CHAPTER TEN

OoO

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." - Abraham Lincoln

OoO

If Sakura ever had to see another bowl of ramen in her life, she would run streets to avoid it.

Thankfully, such was beyond her capabilities. So she put up with it.

"How are you feeling?" Naruto asked. He guided her hand to the chopsticks and the other to the bowl.

"Fine," she said quietly.

"Sure?"

"Mm hmm."

A long pause. "Okay then. Let's eat."

As she was no longer capable of staring blankly, she resorted to frowning and cocking her head in confusion until her companion noticed her silence. When prompted, Sakura replied, "I didn't think you would… accept it so quickly."

Naruto gazed down at his ramen. He wanted to be there for her – he really did… but maybe he was there too often. Besides… "It's your body," he said finally. "Only you know if it's really okay. I don't see why you would lie, but even if I did, I think I'd trust you anyway."

For a moment, Sakura was silent. Shizune had tutored her in coordination during the past couple of days, and the pink-haired girl made use of her practice to scoop some ramen into her mouth. Next to her, Naruto did the same, and she heard his characteristic slurping. For some reason, his less than passable etiquette reassured her, giving her confidence to place trust in her own voice.

"Thank you," she murmured, and the two words bore the gratitude that was beyond her ability to express in coherent speech.

Naruto patted her arm briefly, and instead of registering as a pressing weight, Sakura found his touch light and fluttering, like the wings of the butterfly she had cupped in her hands when she had been five.

He understood.

"How was Suna?" Sakura asked in a conversational tone. She realised at that moment exactly how little attention she had been paying to Naruto. He had concerned himself endlessly over her wellbeing that it made her feel ashamed to have forgotten about his.

"Saw Gaara." Naruto grinned roguishly. "He tells me that there's a girl in his village who has it going for him. Apparently, it's his own student."

Sakura choked.

"You okay?" he asked, stroking her back. "Didn't anyone teach you to avoid giving your food detours?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she gasped out, coughing raggedly to clear her windpipe. "Are… are you serious?"

"Well, yeah."

"Wow… I never thought of that. Gaara… but he's a…" Furiously, she bit off the end of her sentence. It was an idiotic thing to do, judging Gaara's normality through the Shukaku. By all means, he was a friend of hers. It shouldn't even come as a test to her loyalty.

Not to mention that she would also be discriminating Naruto.

"Sorry," she said quietly.

"No, it's okay," Naruto said quietly. "Really, it is. It's great, you know, 'cause Gaara doesn't really have anyone except Kankuro and Temari to care about him. He looks after a whole village and there are only so many people who want to look after him. Now that this girl actually likes him, it's just like telling Suna that people like us aren't so bad." It was impossible to miss the note of bitterness.

Sakura put down her chopsticks and leaned toward her friend, trusting his shoulder to be there. It was. Just like always. "You're just like any other person," she whispered. "Better, actually."

He chuckled. "You think so?"

"Yes. It's normal to love, Naruto, even for someone as special as you."

He didn't respond until many hours later, after he had settled her to sleep. He sat against the wall, legs drawn up to his chest and chin resting on his knees.

As the first glimpses of the sun peeped through the curtains and he got up to return to his room, Naruto gazed down at Sakura and found himself smiling.

"I wouldn't care if it wasn't," he whispered, and then closed the door behind him.

OoO

It was back to the fish.

Her hands slipped several times while she performed the handseals. She carefully focused a select amount of chakra into her hands, and then murmured for Shizune to guide her to her 'patient'. She didn't feel the dried hide, robbed of its slimy moisture, under her fingers. It helped create an illusion that she was not tending to an animal that could well have been her dinner, instead healing an injured ninja.

It made her stomach seem that much heavier.

There was one thing good about the fish that dominated over a human; Sakura didn't necessarily require her eyesight. The fish had died of lack of water, not blood. She did not have to look for and target wounds, merely had to project her awareness into reawakening the stopped organs.

