Note: Takes place when Sakura is a jounin and Naruto and Sasuke are her chuunin.
Warning: Allusions to that chapter. ALSO, BECAUSE OF THIS CHAPTER, I'M JUST GONNA GO AHEAD AND REMOVE "HUMOR" AS ONE OF MY GENRES.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto


iii. illusion


As the mission leader, the team medic, and the highest ranking person among the three of them, Sakura knows she has to put her own trauma aside and take care of her teammates. She heals Naruto first because he's still passed out. She channels her healing chakra into his head to ease whatever aches he must be feeling from the backlash of the genjutsu. Then she moves onto Sasuke and to do the same thing and check for any inconsistencies or changes that may have occurred.

Team Sakura's first mission is a success but it certainly does not feel like one.

"How are you doing?" Sakura asks, kneeling beside Sasuke.

She can't help but feel a twist in her heart at his distraught face. Sasuke has never been like his brother or father with their uncanny ability to conceal their emotions. Unlike the rest of his family, Sasuke wears his heart of his sleeve, whether he'll ever admit that or not. He's always smiling and laughing and enjoying himself, so it breaks something inside of Sakura to see him so utterly traumatized by what happened inside of that illusion.

"Sasuke?" she calls.

Finally, he looks up at her and mumbles that he's fine.

Sakura frowns but accepts the answer. She's sure that when Naruto wakes up, he won't be much better. "I'm just going to do a scan, okay?" she tells him.

He grabs her wrists and pulls her into his arms before she can do any healing.

She struggles at first, utterly uncomfortable tangled above him, but his grip only tightens, so she relents, sagging against him and ignoring how improper they must look. The fact that he isn't making any perverted remarks about their positions is what worries her. Rather than let his hands wander south, he holds her, pressing her body against his in a smothering embrace. She tries to shift a little bit but pauses when she feels his shoulders shaking and her shirt growing damp.

Sakura gently runs her fingers through his hair. "Sasuke—"

"I never would have done it!" he says desperately. He pulls back and her heart twists at the tears in his eyes. "That genjutsu… what you saw—what I did!" Sasuke shudders. "I swear, Sakura, I would never—"

"It's okay, Sasuke."

The man that was protecting the scroll the Yondaime wanted was a master of genjutsu. Team Sakura had made it very close to stealing their objective before they were hit by an illusion that threw them into a peculiar world paralleling their own. Sakura can't help but frown at the memory of her alternate self that kept following Sasuke around and asking him on dates, not at all training or taking her career as a kunoichi all too seriously – that is, not until Sasuke left the village. Time in genjutsu was always an odd thing. The last thing she saw was a much older Sasuke on a bridge with a girl at his feet bleeding to death. The last thing she felt was the cold kunai in her hand and her resolve to eliminate the threat in front of her almost non-existent.

That's when she broke out of the genjutsu.

Immediately, she killed the genjutsu specialist, releasing Naruto and Sasuke from the illusion minutes later.

"It's not okay!" he yells, gripping her shoulders and pushing her back. His Sharingan activates from the onslaught of emotions and she finally stands up lest she need to knock him out for his own good. He only follows her, standing and then beginning to pace. "You didn't see it! You got out of the illusion before I—" He cuts himself off and looks away. "I tried to kill you, Sakura," he whispers.

Sakura contains her look of surprise at the mere idea.

"I can still feel your fucking throat in my hand," Sasuke grinds out, glaring off to the side. "You were kicking and trying to hit me but it was useless. I had one hand choking the life out of you and the other charging up with a Chidori and I…" He crumples to his knees in front of her and looks oddly repentant. He rests his forehead against her stomach and wraps his arms around her.

"Sasuke…" Sakura puts her hands on him and channels her soothing chakra into him while thinking of how to reply to him.

"I would never hurt you," he says, staring up at her desperately. "I swear."

"I know."

Sasuke doesn't hear her. "I don't know what was wrong with that me and I don't care what world I'm in or how I grew up. I promise I would never try to kill you."

"I know."

"I'm so sorry—"

Sakura sighs and kneels down to join him. She wraps her arms around him in a comforting embrace and lets him sob against her. She whispers soothing words and rubs his back. She made it out of the genjutsu before the real trauma started, apparently, and she doesn't really know how to help him other than to be his rock. She tells him that it's okay every time he apologizes and he only grips her harder.

"You're…" He finally looks up and he smiles at her sadly. "You're everything."

She brings his face back down against her shoulder because she can't bear to see his tears. She strokes his hair and slowly begins to administer her chakra like a sedative to knock him out for his own sake.

"I know."