ii. Return
The last time Sakura had cried in front of someone was when she and Naruto had gone on a two-man mission in The Land of Clouds. The escort mission had been pretty cut-and-dry, and the whole thing had gone off without a hitch. They were headed back home two days ahead of schedule when a band of rouge ninjas sprung an ambush on them on the mountain path. The missing-nin weren't anything to write home about, and Sakura and Naruto were mowing them down with routine ease when Naruto slipped and fell off the mountain. To be fair, it turned out the enemy had unknowingly stuck him with a poisoned dart, but still.
Sakura's confusion had given away to horror as she watched her teammate drunkenly stumble back towards the cliffs and then disappear over the edge. He had plunged into a river at the bottom of the gorge, and, after fishing him out, her heart had rammed into her throat when she couldn't feel his pulse. Fortunately, as soon as she removed the poison, Naruto groggily came to, and—thanks to a bit of luck and more probably the demon fox in his stomach— he had managed to come away from it all with just a few cracked ribs to his name.
She had made quick work of his injuries with her medical jutsu while Naruto sat beside her grinning sheepishly, but Sakura couldn't bring herself to give him the usual scolding, much less smile back. The fear of losing her teammate had reminded her of that afternoon when it was just him standing between Pain and the rest of Konoha. That had been half a year ago, but the sight of him standing out on the dusty battlefield, alone with the world on his shoulders, continued to haunt her. Sometimes she thought the name "Hero of the Hidden Leaf" was a deceptively cruel title to give to a boy not yet seventeen.
Overwhelmed by a sadness she couldn't fully explain, Sakura had broken down crying on the riverbed. Naruto had frantically jumped to his feet and tried to assure her he was fine, which only upset her even more.
The rest of the journey back, Naruto had walked on eggshells around her, nervous that he had done something wrong. He promised her he'd never ever fall off another cliff ever again, pinky-swear with ramen on top so try and smile a little, please? Meanwhile, Sakura, feeling guilty for making Naruto worry about her yet again, made it a point to stop crying in front of her friends, or anyone else for that matter. Even that time she had been taken prisoner by Rain, her integrators had been grudgingly impressed by her resilience in the torture cells, but that was a different story all together.
In the present, when Sakura calmed down enough for her thoughts to break through the haze of tears and emotions, she was acutely mortified to find herself in the middle of squashing her snot-covered face against Sasuke's chest.
She hurriedly pulled away from him, her vision still veiled in tears. "Sorry," she mumbled lamely because she knew sorry probably wouldn't be enough to cover the half of it. She rubbed her eyes furiously with back of her hand, trying to remove evidence of her embarrassing behavior.
"…throom…?" She tried to ask and failed miserably thanks to all the gunk clogging up her face.
Sasuke frowned. "What?"
She sniffed hard, trying to clear her airways. "Sorry, the bathroom?"
"Down the hall, to your left."
"Right," She stood, wincing as her joints popped, and her legs prickled back to life. "Sorry—I mean thanks." Her words tumbled out incoherently as she hurried out of the room and into the moonlit corridor, her thoughts racing ahead of her.
Seven years.
She tried to keep her gait unhurried, but unease nipped at her heels, urging her to walk faster until her she finally broke into a frantic run. She slid to a stop in front of the bathroom and struggled with the knob before almost ripping the door off its hinges in her haste. Locking it behind her, she flicked on the lights and turned to look in the mirror over the sink.
A little girl with an all too-familiar face stared back at her, her green eyes puffy with tears and mouth agape.
Sakura put disbelieving a hand to her cheek; the girl in the mirror did the same.
"No way." She ran her fingers through her hair, remembering that it hadn't been this long since she was…
"There's no way," she repeated, green eyes fixed on her reflection, waiting for it do something wrong and shatter the illusion. But moments went by and the illusion held, slowly but surely cementing into an undeniable reality: she was twelve again.
Sakura had considered genjutsu, but Kakashi had personally trained her with his sharingan; bar the Copy-cat Ninja or an Uchiha, there wasn't a genjutsu user left in the land who could fool her.
On the wall next to her, Sakura spied a small square of window above the bathtub. She stepped into the dingy bathtub, cringing against the cold film of used bathwater. Sucking it up, she took a few more steps and went on her tiptoes to push the window open and peered out.