Technically, medical jutsu could not bring back the dead. It could halt and pull back those at the Shinigami's arms, but could only stop at the gates if the person had already passed through. This applied to humans and the majority of wildlife.

Not fish, though. Their structure did not contain nearly as many complex blood vessels or chakra networks as a human. The organs were small and fairly Spartan; Sakura wouldn't even have to reconnect any vessels. The fish could not have been dead for longer than twenty four hours, however. There wasn't any particular reasoning behind it; it would just make her job a hell of a lot simpler.

"You need to focus more chakra," Shizune said. "This fish is bigger than the usual ones," she added apologetically.

Sakura bit her lip and summoned a trickle of chakra down her arm. So she needed her sight after all… It sucks to be blind.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, steeling herself for another attempt.

"Sakura."

"Yes?"

"Don't… push your limits."

"Don't worry, Shizune. I won't."

Lying came all too easily these days.

OoO

At first she thought she was lying.

"His pranks aren't funny, nor are yours, shishou," she had said dryly.

If only she could see Tsunade's expression. She could feel it, though, and Shizune's hand on her shoulder suddenly got very, very heavy. Sakura had seen women fall at news such as these, their knees just buckled and they sunk to the ground like a stone. She felt like doing that just now.

But Naruto wasn't dead. He just… hadn't come back yet. For a shinobi, this would be legitimately ordinary… except Naruto had been assigned a simple D-rank and was not required to leave the village. That and he had left her with a promise, and Naruto Uzumaki would never break a promise.

"Maybe he got lost," she murmured. Shizune's hand moved down to grip hers. "The forest is so big… you know Naruto – he's always being an idiot and losing his way." Naruto had been hired to do some basic labour for a farmer in his yard. He should have been back before Sakura had finished her training.

Shizune noticed her young companion's silent anxiety. "I'm sure he was just delayed by something like that," she said quickly, glaring at her mentor. Tsunade's narrowed eyes, clouded with unspoken worry, were focused on Sakura. "Naruto doesn't really have any sense of time, we all know that."

"Yeah. He'll be back."

"Yes," Shizune agreed, relieved to see that Sakura's view had changed. "We'll wait for him."

Sakura was silent, but for a moment, Tsunade could have sworn that her youngest pupil was staring at her. "Shizune," the Hokage said. The medic-nin turned to her, but Tsunade only frowned at the pink-haired girl. "Please take Sakura back to Naruto's place."

"Lady Tsunade, I don't think…" Shizune bit off the rest of her protest. It was in her reflexes to question almost anything her mentor said; it was the reason why they were both free of debtors. But did Tsunade really think that shooing off Sakura now would make the girl feel any better? Alone in that empty house with walls that she could not ever stare at… Shizune didn't even want to imagine it.

Then she had seen Tsunade's unrivetting gaze, and suddenly Shizune could no longer find it in her interests to remonstrations. Tsunade had used that voice, the voice of a Hokage who knew what she was doing.

She tugged gently on Sakura's arm. "Come, Sakura." The girl nodded and paused briefly to bow in respect to acknowledge their master's presence before turning and allowing herself to be led away.

"Sakura." Tsunade's voice was emotionlessly hard, like steel.

"Yes, shishou?"

"The kid will be fine. He'll come back to you in one piece. I give you my word."

Sakura swallowed thickly. "He promised he would make something other than ramen for dinner today," she whispered. "Naruto never breaks a promise."

Tsunade's eyes widened as her students departed. By all respective means, Sakura had just stated that she didn't need the Sannin's word, since she already had Naruto's. She was willing to place her faith in the boy's. Tsunade admitted to be aging more than she would like, but she had not yet reached the period where her eyesight faded. She could see it. Sakura depended on Naruto more heavily than she had thought to begin with.

