Authors Note: Next story to be updated is Ash & Bone, and Hero. She Rises is on pause for now till I finish this. Please leave reviews, it motivates me to write faster.
Title: If I Live
Author: ALightLit
Beta: - MIA (as in Missing In Action)
Type: AU
Status: Incomplete - Ongoing.
Rating: T (Rating may change due to maturing characters.)
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto!
Pairing: Undecided.
Word Count: 1,900
Intro: It took one minute, one choice, and one girl, to mess all of Orochimaru's plans up. Sakura Haruno managed to beat fear – with love. She moved in front of her crush as a last resort. However, every victory has its price.
R&R
"Learn this from me. Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves."
― Mitch Albom
The days following Konoha Crush, as some have taken to calling it, were rainy. The skies opened for the mourning village, and while the sentiment was nice, it made search and rescue a pain in the ass.
Sakura, for all that she'd loved the Hokage, did not attend his funeral. In fact, on the day it was held she was being suspended via rope into a hole of a four-story building that was half crushed in the attack, lifting civilians to safety, marking where bodies were with red spray paint, and moving on. Days passed like this.
Sakura had woken up in the hospital the same day as the attack, feeling a bit tired but otherwise fine. Her chakra was moderately full, if not for the fact that she had more than before Orochimaru shoved that pill down her throat and-
The flash of golden sunlight, a broken mirror, and Sakura is out of bed, changing back into her clothes and slipping out of the window. An hour later a nurse will stop by while making rounds, see the open window and empty bed, sigh and make another note on her list of patients that had left without proper care.
Damn Ninja. The Nurse would grumble before moving on to the next room - which was also empty.
Sakura has spent three days on rotation with search and rescue, out of everyone that volunteers she's one of two Genin, the rest of Chunin, Jounin, and even a few higher ranking Ninja. They work in fifteen-hour shifts, turn in to the camps that were made for them for five hours, and then go right back to work. The girl stands in the rain, a crushed building towering above, eyes on the dried blood and the fallen body that lay below, and thinks about the man who caused all of this and how he didn't care about the people who died in his attack.
Sakura marks the spot where the body is, tosses the empty can aside, and pretends that if she helps enough it'll make her numb heart care.
She isn't sure if she should be scared that she doesn't care for a single person who perished- save for those she had ties to -but Sakura thinks it has to do with the seal and that pill, and how all she can feel is rage rage rage rage rage rage-
"Hey Haruno, we need you over here!" Today the village is dressed in black, even those who aren't attending the funeral, which would be her team and the medical team that sat to the side to attend to those she extracted, wore all black.
Sakura wraps the rope around her waist and allows them to lower her down, being the smallest it was easier for her to get into small spaces. It's dark the lower she goes, and Sakura thinks that this is better, this is where she belongs. Not with the other mourners at his grave, but in this hole trying to redeem herself. After all, Sakura had been right there when he'd died, and she hadn't been able to do a single thing.
Chakra glows and lights up to reveal the space she's now in is that of the flower shop her parents often visited. The sound of rain dripping echoed in the enclosed space, cool water falling from up above and sliding down the side of her neck.
Sakura is twenty-five feet deep in a broken and collapsed building, a soft blue glow of her hands is the only light source she has, and she is staring at the dead faces of her parents.
She stays there for three heartbeats, takes in her mother's slashed throat, the kunai sticking from her father's eye socket, the crushed sound nin that is by them, and she feels nothing but rage. It doesn't take much to piece it together, she hadn't been home since the attack, it was foolish for her to think they would be okay, that He wouldn't send someone after them.
Three more heartbeats, and then Sakura unclasps the can of spray paint from her hip with numb fingers, marks the spot, and then gives the rope three tugs. No survivors. She's pulled back up and out, passes on what she saw below, marks the entrance, and they move on.
They finish in one week. The village pays everyone who volunteered, less than one hundred Ninja and medics, for one A rank mission each. They accept the pay and go home, eyes hollow from the death they saw for days on end. Sakura pretends she didn't have to extract an entire class of dead academy students, she pretends to be upset, she pretends a lot these days.
She doesn't have to pretend to be surprised when she's attacked walking home.
