AN: Ok. I'm going to break my aloof, educated persona for a bit and go full on crey author's note because someone PM'd me to complain (make a concerned observation) about how my fic is framed in such a way that Sakura is being biased towards Naruto.
1) I love you that is so sweet, look i'm not being sarcastic for real u were really nice with how u worded it, i rally appreciate it. thank you for bringing your worries to my attention as it alerts me that this must be what a lot of readers must have thought so too and thus what has probably made (and does make) them liable not to give this story a chance because they are reasonable people who don't want to suffer through yet another character bashing fic, so now i get to acknowledge this here and beg you guys not to think this is something that should discourage you BECAUSE I HAVE A PLAN
2) Naruto has done legitimately hurtful shit even in his inaction, even when he doesn't mean to. SAKURA IS NO ANGEL EITHER, like the relationship crumbling isn't just naruto's fault and she is also on some level very aware of this, i don't know how damn obvious i need to be. ALSO LOOK, I AM TRYING TO REDEEM SASUKE BUT HE'S STILL ALWAYS GONNA BE THAT USELESS EMO KID AT HEART TO ME WHO IS GIVEN TO JUST AS MANY TERRIBLE LIFE DECISIONS AS HIS TEAMMATES. LIKE.
3) Sakura is petty as fuck like I'm not even dancing around that. THIS WHOLE FIC IS ABOUT SAKURA BEING PETTY AND ALSO BEING STRONG, THAT IS THE DUALITY HERE. OF HER BEING. A. DAMN. HUMAN. BEING.
4) this story has SO FAR been written ENTIRELY in SAKURA'S POV, like? you think her petty ass is only ever being rational here? YOU THINK SHE'S RELIABLE? hahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHOHMYGODDDDD
5) so yes, while Sakura sometimes has a very good point some times and is very entitled to most of her hurts, keep in mind that SAKURA IS BIASED AS FUCK. I AM WRITING HER THAT WAY. SHE IS SUPPOSED TO BE. THIS IS A CLUMSY, HEAVY-HANDED SPIN ON UNRELIABLE NARRATING THAT HAS MANAGED TO FLY OVER SO MANY SWEET PEOPLE'S HEADS. SO. DON'T THINK I DON'T KNOW. DON'T THINK I'M JUST HERE TRYING TO MAKE MY GIRL A SPESHAL UNICORN WHO CAN DO NO WRONG. I HATE THAT SHIT. GET THAT AWAY FROM ME. but see that's the whole problem when it comes to writing a sakura fic, she has so many haters and so many stans, and BOTH can be equally irrational. if i make sakura petty i'm a self-hating feminist, but if i give her a minor power up i'm suddenly a brainless MARY-SUE LOVER LIVING VIACRIOUSLY THROUGH HER BECAUSE GIVING SAKURA ANY ATTEMPT TO SHOW STRENGTH OR GROWTH INVOLVES A SUSPENSION OF BELIEF SO GREAT IT OBVIOUSLY MEANS I'M PREPPING A STORY THAT'S GOING TO CONCLUDE IN HER PUSSY-WHIPPING THE WHOLE OF THE (MYSTERIOUSLY ALIVE) AKATSUKI. (which no shame, i actually do enjoy those fics LIKE THE TALENT)WHAT I MEAN TO SAY IS THAT IT IS DIFFICULT TO PROPERLY REACH A BALANCE HERE THAT MAKES EVERYONE HAPPY. SO IF UR HAPPY I'M HAPPY. BUT IF UR GONNA WHINE BECAUSE I'M AWFUL AT WRITING WHAT UR NOT PAYING ME TO WRITE...THEN LOL STAY PRESSED I LOVE U.
THE WHOLE REASON WE (OR I DO ANYWAY) LOVE SAKURA IS BECAUSE SHE IS LITERALLY THE EMBODIMENT OF ALL THE STUPIDITY AND SELFISHNESS AND PETTINESS WE ARE SO WELL VERSED IN OURSELVES? SHE VERY CLEARLY STRUGGLES TO BE A GOOD PERSON AND ISN'T ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL? JUST AS EVERYONE ELSE DOES? LIKE? U THINK I'M GONNA DRAG NARUTO FOR THE WHOLE OF THIS FIC AND ACT LIKE HE DIDN'T HAVE REASONS FOR DOING ALL THAT HE DID? YOU GUYS THINK I'M KISHI 2.0 AND INCAPABLE OF FULLY ARTICULATING AND PROVIDING PROPER REASONING ABOUT MOTIVE BEHIND ACTION OR PLOT DECISIONS? LIKE NARUTO'S PERCEIVED ASSHOLY BEHAVIOUR HERE IS JUST LIKE ITACHI'S SUDDEN TURN AS A SECRET GOOD GUY, MANIFESTING ITSELF WITH ABSOLUTELY NO REASONING OR FORETHOUGHT? LIKE? AN ASSPULL? THE WHOLE REASON I WROTE THIS FIC IS TO TRY AND HANDLE SOME OF THIS AWFUL LAZY FUCKERY KISHI DISPLAYED WITH SO MANY OF HIS PLOTS AND HIS CHARACTEDS? THIS IS MY PERSONAL THERAPY. YOU GUYS THINK I'M INTERESTED IN PLAYING U ALL LIKE THAT? I PLAY YOU, I PLAY MYSELF. Also for real, I love ur support all of you, it's really flattering but I'm honestly just writing this fic for the fun of it, so I welcome constructive criticism any time and I love love LOVE to hear from all of you but I'm not gonna be bugging if someone decides i'm besmirching the holy integrity of the naruto series. i'm probably gonna make a lot of mistakes narratively. i might even contradict myself (NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I CAN SCAN MY FIC WITH MY EYES, I AM BUT ONE BEING) but i'm trying to keep to the game plan and have some fun. if i take yall too seriously i'm just going to be pandering and all of you will just be bored as hell should i do that shit. just. enjoy the ride. don't be too invested in this fic. like it's literally been a year since i updated (BECAUSE OF LEGITIMITE REAL LIFE BULLSHIT LIKE I HAVE NEVER FACED SUCH DRAMA IN MY LIFE EVER I WON'T EVEN TALK ABOUT IT HERE BUT JUST TRUST ME, ASTAGHFIRULLAH FOR REAL MAY GOD NEVER INTEND THIS SHIT TO HAPPEN TO ME AGAIN) so just relax. the more open minded u are the more ur gonna enjoy this bullshit. i promise. we can laugh cry weep and rant together, BUT DON'T EXPECT ME TO BE CAPABLE OF PERFORMING SOME GENRE DEFINING/DEFYING MIRACLE WITH THIS SHIT. I'M SO FLATTERED BY YALL BEING 'THIS IS THE BEST FIC EVER' AND I'VE BEEN CRYING TENDER TEARS AT WHAT IS OBVIOUSLY A HUGE MISTAKEN BOUT OF MISPLACED TRUST IN MY NON-EXISTENT ABILITIES. THAT'S A LOT OF EXPECTATION, WE'RE JUST GONNA DISSAPOINT EACH OTHER, I PROMISE. SO JUST CHILL OUT. BE SMOOTH. BE COOL. THIS IS WHY I DON'T DO A/Ns becuase i never MAKE ANY DAMN SENSE
ALSO returning to the bias issue - LITERALLY SAKURA DRAGS HERSELF 24/7 AND I HOPED THAT PETTY SELF-HATRED WAS AMUSING AND SINCERE ENOUGH TO OFFSET HER BITTERNESS (WHICH SHE ALREADY ACKNOWLEDGES AS AWFUL)? Like I wanted this to be a subtle revelation as the story progressed that all these characters are actually more than what other characters think they are, so you guys can see that (in time) Naruto isn't as much of the SATAN Sakura sometimes feels (in her frequent moments of petty-ass hurt, rage and trademark self-depriciation) he is, but damn once I realized that this is actually keeping people from reading this story i had to clear the air. i had to drop the anvil. the piano. EVERY THING. like damn i wanted to be a cool writer playing with your minds and pretend to inch up on u all subtle with themes about how damn duplicitous everyone actually is BUT NOW I HAVE TO REVEAL MYSELF. NARUTO HAS HIS REASONS, JUST AS SAKURA HAS HERS. LIKE WHAT KIND OF VILLAIN DO YOU THINK I MEAN HIM TO BE? LIKE U THINK I SEE HIM AS SOME MOUSTACHE TWIRLING HACK? DO YOU THINK I'M DELIBERATELY INTENDING TO MAKE HIM THAT ONE DIMENSIONAL? HE'S NOT EVIL, HE JUST HAPPENS TO BE A PRIMARY ANTAGONIST? EVEN A GOOD-WILLED ONE? HE'S NOT EVEN GOING TO BE ONLY ANTAGONIST? LOL EVERYONE IS COMING FOR EVERYONE'S ASS. THE WHOLE POINT OF AN ANTAGONIST IS TO OPPOSE THE PROTAGONIST? AND BRING THAT TENSION? SAKURA'S OPINION OF HIM IS A LOT LESS RATIONAL SOMETIMES? LIKE? YOU GUYS KNOW WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO RIGHT? SO HELP ME GOD - PLEASE TELL ME YOU GET WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO BECAUSE THERE HAS BEEN SOME GRIEVOUS MISUNDERSTANDING HERE IF U THINK ANYONE IN THIS FIC IS SAFE FROM BEING ROASTED WITHIN AN INCH OF THEIR LIVES? I ALREADY WARNED U THAT NONE OF UR FAVES (OR MINE) ARE SAFE. WHAT THE FUCK GUYS. TRUST ME. TRUST MEEEEEEE. LIKE I DRAG SAKURA WITH EVERY DAMN SENTENCE AND JUST BECAUSE I'M BEING FUNNY ABOUT IT YOU THINK SHE'S CHARMING AND THAT SOMEHOW BEING PETTY WHILE BEING CHARMING EXCUSES ANY SHITTY BEHAVIOR SHE MAY BE PRONE TO? IT DOESN'T MEAN I'M STILL NOT DRAGGING HER ? BECAUSE I DO. I AM. I HAVE? I ALWAYS WILL? LIKE I'VE MADE NOTHING BUT TERRIBLE SHIT HAPPEN TO HER SO FAR? AND PUT HER IN LITERALLY EVERY EMBARRASSING AND AWKWARD SITUATION I POSSIBLY CAN, AND WE ALL LAUGH BECAUSE COMIC RELIEF RIGHT? BUT THE TRUTH IS THAT THIS IS MY ELEMENT. LOL IT'S GONNA KEEP COMING FOR HER. AND MORE TERRIBLE SHIT IS GONNA HAPPEN TO EVERYBODY TOO? LIKE IT'S NOT ALL GONNA BE DOOM AND GLOOM BUT I HAVE TO BE DRAMATIC WHEN I'M PUTTING THIS POINT ACROSS SO IDK THAT'S HOW IT MIGHT BE COMING ACROSS. LIKE WHAT ELSE DO I GOTTA DO TO MAKE U PEOPLE BELIEVE. DAMN. I JUST WANT TO RESTORE SOME SEMBLANCE OF DIGNITY TO HER EVEN AS I SOMEHOW END UP WRITING HER IN WAYS WHERE SHE CONTINUALLY SABOTAGES HERSELF, SOMETIMES SHE GETS IT RIGHT? LOL GUYS I LOVE MY GIRL. BUT I'M NOT GOING TO PRETEND SHE SHITS RAINBOWS. DAMN. DAMN. GUYS. FOR REAL.
