The room had filled with silence. A very thick silence. And a very tense one, too. Everyone kept a staid face. Everyone kept their guards up. After all, there was a criminal—well, ex-criminal—in the room. A mistake could have proved to be the most fatal thing to do right now. Everyone knew that. Everyone except Uzumaki Naruto who had on his face the goofiest grin ever. He was the only one laid back and relaxed. To him, there was no danger. No danger at all. As though the Uchiha standing next to him had not tried to kill him time and time before.
"Aw, come on, Granny!" he said, the happiest he had been in all year long. "He came back willingly! That has to lessen his sentence by a whole lot! Can't you just let us go and celebrate now?"
Tsunade felt the need to strangle the boy. Did he not know how serious the situation was? She felt as though she'd be inflicted with a headache shortly after this conversation ended. "Naruto, I've told you before: it isn't as easy as you think it is! Sasuke had left the village, joined the ranks of another missing nin—Orochimaru of all people, might I add! Then he even joined the Akatsuki, attacked the Raikage's brother and the rest of the village leaders at the summit, and tried to kill my apprentice! Do you think I can just let him go all free and without punishment?"
"But he got rid of three highly dangerous criminals (A/N: Orochimaru, Deidara, and Itachi) all by himself! Plus, he helped us get rid of Madara and Kabuto! That has to count for something!"
Tsunade sighed. "Yes, yes, it does, Naruto. But—"
"Tsunade-sama!" The door slammed open then, and the Hokage felt the need to hit her head against her desk multiple times. She already had a big problem on her hands, what with Sasuke returning. Now what?
"Whatever it is, Shizune, I'm sure it can wait." But when she saw the worried look on her assistant's face, she immediately regretted her statement.
"No, it can't. And trust me, Tsunade-sama, you'd want to hear this." Shizune said. She took a glance at the other people in the room. For a while, it seemed as though she was debating whether or not to tell them the news too. But her decision was clear when she walked over to the blonde woman and whispered it into her ear.
"WHAT?" Tsunade roared. Needless to say, she was not pleased. Not pleased at all. "THAT LITTLE IDIOT! You three!" She didn't even bother to compose herself when speaking to Naruto, Kakashi, and Yamato who all flinched when she addressed them. "You watch the Uchiha! If I hear any word of trouble or complaint, C-ranked missions for a whole month! For all of you! Do you hear me?" And with that, she and Shizune scurried out of the room in a hurry of the lifetime.
"Um . . . what just happened?" Naruto asked, recovering from what might have been the worst fright of his life.
Kakashi just shrugged. "Well, it looks as if we've been assigned baby-sitting duty."
At that, Sasuke glared at his old sensei.
"I use that term loosely, Sasuke."
Regardless, the glare didn't lessen, but he did turn away after a little while. It was . . . strange. He hadn't been back in the village—well, if you could call it a village still after all it's been through and since most of it was being rebuilt at the moment—in what? Maybe four years tops? And yet, he felt nothing. Not a bit of happiness. Not a bit of regret. Just . . . a bit of nostalgia. He had never thought he'd be back in the Hokage's office, just standing there with his genin team—minus Sakura and plus Yamato at the moment. It was just unnerving, and he didn't like it.
"Don't forget your promise, Dobe." he said.
But Naruto's smile didn't falter. He threw his arms behind his head, and his goofy smile seemed to grow bigger. "Eh, quiet your worrying, Teme. When have I ever broken a promise? Take my promise to Sakura-chan! I brought you back, didn't I? It took a while, but I did it! I beat some sense into ya, and you came home!"
Sasuke scoffed. Something told him he'd never hear the end of it, but if that was all he had to endure to get to the Elders then he'd bear with it, for the sake of his clan.
"Oh, and speaking of Sakura-chan,"—the Kyuubi-container's head shot around the room—"where is she? She should've been here."
"Perhaps she is busy," Yamato suggested. "Shizune did seem a bit concerned about something. Maybe something's up at the hospital."
And as that conversation went on, Sasuke's mind went back to what Shizune had tried to keep from them. It was a good attempt, he mused, but he still heard the words "attempted suicide" in the same sentence as Sakura's name. He didn't give a damn, though. He had cut off all bonds. There was no reason to worry about her anymore, despite the little voice in his head that continued to argue with him.
✿。.:**:.。✿
She woke up, something she had not hoped for. She saw the familiar ceiling of the hospital. She didn't know which room she was in, though. All the rooms were the same, just numbered differently. She closed her eyes shut once more and almost laughed at the irony. She would have laughed at the irony if her chest didn't hurt so much. She never would have thought she'd wind up being a patient at the very hospital she worked at and right out of the ER, no less. It was pneumonia that plagued her now, she deduced from her condition.
