Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Status: Incomplete.
Summary: Sai lays there, unmoving and Haruno Sakura does not forgive them for it.
Before:
It is the genin that breaks her.
The fourth month on the battlefield begins on a dreary gray sky, the ash of war not having receded yet. The medics take their breaks by rushing around the camps, passing out fresh water bottles, blankets and rations to the survivors. The injured come in by the masses—broken bones, burns, acid, chicken wire, garrote—the wounds, fractures, traumas are endless.
Her face is stone, her hands steady. It's a miracle she hasn't crashed already, but the medics who have been lucky enough to catch a few blinks of sleep monitor her carefully, the most trained sensors flicking over her chakra every once in a while.
Sakura hasn't slept for forty eight hours when they bring the little girl to her.
She's just finished sewing up a dismembered leg, her chakra soothing away any chance for a scar when the exhausted medic-aides take patient four thousand and six to the shanty recovery ward and replace him with patient four thousand and seven.
Sakura blinks once, twice.
"What's this?" she hardly dares to breathe.
The medic-aide closest to her startles, having gotten used to the sobering silence. "Patient—"
"This is a child." Sakura whispers. Tears distort her vision. Her mouth begins to tremble and the surgical knife clacks hard against the stainless steel of the makeshift operating table.
The girl is brutalized. The skin of her throat is charred, burned away from fire jutsu and acid, and there is a suffocating rot that clogs the air. Her face is unrecognizable underneath the damage—nose bloated, eyes swollen, retaining water, lips bulging out. Her skin is a massive bruise; livid and angry against the pallor of her skin.
She's so small.
(Nine years old they tell her later, only nine, only nine, only nine—what was she doing—)
"A child." She whispers again.
"Sakura-sama…" the medic-aide across from her begins, voice soft, "…this is a ninja."
"No." She shakes her head. Her lungs squeeze, throat closing around the words that rise up against her tongue and—and she can't breathe—
This is a baby, a baby, a baby—a baby.
Her hands begin to tremble and her composure cracks—she thinks of screaming and begging and sobbing—of falling asleep next to still-warm corpses and hopinghopinghoping—
The world spins and crashes as they drag her out of the operating room, screaming.
Later they tell her she was screaming a name—
"Sai? Is he a friend of yours?"
Earlier:
Her throat is raw when she wakes.
She blinks and already feels exhausted. Her joints are protesting, her muscles ache, and her skin is hot to the touch. It takes her a moment to push herself up into a sitting position and she stifles a groan.
Fever.
Her pajamas are soaked to the skin from sweat and nightmares and she flushes in shame as the acrid scent of urine fills the air.
She sobs into her chest, chin hitting her collarbones. Her body shakes violently, and soon she can barely control the spasms, so frenzied her teeth clack together and rattle inside her skull. Sakura wants nothing more than to fold in on herself and fade away to nothing when—
"Sakura-sama?"
Cerulean blue eyes fill her sight and her eyes roll back in her head.
("Hokage-sama—Hokage-sama—you need to come quick—it's Haruno-sama—")
Now:
She's waited months to leave.
The tarp of her tent is folded into her backpack, and soon even that is going into the scrolls.
Sakura's sent all her letters to Tsunade and Ino—Ino who was pulled from medic duty three months ago, when the Yamanaka Clan needed its heir back. Shizune stands next to her, hair pulled into a scruffy ponytail, sweat glistening on her brow.
Depthless brown eyes search hers, and the older woman purses her mouth in a worried manner. "Are you—"
"I'm sure." Sakura says quietly. Her eyes stay riveted on the heavy green tarp. She traces a drop of rain absently, watching it crawl all the way down to the hem and edge off into the grass.
She's only got one more stop before she leaves.
Anticipation and dread flutter in her stomach.
She's hidden away at the medic-tents that remain standing at the border of each nation for ten months now. It's easy like that—to drown herself into cases, into patients and injuries until she's knee deep in blood and wading in intestines.