Another note: the delay. you'll notice some clumsiness with the hospital scene below, that's because I wrote the scene perfectly the first time and then MY TRASH COMPUTER SELF-DESTRUCTED AND MY FAULTY GARBAGE DISPOSAL OF A PERSONAL LIFE FOLLOWED SUIT. I was lucky to salvage the stuff before that scene and I wept and I wrote and rewrote the hospital scene and most of this shit about seventy times and it still would not get as good as it originally was. so some of you might shake ur heads at this chapter but i was so stired of tweaking it around, i knew if i didn't put it out there ASAP i was just gonna flip out and start doing murder. so. yes. look, i'm a confident writer and i'm not here for fake-humbleness for the sake of inviting some crooning praise because of some weird ego thirstiness, i am straight up telling you i know this chapter isn't my best (lol it won't be my worst wink wink MORE TRASH IS TO COME). but i haven't updated in ages and i resent the idea of any of you thinking i wouldn't come back to this like how unrealiable do you think i am come on man come ON.
I also try to do whatever research i can do but i'm lazy and uninvested in adhering to every single detailed rule of a universe that ended up betraying me anyway, so I'm mostly saving time by making stuff up where I can't figure stuff out. so we're flying by the seat of our pants in so much as adhering to the nitty-gritty rules of whatever cannon Kishi didnt halfass. look. i'm always gonna be bitter. don't even come at me with that but oh, kishi gave u naruto, ur so disrespectful BULLSHIT OR ALL "u didn't even pay for that shit."
damn straight i didn't pay for any of that shit. i literally live in the buttcrack of some far-flung continent like u think i have access to manga that i can legally purchase? we just got amazon YESTERDAY, aint noboy gonna wait all that damn time. so yall can get off ur weird ass thrones about paying kishi. u should be grateful i didn't pay kishi beyond purchasing two legal copies when i was abroad during a fit of absurd nostalgia. u should be grateful i instead mostly lived off online scans like a rat because if i'd paid more than you did or my far-flung brethren for that matter...you think this man would be confident enough to appear in public again? YOU CAN'T MAKE ME PAY MONEY FOR YOU TO DO THIS SHIT TO ME, IF I PAID MONEY FOR YOU REST ASSURED I'M COMING FOR UR ASS IN PUBLIC. FUCK WRITNG PETTY ASS FANFICTION. I'M ALREADY DOING THAT FOR FREE.
I've also mentioned i've been embroilled in some serious drama. i've been depressed, my hair has been falling out from stress, i am a machine that's been running on exasperated rage for the past year. ur reviews really warmed the cockles of my slimy heart, this troll was so touched. literally, this meant so much to me during my awful problems, ur enthusiasm and ur generosity, it was good to read. thank you...and dont' worry about me, i'm not soliciting observation or sympathy for my lame ass excuses, i'm just giving u an explanation in as vague terms as i can get away with.
i can't reply to each and every one of ur reviews like i did previously because DAMN YOU GUYS I DON'T WANNA SOUND LIKE I'M COMPLAINING BUT THE OUTPOUR OF LOVE AND THE FEEDBACK HAS BEEN SO WILD AND CRAZY AND MASSIVE THAT I CAN'T EVEN DIRECTLY ADDRESS EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU. I WANT TO AND I WILL TRY TO IN THE NEXT CHAPTERS BUT PLEASE forgive me when i say i'm really sorry i can't get back to all of you right now, getting time aside to EVEN post this dumpster fire of a chapter (and its dumpster fire AN) was hard enough, so i hope it's okay for now. i'm still sorting through my real life problemos but i'm better now so i'll have more time to update later, i'm not gonna dissapear for that long again. so i hope that eases any sting i might have (un)intentionally caused? i feel like this AN is going to lose me some of my readers coz i've just revealed myself as an actual crazy person with no chill. because i apparently wasn't already clear about that in the beginning. now you know.
okay shit. that AN was long. i promise u no more long AN's. i just had to clear the air there and felt anyone who was holding out on an update for this long deserves some kind of explanation. so there. i bet u wish i'd explain a lot less, BUT IT'S TOO DAMN LATE YOU WOKE THE CRAZY.
warning, exposition. so much. exposition. i am trying hard to be as natural about placing exposition as possible. just bear with me. APPRECIATE MY CLUSMY EFFORTS WITH THE OPEN-HEARTED GENUINE LOVE OF A MOTHER ACCEPTING HER TODDLERS CARDBOARD SOGGY VALENTINE THEY MADE IN PLAYGROUP. I TRY.
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Her mornings held a routine. Chakra exercises focused on renewing her body's system, a concentration on getting good circulation going before a quick, thorough readjustment of her body makeup to unstart whatever aging process had been allowed to happen the day before.
Getting rid of cell waste like lipofuscin in the nerve and heart muscle cells these days now only required the mere pass of her glowing hand, Sakura rebolstered her immune system and was done before she went down to make breakfast. The rejuvenation of collagen, the dissolution of any free radicals in the blood so that they became harmless components of white cells…she managed to spot any stray bodies or signs that could pose a problem, preventing anything disrupting her cell functions. By the time Sarada was four Sakura had already been able to monitor her own immune system to the point where she could keep the optimum level of antibodies being produced and maintain bone density blindfolded.
The examination was thorough and the repair process that used to take her two hours when she first started out panned out to twenty minutes. When Sarada began her schooling, Sakura's managed cut that time down to five.
Sakura's prebusent vanity had been intense and under the tutelage of Tsunade (and bearing the guilt of Sasuke's departure, her failure as a teammate) Sakura had, at the time, delegated girlishness as an unnecessary frivolity.
Ino still viciously reminds her of the choppy haircut over the meals they share once in a while, grudgingly saying that the only thing about Sakura's get up that didn't make her want to tear out her own eyeballs were the boots that Ino had helped her pick out –
Which she didn't. Sakura spotted that number first. So you fucking wish, Pig.
Sakura had thusly foregone the dab of lipgloss for the few seconds extra sleep she could scrounge before she could fling herself out of bed at the buttcrack of dawn and arrive at the training grounds so Tsunade could beat the crap out of her. Twelve to fifteen, Sakura had been unable to properly allow herself to take more than perfunctory interest in her appearance. Apart from making sure everything she was wearing was symmetrical and her hair was (sometimes) combed…Well. When she slashed her hair off in the forest of death she'd understood how ineffectual girlishness was.
Adult Sakura understood that she had been wrong. Waiting for Naruto to come back so they could launch themselves after dragging Sasuke back had taken a toll on her, she had felt guilty whenever she looked into a shop display at a pretty dress or was accosted by saleswomen with cosmetic trials. She had still bemoaned her teeny bossom – god, did people still even use that word? – during her time under Tsunade she could feel herself getting a complex about it, and her young teen-self had still envied Ino's ability to marry beauty and efficiency at once, and her current self rather still did, but it had taken a while before Sakura allowed herself to realize that it was okay to want to take pride in your appearance again, to want to be attractive, to feel attractive.
And though a lot of Sakura's reluctance to smack on some mascara or attempt to diet stemmed from a fear that she might be reverting to the weaker ninja she'd been when she was younger – someone who'd let her rather shallow feelings for a boy dictate her growth – her abandonment of beauty also had to do with less complicated, less angsty things like laziness and the fact that after sweating through grueling exercises and swinging through rivers of patients like it was the apocalypse any attempt to beautify herself would not change what Sakura looked like at the end of the day; black and blue, and like a super gross, super sweaty, super irritated zombie.
Eventually, Sakura began to care. When Naruto came back she'd wanted to seem womanly, like, it would have been nice for him to have given her a goddamn compliment. Not like she'd liked him or anything. Naruto actually meant stuff like that, but because her female peers would be more than like to notice that much more that Sakura had No Pride as a Woman enough to bother with not being ugly as fuck. Sakura had stared in the mirror the day after he came back to the village and noticed that her lips were all chapped and ew gross and then –
And then! She got Sai handed over to her on the Team, so on top of the emotional baggage she realized she actually had boys on her team again, which was something new after three years of being surrounded by tough, uncompromising bad ass ladies, and then Ino made a nasty comment, grunting as she filed her nails at the counter instead of paying attention to the register like she was supposed to be doing, asking if it would kill Sakura to buy a tube of gloss and ugh –
Ugh.
Adult Sakura's vanity was under control, she liked to look good for herself. She definitely didn't put on lipstick so Sasuke could look up from sharpening his weaponry at the kitchen table like she'd told him to never on-the-pain-of-death do again, and suddenly pretend that he was a heterosexual.