"We know you're awake, Sakura."
She inwardly groaned. She did not want to deal with anyone right now. She did not want to explain to them her stupidity. She hadn't been thinking. In fact, she hadn't even realized what she had done until she had hit the water. It was stupid. She wanted to scream at herself for even doing such a thing. She hated herself for being so weak, for doing something like that to herself just because of him.
She heard an exhalation of breath. "Ino, you stay with her. If her condition becomes unstable again, contact either Shizune or me." There were footsteps. Then, a door closed. Silence fell upon the room.
Sakura didn't know what was worse: the fact that she had tried to kill herself or the fact that it was her best friend who was stifling wails. "I didn't die, Ino," she said, her eyes fluttering open. She saw that the girl was at her bedside, her eyes red probably from crying.
"But you almost did! You tried to kill yourself!" the intensity of her friend's voice stung Sakura's ears. "You tried to take yourself away from us! Away from here! Away from everyone who cares about you!" She quieted when Sakura struggled to prop herself up on the bed. ". . . Why did you do it? Was it because of him? Was it because he's back? You shouldn't be doing this to yourself. Didn't you say that his return was all that you ever wanted? Why aren't you happy that he's home?"
"I don't know…"
"What do you mean you don't know?" Ino asked, incredulously. Her voice, a whisper then, now rose again to a scream. "What do you mean you don't know? Sakura, you tried to take your life! How can you not know why?"
"I DON'T KNOW, INO, OKAY? I JUST DON'T!" The rosette found it strange that she was more and more easily frustrated now. "I just . . . just… Ugh! My mind went blank the minute I heard he was back. I was . . . I was scared, so frightened . . . like I've never been before in my life. I don't know why he's back, after all he's done… I can't forgive him…" Her mind went back to their last confrontation. "I can't . . . not after all that he's done… I wanted him back, yes, but my mind's reeling now. I don't know how I feel about his return. I just know that I'm not happy. I'm not, Ino, I'm really not."
She shortly found herself in Ino's arms, the girl now trembling. It brought back memories, memories of when she saw Sasuke out of his coma from after his first encounter with Itachi all those years back when. It now hit her exactly how much anxiety she had caused for her friend.
"Gomennasai, Ino…"
"Just don't you dare do that again, okay?" She had stopped trying to suppress her cries. "Don't you dare do anything as stupid as that…" She emphasized the word stupid more than needed. "You have friends here you can talk to, remember that. Nothing needs you to take your life. Don't you dare try and pull something like that ever again! Promise me you won't ever do something like this again! Promise me!"
"I promise, Ino… I—"
"Where's Sakura-chan, Shizune?" a loud voice asked from outside of the room.
Ino tsked, releasing her friend and wiping away her tears. She walked over to the door and pressed her ear against it, trying to see how close the conversation was.
"Naruto! Be quieter! Some patients are asleep, and—"
Her eyes widened. "They're just outside of the room," she explained. "Naruto probably caught Shizune off guard just when she was about to come in and check on you. It sounds like Kakashi and Sasuke are with him, and—hey!" She had just lifted her ear off of the door, and her gaze had returned to where her friend was supposed to be resting. "Just where do you think you're going?"
Pulling out the IV needles from her arm, Sakura had jumped out of her bed. She had gone to the open window, her right foot was now perched on the sill.
"You should be in bed!" Ino scolded her.
But Sakura just shrugged. "Is there a need to stay in the hospital, though?" she asked, her question implying something else. I'd rather be home… "I've only got a small cold now. It'll pass over, and it's nothing too big I can't handle." She was almost out of the room until Ino spoke again.
"Are you running because of Sasuke?"
Her body froze, her face turning completely grim. Her lips stretched into a hard line, and her eyes were downcast. "No…" she said after a long while. I'm not doing this because of him. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. She told herself that over and over again, but she knew she couldn't trick herself. "I'm doing it to save my ears. Imagine what'll happen when Naruto finds out about what I tried to do." she added, looking back at her friend. "Like Shikamaru says, it'll be really troublesome, and I don't feel like dealing with him right now."
Unable to argue with her, Ino just sighed. "Fine," she gave up any hope for reasoning. "But I'm going with you. You need someone now, and I'm not leaving you alone." Before she said anything else, she paused to think about her words, biting her lower lip.
"What is it?" Sakura asked, turning to her suddenly quiet friend.