It's easier to fill her mind with static rather than to face it all head on.
Shizune sighs, low and heavy. Her shoulders slump and her face creases, mouth turning into a listless frown. "I'm sorry Konoha has failed you, Sakura."
Fierce green eyes snap up to brown ones and Sakura grasps the woman by the arms, fingers digging deep. "Konoha did not fail me. Lady Tsunade did not fail me. You, Shizune-nee, did did not fail me."
"Then why are you leaving." The words hold deep accusation and hurt, and Shizune's eyes fill with tears.
When Sakura doesn't answer, she tries again. "Sakura please. We need you. We need you."
Sakura bites her lip so hard she swallows down a mouthful of blood. This, she thinks, is the hardest part of leaving. She shakes her head furiously. "I'm not going to apologise for this, Shizune-nee. This—This is something I have to do. Danzo…he took too much from me…from my family, my life, my world."
Shizune's eyes search hers. The static of the camps fill the chasm between them and slowly, Shizune's face darkens, sharpening with startling clarity. "…He's not the only one is he?"
Sakura hesitates for too long when she thinks of them.
Sasuke. Naruto. Kakashi.
She doesn't think she can ever look at them again.
"No." Sakura barely whispers. "No he's not."
"…Well I'm going to visit you."
After:
"…What do you mean she's gone?" Naruto just about bellows.
His face is red and charged with anger, his eyes sparking furiously. He's just about to speak again, when Tsunade interrupts him.
"She is no longer under Konohagakure's jurisdiction."
Kakashi's grip on his book slackens. "I beg your pardon?"
"What?" Naruto whips between the two of them, eyes flashing. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Sasuke begins, a sense of dawning dread filling his chest, "that Haruno Sakura is no longer a Konoha-ninja."
Naruto gapes, stunned.
"Sakura-chan is the best medic in the entire world, Hokage-sama." Kakashi doesn't speak sharply all too much, but his gaze is fierce on Tsunade and his words are cutting. "She cannot leave without there being repercussions."
"Boy, don't you think I know that?" Tsunade snaps back, just as bitingly. Her eyes burn with anger, and underneath, there sparks a keen current of loss. "She is extraordinary. Unparalleled. Medics have fought each other for the opportunity to be her apprentice."
"Then why?" Sasuke asks, voice strangely raw at the discovery that she was gone. His hands had turned to fists in his pockets, face freezing in a macabre display of brutality.
Tsunade's shoulders slump. Her eyes shutter closed. A sigh escapes her.
"…Sakura isn't Konoha-born. She has completed her requirements in order to be respectfully be discharged from the Konoha military."
"…She can't be gone, Baa-chan." Naruto whispers. His eyes fill with tears, his mouth begins to wobble. "…There's no way she would just leave—"
He looks up at her, imploring. "We have to get her back."
The Hokage draws herself up, and looks down at them with every inch of dignity and might she can muster.
"I order you to stay in Konoha. You are hereby prohibited to leave Konoha with the intention to find Haruno Sakura. Failure or refusal to adhere to these orders will end with a sanction of excommunication from Konoha's military force."
Tsunade does not relent, even when Naruto sparks with biju chakra and Sasuke's rinnegan begins to spin.
Now:
In the months that she's left Konoha's military force, she's gotten seventeen offers by all four remaining Kage. They're cloyingly sweet, flattering—and all too obvious. She wasn't blind to the whispers that followed her abilities at the medic-camps, wasn't oblivious to the awed chatter that seemed to fill the air whenever she healed another un-treatable patient.
Sitting on a tree-stump, hair piled high on her head, sweat glistening on her brow she makes her decision.
The war ended ten months ago.
For Haruno Sakura, the battle has just begun.
im on holiday so this is why y'all are getting like four updates in the span of two days. no promises tho bc my mum plans a shit ton during each individual day and yahhhh.
tell me waht you tihnk? uGH i want this story to turn out how i want so bAD.