General Warning: Major Character Deaths, Angsty tragedy.
Pairings: None, unless you want to read into some things to deeply.
Disclaimer: The characters and plots of Naruto belong to Masashi Kishimoto, who I am not.
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When the report found its way onto her desk and she read it, Tsunade could not find it in herself to be surprised. No, the whole thing didn't surprise her in the least and yet it saddened her beyond words. To think that such a promising team would come to its end like this. The whole thing made the Hokage want to put her head on the desk and cry, even more so since yet another victim to that silly curse had been claimed. The door creaked softly as someone entered and Tsunade looked up to catch a glimpse of Jiraiya.
The frog hermit offered the woman a sad smile and Tsunade returned it with her own wavering version, "They say it comes in threes and sevens…" Jiraiya murmured. Tsunade stared down at the report in her grip and frowned slightly.
"So they do…" she whispered. The paper had been written by a shaky hand, and she had no doubt that it had taken everything Kakashi had to give it.
Sakura's soul had fled her eyes as soon as word got out about it. Her green eyes no longer held anything that could be seen of as life. Naruto did his best to try and bring the pink-haired girl back to the world of the living and failed every time. His smiles didn't help, the fact that they were strained wasn't helping either. He'd been hit hard by the news as well. Quite a few people had. That single bit of news had doused the flicker of hope that Team Seven had been bearing for a few years now. Snuffed it out like a kunai to the heart.
Jiraiya had appeared and he had said it simply, bluntly, blandly, like tearing off a Band-Aid fast to lessen the pain. Orochimaru had succeeded. Sasuke was gone. A shell. Sakura had broken down and cried, Naruto had been horrified but done his best to comfort his comrade.
Five days after Jiraiya had brought this devastating news Kakashi had gone to check up on Naruto. After all, Sakura was still locked away in her room like a lifeless doll. When Kakashi arrived at Naruto's apartment his knocking was never answered and the Jounin had simply used his skills to enter. Inside the place was silent and still, something like death or a forest before a particularly bad storm. On the low table Kakashi had found it, a note from Naruto that he had gone to kill Orochimaru. It became obvious the boy had left at least two days prior, since the silver haired man had gone to check up on him for the lack of seeing him.
When he told Tsunade a group was immediately dispatched under Kakashi's control to find the wayward blonde. When they finally did track him down, they discovered torn ground and corpses, at the center of which was Sasuke's body and Naruto. In all appearances the two had killed each other.
It was still unknown whether or not Orochimaru was still alive, since he had been in Sasuke's body at the time of the battle.
Sakura stared blankly at Kakashi as he told her about Naruto. The girl didn't move, look at him, or make a sound and it disconcerted the man. He left her in the same position as when he'd first set foot in the room. When the memorial for Naruto came and his grave was added next to Sasuke's, and Sasuke's body was placed in his rightful plot Sakura had gotten the energy to attend and stood dull eyed before the markers. Her sensei and parents tried to get her to leave, but the girl refused. She stayed there well into the night, through a soft drizzle that had begun near the predawn hours.
It was Kakashi who found her there later that day, no one could say they were surprised when news got out that Haruno Sakura had apparently committed suicide over the graves of her team mates.
Tsunade looked slowly up from the report Kakashi had made on Sakura's death took look at Jiraiya, "We ought to put Kakashi under watch. I know the mans survived a lot of trauma, but I fear this could be the last straw." She choked out softly. They already had three tragedies, there was no need to reach for seven. The frog hermit nodded to his old friend and turned to relay the message for her without a further word.
Pausing at the door Jiraiya looked back and sighed, "I feel a little guilty." He said slowly.
Tsunade nodded, "Like this should have been our fate?" she asked, looking at him with watery eyes.
The white haired man nodded and disappeared without a further word.
Outside Konoha and the rest of the world droned by, missing a few faces that took to lonely mourning or were gone forever, and no one could say that they were surprised by any of it. After all, from the beginning that Team had, had a sort of magnetism for tragedy. The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, the Uchiha child, and one girl with the bad luck to end up with them. All there was to do about it now was to mourn and continue to live, though never to forget.
It was certainly a tragedy of threes that repeatedly itself throughout Konoha's history, and this was just another one to add to the insufferably long list.
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A/N: Yeah, I dunno... This rather depressing drabble just came to me and dragged me away from the chapter for my other fic that I was working on. It was kinda inspired by a qoute my mom said not long back about Death coming in Threes and Sevens, as well as the fact that a lot of tragedy seems to befall certain teams of three, so it all just ended up coming together. In the end I just wanted to get this out of my head, so here it is. Review if you feel so inclined.