For the first week, the Hokage had assigned an ANBU to monitor her blind student. The reports had been satisfactory… and disturbing. Sakura leaned strongly toward Naruto's care and the nurture he could offer. It was as if he had become her eyes, a plank of wood that would shift under her feet to cover the rough terrain.

There was no telling how far Sakura would fall if that piece of stability was torn from her grasp.

Tsunade reclined in her seat and gently massaged her temples. With a kick of her feet, her chair spun around to face the large window that took up an entire wall of the office. It had begun raining. It rarely rained in the Fire Country. Perhaps it was an omen…

But Tsunade Senju had ceased believing in psychological prophecies the day she had met one Naruto Uzumaki.

"Don't keep me waiting, kid," she murmured under her breath. "And don't break her." But then, you couldn't break anything that was already in pieces.

OoO

She insisted that Shizune left her outside Naruto's apartment. The medic-nin had been sceptical about leaving her alone in the approaching darkness, but the younger girl's insistence eventually dominated, and Sakura found herself laying a hand on the handle. She could find her way up those stairs with her eyes closed. Literally.

Her throat clogged when she inserted a small amount of her chakra into the handle. Naruto had specifically altered his lock so that it would only be unlocked by a recognised chakra signature. He had not said it aloud at the time, but Sakura knew that it was for her convenience. He was always thinking of her. Always.

It wasn't like she didn't know he was not there when she stepped inside. She called for him anyway, her voice soft as if she were afraid of waking him from his slumber. For a moment, she thought she could hear his distant response… but it was just her own voice echoing back at her, hollowly informing her of what she already knew.

Sakura slipped out of her sandals like she always did… except this time, there was no Naruto to steady her balance. She laid a hand on the walls and felt her way to the main room. She felt strangely light and empty. Perhaps grief or anxiety should be in their place, but Sakura could not locate such emotions. There was no need to mourn. Naruto was not dead. She repeated it like a mantra.

Perhaps his sympathy had gotten the better of him and he had been manipulated by the old farmer to labour for a few extra hours. It was the sort of thing Naruto would do. It just wasn't in his arsenal to deny assistance. A small smile tilted her lips as she lowered herself onto the couch. She could see it so clearly in her minds eye.

Bending over, lifting the last haystack, dumping it in the yard, wiping his sweat, turning to bade goodbye to the farmer, expressions shifted rapidly as the man murmured about the ache in his lower back and the cows that had to be milked. Being Naruto, he would grin and turn to the paddocks and-

-he's fine, just fine, not dead, no, not dead–

-and forget about her… no; Naruto wouldn't do that. But he wasn't here… didn't he think about her? Yet, he was an idiot. He wouldn't think ahead, wouldn't realise just how much she cared about his safety. He only ever thought about other people, never considered how they would feel if he was hurt. Just like that, he was an idiot, one so thick-skulled and naïve that-

-he wouldn't just leave me like that, he promised-

-that he was too kind. Just too kind. What if, Sakura pondered, he woke up and wasn't kind. How would life change because of it? Would the villagers' hatred deepen or would they learn to respect him? Or would they grow fearful? Would he still care about her? Still stay by her side, still hold her, still motivate her, still be her Naruto?

The questions gave her a splitting headache. Sakura winced and stretched out on the couch, pressing her face against the leathery surface. Too many thoughts, too many possibilities, too many damn things to deal with. She heaved in a ragged breath and held it, her hands clawing at her face, her clothing, her hair. There was nothing to hold, nothing to divert her attention.

Maybe that was what Naruto was in the end; an oversized stress ball.

-no stress, no worries, he's fine, he'll be my ball, mine-

If it was possible, Sakura's head felt inflated and stuffed. She could feel the skin expanding under the pressure, stretching taught with tension. It hurt. She endured until she could no longer endure, and by then her mind had exhausted itself. Subconsciousness faded toward the bliss darkness of unconsciousness.

Sleep claimed her, and it was a good thing it did, because Sakura would not have boded well with the tears that steadily seeped under her closed eyelids.

