Can you feel it
Somewhere in the fallout
He's someone just like you
Who's lost to find the truth
Can you hear him
From the fire he cries out
For the answer to be shown
As he dares to walk the fallout on his own
-Fallout by Alter Bridge
Stir of Echoes
The hour was late and the rain was beating down from the heavens as if Kami himself was angry with Sakura's actions. A patient had been lost that day — a little boy. His lungs had collapsed from a devastating bout of pneumonia. Before Sakura and her crew had even gotten around to administering the needed treatment, unfortunately, the boy had ended up flat-lining in his hospital bed. The parents had waited far too long to bring the child in. Nonetheless, explaining why a loved one had died while in her care was never something that sat well with Sakura. In the end, it was going to be yet another sleepless night. Too bad it was a routine the kunoichi was intimately familiar with.
Cursing her forgetfulness — no umbrella in hand — Sakura finally came to a stop in front of a white door marked with black numbers labeled 122. Her cold fingers searched her green vest's many pockets, before finally producing a key. Hair and clothes drenched, makeup running, Sakura shakily opened the door. When she did, she suddenly found herself face-to-face with the man she had come to love in the last several years; he was a masked man who had no idea how her true feelings toward him had changed.
"Kakashi-sensei?"
He didn't respond, didn't even move.
Standing there exposed to the elements, the rain continued to soak Sakura's bones and blur her vision. No matter, though, because she couldn't bring herself to move either. She was too shocked to uproot herself from her spot. What was he doing there? Had he just come to say hi? No. That couldn't possibly be. Her old mentor was never one for such things as small talk. Besides, he was also never one to come round for house calls, much less break into her home to wait for her like some creepy stalker in the middle of the night. Then she remembered the man's stubborn penchant for keeping away from hospitals. Quickly, Sakura figured that something serious must have happened for him to seek her out so suddenly and at such a late hour. After shaking her head to clear the cobwebs, she finally moved forward, reaching out a wet hand with a deep look of concern.
"Kakashi-sensei, are you alright? Did something happen to—?"
Before she could finish her sentence and, before her hands could actually touch him, Kakashi's image began to waver in and out of focus … until he simply just disappeared. Breath stolen from her body, Sakura jerkily drew her hands back as if she had been burned. Shaking in her place, eyes wide and water dripping from her person, a small puddle began to form on her carpet as she stood there in eerily, stunned silence.
"Sakura-senpai?"
Whipping around, Sakura saw her apprentice standing in the doorway. Moegi looked tired and bedraggled; there were dark circles under her eyes that matched Sakura's to a tee.
"Did you see him?" Sakura demanded with something akin to desperation. Surely, she couldn't be going crazy if someone else shared her vision as well?
"I'm sorry?" Moegi answered hesitantly. Her confused gaze swept the interior of the darkened apartment. She had only just landed on Sakura's doorstep, having jumped from the building's rooftop only seconds before. Concern etched on her face, Moegi pressed her own question upon her bedraggled superior, "See who, Senpai?"
Shaking her head, like a dog shaking off water, Sakura forcefully gathered her wits. It was in a much calmer voice that she changed the subject. "I take it we have newly admitted? It's not Naruto's group is it? They're not supposed to be back until next week."
"No, ma'am," Moegi replied, finally stepping in and out of the rain. "It's Tenten and Hinata-senpai's two squads. They just got back from Rock Country and they're in pretty bad shape. All eight of them."
Heart still pounding, Sakura nodded. "Well, I guess sleep's overrated anyway." Turning back toward the door, she sighed. "Let's go."
Stepping outside once more, even the cold wind and stinging rain couldn't wash away the unsettling feeling that had nestled in the pit of Sakura's stomach. Was she seriously going crazy or was Kakashi's image merely some messed up manifestation from too much lack of sleep? Either way, as she took off to the rooftops with Moegi in lead, she pushed all eerie thoughts to the very back of her mind; for there was work to do and when a kunoichi was head of Konoha's medical field, she had to have her head completely in the game.
"You're bleeding."
