the names or places. But after about an hour or so, one photo, then another, then another catch her eye as she recognizes faded and blurry snapshots of people she knows.
There's one in there of a young Kakashi. Or rather, it's of a young Kakashi's eye. But it looks like the eyelid has been sliced vertically (rather sloppily, the medic in her says) and is just starting to heal. The picture is free floating and so Sakura has no idea what the story behind that is. Maybe Tsunade will tell her?
There are a few of the other jounin teachers. Here she spots Asuma and the Third; there's a picture of Gai without his leotard. It's strange how much of a difference the lack of green makes; in the picture Gai almost looks normal.
And squeezed between the dozens of unidentifiable photographs are a few of the Rookie Nine.
As she wades through them, unconsciously sorting the faces she knows from the faces she doesn't, she realizes that there are a lot of both Sasuke and Naruto. Each time their face pops out among the crowds, Sakura furrows her eyebrows with determination (for them, maybe for her, she doesn't know) and continues on.
There are a few of the Hyuuga clan. In every picture their eyes look focused on the horizon, judging it from a distance.
There's a single, crumpled photo of Team Gai. It takes Sakura a minute to recognize the people in the picture (Lee doesn't look anything like the Lee she knows) but when she does it's hard to mistake the odd assembly as anything else. If she turns the picture sideways she can just make out Gai standing in a tree and pointing towards the sky. "Does every teacher train from the trees?" She mutters as she spots the last member of the team. Hyuuga Neji is meditating quite a ways off; a speck of white on a field of green. With his face so carefully blank, she can see why people once said he looked like Sasuke (before that was an insult).
There is one of Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji with their deadly looking parents. The new InoShikaCho is very young in the picture and everyone is looking pretty proud. Very proud, really... except for Shikamaru. He just looks put upon (which, from what Sakura knows about the other shinobi, is a fair assessment).
She only sees one of herself. In the picture there's a mob of other children, all throwing kunai at short-range targets as Iruka instructs them all from the safety of a nearby branch.
Sakura is in the background of this one, tossing a kunai more than throwing it, as she watches Ino watch Sasuke. It's with some small amount of bitter amusement that she glances at that old red bow (brilliant against the dappled green) and wonders how she ever thought it did anything to hide her forehead.
No, her short hair and gloved fists do that much better.
#3: Photograph
-Sunpies-
For Lady Silvamord