Author's Note: Because I like Sakura coming to realizations with the help of Naruto – I headcanon her as someone who is not fully capable of doing so by herself, for whatever reason. This is written in omniscient point-of-view, so the prose is rightfully so.
"You know you don't have the right to hate him."
Sakura flinched at the sentence, because it wasn't really a question. For some reason, it was always Naruto's words that struck the hardest blows into her walls; while Kakashi might have always know the right thing to say, it was Naruto that seemed to be able to see inside you. He was a fiery ball of truth, and she felt like she was burning under his blue-hot gaze.
She faltered, and stammered out an affirmative, "I know. I know that."
He grunted, which she found a little condescending, but he probably didn't even know what that word meant. The two kept walking.
The entire way to Sand country, Sakura dragged her feet through the dunes. Naruto noticed, but he didn't say anything. He always noticed everything (like a good ninja should), and Sakura came to the realization that maybe she wasn't as perceptive as she thought. Each line in the sand served as another reminder of how far away Sasuke was. He always seemed to be on a completely different level than her. A few years ago, she thought he eluded his entire team, but it turned out Naruto and Kakashi understood Sasuke better than she ever could. It was frustrating. Sasuke and Naruto would always talk of how the greatest ninja can communicate through fighting, but how about her? How about the girl that slams her fist to the ground in hopes of feeling connected to something, anything? Even when her fists crush a man's head in mid-air and his brains scatter on the ground behind him in a Rorschach pattern, she can't read a thing. How about the girl that punched a hundred trees when she realized he was gone for good? She did remember feeling the pain reverberating through her forearms into her chest, like she was struck by lightning, but she can't remember why the tears came.
Naruto wasn't always there for her, after all. He couldn't be, because that boy was a goddamned saint and had about a trillion other people to help. Sure, he'd remind her that no one was as important as Sakura-chan, but it didn't stop a swelling feeling rising from her stomach to her chest. It wasn't pleasant. When she asked what that could possibly be, Naruto slapped her on the back and laughed out on a breath, "That's jealousy." Oh, right. She remembered that emotion – how she felt whenever Naruto and Sasuke fought each other and not her, because it always looked so oddly intimate and she wanted to be a part of them, everything, always. It made sense when Naruto put it into perspective; everything always did. It was easy being Sakura and being angry. They often seemed to go hand in hand. It was harder, though, to be Sakura and to come to terms with any other refined emotion.
As Sakura lay in a cot that night, a moment of clarity crossed her, recollecting a festival in the Leaf Village. Sasuke was standing next to her, as he often did back then, and his eyes were on the night sky, which was illuminated with colorful flashes and patterns of light. The fireworks reflected in his dark, burnt umber eyes. It was easy to hate him now, and it was even easier to love him for who he was back then – beautiful, handsome, sweet in certain moments… A child prodigy who only ever showed his soft kindness to her and a kitten or two, in crossing. Sakura wrestled with this thought, with the memory of those fireworks in his eyes, his look of wonderment against lightly sun-kissed, summer skin.
His life was not completely hers, and she had no right to hate him for who he was now, or who he would be in a hundred years. She loved him in juxtaposition to herself in the past-tense, but for now, she loved him as he was in the present, standing somewhere far away, alone.
Naruto gingerly grabbed her hand before they both drifted off, and let go just after.
"We'll be with him again, soon."