A blast of wind greeted her, and her hair tumbled out in response, waving wildly about the night in long tangles of pink. She raked her hair back to get a clearer view and spied the moon reflected over the ocean. As she tried to place the familiar view, a deep breath revealed a hint of salt in the air, and the scent jumpstarted her memory: The Land of Waves. The last time she had been here with Team 7 proper was during that fight with Zabuza and Haku; she wondered if that battle had come to pass.
Stepping out of the tub, she checked the mirror to make certain that yes, she was still twelve and flat as a wall before heading out. She opened the door with brows furrowed, so deeply entrenched in her thoughts that she didn't notice Sasuke standing before her until he slipped past her. They bumped shoulders, and the touch knocked her out of her reverie. She whirled around in surprise; it was rare for her to be caught off-guard.
"Sasuke-kun?"
"I have to use the restroom," he replied stonily.
"Oh, okay—"
He shut the door in her face. After a few moments he heard the floorboards creak beneath her bare feet as she padded away. He turned around and leaned back against the closed door, crossing his arms as he knocked the back of his head against the wood. He didn't know why he had followed his teammate to the bathroom. What had he been expecting? Her to begin screaming again? And if she had, what would he have done? Hug her? Sasuke immediately scowled at the thought. He pressed a hand to his eyes and sighed; exhaustion was driving him insane.
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The next morning, Tazuna had gone into town after an early breakfast for a quick meeting with the rest of the villagers. Inari was still fast asleep, and his mother, Tsunami, was busy at the kitchen counter preparing breakfast for her shinobi guests, the four of whom were currently seated at the table behind her. The sound of her knife against the cutting board echoed loudly in the cavernous silence that hung over them.
Kakashi was reading his book; Sakura was staring out the window with bags beneath her eyes; and Sasuke was engrossed with a fascinating coffee stain on the table's wooden surface. Meanwhile Naruto was giving himself an aneurism from trying to will last night's events out of Sasuke with his eyes…or at least, that's what Sasuke assumed he was trying to do. On his periphery, he spied his blonde teammate switching his gaze back and forth between him and Sakura, giving what he probably through was an "intense" and "questioning" gaze—Sasuke thought it just made him look stupider than usual.
Next to Naruto, Kakashi seemed oblivious to all the tension in the air, happily lost within the pages of his erotica, but it didn't escape Sasuke that he had been on the same page for the past five minutes; either Kakashi was a slow reader or he wasn't actually invested in the novel before him, and since the words "Kakashi" and "slow" were rarely ever used in conjunction, Sasuke suspected the latter.
And as it was with most things, Sasuke's suspicions were right. Kakashi had been on the third paragraph of page 32 in Icha Icha for quite some time now. Granted, the part where Akiko-chan accidently climbs into the wrong bed where a shirtless Matsuoka was sleeping was one of his favorite parts, but he too was curious as to how the rest of last night had panned out. So while his eyes were glued to the text, his ears were wide open, ready pick up on any details. Of course, he could always be the first to bring it up. However, he had determined that such a course of action would necessitate the involvement of some lame, cringe-worthy segue like, "So…about last night…" and Kakashi's general rule of thumb was to try and stay away from all things lame and/or cringe-worthy (also an explanation for his aversion to a certain Might Guy).
Then there was the second option, which he greatly preferred. It would require a bit more patience, but no work on his end, entailing a certain blonde student of his to—
"Argh! I can't handle it anymore!" Naruto jabbed an angry finger at Sasuke's face. "You! Last night! Sakura-chan! What happened?"
Bingo. Kakashi smiled behind his mask.
Sasuke suddenly discovered an interesting notch in the wood right next to the coffee stain.
"Hey, bastard!" Naruto slammed an impatient fist on the table. "Stop imagining yourself naked and just answer the—"
"Language," Tsunami chimed over her shoulder.
"Ah, sorry," Naruto said hurriedly before returning to his prior business of giving Sasuke the stink eye. "Stop being such a drama queen and just tell us what happened, damn it!" The Uchiha deflected him with his usual wall of apathy. The two were at a stalemate, and neither of them refused to give ground. Well, to be more accurate, Naruto refused to look away, and Sasuke refused to give him the pleasure of a response.
