Chapter Ten: Evolution part 3
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Bleach!
"Wait!" Sakura cried, reaching for the thin air before her…but she was gone.
"What was that?" Ino asked in a vague whisper.
"I don't know." Sakura replied.
By the time she got back to Sereitei , Sakura was too exhausted to do much aside from collapse in Uryu's arms.
"You need to rest more." He stated, drawing his arms across her abdomen and pulling her close.
She mumbled back, digging her fingers into the cloth of his shirt.
He smiled, looping his arms under her and cradling her against his chest. He planted a delicate kiss on her cheek as he carried her into her room, laying her down and stretching out beside her.
"She said it was 'Evolution'." The kunoichi whispered.
"Who?" He asked, looking over only to realize she had drifted off.
He sighed, smiling at the same time as he drew a blanket around himself and over her.
"More!" Sakura cried, levering Lee's blade away from her own and easily knocking him back with a weak kido.
But when he didn't rise, she knew he was spent for the day…hardly an easy task for the apprentice of Konoha's Green Beast. Smiling, she motioned for him to be taken to the infirmary to rest.
She still had more to do, anyway…like Sasuke and Naruto. Sighing, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the next field, where they were of course waiting.
"Sorry I'm late." She smiled, wiping sweat away from her eyes.
Sasuke huffed, Naruto loudly exclaiming it was alright; normally, she would have hit him, but today she was just too glad for some support.
"Let's get started." She said, focusing her reishi into a network around them.
They began to grid their reishi against her own, finely tuning it to match her frequency.
Sakura, deep in her own world of concentration, felt a slight jolt in her abdomen but ignored it. A moment later a larger tremor ran up her spine.
Growling in annoyance, she bit against her lip as she forced her reishi to stabilize.
Sasuke, his control reliant on Sakura's, had already noticed the spasms in her grid and glanced over at her. Her eyes, closed in focus, never met his…
For several minutes, Sakura thought she had her energy under control. Leeching a small portion from her own network, she checked her teammates' progress, pleased to find Naruto was actually improving quite quickly.
It was about that time that she felt something snap in her torso, her reishi collapsing back in on itself. The shock sent her stumbling…blindly, she grabbed for a target, using it to support her weight.
"Sakura!" Naruto cried, the first to reach her.
"What happened?" Sasuke demanded, looping his arm over Naruto's as they both pulled her up.
"I just lost my focus." She replied, running her hand across her abdomen as if feeling for a wound.
Uryu, who was supposed to be helping them that day, appeared on the field. He waved, a sudden look of horror replacing his courteous smile. His bow clattered against the ground…Sasuke didn't even see him move until he was beside the pink-haired reaper.
His hand ran lightly across her jaw, his free hand feeling for a fever.
"Are you alright?" He asked.
"I'm fine." She replied with a weak smile.
Naruto and Uryu weren't even sure what happened the next moment, when she shoved them away from her…the sudden blast of reishi was so powerful they were slammed against the ground.
"Sakura!" They cried in unison, completely oblivious to the existence of the people beside them as their entire focus fell on her.
She didn't hear them, curled on the ground in pain as she was. Her world faded between black and red and she heard nothing but the shriek of the reishi draining from her.
That massive an outpouring was sure to attract attention…and as was fitting, the Queen of Flash-Step was the first on the scene. She demanded a briefing, after which she turned her amber eyes on Sakura.
She disappeared into the haze of color and energy, appearing beside Sakura. Her hand came across her forehead, two fingers pressed to her skin.
She absorbed the energy, filtering it off slowly as she siphoned it from the girl and a moment later, the air settled.
Sakura was confined to bed for the rest of the day while Yoruichi did some research on the sudden backlash of reishi that she had sustained despite her attempts to control it. Naturally, Naruto and Sasuke insisted on staying with her even though Uryu assured them he would take good care of her.
She didn't really know how many hours passed between them, most of them spent in quiet discussion while she drifted in and out of sleep.
It wasn't until late that night that Yoruichi came back to them with several heavy books in her arms.
"It would appear that I've found something." She said with her usual smile, "You all already know that some Bankai have multiple release forms."
"They do?" Naruto asked from the back.
"Yes." Sasuke sighed, clearly annoyed by the blonde's inability to keep track of things…even very obvious things…
"Well, sometimes in the case of multiple releases, multiple energy releases like Sakura's, the flow between the different elemental signatures can be crossed, resulting in what happened today."
"Will it happen again?" Uryu asked.
"It such a rare occurrence, I can't guarantee anything." She replied.
Sakura sighed, rolling over onto her side so they wouldn't see the tears pouring down her face…she never imagined her energy control would actually be the thing to screw her over or that progress would be an infliction on her friends.
She was weak…like always, she thought as closed her eyes.
She snuck out at some point in the early morning, and crawled out onto the roof to be alone for a few minutes.
It was lovely outside: the stars still shining and a thin bar of light just beginning to hazily appear behind the horizon. The moon hung low in the sky to her left.
For a moment, she was struck by just how easy it would be run…to leave everything behind her and flee…
But running never solved anything and only made things worse…
She sighed, lying back against the tiles of the roof, enjoying the cool ceramic on her hot skin.
Vaguely, she wondered if she was strong enough to fulfill her duties…not just to her country and her home…not just to Sereitei and Konoha…but to herself: there was no denying she loved Uryu, but feelings for Sasuke and Naruto still lingered and she felt like she had betrayed Tsunade in making her choices…privately, she wanted to ask her mentor that…but she was afraid of the answer.
A hand ran through her hair, the silhouette of a woman falling over her as she knelt down beside her.
"Sakura." Tsunade said.
"Shishou…" Sakura trailed off.
"Are you alright?" She asked, moonlight pulsing off of her glossy lips.
"I don't know." Sakura replied.
"I heard." She stated simply.
"I'm so sorry." Sakura replied, tears spilling onto her cheeks.
"Don't be." Tsunade replied harshly, "You don't have anything to be sorry for."
Sakura knew this side of Tsunade…the side only she and Shizune saw when they were alone with her; the maternal side of the Kage…the gentle side that wasn't burdened by the demands of the Tsunade her village saw.
"Shishou…have I disappointed you?"
"Never." She replied.
"But I left…"
"You left. You didn't run like I did."
Tsunade averted her eyes, staring into the moon so like the one that shone down on her the night she lost her lover and the night she sat beside the grave of her brother; Sakura was stronger than she was. When she had taken on the pink-haired kunoichi, Tsunade feared the past would repeat itself in Sasuke and Naruto and Sakura…but they were stronger than she and Jiraiya and Orochimaru had been. They had rewritten their history and were painting their future…
"I've never been more proud." Tsunade added in a distant whisper.
Sakura smiled, throwing herself against Tsunade…her mentor, her mother.
Sakura watched the Kage step back into the gate, back to a village that needed her. And Sakura turned back to the city and society that needed her…just as she needed them.
Her fingers ran across the ceramic pendant against her throat, a gift from Uruhara. In a clean motion, her fingers wrapped around it and snapped it from the band beneath it. From within her robes, she withdrew the remains of her headband and pulled the metal plate away.
She wrapped the crimson cloth around her slender throat, attaching the pendant to it as she tucked the discarded plate and leather band from the two items back into her robe.
This would be the physical representation of her promise…a union between her two greatest loves and her two greatest responsibilities…
The sun rose above her, a streak of light falling against her pale skin, blinding her for just a moment…but the moon and the sun hung above her now…just like Konoha and Sereitei.
Her lips pulled up in a smile…
She would win because failure wasn't an option for her or her loved ones.
TBC