A/N: once again, another installation. A review would be appreciated.
Prompt: prompt #886 from thependragonwritersguild on tumblr
"In the last six months of my life, I was a teacher."
I don't known Naruto. Enjoy.
Sakura decides to take a genin team, despite her knowing better. The Third had been pushing for her to leave the shadow ranks, pass down her knowledge, retire essentially. Everyone knows that retiring isn't really in the shinobi vocabulary, because most don't last long enough for their bodies to catch up to their miraculous feats. Only the special do. Only the dangerous do.
So when she realizes her time on the earth was growing shorter, she wouldn't be here for much longer, no not after she had released the Byakugou seal one too many times —the Third War, Kakashi and Obito died, the Kyūbi and Sensei!— she decides it would be okay to give in a little bit.
She smiles down at her students, even though she feels her heart crack just a little bit.
Sasuke Uchiha, who looks like his older brother Itachi, the one she has too many regrets to consider as a partner properly —she is old and tired and has seen too much and doesn't want to waste his love she knows is worth more than she can ever give back— stares back at her with big, onyx eyes.
Naruto Uzumaki, who is a strange mix of his mother, his father —Minato-sensei!— and Obito, god Obito, her wayward teammate. He is cheerful like a sunflower and is too bright and too beautiful for her to look at for too long.
And finally, the quietest of the bunch. Sai. Just Sai. Reserved, but ready to plaster on a fake smile at any moment; she catches the way his hands tremor and his back is facing the corner so that he could see any attack coming at him. She knows those signs, —maybe not Root, but too young, too mature like Kakashi, he's seen too much, definitely abused— and knows that she has her hands full.
She knows her body will deteriorate within the next few years, given the drain of the seal on her forehead, the way it caused her cells to regenerate in a way that can only happen so many times before the body cannot sustain itself anymore. Yet…
"I'm Sakura Haruno, and I will be your jōnin-sensei," she says. She observes their reactions, Naruto's bright grin and rosy cheeks, Sasuke's suspicious glare and Sai's caution.
They could be great, something sounding like Kakashi whispers in her ear.
Give them a try, don't fail them like the others, another voice encourages. This one sounds like Obito.
Somehow, even though she knows it's mostly her head making up these whispers, she knows they're right.
And maybe, just maybe, she could figure out a way to stop the side affects of the seal, if only to let her be these kids sensei for as long as possible.