Out of nowhere, Sakura's heavy sigh cut through the air. and all attention immediately zeroed in on her: Sasuke glanced up, Naruto turned to stare, and Kakashi's two ears twitched in anticipation. Sakura had realized she would need to say something if she wanted to lay this stupid thing to rest.
"Last night," she began.
Naruto leaned closer next to her, blue eyes glimmering with anticipation. Sasuke wondered what sort of excuse she'd give, and Kakashi stilled like a wolf before an ambush.
"I—had a really bad nightmare."
There was a general collapse and Sakura watched her teammates' shoulders collectively relaxed; the answer had finally been revealed. Privately she wondered if it really had been that big of a mystery. What else could have sent her screaming and sobbing at the dead of night? A giant bug? Inwardly she frowned, displeased by the idea that she wasn't being taken seriously.
"Nightmare?" Naruto repeated, as if testing how the word felt on his own tongue. "'Bout what?"
"It—I don't really remember it, but it was a bad one."
"Seriously?"
Sakura nodded gravely for the blonde. "Uh huh. Reaaaaally bad; blood and guts and dying, that kind of stuff."
"Oh." Naruto thought about her answer for a moment before giving a satisfied nod. "Cool."
"Anyways," Sakura said, speaking to Kakashi now. "Sorry about all the trouble I caused."
Then to Sasuke she added emphatically, "Really, sorry."
Her green eyes were unwavering, and for some reason Sasuke couldn't hold her gaze. He looked away.
"It's fine," he muttered into the collar of his shirt, not sure how to handle Straightforward Sakura. Up to this point, his impression of her consisted of giggles, pink-hair, and not much else. He also didn't know she had a nasty right hook, but his ego kept him from pursuing that matter any further.
In his seat, Kakashi gave her answer the courtesy of a nod and before turning a page in his book. Nightmare, huh? He could bite that explanation.
"Yesterday's fight?" He asked without looking up.
Another silence fell over table, but this time, it was weighted down with a good deal of heavy pathos. Naruto's mouth hardened into a tight line with the reminder of Haku, and Sasuke returned to staring at the table, though his expression had grown morose. Judging by their reactions, Sakura had quickly deduced that the fight on the bridge had already transpired.
"I—I think so, probably," Sakura said as somberly as she possibly could, attempting to add traces of unresolved terror in her voice. She new from past experience that the more emotional she got, the quicker her teacher would be to drop the subject.
Kakashi nodded slowly. "Well…" he drawled and turned another page, beginning to read the passages in earnest. "If you're still having nightmares when we get back to Konoha, we can take you to the Psych Center—or you can come talk to me…" He had felt obligated to add the last bit, but hoped it would never get to that point. If the results of his annual Psych Exams were anything to go by, he was probably the last man in the village qualified to be a shrink.
"Thanks Sensei, I think I'm okay for now. If it gets bad, I'll let you know," she said, and because she knew Kakashi, she added, "I'll probably just head over the Psych Center when I get back, so don't worry about it."
Kakashi felt a weight come of his shoulders. Thank the gods, he thought to himself while giving her one of his "as-you-will" shrugs.
"Breakfast is ready," Tsunami chimed happily on cue as she placed a tray loaded down with food before Team 7. "Eat up my heroes!"
"Man! This looks awesome!" Naruto crowed happily over the steaming plates.
A chair scraped the floor as Sasuke stood up. "Sorry, I think I'm going to have to pass on breakfast."
Tsunami frowned—pouted, really—after him. "It's not good for growing boys to be skipping their meals," she said, more to herself.
"Hey, where do you think you're going! You gonna take a shit or something?" Naruto shouted after him, because the blonde could never say anything to his arch-nemesis in a normal tone of voice.
"No idiot, I'm going to go pack my bags." Sasuke's jaw was still aching from last night, and he couldn't bring himself to work up an appetite. Cities would burn before he'd admit anything to Naruto though.
"Oh right, how's your jaw doing, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked with real concern.
Sasuke looked at her like she had just announced the color of his underwear to the entire table.
"His jaw?" Naruto's curiosity was piqued. "Hey asshole, what happened to your jaw—"
"Nothing," Sasuke broke in, seething. He gave Sakura the blackest look in his repertoire. "I'm fine."