Sakura had managed to get by, being able to look at herself in the mirror and give herself her own compliments. She took care of her fitness and cracked open her cupboard for a racy dress once in a while when she felt like it. Vanity had gone through its evolution just as Sakura had. Sakura didn't feel as guilty for a bottle of perfume, or a pretty shade of green – she didn't go crazy in the cosmetics aisle or anything, and her dresser's make-up collection was rather sparse and utilitarian (god, shut up, Ino) , but Sakura could look herself in the mirror and adjust her appearance without beating herself up about being a fraud or sacrificing her strength.
And like, Tsunade-shishou certainly didn't slave away at the vanity but the henge came with eyeshadow palette attached apparently, so. Sakura wasn't a fan of huge adjustments when it came to beautifying herself, it just took too much time, but she didn't hate herself about it, which was nice. She already had lots of other stuff to hate herself about, so tiny tiddies or not, Sakura worked with what she had and didn't totally fail.
So vanity. Tsunade's employment of the henge, which was a chakra consuming, rather complicated illusion, was different from Sakura's technique. For one, the Technique™ could not be practiced on others because it required a deeply personal understanding of the body which only the individual it belonged to could properly master (and with excellent chakra control and above and beyond understanding of one's own physiology and medical chakra). Sakura kept her breakthroughs to herself with the added inclusion of Tsunade and Shizune and no one else.
It was not kept a highly guarded secret because Sakura was in anyway modest or humble – LOL – about this advancement. It was kept a secret because she didn't feel like adding her own two cents in a world that was at one time invaded by crazy evil nin who had also – get this – been resurrected with sketchy immortal justu by even sketchier immortal Uchihas.
Sakura had shared the process with the Fifth and Shizune. The process could not reverse the aging process, but simply modulated it, controlling its rate – Sakura could grind the clock to nothing, but she could not wind it back.
Story of her life, but okay.
While an accomplishment, Sakura's silence on the matter had less to do with modesty and more to do with having the foresight of not adding to the restoration, resurrection jutsus already floating about the ninja world (in the least discrete - and alarmingly accessible, considering - manner possible) for just any mad hack to utilize for evil.
Also, she expected she would feel vicious satisfaction somewhere along the line, once Sasuke sprouted grey hairs or wrinkles and Sakura remained spring fresh and vivaciously young. Figured, she'd need eighty years before she could tentatively attempt to claim she was ever going to be at some point, prettier than Sasuke.
However, as reiterated before, the process had less to do with vanity and more to do with prolonging her life span. Sakura wasn't planning on kicking the bucket in eighty years, she was interested in seeing more than that. Sakura could teach the exercise only to someone whose chakra control she fully trusted, because while the procedure only took a small amount of chakra, it was S-grade in complexity and required a complete, highly intensive understanding of one's own body, and medical chakra. In time she hoped she might be able to teach Sarada enough that Sarada would know how to approach doing it herself.
To this effect Sakura had been able to maintain a youthful appearance, and its vitality. However, Sakura had never had interest in remaining a baby faced seventeen year old forever, so she tweaked around, allowed a little aging, to avoid suspicion, to actually look like a woman her age.
Sakura could look twenty-two forever if she chose.
After the exercise each morning, Sakura could wake Sarada with tickling, herd her into the shower, and then proceed downstairs to make breakfast. If Sasuke was home then he'd already have come out of his room to get it started (incinerated) and breakfast would then usually be comprised of smoke singed pancakes, which was the only thing apart from tomato onigiri and a few other dishes which Sasuke knew how not to completely cremate.
Sasuke was an arsonist and it showed.
Sarada would come down, they would baptize said arson by eating it. Chit chat about her classes, work, make snide comments about Sasuke's aforementioned arson and by the time they were done Sakura would walk her favorite brat to the academy and then zip off to the hospital for work. If Sasuke was there then he made a point to take Sarada himself. Overall, Sakura found she could call them a happy family even if they made a somewhat unconventional picture of domestic happiness.
Sakura worked at the hospital, overseeing the new research, coming through with new operational techniques for immediate field care, and when either of them actually remembered to eat Shizune and Sakura would head to the cafeteria.
Shizune had been the Head Medic since Tsunade decided to go off chasing her elusive youth abroad after handing over the hat to Kakashi or whatever. It was nice talking to an adult who was mature, independent and respectable – an adult who was punctual and uncondescending, an adult who wanted to talk about rational stuff ohmygod. Basically, Shizune was professional, friendly, all those things she'd always been since Sakura had first met her. It was grounding.
The two kunoichi would cover progress and new developments over terrible coffee, Shizune still heading the poisons unit ontop of her other administrational duties and Sakura handling major surgery. In Tsunade's absence the two held down the fort. They would go over everything from intern training to changes to the budget, to the introduction of new herbs to the hospital's stock.
Sakura would leave the hospital at reasonable hours. She had found out that having a young un' meant people kept forcing her not to take the graveyard shifts. Sakura would pick up Sarada if Sasuke hadn't already, or make dinner if Sasuke hadn't already massacred it. Sometimes she got a back rub, and Sarada would chatter about school as they caught the tail end of this luridly ridiculous soap opera that came on every evening, keeping them up to date on the torrid love affair between a palace maid and a prince who mother and daughter immediately spotted as a jerkwad, or fuck boy, as Sarada had pointed out.
"Fuck boy," Sakura pronounced thoughtfully, experimentally, this new word. She nodded approvingly, "I like it."
Then she'd made Sarada sweep the roof for being a potty mouth.
"You're a potty mouth!"
"Damn it," Sakura had sighed. "I am."
That Saturday Shikamaru had passed by their compound on his way through the forest to see his view of sky interrupted by the sight of mother and daughter determinedly whacking brooms across the rooftop. Dead leaves hurricaned through the air, littering his hair. He had closed his eyes. Breathed deep - and then left before he could bear the inconvenience of being noticed.
The rare times Sasuke was home Sakura could afford to stay at the hospital till the late hours, prolonging her shift felt better knowing that Sarada (who kept whining that she was old enough to take care of herself, mom) had someone home while Sakura was at work. On those nights, no matter the hour, Sakura would always come back to the fam and takeout, (thank god. Sasuke grew up an orphan but the only things he knew how to make were onigiri, and a special tomato curry. And of course, sometimes, pancakes), and it was nice.
The business of it, the wrapping up at the evening. It didn't give her much times to miss the old days. But if she was honest, Sakura didn't need an awful lot of time for her mind to instinctively pounce on the past, tugged along by the violent rush of nostalgia for days lost and long gone. Longing would ambush her throughout the day, mid-task, mid-rest. Some nights she could not sleep, cicada-sweet summer nights, perfect for rest, she would lie awake, eyes too dry for tears, the pit of her chest scraped empty, a dull hurt.
Apart from that enduring existential angst, Sakura was always ready for an emergency. She could be called at any hour of the night. Especially in the case of an ANBU team returning. Those were the busiest nights. Sakura could stay on her feet for over eighteen hours at a time.
Shizune had put her foot down once new interns enrolled into the new combat trained medic teaching program they'd sketched out together, and told – not very nicely – Sakura that since there were more hands on deck there was no reason for her not to have some days off. Sakura had initially grumbled about the free Saturdays and Sundays, but it was nice to have some off time to spend with her kid and with Sasuke (who was tolerable when he wasn't Hamlet-ing all over the place), Shizune had assured her that should ever a circumstance arise during those days when she was truly needed then Shizune wouldn't wait a heartbeat before calling for her.
Which of course occurred just as she was washing the dishes. Sakura called out to Sarada as she flashed through hand signs to activate the body displacement seals Shizune had placed in the ICU for critical injury surgeons. She arrived in the blinding white lobby with soap suds still gleaming on her elbows. It was earlier than midnight which had been the expected return time, which meant something had gone well, or something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. Sakura had been right about the tricky ANBU retrieval mission after all.
When she was extracting poison of category one on the acute toxicity scale and clipping metal shards from lungs, Sakura had little time or room to agonize on yet another encounter with Naruto. It was four in the morning by the time Sakura managed to drop into one of the seats in the corridor. The plastic squeaked, she bent over and pressed her cold temples to her knees.
Sakura was no closer to making miracles than she'd been all those years ago. It was a dull stab of guilt now, her head thumped and her fingers quivered from the exhaustion she felt after focusing for so long. The jerky, muddled waves that went through a body made weak in the wake of battle, when the adrenaline's gone, when the last drop's dried up, and the bones hollow out after the fire-rush. A shivery emptyiness.
Six had gone in, she'd lost two. The first was a goner by the time he hit the operating table, the second …Well. Sakura's two seconds commute had been two vital seconds the shinobi lost. His chakra pathways had been fried.
One of the surgeon's, fresh-faced, new…Sakura could hear him crying, very faintly, in the other room. Sakura considered the depressing duty of going back in there and addressing the surgeons, rehearsing the words that shishou would have said and that Sakura knew Tsunade could never believe enough to forgive herself.
She considered doing the proper thing and telling the boy that sometimes a med-nin could do everything in their power and not make a breakthrough. That sometimes people died on the operating table. That it didn't make them failures, that it didn't mean that they should let loss dishearten them. That it wasn't failure.
Every patient that Sakura had ever let fade haunted her with shadow. She'd lied through her teeth when she had to. She had given the same speech several times when she'd had to, when it had needed to be heard the way she'd needed to hear it when she first started out slitting the sides of fish on Tsunade's desk.
Sometimes, she used to tell Shizune when they'd both been frequent presences in the Hokage tower, that she swore she could see the glint of scales she'd smooshed in the grain from when they'd thrashed, clinging to slippery life with all their might.
Sakura sat up and crushed her palms against her eyelids. She took a deep breath.
Exhaled.
Her lungs, achingly empty – her head dizzy, she blinked hard a few times to clear her vision, to get the blots of harsh lobby lighting out of her eyes. One… Two… Three.
Good. She was…she was put together. She was alive. She was still a damn fool, but she could stand to be logical about her failures now, could stand to know how to not fall apart completely. Sakura didn't want to cry anymore, she'd already been Konoha's Biggest Crybaby – tears got you nothing. Words even less. It was actions. Actions, not words, or being sorry, or saying that you were sorry – it was making sure you did everything you could not to let it happen again.
That was the moment Sai, resplendent in backless hospital robe, decided to smoosh into the ugly plastic chairsnext to her. He also dug his elbow – he had the pointiest elbows, my god – into her side. Sakura sighed, very loudly, a sigh that sounded like a growl. She couldn't even.