Raising a thin brow, an exhausted Sakura paused in her speech. She had just been in the middle of discussing their last patient's medication as she and Moegi had gone off to the medical center's cafeteria for a quick bite. She looked from Moegi to the end of the chewed nail the younger woman was using as a form of makeshift pointer. Chin falling, eyes sliding down her face, they slid even further to the area on her right side — the curve above her hip. She found a red stain the size of a thumb print saturating the inside of her crisp, white nurse's uniform. And then, as if actually seeing the spot had been some kind of trigger, the blot began to grow — rapidly. Intense pain suddenly inflicted Sakura's side, causing her to drop the clipboard in her hands and fall to her knees. Eyes squeezing shut, jaw clenching, teeth grinding, sweat beading on her forehead, Sakura curled into herself while huddled on the ground.
A stunned Moegi was left trying to pull herself together. She sobered enough to utter three distinct words. "Oh my god."
The slightly awed, horrified tone made Sakura's eyes fly open. Fighting against the thousand imaginary knives that seemed to slice the skin at her hip and rip across her stomach, she reached between the open flaps of her trench coat and flipped up the hem of her white vest. She did so in an attempt to find out just what the hell was going on. Her eyes suddenly grew large at the gruesome message that adorned the raw and angry flesh of her midsection that had become some bloody billboard for the insane.
TRAITOR
By the time the scrawled words became too saturated to read, however, Sakura had already passed out from the shock and blood loss.
The clock next to Sakura's hospital bed read 10:59 pm. The second the glowing red lights changed to 11:00 pm, the sweat-drenched kunoichi woke with a start.
"Hah! Hah!" she breathed with her wide eyes scanning the darkness. And then the breath was completely stolen from her lungs the moment a masked man suddenly appeared at her side; it was as if he had materialized from thin air. Immediately, Sakura began backpedaling in her bed, scooting so far behind her that her back hit the wall — hard. Chest heaving, heart in her throat, and blood thunderous in her ears, Sakura's quivering lips managed the man's name.
"Kakashi-sensei?"
This time her old mentor didn't remain silent. Regretfully, she quickly learned that that wasn't necessarily a good thing.
"Trai …tor," she heard him hoarsely groan as he suddenly descended upon her with outstretched hands and gleaming, mismatched eyes.
The clock next to Sakura's hospital bed read 10:59 pm. The second the glowing red lights changed to 11:00 pm, the sweat-drenched kunoichi woke with a start.
"Hah! Hah!" She panted, wide eyes scanning the darkness. Déjà-vu settled upon her like a prickly blanket; it was an eerie familiarity that chilled her to the bone. But no masked figures greeted her as she continued to survey her surroundings. The only thing she could see was the drawn, long, white curtain that hung from the ceiling. It was supposed to give her privacy and shelter her from the noise. However, all it seemed to do was give her a sudden sense of claustrophobia.
Just a nightmare, she told herself repeatedly in an attempt to settle her nerves. After a while, it seemed to work, because she was back to taking in steady breaths instead of sucking in choppy pants of oxygen into her lungs. Even so, questions began to plague her mind. They were like a poison, one that kept the fear thrumming through her veins. Why was she seeing and dreaming of Kakashi? How in the hell was she sporting a new scar on her body that would forever brand her as a fucking TRAITOR? Sakura didn't know, but she was sure of one thing. The answers would come to her if she sought them out. She would make sure of it.
But her efforts were going to have to wait, because a dark shadow was suddenly cast upon the cloth-made barricade surrounding her; it was the familiar shadow of a man.
Heart in her throat again, she called out, "Kakashi-sensei?"
This time, instead of coming for her as he had in her dream, the man simply stood his ground. It was disconcerting to Sakura to only be able to see his vague outline. But a sudden whisper in the back of her mind told her that she daren't go off in investigation. Some part of her was warning her that she needed to stay right where she was if she valued her life. And Sakura did.
"Kakashi-sensei," she called again, her voice breathy and wholly afraid as she shook in her place. "Kakashi-sensei, is that you? Please, just — Please, answer me damn it!"
The answer she received wasn't the one she was expecting. Red letters began to saturate the hanging linen between them. Once again, she found herself staring at a single word.
TRAITOR
Footnote: This is my response to the Poe Challenge on the KakaSaku Livejournal community. I never got to finish it in time for the contest, but I'm going to finish it now.