"All right, jeez, just wondering. Glad you're okay," she said even as she saw the yellowish bruise beginning to form beneath his cheeks. That's going to get pretty ugly pretty soon, she thought to herself.
"Wait, what happened?" Naruto asked, suddenly lost in the conversation.
"Nothing. Like I said, I'm going to go pack," Sasuke said, stalking off towards the guest rooms.
"Yeah? Well I'm going to go and train after breakfast."
"Go ahead."
"Oh yeah?"
"I'm not trying to argue with you, dumbass."
Naruto opened his mouth, hoping he'd be able to come up with a blindingly clever retort on the fly. Unfortunately, he had nothing. He closed his mouth again. He really couldn't say anything. Damn it. That bastard.
Kakashi smiled as he playfully ruffled a fuming Naruto's mess of blonde hair. Even if he hadprobably been dropped on his head a few times when he was baby, the kid was cute (in that pee-everywhere,chew-everything puppy sort of way).
"Naruto, one of these days I'm going to have to teach you how to use tact."
The blonde's frown deepened. "Huh?"
"Tact… it's an important skill for a shinobi to know. Actually, it's just a generally important human thing to know."
"Why the hell does a shinobi need to know how to use push pins?"
"…" He was kidding,right?
Sakura brought her hand to her face with an exasperated smack. She had forgotten that Naruto didn't start growing brain cells until a few years later.
"Sensei?" Naruto blinked up at his teacher expectantly.
"No, never mind Naruto."
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By the time Tazuna came from the village, breakfast was over, and Inari had finally woken up, only to sulk around the porch after realizing the Konoha ninja would be departing soon. Naruto quickly fixed that by boxing Inari in the ears and telling him real mean didn't cry before starting to tear up himself. Then Inari got all weepy. Then Tazuna tried rubbing his eyes discreetly, saying that it needed to rain soon because the air was too dry and it was making his eyes itch, but everyone knew he was really just a lying old fart.
After exchanging their last round of goodbyes and promises to visit again, Team 7 set off. The foggy woods eventually gave way to open country, and the road they took didn't offer much in terms of scenery aside from swathes of grass that grew to the hip and stretched as far as the eye could see. The March sunlight fell coldly upon their faces, and every so often a fresh breeze would come tumbling down from the cloudless skies carrying traces of winter on its breath.
Sakura shivered, rubbing the goose bumps on her bare arms before tucking her curtain of hair behind her ear. Too soon however, another gust sent it falling back across her face. Her teeth ground in irritation; she wished she had a pair of scissors on her or a hair elastic at the very least.
Actually, there were quite a few of things Sakura wished for at the moment: a warmer set of clothes, a medical book to keep her occupied through this humdrum landscape, and, most notably, some sort of exposition on What The Hell Was Going On. For all intents and purposes she had decided to call her situation "Time Traveling," but giving the thing a name did little very little to elucidate her predicament.
Questions like "How did I get here?" "Why am I here?" "Who, or what, warped me through the space time continuum?" had been causing a riot up in her head since last night, keeping her up until the crack of dawn. The clearer it became that she didn't have any answers, the louder and more persistent the questions grew, until finally, one rose above the clamor and asked: How do I get back?
Sakura froze in her tracks. All the other questions grew hushed in her head.
How do I get back? Is that even possible?
Sensing the shift in atmosphere, Kakashi paused up ahead and turned around, inciting Naruto and Sasuke to do the same.
"Sakura? Everything okay?" He called back to her.
She didn't answer and merely stood in place with a stricken expression.
Naruto walked over to her and waved a hand in her face."Hey Sakura-chan, you there? Earth to Sakura-chan! Hellooooooo?"
His shouting jolted her back to reality. "What—?" Noticing the three pairs of eyes trained on her with varying degrees of worry (Sasuke's expression resembled one of disdain more than anything else), she hurriedly constructed a makeshift grin across her features.
"Oh, haha, sorry, I—uh—I just realized that I probably left the stove on at home."
Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Are your parents not home?"
Right, totally still living with mom and dad. Sakura forced a stilted laugh. "Haha, oh, Of course! Thanks for reminding me, Kakashi-sensei! I was worrying for no reason, hah!"