"Evening, Ugly."
He was pale, anemic nearly and the lighting in the hospital didn't help either. It pulled something in her, a little claw, tangling and dragging. Sai's sickly white skin, the sheen of fever still clinging to him, cold – he'd barely had enough blood in him to have made it as far as he had, nonetheless to even make it to Sakura's operating table.
"It's four in the morning, asshole."
Sai shrugged, non-plussed. Sakura looked up between the fingers she'd attempted clawing into her face and jerked her head at the nurses at the end of the corridor who'd been waddling after the escaped patient like distressed chickens. They tittered and left, already beleaguered enough by this bullshit. Sakura didn't know what was up with her Team, all of them couldn't sit still in the hospital unless you broke their legs. Which she was often tempted to do.
Kakashi would only come to the hospital if he was dragged there and usually attempt to leave once he could gather his guts into his arms, insisting with his usual alarming flippancy that he was fine. Sasuke liked bandaging up his own wounds because it made him feel like a man or whatever, Sakura usually resorted to sorting him out at home on the kitchen table because he was such a pain in the ass. Sai usually decided the moment he could stand up and walk three paces at least without falling flat on his lilly pale derrière, that he was good.
Naruto was never really in the hospital, something about having a demon in your belly sorted out most of your injuries, and when he was in the hospital it was usually because shit was dire. And even then, he'd always smiled through it. That tight grin.
Her entire Team was a pain in the ass. Only Yamato could be counted on to remain in the hospital bed, obedient and polite. She decided that he was her favourite, and told him so once. He'd turned away, stammering, shy and so chuffed, the back of his neck turning red. Yep, her favorite.
"Been a while."
"Five minutes ago I stuffed your pancreas back into your body."
"Much obliged," Sai said with the kind infuriating civility those not used to him would have had a more of a reaction to, a short nod. "Are you alright?"
Sakura laughed, a hoarse thing that didn't fully come out of her throat. "Two down. Tricky mission."
"Most classified ones are."
Sakura shrugged with one shoulder, not even bothered anymore that this was above her pay grade, she just felt the faint, almost ignoble irritation she usually felt whenever someone seemed to think she was fishing for information or something. Like she was ever this obvious when it came to collecting intel, and like it had ever stopped her before. She slumped back, her shoulders hitting the chair and rubbed her temples.
"You did your best," Sai said, plainly. Near consiliatory.
"And," Sakura looked at him, exhausted, her mouth pulling painfully in one corner. "It still didn't matter."
"Are you taking this as yet another opportunity to wallow in self-pity?"
"Yes." Sakura said, and groaned, rubbing the heel of her palms into her eyeballs. "Fuck."
"You did your best, Sakura."
"Okay, okay, Sai – Jeez."
"If anyone should be wallowing, it's me." Sai began thoughtfully, nodding importantly. "I'm the Captain who lost two of his agents on a retrieval mission. I'm the one who has to fill in the death forms – "
"You liar, I'm the one who has to do that – "
"I'm the one who has to sign the death forms, as well as the one who has to hand them in and report to Dickless. I haven't lost an agent in a while, last I remember, a visit to the family for condolences was also in order. For those who have families anyway. Those are always…odd." Sai frowned, a strange expression that usually indicated his discomfort and his confusion. He'd been getting better, still awkward, still a bit too abrupt and straight forward, but he had a better handle on understanding feelings, and sometimes, even feeling them. Sakura had known she'd done right by punching him in the face all those years ago. Sakura's punches were an education all on their own. "Then there are funerals – "
"Wow, I thought it was amazing how I could make their deaths all about me, but you're doing the exact same thing."
"They were good men."
Good meat for the village. Sakura rolled her shoulders and carefully cracked her neck, not into reviewing Konoha's ethical policies again, it was a ninja village and shadiness was part and parcel of the entire matter. Sasuke. He was going to be back in a month, maybe two – they never really knew with these things – Sakura was supposed to continue the process of signing over her citizenship. She was glad Sasuke was gone, if only so she could do the things she was more suited for politically, than he was.
She stared blearily at the clock hanging across from them. Late. She'd be able to squeeze in three hours of sleep.
"How's the spawn?"
"Healthy." Sai supplied.
Ino and Sai had, and occasionally still did have, a physical relationship. Though Sakura wasn't so sure she believed that that was all that it was, that things were nearly that neat.
Ino was the heir to her clan. She'd been determined that she would, at the proper time, have a child by someone who would understand that she was using them for the purpose of having one. She'd reasoned that she wanted strong genes from a skilled but clanless shinobi – in order to avoid the clan drama which normally stank of propertorial bullshit a la the Hyuuga, the Uchiha etc – so she'd browsed the ranks.
She found Sai. Nice bloodline limit, but one that wouldn't eradicate the one she wanted to pass on. Nice enough face. Nice bodaaaaaay, Sakura had been cringing for the rest of her life into eternity since the moment that word came out of Ino's mouth. Sai was also occasionally sweet when he wasn't being an emotionally incapable adult.
He was also good at following orders and also Ino, had reasoned, less likely to want to later go against whatever terms they'd agreed upon.
Ino had no interest in being some shinobi housewife and was still interested in pursuing a career unimpeded by the pressure a more conventional shinobi husband would have put on her to play her 'role' as a 'mother'. Sai had seen the logic of the arrangement. Ino wanted a child, Sai was not averse to having progeny at some point. Ino had asked him for help in the task. Sai would be allowed and even welcomed to perform paternal duties when he liked, but major decisions on the child's upbringing would dominantly be made by Ino, though Sai was free to offer conjecture should he so wish.
So, they'd banged. And they raised the kid. Sakura was really in no position to judge, given her extremely unconvential circumstances herself. So. Ino got pregnant, which worked well, since everybody was getting pregnant. Except Sakura. Which a lot of villagers seemed to note as suspicious but okay.
Sai lived in his own apartment and Ino and her spawn were comfortable in the Yamanaka compound. Sai came and went to contribute to his child's upbringing and was free to do so, though Ino had told him that if he did not wish to contribute she would be totally okay with that too. He could choose how involved he wanted to be. Sai chose to be involved.
It was…weird in its efficiency. Ino got to secure her own heir without the drama or trouble of enslaving herself to another shinobi's chauvanistic will, and Sai was shockingly, a good father when he did show up.
Sakura also knew the two still fucked occasionally. Sakura imagined having sex with Sasuke again and sort of frowned, feeling a little repulsive of the notion of adding that layer of complexity to her and Sasuke's perfectly fine relationship. Also Sasuke. Having sex. Sakura frowned deeply. Sasuke was mostly asexual, unless it came to Naruto, and you know, her – and other people he had strong emotional responses to. In the heat of that moment. Adding more physicality to their already happily platonic relationship seemed like an annoying inconvenience to her. Sasuke could lay pipe and everything, but Sakura had had better later too. Sakura felt kind of gross inside considering sex with Sasuke now. It was like having sex with Ino.
Like, Ino was hot and everything so it wasn't that absurd, but like. Why would Sakura want to have sex with Ino? It seemed kind of a needless complication. She wouldn't hate it if she had to, but like…she'd really rather not?
Sex and Sakura were a little more straightforward these days, which shocked her. When Sakura had an itch and she was in a situation where she could scratch it, she scratched it. That was literally it.
Ino was less – and good for her – discrete. More…voracious in appetite? Sakura stopped thinking it was slutty a long time ago. Something about growing the fuck up left her less inclined to slut shame people, unless you know, she was in a situation where she had to be petty. Sakura could be fucking petty sometimes, when she had to be.
Yeah, but Sai and Ino still fucked. Sakura was certain. Love or convenience, she wasn't sure. But it didn't seem to matter anyway? Things were good.
Sai smiled his flat dumb smile, Sakura had stopped needling him for it seeing as she was the Queen of Fake Smiles herself – Sai's lifeless smiles were a little more alive these days. They weren't normal, and they were still creepy as hell, but they were a hell lot more sincere in the sentiment even if it didn't fully come through, it was sincere in the very attemt at least, the sentiment present in the effort of the performance of it.
She held up a fist and tiredly punched his shoulder with it. "What."
"You need to sleep."
"I do."
"I don't think there's enough sleep in the world to rectify your looks," Sai continued with almost a feeling of paternal concern, "but I do know cutting back on the sleep you need to function isn't helping the state of things."
"Hey, ever thought of investing in a wardrobe that actually covers your unsightly midriff?"
"My midriff is one of my more attractive areas, it has proved an asset in several field obligat-"
"Ew, shut up. I'm gonna swap that for a different dig that's less fucking gross and ask. Is it a genetic thing, your inability to get a tan?"
"I wouldn't know, considering I'm a nameless, clanless orphan raised among other clanless, nameless orphans."
"Yeah, or made in like a test-tube probably."
"Probably."
She punched him again. Ugh. He won the pity game again. Sakura grinned, rueful and tired and shoved at him. "Okay, fine, you idiot."
He smiles blandly. Sakura wants to punch him again. It's honestly so – when she'd seen him on her table she'd cursed, her heart struck at the sight on him, racing. Her teammate. Her friend. She'd fixed it. He was alive, here with her. Being an asshole. But alive. And the relief feels almost pulpy at the bottom of her throat, it's just good to see that she'd been able to intercede in time. That it hadn't been too late.
Sakura was always a little too late.
"Until next time, Ugly."
If Sakura never saw Sai on her table again it'd be too soon.
Sakura rolled her eyes so far into the back of her head she almost pierced the veil of time and space to jump back a hundred years. If she jumped back a hundred years she could at least fuck somebody important like...the first Hokage. What kind of bragging rights would be due to Sakura then. Damn, Ino-pig would be both bitter and impressed. It was a thought that could keep Sakura warm for the rest of her days.
Sai rose and began to walk away. His pasty ass on display as the hospital gown flapped behind him. Sakura counted as she usually had a thousand times before. It was impressive that she reached five before Sai keeled over and collapsed.
The nurses shrieked and rushed forward.