They come out of nowhere, white masks pristine, outfits nonscript, weapons drawn. Sakura falls backward, chakra spiking in fear, and then she becomes so unbearably pissed that she isn't even sure when the seal takes over, all she knows is that she's elbow deep in one of their chests and the others are motionless in surprise as chakra dances around the young girl.
Anger thums beneath her skin because these people were attacking her in her village, her home, her safe haven, and the worst part was...this was their home too. She shared the Will of Fire with these Ninja, they were her brothers and sisters in arms, and they were disrespecting everything her Hokage had died trying to protect,
Sakura bares her teeth, face twisting with glee as she rips free from his body and turns to the next one- and then there's someone in front of her, arms spread wide, back straight. She stares at Kabuto with confusion for a second, and that short moment is all she needs to regain control of herself.
"You can tell Danzo this one is spoken for, she's meant to be more than any part of this damned tree." Kabuto's words are tight, fierce, strong, and it doesn't take long for the team that attacked her to back off, collect their fallen comrade, and leave.
The pair stood there for a long moment, the younger of the two breathing hard, blood dripping down her arm into the puddle at her feet. His back was still to her, and the confusion over what had just happened made Sakura feel a little dizzy. Before she could fully process anything, Kabuto turns around and steps forward until he's towering over her, grey eyes looking into her own emerald orbs with an unknown intent.
There's a long beat of silence, sweat slides down the back of Sakura's neck as the rage that was once nothing but a spark rolls like a roaring inferno in her chest, her mind broken into jagged fragments, betrayal a bitter taste on her tongue.
Whatever Kabuto was looking for he seemed to find, because he finally steps back, his own eyes shining with an emotion she can't quite place.
"Good," He says, turning around as he begins to walk away. "A lot of people have plans for you, Sakura, but out of all of the paths laying before you, I know which one you'll take." The boy half turns to look back at her as a strong breeze whistles in her ears, pale pink hair slapping her face with the strength of it.
"I can see it now, you tremble with indignation. That rage will make justice rain down and you'll walk through the blood of those who are rightfully due punishment." Sakura's blood riots beneath her skin and his words rang so true, the horror of what she'd have to do in order to do something like what he said-
Her mouth was uncomfortably dry, sweat collecting on her brow in the humid heat of the night. She hasn't had a proper shower in a week, pale skin covered in dirt and blood - old and new - and hair greasy, damp from hard days work. She was exhausted, it was all she seemed to be these days, but it wasn't something she could just sleep off. This exhaustion was in her bones.
Kabuto's glasses shine in the dim street lights as he pushes his glasses up, and for some reason, Sakura feels a little less alone.
"I'll be here to help keep that flame going, and to watch as it burns everything to the ground." And then he's gone, leaving the girl with more questions than answers and so much doubt about her future she feels physically ill. Sakura stands there for what seems like an hour, eyes dull as she stares down at the puddle of blood at her feet, feels numbness seep into her core, and then something just snaps.
A feral snarl escapes chapped lips as the girl collapses in on herself, bare knees impacting jarringly with the dirt road, and she digs clipped nails into the soft ground, dragging up dirt into the blood as rage swarms her head, makes her dizzy. Her fists pound into the muddy, grotesque concoction in front of her as a scream fights to break free from her throat. Sakura can't breathe and she so heartbreakingly angry nothing else matters but the urge to destroy.
By the time she is done having what could only be a mental breakdown, the ground in front of her is nothing but a crater, chakra crackling around her, bloody mud caked on her hands, arms, face. She looks like a savage, she feels like she's going crazy, but it's like the energy was sapped right out of her.
She makes it home on autopilot, sandals dragging loudly on the gravel, she makes it home to an empty, silent house, and feels sick because she has no tears left to spare. Sakura kicks her shoes off, locks the door behind her, and slowly makes her way upstairs. The second to last step creaks eerily as she steps off it and tries her damnedest to ignore the empty room beside her own.
She's too busy trying to wash off the blood that seems to be permanently fixated on her skin to notice the thick manila envelope by her window or the box it sits beside.
.
.
.
tsuzuku
Is sakura going crazy? probably. Am I having fun writing it? definitely.
Question for this chapter: what do you think is in the envelope?