The sweet aroma of homemade dango floods Sakura's senses as soon as she enters the Uchiha compound, and she finds Mikoto and Itachi in the kitchen. The Uchiha matriarch has just pulled a pan from the oven piled high with the delicious treat, and she bats away her eldest son's sneaky fingers when he tries to steal one. "Those are for the guests!" She scolds with a barely hidden smile at his childish antics. Itachi stalks back out into the garden to finish weeding it for his mother. The head Uchiha family is holding a special ceremony tonight where the title as head of the clan will be passed to Itachi.
"Mikoto, where did you put my obi?"
"It's on the ironing board, dear." She looks up to point her husband in the right direction and happens to spot Sakura leaning against the doorframe with a beautiful vase of flowers.
"Oh Sakura, they're lovely!" Mikoto squeals as she runs over to the nineteen year old to take the vase and hug her. "Thank you so much for getting them for me! I couldn't find Sasuke anywhere, and I couldn't spare anyone else to go and get them. "
Sakura smiles to herself. Sasuke was nowhere to be found because he had been lying naked in bed with her in her apartment all day. He only left twenty minutes before she did so he could sneak back into his house to shower and change out of the clothes he wore the day before. If his parents knew that he spent most of his nights in innocent Sakura's bed they would probably disown him. Well Fugaku would, anyways.
"It was no trouble, Mikoto." Sakura assures. "Speaking of Sasuke, is he not around yet?"
"I'm right here." Sakura and Mikoto turn around to see Sasuke entering the room clad in a dark blue kimono with a crimson obi wrapped around his middle.
"Oh Sasuke, you look so handsome in that kimono!" Mikoto beams at her son before she goes to help her husband, who still cannot locate his obi.
"It's a shame I'll be ripping it off of you tonight." Sakura purrs as she runs her fingertips down his chest. He's playing with the hem of her red kimono and is about to lean down and kiss her when someone clears their throat.
"Pardon me. Am I intruding?" Itachi dodges the kunai Sasuke hurls at his head with a teasing smile remaining on his face as he gracefully sidesteps. Sakura's face is bright red and she is about to excuse herself to the bathroom when Mikoto enters.
"What in the world is going on out here? Sasuke, your chakra just flared as if you were ambushed!"
"Well actually, I did sabotage his chances at-" He is interrupted when Sasuke throws another projectile at him.
"Sasuke! Enough! I swear, sometimes you two transcend sibling rivalry to the point of being mortal enemies." Mikoto holds out her hand expectantly, and with great reluctance Sasuke hands over his remaining kunai. "At nineteen and twenty three you would think I wouldn't have to scold you like little children. And in front of Sakura, too! You two will scare her away before Sasuke gets the chance to propose!" Itachi cannot withhold a chuckle at the awkward looks that Sasuke and Sakura give each other.
Itachi stops his mother from continuing on her tangent by laying a hand on her shoulder. "While I love nothing more than watching Sasuke cower in terror while you yell at him, there's something that I need to tell you and father."
Fugaku, who had entered wearing his light blue obi half way through Mikoto's rant, gives his full attention to his eldest son. "Go on."
Itachi's face is perfectly blank when he speaks. "Tonight when you step down from your position as head of the clan, I want you to pass the title to Sasuke."
The room is so quiet that Sakura holds her breath so that she is not the one to break it. The circulation in her hand has been cut off because Sasuke is gripping it so tightly. She looks up to his face and is struck by the utter shock etched into his features. It's rare to see that much emotion on his face, let alone a feeling he associates with vulnerability. Sasuke is rarely surprised, and when he is, he is very good about hiding it. Except now. Now his mouth is hanging open.
"Itachi… well, that was… sudden." Mikoto stammers. She places her hand on her son's shoulder. "Are you sure?" When he nods she smiles and turns to run over to the cake. "Then I'll just go change the name on the cake really quickly and-"
"No."