Sakura rubbed at her eyes. Maybe an hour? Yep. She rose, and made her tired way to her prone teammate. She'd be able to squeeze in an hour of sleep.
Once, a while ago, she found Sasuke sorting rubble on the kitchen island.
Sakura was no stranger to blood on the floor, dirty kunais and the occasional smear of guts Sasuke tended to leave behind, but when he did leave such things behind he normally did it when he was too beat up to put his guts back into his stomach let alone worry about the mess he was making on her precious pinewood floors. So she excused it, in like, special circumstances.
"I hope that's more important than being attached to your spine," Sakura sang with homicidal sweetness.
Sasuke acknowledged her presence with a grunt.
Sakura frowned and tiptoed up next to him. Peering at the debris, scattered among chunks of old brick and flaking cement Sakura saw scrolls in states of disrepair, their edges blackened but only just. Like something that had barely been saved from the fire. On their sides she could make out the uchiha clan insignia, half torn, like an apple with a chunk ripped out.
Sasuke shook his head, puffing out a breath. "It doesn't make sense."
"Clan?"
"Clearing the place out has meant excavating a few hiding places." Sasuke explained quietly, not taking his eyes off his findings. "None of it means anything anymore, I can't trust anything that remains. Everything they don't want anyone to find was destroyed ages ago."
Nothing good came from the airing out of secrets. Especially Uchiha ones.
Sasuke glanced once at her. "It just…doesn't make sense." He stared straight ahead again, his jaw ticking. "The coup, even if the clan…even if they wanted to throw a coup…what - it doesn't make sense to me. What did they want? To make Hokage? What did they want, the pride? Power? Konoha's resources, wealth? I've been searching for correspondence between clan members, I've been looking for anything documented that could have pointed out to exactly what they wanted apart from what my father apparently wanted, and I'm drawing up blanks. And even then…there were children, the elderly, even if there were plans for a hostile takeover, what exactly could have justified each of them getting brutally murdered? Was all the clan in agreement? In these situations one expects there to be discourse, discussions, some evidence of a future plan or some sign of internal struggle – did everyone in the clan agree to the coup, or was it central and secret to the clan elders? I don't think everyone knew about it because it's an entire clan of people, not everyone is going to be in agreement. No matter our mistreatment, the bias – the Uchiha were not a hive mind. And what would they achieve by doing away with every clan in some bizarre genocidal coup, a village's power and might relies on not alienating numerous clans but earning their fealty, what might would a village have if it was made only entirely of Uchiha? Is that really what anyone wanted? With these sorts of things there's always a sign of some sort of discussion, evidence of the differing viewpoints within the clan, who agreed, who disagreed. I just can't find anything about it."
Sakura watched her teammate struggle, watched him tear his hand through his hair in an uncharacteristic show of frustration. The rubble before them, the dirty kitchen table – Sakura could only really pay attention to the fine lines suggesting themselves on Sasuke's skin and know that in a few years his age would begin to show. Then again, Sasuke had always been so much older after what had happened with the clan – but in some ways, and abundant in the stupidity of the many things he and Naruto got up to with their Eternal Rivalry™ from the early days, he'd also been so, so young. Just a boy.
He was still just a boy now. Still in many ways. Coming to terms with his history and grasping, tentatively, like he thought it might escape him, a future that wouldn't be dragged back by it.
"I lived in the clan haunts for years after massacre, they'd already confiscated anything of value of course, but something of this enormity, there's always hints left behind. An angry letter here, a fracture – but there's nothing. Just bloodstains. Just more secrets. I can't even trust the secret vault beneath our dojo because Danzo obviously had the means to read what was not meant to him, to perhaps manipulate any truth that might have been allowed to me."
"Itachi didn't want you to know about the coup," Sakura suggested, already supplying him alternatives. Already thinking through the entire thing with him. "It's possible that he had already destroyed all evidence…"
"I considered that and…it just…the massacre meant blood pooling so vast, I couldn't get the stain out of the grain in the family dojo. All great crimes leave their marks, Sakura, everywhere. As astute as Itachi was, I don't believe he could account for everything."
"What are you trying to say?"
"I'm trying to find evidence of a coup."
"And...you can't find it."
"Exactly."
"Danzo – " at the flash of Sasuke's eyes, Sakura began more carefully. "as much of a psycho as he was, genocidal fuckery aside, according to shishou he was always more motivated by good intentions rather than…fuck."
"What?"
"Sharingan collector. Vested interest. He still had the village at heart, but still."
Sasuke's eyes shut, he let out a bitter exhale. "Itachi listened to him."
"Itachi was a thirteen year old boy. I know he was a genius, but anyone's susceptible to a little influence, especially from that kind of authority."
"Danzo," Sasuke's teeth grit. "If I could go back, I'd do it so I could kill him a thousand times over."
"You don't want to hear what I'd do if I could go back," Sakura said, "But it's a hell of a lot more interesting than spending time with wrinkly old Danzo." She skewed a smile in his direction but Sasuke was too embroiled in another one of his murderous daydreams to properly appreciate her tactless attempts at levity. "No one knew about the coup outside of the authorities involved, everyone suspected the Uchiha were full of unrest and resentment over their situation – but no one suspected a coup. Danzo might have wanted to keep it that way. Otherwise anyone would be able to have made the connection between the massacre and a halted coup, and it would not improve the Hokage's standing with other council members if they knew how easy it was to make the secret executive orders required to wipe out an entire clan. The Hyuugas, the Naras, all the clan heads who bank on their positions, their airs wouldn't mean a damn thing, they'd realize in the great scheme of things that none of their airs ever did– they'd feel a lot less confident in their leadership of the Hokage if they knew how easily one of their own was done away with. Danzo couldn't leave any evidence linking the massacre to the coup. Maybe he destroyed everything."
"And still, no one knows."
"It wouldn't help the village if they did."
"Glad to know that the murder of an entire clan might be a diplomatic inconvenience." Sasuke spat, sharp with sarcasm.
Sakura fastened her lips together. That wasn't what she meant. Sasuke knew that that wasn't what she meant, she let him work through his bitter reflections because he was entitled to them. Slowly, she lay a hand between his shoulder blades. A light, barely present point of contact.
Sasuke's body tensed, ramrod. Every muscle locked. Her hand rose and fell with his jagged breathing. One sharp inhale, a shuddering exhale. Two. Three.
On the fourth the tenseness bled from him as he forced himself to put his body at ease. Sakura kept her hand on him until she was sure he was there. She waited until she was sure he was more okay before she rubbed a single glowing circle into his shoulder and dropped her arm.
She thought Sasuke's grunt might have been a 'thank you'. Begdrudgingly grateful of the slight dose of medical chakra that she'd entered into his system as a soothing agent, quickly targeting the muscles he'd bruised from his last training session.
Nobody knew. The Hokage couldn't afford them to. They couldn't be allowed to realize that the power they hefted around was in the grandscheme of things easily only an illusion of power. Naruto needed the clan leaders to believe that they still held complete sway, that they had weight to throw around, if they knew how easily they could be destroyed, and had been – as with the Uchiha – in the past… none of them would have the security or confidence in his leadership. And whatever tenuous ties that held the village together would snap. The clans could not be united under a leader who let them believe they had great influence and sway over the village decisions when this was merely an illusion cultivated to keep the peace. It'd be civil unrest, and soon, a civil war.
If anyone believed it.
Sakura let out a short sigh. Suspicion still clung to the Uchiha name, the infamous clan of two, or three – if Sakura bothered to consider the legalities of it, since she was Sasuke's partner in parenting or whatever. With or without a marriage license.
People still shuddered away from Sasuke, wary. Watching his every move in the street and speaking carefully when spoken to as if they were afraid that he'd snap into a murderous rampage at the wrong word. Sasuke bore this scrutiny and his infamy with very much the same attitude he'd born his unasked for fame when the hollo polloi's held weird cult-like admiration of him as a twelve year old. Which was that he did not acknowledge it. But she could tell he noticed. The bunch of his shoulders whenever a whisper came too sharp or too close, as if it took everything in his blood not to rip back to the gossipers and scream the truth in their faces.
And what use was the truth? The Uchiha clan while feared in the past had only become a point of vague sympathy in the village once eliminated. People had at least felt a little sorry for them, in a mildly nostalgic way, remembering that the streets where the clan's houses were situated used to be, which had been filled with dark haired children and the old lady Orihime who used to sell the best mochi in Konoha.
No one wold think so nicely of old lady Orihime if they knew that not only had the Uchiha already performed the initial indiscretion of consecutively siring several murderous psychopaths, but that they had been planning a coup? Whatever last shred of kinship the village might have expressed for the terrible loss would have disappeared entirely.
What would the truth help? The Uchiha clan would no longer be tragic martyrs but vile conspirators, Uchiha Itachi would be a child soldier manipulated by his betters. They would know what they hadn't before, that the feared Uchiha Itachi had been a double agent primary in Konoha's gathering of intel on Akatsuki. That Uchiha Itachi had been a hero. And for what? For a system they could no longer trust? For a Hokage and leaders who instead of lifting their hand to save and soothe a clan had raised it to squash the Uchiha further into degradation with their stinginess on giving promotions to their shinobi or attempting at all to end the institutionalized oppression that had kept pushing the Uchiha back into a place where it could only behave like an animal that had suddenly realized it had been cornered? For a Hokage that could destroy a clan in one night, with a single order. That could raise the village on a lie.
They would finally know why Sasuke had still turned against the village after his brother's death, that it wasn't because he'd finally seen light under the ugly ambitions of the Sannin he'd trained under or because of a thirst for power, but because of the truth that they would rather not know.
Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Sasuke's black reputation would not suddenly be lifted, become clean and perfect, no one would rush into the streets and suddenly love them for their tormented histories. Itachi's sacrifice, should it be known…it was too late to secure proper vindication. It would do more harm than good.