The question was all the push Ino needed to speak her mind. "Try and forfeit your life again, Forehead, and it'll be me who will take your head."
Sakura scoffed. "Yeah, right, as if you could ever beat me, Pig."
And with that, they were out of the hospital, jumping from roof to roof—the day's earlier scandal a following and clinging shadow.
✿。.:**:.。✿
"What do you mean she's not working today?" Naruto's loud scream could have been heard by those who lived in Suna. And for those around him, his yell had taken a pretty good toll on their ears.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Shizune's eyes twitched. Finishing Tsunade's paperwork seemed all too good right now. Remember, Shizune, she thought to herself. You cannot let him know about Sakura's attempted suicide. Tsunade would have your head! "Naruto," she said. "Sakura is not here at the moment. In fact, she's not supposed to be working today, and—"
"WHAT?"
It took Shizune, Kakashi, and Sasuke a lot of willpower to not punch the idiot in the face right now. (Yamato had been lucky. He was just called away to do a border patrol.) Why couldn't Naruto ever be quiet for once?
"That can't be right!" the blonde continued. "Sakura's always working if she doesn't have a mission!"
"Well, today, she—"
"You know, instead of trying to hide what happened earlier today, you might want to concentrate on the patient in the room behind you," Kakashi said, his nose finally out of his little orange book. "If you had done that instead then maybe you'd have realize that the room is unoccupied at the moment."
"WHAT?" Now, it was Shizune's turn to hurt everyone's ears. They barely saw her turn around before the door to the hospital room flew opened. And like Kakashi had said, the room was void of any inhabitants. "Damn…" She really wanted to punch something now. "I should have known better than to leave Ino with her… Oh, Tsunade's not going to be happy when she finds out Sakura—"
"Hey! I thought you said Sakura wasn't here today!"
Shizune's mouth instantaneously shut. She had forgotten about the other people with her. "Well, she—" Taking her time to turn around to speak to Naruto, she tried to think of an excuse. It was hard for her. After all, she didn't have the rosette's talent of lying on the spot. "Sakura has . . . has been doing numerous . . . a whole lot of errands for the Hokage, and she—"
"Cut the crap, Shizune!" Naruto yelled, his voice now callused with anger and annoyance. He didn't like it when someone hid something from him. And he hated it even more so if that someone couldn't even make a good attempt at it. "Where's Sakura-chan?"
The woman sighed, knowing very well that she had to give him an answer and fast. "Fine, but you didn't hear this from me." Her head turned side to side, making sure no one else was around. She made it seem as though she really were going to tell the boy the truth, but she only did so as to gain more time to think up a pretext. "Today, Sakura . . . she . . . well, she overworked herself and worked herself tired. She's done it quite a few couple of times before but, this time, she really outdid herself, and she . . . well, she fainted. Nothing new, but her chakra had been intolerably low, and so she was admitted into the hospital just a little over an hour ago and put in this very room. And . . . that's it." Her eyes shifted from each guy, just hoping that they wouldn't catch the lies in her story. But when Naruto opened his mouth, she braced herself for the worst.
". . . But then why were you trying so hard to hide that from us?"
Shizune blinked her eyes a couple of times, unable to believe what she had just heard. Whew! She inwardly let out her held breath. For a moment there, I thought he had caught on… "Well," she scratched her head. Could she continue with the story? "You know Sakura. She didn't want you to worry about her. It was nothing serious, but she made Tsunade-sama and I promise we wouldn't tell you. And you know how scary she is when she holds up her end of a threat. I just didn't want to be on the receiving end of her punches." Yes, go, girl! That story should do the trick!
And just as Shizune predicted, Naruto remained as oblivious as ever. "Oh, you don't have to worry, Shizune! I'll make sure Sakura understands that I forced the information out of you! She'll probably end up punching me once she hears how 'forcible' I was being!"
Shizune laughed along with him, but she knew she wasn't out of the forest yet. She probably hadn't been able to pull the wool over Kakashi and Sasuke's eyes.
"But why did Sakura leave the room with Ino? Shouldn't she be resting?"
"Oh, well, Naruto, you do the same thing, too! You should know better than anyone that people hate being in the hospital!" Shizune answered this with ease. She was grateful that the other two men were keeping quiet. "Plus, news travels fast! Sakura probably heard that Sasuke was back in the village and wanted to see him as quickly as possible!"
"But she doesn't know he's here!" Naruto gasped and was back to yelling again, his anger at Shizune for keeping a secret now gone. "Wait, Sakura-chan!" he yelled as he ran off. "Don't tire yourself out and faint again! I'll bring Sasuke to you!"