Everyone turns to Fugaku. His face is red with rage. "Absolutely not. You are my first born son. You are a prodigy, and as such you will bring this clan to greatness. It is your duty."
Itachi shakes his head. "No. I was a prodigy, when I was a child. Now I am sick and dying, and unfit to lead the clan." Mikoto drops her frosting knife, but Itachi continues, "Sasuke surpassed me in skill even before I fell ill, and has only continued to grow. He will make an excellent-"
"That doctor doesn't know what she's talking about." Fugaku interrupts.
"That doctor is Tsunade Senju, surpassed only by her apprentice." He gestures to Sakura who stares back at him with wide eyes. "Sakura, based off of all of the tests you and Tsunade have run, how much longer do I have?"
Everyone turns to look at Sakura and her legs almost give out. Fugaku's sharingan is activated, and she on instinct averts her gaze from his eyes. Instead she turns back to Itachi. "Optimistically, the rest of the year." She looks to her feet and bites her lip to keep it from quavering when Mikoto begins to sob.
"Exactly." Itachi has strode across the room to pull his mother back to her feet and hold her up as she sobs into his chest. "We've known this for months now, but everyone has been acting like everything will continue as planned. But it can't, and we all know that."
"Sakura will find a cure, you will become the leader of the Uchiha clan, end of story." Fugaku growls menacingly.
"No, father. There is no cure. My lungs are deteriorating and medical ninjutsu can only be used on bone and more dense tissue. The medication helps slow down the process, but I still-"
"You are my heir!" Fugaku slams his cane on the ground for emphasis and the wood cracks.
"No, Sasuke is now." Itachi smiles weakly at his brother, who is still in a state of shock.
"He is not. And he never will be." Fugaku's words are fueled with a rage that Sakura has never seen from the unemotional man.
"There is no reason to-"
"He is my second son, and has always been inferior to you." Mikoto gasps and exclaims in protest, but Fugaku ignores his wife and his eldest son's menacing glare. "Naming him as my heir would be more shameful than letting the title leave our family. He is unworthy of the title reserved for you, and you have no right to give it to him."
It's painful when the blood begins to circulate through Sakura's hand when Sasuke lets go of it. Without a single word he leaves the room. Mikoto is staring in horror at her husband, and Itachi storms out into the yard. They hear a door slam upstairs and suddenly Mikoto and Fugaku are screaming at eachother.
Sakura just stands in the corner and tries to process how a family just fell apart in two minutes. She enters the foyer and is planning to leave the house until it cools down she feels Sasuke's chakra flare upstairs. She sprints up the stairs and down the hall to his room. She bangs on the door and yells for him to open the door. She doesn't get a response and when she presses her ear to the door she hears sobbing. Using her superhuman strength, she rips the door off its hinges.
Sasuke is lying in a puddle of his own blood. Sobs rack his body in between the convulsions of desperate breaths. He has embedded a kunai to the hilt in his chest, and his death rattle tells Sakura he won't live if she doesn't act now. With a calm that is mostly because of shock, but also partially from years of training, she extracts the weapon from her dying lover's chest and immediately sets to healing him. Knitting heart tissue back together with chakra is one of the most difficult medical procedures, but Sakura is the best of the best. Bit by bit she closes up the wound. The healing isn't the hard part. Pinning Sasuke down and ignoring his pleas to just let him die is what is destroying her. Soon her tears are splashing onto his face and mixing with his.
When she finishes healing him, she wraps her arms tightly around him and breaks down. They sob together, him pushing her away, and her pulling him closer. "Just let me die." he sobs into her neck. "Just let me die." Sakura doesn't answer him and after a few minutes he gives up. He sinks into her and sobs loudly into her shoulder. "Why doesn't my father love me? What's wrong with me?" he repeats like a mantra. Sakura starts to list off why he should be loved, but Sasuke can't hear her. He just keeps repeating the same questions. "Why doesn't he love me? Why am I not ever good enough?"