The truth might have mattered had it been revealed at the earliest time after the war. But Naruto was not in office then. Tsunade-shishou had been careful but intent on advising Kakashi that he should handle the matter carefully when the daimyo chose him to take over her position. She passed her hat over but had pressed the importance of Kakashi actually handling it at some point. Fearful of sparking more controversy after a tenuous peace had been achieved with the other shinobi nations. In the wake of the war, she was hesitant to throw more scandal Konoha's way, when Konoha was still too weak, too busy rebuilding to drudge up the ugly secret. The nations were at peace then, but it could quickly turn ugly, peace was never a permanent thing among the shinobi, great war or not. Tsunade would not allow Konoha to come under fire again for more bodies buried beneath the floorboards and the international shit stirring war criminals they tended to spawn in time to implicate the village in the next war and – and shishou would have none of that shit, especially not in the initial year or two which would be so integral to deciding whether Konoha could fully recover.
It was too weak to face that kind of heat or to give further weakness to exploit. Shishou wouldn't have it when Konoha was still trying to pick itself up. Clan leaders and the kages of the world had been at the time, living that brief period of post-war peace high that allowed all of them to be more cooperative towards one another. Finding out that a kage could destroy an entire clan by his word alone, in a single night, abusing the authority granted him by the daimyo and using tax-dollar resources towards the slaughter as well as the staging an entire cover-up…no one would feel too hot about the current leadership or very nice about listening to it. Tsunade-shishou had still needed them to cooperate; she wasn't exactly operating from a position of strength, with a Konoha that was more rubble than forest and all. So newborn, so capable of being fully destroyed once more. It was too delicate a situation to even think about bringing up the Uchiha massacre. Not that early.
And Kakashi? Sakura couldn't adequately say what his reasoning and motivations were other than keeping peace, locked out of government workings as she'd been – he'd kept mum too.
By the time Naruto had been sworn in the secret was too heavy. Even Naruto's village hero status would make handling the situation awkward at best, horrifically dangerous at worst. His credibility aside, there were many players who'd take the opportunity to drag the fuck out of Konoha should the moment arise. A secret like that would create an opening that the clans – who despite their civil compliance to the current authority would always be power hungry political motherfuckers at heart – would be loathe not to properly exploit. Naruto did not speak it.
"He promised," Sasuke said in a whisper Sakura could barely hear. "He promised he'd fix it."
And even later when she'd put a lot of her grief at Naruto's feet, she'd still realize that Naruto couldn't fix everything. It wasn't really his fault. The bullheaded honesty he'd employed in his youth would do more harm than good in the political arena. She understood why he wouldn't reveal the truth of the Uchiha massacre but it didn't mean it couldn't still grieve her. He'd learnt a lot at Kakashi's side, that ultimately the village came before his teammate's own personal grievances, no matter how terrible it was. Would you really have done any differently, Sakura?
"Naruto needs a little time."
She'd still been making excuses for him. Even after he'd shown no inclination to ban the Hyuuga's beastly bird cage seal practices.
Tenten's little weapon's shop was already up and running, booming business. Outwardly Tenten's resignation from active duty didn't seem to faze the kunoichi in the least. The matter of her refusing the invitation to ANBU had been a private one, it wasn't too lethal a security breach considering that Naruto had allowed his sometime chuunin aide to remain present. The chuunin, some Konohamaru-looking motherfucker had heartily sworn to secrecy despite no one demanding it of him, which of course meant that within three hours the whole shinobi populace knew about Tenten's crisp workplace-politics-equivalent of 'Fuck You.'
Tenten had been formally called to the Hokage's office, the invitation had been made. Her response was a curt, rather quietly adamant, if succinct single utterance of 'No'.
Sakura had thought that she couldn't be more impressed with Tenten than she already was, but the damn girl's badass streak never ended. Girl had guts and the vicious integrity to go with those guts.
Tenten never spoke about it but she also made no effort to put the talk at bay by pretending the rumours were only rumours. Hers was an act of defiance, enforced. It was also obvious to anyone who was smart enough to look at the situation analytically that this was a rather sharp jab at the Hokage. It was as obvious as if Tenten had walked up to Naruto in the street in broad daylight and spat at the ground between them.
He had not honoured her dead and she would not honour him, neither would she accept his warm regard nor esteem beyond what was required of her loyalty as a citizen. Should he make an order, she would obey. But she would dare him to first. To punctuate his audacity further by calling on her service in ANBU? They were few things Tenten was unable to forgive, and this she could not.
Tenten was ever respectful but with all her respect and civility there was underlying bolt of rage, shot through her metal core like a line of red hot lava, eternally alive. A scathingly lack of remorse for her scorn.
That was of course, if anyone bothered to be analytical about the situation. The villagers – who were pleasantly unaware about the military structures, power struggles and intrigue that marked the more distinguished of the shinobi classes – and most of the average shinobi populace who were usually unconcerned with village machinations apart from knowing and following their orders – would only see a war exhausted kunoichi who was putting away her tools so others could use them, focusing on her business, and fishing for someone to start a family with.
Which was a belief that became increasingly more hilarious over the years as Tenten showed zero interest in pursuing long-term commitments to the men and women she let into her life. She seemed just as vaguely devoted to the same scandalous spinsterhood that marked Sakura's own life. Both were childless, husbandless. But while Tenten let the odd hottie crawl into her bed, Sakura's reputation was far more deliciously depraved to the villagers.
Shacked up with the Uchiha but not even legally married? The lack of fidelity showcased by the fact that Sakura sometimes had sex with other people meant they'd accumulated a fair share of hilariously misplaced 'swingers' rumours to the mill.
Sakura had long overused her instinctive rolling of the eyes and now barely even noticed the things people said. People were always talking shit. She often thought that her and Sasuke's relationship mirrored a relationship between two ancient gay men. If the men were in their 90's and too old to get it up and rather exhausted with the idea of mingling in quite that way with each other. Okay, that wasn't that great an analogy? But. Their arrangement was refreshingly sexless. However, explaining the finer points of this to an extremely traditional populace was kind of an exercise in futility, also Sakura had no interest in explaining herself to anyone. Gone were the fucking days.
People were always going to talk shit. They tittered about how the Fifth's apprentice could saddle herself with the Uchiha and spoke pitifully about her childhood infatuation which Sakura had had to come to terms that it was something she would always be known for, that for all the suggested sexual depravation their rumoured romantic relationship might contain wasn't it terribly sad that that Sakura seemed so barren?
Which. Like. Sarada was perfect and all, the light of Sakura's life really, but Sakura was just as interested in utilizing her biological parts to bringing a baby into the world as she was in skewering ice picks through her eye holes. At least, right now. Who knew in the next one hundred years? She was flexible.
Sasuke was apparently too, in the rumours, one armed or not. No matter how much he frightened them the people couldn't help but speculate that he'd learned a thing or two under Orochimaru. That one…well if Sakura was quite honest she couldn't really blame them for that one. Orochimaru and all the other people Sasuke had associated with in his illustrious career as badly dressed nuke nin, looked like a sexual deviant.
So Sakura would give them that one. Mostly because it was funny as fuck and the giggles kept her warm in the cold nights she would have otherwise spent being a Petty Little Bitch. God, she was so petty sometimes. She couldn't help it. She had to combat it somehow.
People couldn't seem to wrap their minds around their little household arrangement. But for all their gossip, the villagers still respected the fuck out of Tsunade's little apprentice who'd bloomed into such a wonderful medic nin, regrettable (alleged) taste in nuke nins aside.
She'd heard a few Sakura-sama's here and there, and a few cringeworthy Hime's. God. Sakura only took that Hime shit from the daimyo because he was big on that stuff and she couldn't hit him without five hundred motherfuckers stepping in to break her arm, but okay.
Also? She kept in his good graces because foul mouthed or not, Sakura was a Nice Person. Or. You know, was Polite to Her Authority Figures, key political players she could still hope to build rapport with and her elders –
Most of her elders? Except Kakashi.
Kakashi didn't count. Sakura didn't know when exactly her disappointment in Kakashi grew into fullblown lack of confidence in his abilities and an absolute inability to be impressed with anything he di– Wait. She did.
Maybe it was when he basically fucking sacked her so she couldn't continue her duties in the Hokage tower for no fucking reason. Like she'd even want to type his fucking emails in the first place or something, Sakura would have been doing him a favour. The asshole. Since then, she'd harboured a strong, enduring sense of skepticism with Kakashi that sometimes was manifestly expressed. But sure. She was the bitter bitch. Fine. Whatfuckingever.
Anyway, staying in the daimyo's good graces by attending to his gout once in a while didn't hurt. Also Sakura was okay with taking compliments from old men as long as they weren't pawing at her. She wasn't afraid to curbstomp an old man if he was being grabby. However, like Sasuke, the daimyo didn't particularly strike her as a hetrosexual either. For all his courtly floweriness, he seemed to respect her enough not to go beyond cheesy compliments and thusly kept his hands to himself.
His son, Hikaru however, was a slimy motherfucker Sakura avoided. He would have been handsome had it not been for his eyes, the shape of them round but sharp, lean and lithe and shrewd where his father was comfortingly huge and boisterous and much more easily charmed. He too kept his hands to himselves, but he tended to show up during her sessions with his father and watch Sakura like she was some ugly ho who was there put her hand down his father's pants to achieve some sort of political favour. Like Sakura needed to touch anyone's junk to suck up and get her favours. What kind of amateur did he think she was?
If he thought you were an amateur he wouldn't watch you so closely.
But he kept his hands to himself. He bowed in his golden robes, a princely snake. He kept his hands to himself, like his father.
A relief. Sakura would have hated having to deal with the political fallout guaranteed in any scenario that involved the curbstomping of daimyos. It would suck. She'd have to do it on principle anyway. But it wouldn't have been pretty if he'd ever made it necessary. Sakura was all about her (admittedly few) principles. If she'd gotta, she'd gotta. Thems the rules.
The daimyo was all about young, pale court attendants. So it was good Sakura had coordinated her entire arrangement with the daimyo in such a way as to make sure that Sasuke stayed the fuck away, novelty that he was to the daimyo. Because Sakura knew her restrain in curbstomping individuals far outstripped Sasuke's. Sasuke would curbstomp a motherfucking god and give absolutely no fucks. It was better this way. Sakura would rather keep Sasuke on another planet if it would keep him any further away from the daimyo. If it was possible. Because curbstomping, while securing immediate satisfaction, was not good long term. Not at all.