"Yeah, see Sakura-chan?" Naruto clapped a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "It's all good!"
Sakura nodded and returned his smile, but her attention was elsewhere in the back of her mind where a question continued to weigh heavily on her thoughts:
Am I stuck here forever?
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After a few hours, they came across an large, solitary pine tree standing just off the road, so Kakashi made the executive decision to break and do lunch beneath its shade.
"Sasuke, come see me for a sec, we need to change your bandages," Kakashi said.
"I can change them myself," Sasuke muttered, but followed his teacher towards the outer edge of the tree's shadow away from his teammates.
Kakashi knelt down on one knee next to him and began undoing the bandages. "Ah, I'm sure, but give your sensei the pleasure of taking care of his cute students," he said glibly.
Sasuke's upper lip curled in distaste.
"How's it feeling?"
"Fine." Sasuke winced as the bandage snagged on a bit of raw flesh.
Ah yes, the classic teenage male display of masculinity. Kakashi didn't even know why he bothered wasting his breath. Of course it hurt. The worst injury Sasuke had received before this was probably a twisted ankle or a few scrapes here and there; sparring matches at the academy were known to be monitored closely, and it was rare for a student to ever be seriously injured. Actually, all things considered, he was dealing with the pain admirably well.
The last of the bandages were removed, and when Kakashi saw what lay beneath the cloth, his eye narrowed. The wounds from Haku's senbon were just starting to scab over. They were perhaps swelling a bit more than what should be normal, but that wasn't what had raised Kakashi's concern. He stared hard at the black and yellow discolorations that marked the boy's neck; those were new.
Kakashi's mind went back to the night before, recalling that there had been a moment when Sakura had been pinning Sasuke against the wall. He leaned in to take a closer look, But she really couldn't have…
Sasuke impatiently shifted his weight to the other leg and Kakashi snapped back to the present. He rooted around the first-aid kit by his foot. "Hmm…well, this isn't looking its greatest. Are you sure it doesn't hurt?"
"I told you I'm fine."
Kakashi nodded. He doubted it. Although Sasuke didn't know about the bruising specifically, it was unlikely that he remained completely oblivious to them. Based off of how severe it looked, it probably hurt just to swallow.
But the silver haired man kept his thoughts to himself as he gingerly applied antibiotic cream to the wound. It would be pointless to press him about the pain. In fact, it would probably do more damage than good. He figured Sasuke's ego had taken enough of a blow when he had been at Sakura's mercy; no need to rub salt into it.
Kakashi finished dressing the wound in fresh. "All right, it still has a while to go until it's properly healed, so take it easy for a bit. And say something if it starts hurting more than usual."
"Yeah, sure," Sasuke grumbled as he stalked away.
As soon as Sasuke's back was turned, a dark cloud passed over Kakashi's face. His attention was towards Sakura who was sitting against the trunk and pretending to listen to Naruto as he chattered away next to her. He thought she had been oddly spacey since last night, and wondered if maybe he should try and talk to her, his own reservations concerning emotions be damned. The bruise forming on Sasuke's jaw hadn't escaped his sharp eyes, and Kakashi had heard horror stories in the locker rooms about teams that blew up internally because one had member snapped under stress. Of course, such stories usually concerned ANBU squads, and Kakashi couldn't imagine his pink-haired student going on a murdering rampage. Although…
His thoughts went back to last night.
Sakura's scream had alerted him as well, and he had in fact had been in the room while Sasuke had been trying to calm her down from her nightmare. Watching the scene from the shadows, he had been trying to decide whether or not his presence was necessary when Sakura suddenly decked Sasuke in the face with astonishing strength. Kakashi had been so caught off-guard by her speed and power that all he could do was stand in shock and watch stupidly while she almost choked his other student to death.
The last time Kakashi had seen Sakura's files it seemed like her physical strength was, at worst, underwhelming and mediocre at best. Her marks at the Academy were high, but she hadn't exhibited any sort of genius like Sasuke had. In short, her description had made her out to be a pretty average, twelve-year-old girl who was a bit cleverer than most; not a single word alluded to that display of superhuman strength, or whatever it was he had seen in that room.
Perhaps, Kakashi thought as Sakura sensed his attention and turned to meet his gaze, it would be best to keep an eye on her.
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