-not here, gone, come back, come home, Naruto…

OoO

He felt like a father. A father returning from a long day of work, wearily stopping by the stand to drop off his coat. He felt very old.

And she looked so young. It seemed that she had fallen asleep waiting for him. She lay on the couch the same way she might have on a stone bench three years ago. He crouched down so that their faces were level. The dried tracks beneath her eyes suggested tears. Smiling sadly, he gently wiped them away with his thumb.

She stirred and mumbled incoherently. Like a kid. He carefully lifted her, and then sat down in her place, cradling her like he had so many times, for so long. It felt right to hold her, to feel her warmth, her weight … but yet so wrong considering what his hands had done other than console her. He was afraid of tainting her beatific innocence.

But he couldn't pull away. She was his reality, his sanity.

As he stroked her hair, wondering at the fine strands and what she would do to him if she found out he had been touching them, he also wondered if his absence had worried and concerned her, and, like all other missions, if she had missed him.

Yet this mission was different. Suddenly, he was overcome with the desire to know, and so, he selfishly shook her awake.

She woke like she always did; head suddenly jerking to one side in reflex, lips parted as if to yawn, sightless eyes fluttering open and, eventually, focusing on what she could see and he could not. She responded vocally in the same way as well, mumbling his name. She said it once, as if to test the efficiency of her tongue, and then again in a louder voice.

"Naruto…?"

"Did you miss me?" he whispered.

It seemed that, at that moment, she was fully awake. She began something along the lines of "Where did you…" and then her voice faded. Instead, she grasped his hand and answered, in an equally fragile whisper, "Yes."

He nodded, but the gesture did little to portray the immense relief and loosening of his stomach. Such reactions to a single word were silly and childish. Not that he was anything else.

"Don't hold me so close," she muttered, though she did not move away. "I haven't taken a shower yet."

"It doesn't matter," he replied quietly. "I need one too." He didn't tell her how many times he had splashed into the lake, how many times he'd had to use the fire jutsu Granny Tsunade had taught him to dry his clothes only to jump back into the water minutes later, unable to wrench the horrific images and scent of death from his body. He couldn't get rid of the sticky feeling, as if he had dipped his hands in blood.

Her silence was comforting. He knew she was waiting, carefully disguising her impatience. Eventually, he would have to tell her, but her understanding and restraint was so unusually reassuring that he tried to hold onto it for as long as he could.

"Missing-nins," he said emotionlessly. He felt her stiffen and the pressure as her hand squeezed his. "From Kiri." It was… nice how she didn't ask how, why or what. He couldn't trust his voice not to crack under the interrogation.

"Did you get hurt?" she murmured.

"No."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes."

A short moment of silence. "Did they get hurt?"

"No."

"Oh."

"I killed them." His teeth grinded together at the memory. How he had incapacitated them, he didn't remember. It was all just a collage of flashing motions and movements. They had attacked first, that much he knew. It was a blessing of Kami that he had been returning and that the farmer had not been with him. The elderly man did not need to see spilt blood.

He hated to kill. He wasn't heartless. His chest hurt every time his opponents' were slashed open. It was cold-blooded murder, and it made him feel more like all the other murderers; Orochimaru, Akatsuki… Sasuke. At that thought, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried to force the impression from his consciousness.

When he opened them again, he was no longer holding her. She was holding him. She was smaller than him, but he fitted so well in her arms. It felt so good to be held, and although he knew he was supposed to be the stronger one, the pillar, he let himself curl into a ball and rest his head against hers.

"Sorry," she said softly.

"'S not your fault," he mumbled. "I'm fine."

"If you say so."

He wondered if this was how his father had felt; coming home after a particularly dreary and daunting day, leaving his coat on the rack. Did his mother comfort him?

Suddenly, he felt like a child.

"At least there's one good thing," he chuckled. "I got us roast chicken for dinner. I kept my promise."

"You always do, Naruto."