It was nice still being esteemed and she knew that it was largely the village population's lingering esteem for her that kept them from being more openly hostile with Sarada. She was Tsunade's apprentice, she'd faced off Aksuna no Sasori and won (though people seemed to conveniently forget that she'd had help. Like. Badass Heavylifter motherfucking Old Lady Chiyo. The old bat would win any fight even if she was partnered with like a baby or something. Sakura couldn't take too much of the credit), she'd saved the Kazekage (again, she'd had help), punched out a goddess (which was basically the extent of her lousy contribution to that fight, she had to be honest), was a war hero (that was true) and she'd kept their golden wonderboy Hokage alive by literally pumping his heart herself.
She was a kunoichi with a good record politically, having accompanied the Hokage to meetings and attended to several political, economic and council matters, an accomplished medic nin, was a daimyo's favourite – she'd been gifted land – like? If someone had told a Twelve Year Old Sakura that she'd ever manage to get this far…well, scratch that. Twelve Year Old Sakura? Twelve Year Old Sakura would have demanded to know if she was fucking Uchiha Sasuke or nah. So. Twelve Year Old Sakura was a dumbass.
No mistake, Sakura was ashamed of a lot of the shit she did at that age, but she could never bring herself to pretend she could erase the person that she'd been. She owned it, or tried to while battling the great toxic hatred she held for herself and the insecurities she'd still carried over into her adult life. As much as she still hated herself and especially who she'd been then, she still held a sort of bruised tenderness for that girl. That was her. It was always going to be her.
So Sakura's reputation helped. Not that Sarada was treated terribly per se…anyone would rue the day they dared show violence or open hostility to Sakura's declared kin. She'd known her reputation for pummelling people into the nearest mountain range would come in handy. So no one dared treat Sarada in much the same way Sakura feared they would - …or as they had Naruto.
But they were suspicious of her, wary, exclusionary in their small little ways. There were many birthdays she wasn't invited to and a few groups on the playground were gossipy mean spirited bitches whose herds immediately dissolved should it look like Sarada wanted to approach to be amiable or engage at all. Sarada didn't say anything and outwardly it didn't seem to bother her, but Sakura had seen the resentful glares she'd thrown Boruto who had no problem securing a posse of friends at any time. Sarada thought Boruto was ungrateful and stupid. Boruto returned the feeling with a petty-ass fervour that had Sakura blithely wondering if he could be her own child because she was the pettiest person she knew obviously he didn't inherit it from any of his parents; his jealousy and bitterness were a hell of a lot more apparent. He wasn't a bad kid but he acted like Sarada had done him some eternal wrong. Sarada mostly ignored him, as Sasuke had Naruto, and once in a while answered as infuritatingly as Sasuke would have with Naruto in their gennin days. He did get under her skin, whether he knew it or not.
Sarada had few friends outside of the Rookie Nine's combined spawn and even of those she was mostly close to Chouji's freaking adorable daughter – like seriously, if Sakura had a damn artistic bone in her body she might commit sonnets to how cute that kid was. Like Diaper Commercial cute.
So apart from Chouji's kid and the ShikamaruxTemari DNA blend of cutting genius that was Shikada, Sarada didn't really…hit it off with anyone else. Even with them she had a hard time opening up, so 'hitting it off' was a hesitantly applied term at best. Uchiha standoffishness was obviously a genetic thing.
Sarada was usually alone on the playground, having different break times and class schedules than with those she might have been more comfortable with. Distanced already by her Uchiha name from the rest of her peers, and also by the talent and quickly apparent skill that launched her into Child Prodigy status which, if Sakura remembered, unless your entire family was recently tragically murdered didn't harbour you as much sympathy or admiration as initially thought.
Sarada was also Sasuke's kid, raised on his complicated high level techniques as well as his rigorous and disciplined training routines. This matched with Sakura's own tutoring meant that together they had raised a disgustingly proficient child who far outstripped most of her class.
Which of course bred the usual resentment. Boruto obviously played the Naruto character as his father had in this continuing saga as Sarada's vocally butthurt Eternal Rival™ counterpart.
Sakura had tried fostering a more positive relationship between the two, with absolutely little of Hinata's entirely half-hearted help. Sakura never hit her kid (outside the training field, they were like. Ninjas. Duh) but even she'd caught some hands a few times growing up, which she was eternally grateful to her mother for. Sakura could have seen herself becoming even more of an embarrassing brat otherwise. So if you needed to hit your kid…like…try it? At least once? Spank him?
She tried to imagine Hinata. Smacking Boruto. Boruto who she let jump out of windows during family dinners. Yeah. Okay, sure. Sakura's powers of imagination did not extend that far.
Sakura was personally sick of the rivalry theme that seemed to strike through most of their lives. That shit was old, ugly, and it needed its toxicity levels controlled because Sakura was not interested in another overblown rivalry turning into another overblown war. Fuck that noise.
Boruto was a pain in the ass. She understood why – a desperate cry for attention, daddy issues etcetera etcetera whatever. She understood why and internally, forcefully reminded herself of the reasons whenever the little tyke was being a spiteful little shit so Sakura could preferably approach their continuous conflicts sympathetically and constructively instead of you know. Giving in to her violent instincts and pummelling a minor through the nearest mountain range.
Hinata, bless her soul, was a Good Woman…Sakura, as a Nice Person had to remind herself to control the brief (extended) bouts of pettiness that plagued her (eternally) once in a while. Hinata, the Good Woman, didn't properly assert herself with her children as often as she should have. She seemed to coddle them and was either largely ignorant or incapable of controlling their behaviour. Naruto, busy busy Naruto, was never really there, Sakura gathered. So she couldn't really blame Hinata, parenting was a two people thing, a partnership, what the hell was Hinata supposed to do when one half of her support and authority over her children was never there to assist her in parenting?
When Naruto was there he could be impatient and even aggressive with Boruto, as if he was at odds with how to behave. While Sakura wished Hinata would hit Boruto like even once, she wished Naruto would stop hitting him. She knew he loved his children and that he had it easy with Himawari because she was a precious baby who troubled no one, but Naruto seemed boggled and bogglingly inept when it came to controlling Boruto's acts of deviance and angsty disruptive outbursts. Dude hadn't even hit puberty and was already well into that unhealthy wallowing sulkiness usually associated with Uchihas, in Sakura's experience anyway.
Boruto's open disrespect was met with immediate reprimand, which did nothing to help matters as Boruto became even more set on his uselessly awful attitude and authority complex.
He was a troubled kid. Sakura could sympathise. More so when she was far, far away, so that the boy wasn't testing her patience with present immediacy. Naruto wasn't a bad parent, he did try, but the matter remained that he wasn't there when he should have been.
Sasuke was out of the village for long periods of time but he wasn't faced with half the resentment from Sarada that Boruto reserved for his own father. Sakura usually had to put up with Sarada's passive aggressiveness when she was wallowing, but over the years that wasn't as often as she'd thought it would be. Sakura had grown up pining after Uchiha fucking Sasuke, passive aggressiveness from Uchihas didn't even phase her anymore.
Sarada learnt to stop sulking. Sasuke always came back. Sarada made it count when he did. Sakura wasn't sure she could take complete credit for Sarada being emotionally more mature in that area, maybe that was all Sarada herself. But. She was allowed to once in a while be proud that she hadn't absolutely fucked up raising the girl, so far. She was allowed.
Naruto was Hokage. While Sasuke left the village on missions which were as shady as they were integral to the village's well-being and success, Naruto's duty to the village was a thing so huge, so all encompassing…Sakura could understand why Boruto might behave the way he did. Naruto didn't mean to make his son feel second to the village, and Sakura knew Naruto didn't feel that way about his family, but at that age a child will process a lot of things in a lot of different, less than rational ways.
Boruto treated Naruto the way he'd treat a deadbeat dad who'd started a family with someone else, he was jealous, angry and always insecure. He hated it when people praised his father and asked him if he felt lucky to be the Hokage's kid. He was very vocal about calling Naruto a Shitty Old Man.
Sakura had gone to see Naruto that fateful night, after dragging Boruto to his mother's. He'd made vividly imaginative, but ultimately unflattering adjustments to the Hokage monument by grapheeting the entire mountainface. Sakura, still in her labcoat, exhausted and irritated that her journey home had been interrupted by her having to discipline Naruto's often satanic spawn so that instead of going home to face plant into the couch where she'd collapse, too tired to make it even to her bed like she'd initially planned – Sakura was now instead going to see Naruto. That long lost stranger. About his dumbass kid. She'd had to speak to him at some point about Boruto's consistently terrible behaviour, why not then, with a haul of six spray paint cans and a tub or two of acrylics in a crate she balanced against her hip.
She'd found Naruto pouring over scrolls, embroiled in the paperwork that had been Tsunade's bane. Having been inured to her shishou's traumas with paperwork Sakura could sympathise and she could also enforce a much needed interruption.
The special jounin who'd guarded the door had been unfamiliar to her, she'd felt a pang of sadness, remembering Izumo and Kotetsu who'd always played (largely useless) bouncers letting any odd person – Naruto – storm in to bother the Hokage.
She'd ragged on them a few times because if they couldn't control when the next time would be that Naruto would have another emotional revelation then they very well had to control when he could come and create a disruption with it. It was the damn Hokage's office, not a fishmarket.
The two would usually reply with a quick, cheery apology and sideline Sakura's fuming with juicy gossip. It was mostly effective. They were also not above moaning after Shizune for aid when Sakura's wrath could not be tamed with details about this love affair or that rivalry, Shizune-neeeee they'd whine and go on to claim that Sakura-chan was bullying them.
She'd felt a grin tug at her mouth as she'd approached the door to the office, idiots. She still saw them around once in a while, if infrequently, and they seemed to be taking it easy. She'd chatted with Izumo a few weeks ago when she'd bumped into him at the fruit sellers, and they'd caught up quickly. He was planning on looking into 'this whole sensei thing'. Good for him. Don't Kakashi it, she'd told him with false-graveness. He'd barked out a sharp laugh before poorly squashing his mirth and telling her she was mean. Damn straight she was mean, Sakura had pinched him so he would remember it for the next month.