Shizune giggled at the Jinchūriki's antics. She could always trust Naruto to give her a good laugh. But when she realized that Kakashi and Sasuke weren't following the blonde, her laughter ceased. "Couldn't fool you two, huh?" she asked, crossing her arms.
It was Kakashi's turn to chuckle, putting away his favorite book. "Anybody in their right mind would have realized you were lying the minute you spoke your first word, Shizune." His face was horribly serious now. "I'm guessing Sakura's little stunt was the reason why you and Tsunade rushed over here?"
Sasuke's eyes shifted to the jonin. So he had heard, he thought.
The lady nodded, exhaling an exasperated breath. "I'd be grateful if you didn't tell Naruto about it. It'd give Sakura more trouble, and I don't want her having another nervous breakdown." She eyes shifted to the Uchiha, a small glare aimed right at him. "One's already enough. I don't want her hurt again."
"Right," Kakashi sighed, patting Sasuke's shoulder. "Come on, let's go before Naruto figures out we aren't following him."
✿。.:**:.。✿
When the two men got outside, Naruto was pacing around in a circle. Obvious to the two, he was fuming mad. "What took you so long?" he asked. "Sakura could have fainted again, trying to search for you, Sasuke!"
But the Uchiha gave no hint of any concern. "It's not my problem."
Naruto ignored that. From everything that had happened, he had known that Sasuke would much less care about them. Just getting him to follow them around the village was more than enough, for today. "Okay! First stop on our search, to Sakura's house!" But when he lifted up his leg to start walking, he immediately paused and turned back to the two behind him with a grimace. "Um . . ." he started to say, "Do any of you know where that is?"
"Che, all these years and you still don't know where she lives?"
"Oh, shut it, Teme! Half of Konoha was re-built only a while ago! The buildings are all different now!"
"And you knew where her house was before?" Kakashi asked, slightly amused at this little scene in front of him.
"Uh, well . . . no."
"Che, Dobe."
"I thought I told you to shut up, Teme!" And when Naruto waved his fist, he hit something. Or rather someone. And if Hyuga Neji had been there, oh, Naruto would have been dead. "Ah! Hinata-chan! I'm so sorry! I didn't see you there!"
Pinching her nose, Hinata blushed red. "It's . . . it's okay, N-Naruto-kun…" She really hoped her nose wasn't broken. Her gaze drifted over to Kakashi then to Sasuke at whom her eyes widened at the sight. "Oh, you . . . you're back, Sasuke-kun. I heard the . . . the villagers talking. What . . . what are you doing here at the hospital, though? Sh-shouldn't you be at the Ho-Hokage's office?"
"Well, wouldn't you know it, Hinata-chan? Granny Tsunade kicked us out and stuck him with us, and we have no idea why!" Naruto said. He then explained every little detail to her, of how Tsunade seemed really worried and how they ended up at the hospital while looking for Sakura. It was a lot of talking on Naruto's part, and he even added movement, but he spoke so fast that he crammed the long story into three minutes.
"Oh, she overworked herself again?" Hinata asked, her voice rose two octaves. "But . . . but I thought she—"
"Err, um, Hinata," Kakashi said before the girl could let out the happening of Sakura's attempted suicide. "From what we deduced form Shizune, Sakura has already left the hospital with Ino. Do you have any idea where they could be right now?"
"Oh, um, well . . ." Hinata put a hand to her mouth in a thinking pose. She racked her brain for the usual places, but the first one that came to her was… "I believe . . . I believe they would go back home first. I could t-take you there if you'd like…"
"Gee, thanks, Hinata-chan!" Naruto said. "What would we have done without you?"
Again, red painted Hinata's cheeks. "It's . . . it's no problem, Naruto-kun." But when her eyes gazed back at Sasuke, she began to worry. Did his return have anything to do with Sakura's sudden depression? She really hoped not, for Naruto's sake…
Gomennasai = I'm sorry (formal)
Yay! This is my 35th fanfic! Hip-hip-hooray! But now I've got almost ten fanfics I have to finish! Ooh… That might be a problem… Oh well… Might as well give it a try, right? Oh, and you don't have to read this summary below. It's for me to remember the summary I wrote for this first part of the fanfic cuz this will be split into three parts.
Summary:
He came back, but she was tired of being left out, tired of being left behind. And so, Team 7 is without one of its members again, but this time it wasn't missing one of its male members.
So, yeah, the chapter's done, but I'm not really liking it… The next chapter will be better, I promise you and myself that! But I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter too! Thank you and please review!