She missed them. Which was kind of a useless feeling. Sakura wished she'd stop feeling a lot of the useless things she felt.
The two guards at the door had not stopped her beyond curtly demanding her reason for visiting without appointment. Sakura had pointed to the crate balanced on her hip and also curtly told them she was here on disciplinary business.
For a second or two it seemed they would deny her entry. Sakura waited. Raised her brow in prompt. Which had several interpretations, most useful and most often, as a light enough if rather vague suggestion preluding her near legendary violence. A beat later they crisply stepped aside to let her through.
She'd felt their suspicion. She wasn't exactly a desirable. None of Naruto's old teammates were, really. It wasn't that they came around that often either to be expected visitors who could come and go as they pleased anyway.
The two guards…they might have worn ANBU masks, but those things didn't fool anyone. Sakura, a veteran of seeing about every body living or dead (and naked or near naked) from every clan in Konoha on her operating table was well acquainted with the markers of each. Not that the long flowy hair the masked kunoichi and the shinobi sported was exactly subtle. Hyuuga clan. But the lean musculature, the shape of their hands. Sakura always knew.
She'd waved away the feeling of unease, that Naruto surrounded himself with the Hyuuga to this extent. Inside, she was already nervous as it was. She hadn't seen Naruto in a long time. She hadn't sought him out in even longer. She'd realized too, that as much as she'd pretended to be incredibly inconvenienced by Boruto's hijinks and motivated by good will, she'd also snatched at the opportunity to seek her teammate out. It was desperate. It was stupid. If Sakura dwelt on it any further she'd work herself up into making even more of a fool of herself. So she'd barrelled through to see Naruto, working away.
Sakura sympathised, and enforced the much needed interruption shishou was usually grateful for in the old days. She dumped the crate on top of the official documents and Naruto literally squawked, alarmed that she'd possibly ruined his papers. He looked up at her with indignation, ready to turn red with anger and instead blinked quickly, mouth hanging open to air his several complaints. He hung. "…Sakura-chan?"
He hadn't even noticed her coming in. That was some serious focus. Worrying, actually.
Sakura had quickly noticed the rest of him. The tiredness around his eyes, how his mouth had been frowning hard over his work. His hat was aside of him, his cropped hair messy would soon need a little cutting again. It never got as long as it used to in the past. The buzzcut endured. Sakura analysis was subtle, quick, professional. The buzzcut always made him look a lot older. She wasn't sure she'd ever like it.
Pushing aside her rather reductive observations which were helpful to literally no one ever, Sakura's face which had been a serious, flat mask, morphed around the mouth. She smiled, small but bright. "Hey."
Impressively, he only opened and closed his mouth in imitation of some sort of beached monk fish for like ten seconds. Before a hesitant grin began to grow on his face, adjusting to welcoming her. "Hey."
It was dumb. How she felt a little warm in the chest. She was still nervous, still a little scared, but Naruto – despite the distance, even when she knew she should be madder at him – she couldn't help it. As much as he sent her into such a state of confusion these days, she couldn't forget how readily he could make her smile all those years ago. At this point it was gut instinct to grin. Even in her unease. It was Naruto. It was always Naruto. A lot might change, but not the way he made her feel. Surely not that.
"Got a present for you," Sakura jerked her chin, talking with casual authority. "Don't worry, it's not a neatly packaged assassination attempt, thought Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum out there seemed hard pressed to inquire."
"Ah," Naruto straightened with exaggerated soberness, considering the crate as if he were readying to open an officially mailed parcel. Solicitous. "Wise that they desisted."
"Agreed."
Sakura's own exaggerated seriousness broke around another grin, it was alarming how easy it was. To talk to him. Like no time had passed. She watched him, her insides bruising at the sight, Naruto joking around with her. It shouldn't be this easy. It wasn't fair that they'd let it be this easy.
He rose and peered into the crate with the curiosity and suspicion of an art dealer valuing a piece. "Ah," he decided. "Boruto."
"That's it?" Sakura spluttered, "Ah, Boruto?"
Naruto's humour dissipated, the put on act halted so he could scrub a palm down his face. "Pretty much."
"Naruto – "
"Needs a good walloping, that dumbass."
She frowned, he just sounded so tired. "You did the same things when you were that age."
"I have also destroyed many a treeline," Naruto reminded her, "or you have. I was just the projectile, you were the fucking trebuchet," he laughed, remembering. "Sakura, when we were kids you were already changing the damn landscape even then. One of your punches would have done him good."
Sakura shifted a little on her feet. Eyes flickering away for a brief moment, she folded her arms. Holding herself a little defensively. As much as she saw the value of her reputation for hitting people, she was reminded by how it was sometimes uncomfortable remembering how much she used to hit Naruto. Naruto would always laugh about it, genuinely amused by it, but Sakura didn't feel so great about it being brought up. At least at fifteen she only hit Naruto when he really, really needed hitting. She was open to hitting him now, should it be required, but she'd rather not have to dwell on the dumb things she did as a petty – or more petty – brat.
"Didn't really help you." She muttered.
Naruto grinned again, ever grand with his compliments. "Sure it did."
Sakura tossed her head, rolling her eyes. "Look. Just look, there's like twelve different paints in there. Where does he even get this stuff? Wasn't there a village-wide ban on him being supplied by any retailer or market?"
"I don't know," Naruto hummed, folding his arms and considering the small collection on his table. "Could have employed genjutsu, could have stockpiled an entire building worth of this shit before the ban was announced. He's a sneaky bastard."
"He's yours, though."
"He had to get the other half of his good looks somewhere," Naruto said with fake humbleness. "Now, what was it this time. How phallic?"
"Pretty phallic." Sakura admitted. "Also, accompanied by text. Not very nice text."
Naruto nodded. "That's new. Okay. Fine. They're already cleaning up?"
"Yeah," she'd grabbed two other chuunin to supplement the three already distressedly using water jutsu to hose down the entire monument. "Should be done by now. Some of them seemed pretty used to this with how quickly they showed up."
"Huh. They are. Well, thanks, Sakura-chan."
"No problem."
"I usually hear this stuff about Boruto from the others. Not that I'm complaining that I get to see you today…"
Sakura's face heated, yeah. Of course. He was busy. She stammered, not liking how easy it was for her to fall into old habits where she always felt like defending or explaining herself. "I was on my way home. Earlier in the day than usual, considering that I pulled a longer shift. Caught him as he was running from a couple of chuunin."
He didn't seem as angry, but tired and fond, even if it frustrated him. "That's Boruto."
"Like father like son, I guess."
"I wouldn't get caught though, Sakura-chan."
"You liar," Sakura snorted, "I've seen Iruka-sensei beat your ass like four times."
"Yeah. But never a fifth time."
Sakura shrugged. Fair.
Naruto smiled, watching her over the crate. Sakura looked at the paint so she wouldn't have to concentrate on being visibly flustered by his focus. She wasn't flustered because of many of her (STUPID) unrequited feelings, but mostly because it'd been so long. It was weird to fall into this conversation pattern. It was even more awkward to arrive at its end.
The silence stretched, a comfortable, natural lull. Or it should have been. Sakura was too…overly aware of herself. Her messy hair, the pallour of her skin sickly from pulling such a long shift under the not-exactly-friendly hospital lighting. She was tired and it showed. A little worn. Not exactly her most presentable. A little haggard, even. Her hair a little lifeless, her lips dry. Slightly (very) dehydrated.
Naruto, tired as he was, still looked a lot more pristine.
What was she doing here? This was so stupid.
What was she even supposed to say to Naruto?
Where have you been all this time? See how easy this is? Why do you make me feel so awful for you not being there, and then you act so nice, like no time's passed? Like you haven't completely shut me out.
"Hey, Sakura-chan?" She almost jolted, Naruto's mouth twisted, a little concerned. "Don't worry about it."
"Naruto…" ugh. He just had to – she clawed her fingers into the base of her neck and jerked at the hair, her shoulders aching from an entire night of hunching over work. "You really gotta do something about him. It's not healthy."
She looked up to see his mouth on the brink of a scowl, he lifted a hand and traced the edge of the paint tub's lid. Distractedly, he repeated. "Don't worry about it, Sakura."
He'd dropped the suffix. Sakura rocked from one foot to the other, she stopped. Blew out a gust of air. "I'm not – I'm not trying to tell you how to do anything."
Then don't.
Naruto didn't move to say that, even if she'd already basically set it all up for him. He shrugged. "I know."
"It's just…Boruto's – "
"A dumbass," Naruto suggested wearily, "A deviant. A rascal. A damn nuisance?"
"He's your kid."
"…I know that."
"I know you don't really mean those things."
"I don't. Sometimes I do," Naruto sighed, "I'm kind of at the end of my rope with the kid. There's no getting through to him. I've…Sakura, I've tried. What else do I do? I know I'm too busy with my duties to give him the attention he needs, but he hates me using shadow-clones with him and when I do get time off he's still so bitter."
"You need to be around more often."
"I just don't get it. I grew up with no parents. I'd have killed to have even five minutes with my mom or dad, but Boruto…we're here. We're both kicking. We're both trying to raise him best as we can, and he acts like I'm a shit father. I never had a father."
"It's different," Sakura explained, a little uncomfortable with the subject matter but understanding it needed to be said. "You…you didn't grow up with them. I mean. My parents are still around and I can understand Boruto being bratty. My parents used to leave for ages on missions, accompanying merchants to Tea, ferrying cargo, you know…and when they'd come back, even if I missed them, there'd still be a part of me that resented that they'd leave me in the first place. I'd act out a little. I got used to it in time. But once you have your parents attention, going on without it, or with thinking that you're getting less of it than your peers get from their parents…it's not a great feeling. You have to understand where he's coming from."
"Fine," Naruto sighed, bereaved. "You tell me everything. If it doesn't work, then you punch him for me."
"I'm not going to punch your kid. Make no mistake, I'm often sorely tempted to, but I'm a Nice Person now."
"…You were always a nice person, Sakura-chan."
"Not very nice," Sakura amended, set. "But yeah. Put aside your paperwork for a bit?"
"For you?" Naruto had gestured expansively, and beamed that infectious grin again. "Any time."
