A/N: Thank you Ekusukallybaa and Warhammer651 for betaing this chapter- you're the best! Sometimes. When you're not punning the life out of me. :'(
People complaining about Uzumaki's strange and dream-like quality these past few chapters (ones uploaded since around July) - I know, and as always, it's partly intentional; but it's also, uh, not. I have never wanted this to interfere with the story's coherency. But Uzumaki is a very personal story for me, even if it doesn't seem that way, and I am currently struggling with my mental health.
I always make efforts to keep the story close to my own emotions so I can write dialogue and situations that the reader will empathise with. This is why the writing has become stranger recently. Please bear with me.
And, as always, enjoy. :) [Fixed the error with Naruto's birthday- thanks for letting me know]
Uzumaki
Chapter 25
Knock, knock.
"Satsuki-san?"
She didn't answer. Sakura had expected that.
Knock, knock.
Naruto didn't answer. Sakura had half expected that; it wasn't uncommon these days.
"Naruto?" She knocked again.
But when she said his name, she was very used to hearing a keen scrabbling of feet, a cry down the hall of "Just a minute, Sakura-chan!" - something other than biting silence.
She wanted to think he wasn't here, but peering through the window, his shoes were by the door. She'd spent the day looking for them both; her effort was felt in her knees and the soft evening sun which would soon paint the rooftops orange.
Sakura put her back to the door and slid down to the floor. Konoha was dream-like in its confusing array of colours and movement, people walking in the shadows of almost-evening light. She hiccuped, unwanted tears springing up at the corners of her eyes, and she buried her head in her knees.
"For god's sake," she whispered. "You're both- both idiots!"
She slammed her fist into the door. It cracked, and Sakura felt a sob squeeze unbidden from her. She breathed in, wrapped her arms around her knees, and held herself.
"Kakashi-sensei, what should I do? We have a mission tomorrow, don't we?" Sakura sounded desperate. "I just want them to talk to each other. I can't deal with this."
"Well, it's times like this when shinobi do what shinobi do best." Kakashi stirred his tea. "Endure."
Sakura stared at him.
"I'll be doing my best too, Sakura," he said. She imagined his smile under the mask. "So don't worry."
In reality, even her imagination couldn't create a smile under that mask real enough to convince her.
The mission was just basic construction. It sounded easy enough at first, but Sakura knew that construction was tougher than it seemed and required both endurance and teamwork. Sakura failed to inspire any semblance of teamwork - and Satsuki and Naruto had far too much endurance. Unlike her, they could endure the horrible, long silences.
As they worked to nail in planks of wood, Naruto hung onto Sakura for all conversation, not that there was much to talk about. He refused to speak to Satsuki, or even look at Kakashi, and when Kakashi gave orders he followed them reluctantly.
Satsuki refused to even speak to Naruto, and she cold-shouldered Sakura's questions with such short answers Sakura soon let up.
'How have things ended up like this?' Sakura thought, fumbling in a box of nails for one small enough. Even the nails didn't co-operate, and she clasped a handful of them so tightly blood dripped from her palm. She wept quietly.
'I'm so pathetic…!'
When Naruto and Satsuki went home (walking different ways even though Sakura was so sure they used to walk the same road), Sakura stayed and waited until her tears stopped before she left.
The dynamic was failing, regardless of Sakura's efforts, and her desperation felt crushing.
"Yo."
Sakura jumped, and felt her cheeks burn red. He must have seen her crying, heard her- of course. She wiped her eyes quickly, blinking, and looked down.
"I have some business but a little while to kill," Kakashi said, still buried in his book. "You don't mind if I keep you company on the walk home, do you?"
Rolling her eyes at him and sniffling, she smiled reluctantly, smacking him on the arm.
"Fine. But I wish you'd put that stupid book away, sensei. You're making me look bad."
Knock knock.
"Satsuki?"
She jerked up at Kakashi's voice, turning to stare at the door from her desk. The door stared back at her, rattling with another knock.
Satsuki lowered her eyes and turned back to the desk, picking up the needle again. She lifted her feet onto the chair and sat cross-legged.
"Well, I'm coming in."
The door had swung open before Satsuki could protest, and Kakashi stood in her doorway with his hands in his pockets, blinking. Satsuki stared. He lifted a key and twiddled it between his fingers. "Sakura leant me the key. You don't mind, do you?"
Satsuki put down the needle and material, and stood up.
"What do you want?"
"Not much," Kakashi said. "Just for you to listen a little."
Satsuki scowled. 'That's a familiar expression,' Kakashi thought. 'Things really have gone back to square one.'
Kakashi leaned against the wall, not quite encroaching into her apartment. Satsuki wondered if he was trying to be conscious of her boundaries. 'Ha. It's too late for that.'
She turned away from him again, digging the needle with some force into the material. "So, what is it?"
"Your behaviour is affecting Sakura probably a lot more than it's affecting Naruto, you know."
Another vicious stitch. "I've always ignored her. What difference does it make?"
"You know very well that there is a big difference," Kakashi said, raising an eyebrow. "Large changes like this don't come about from nothing."
"Go talk to Naruto about that one." She pulled the needle wide.
"Naruto's behaviour doesn't give you a free pass to make things worse. Sakura is worried sick about you two, and you don't tell her anything. All you two do is worry her and leave her out. I'm surprised she even bothers with either of you."
The thread came loose from the needle, and Satsuki licked the end of the thread, squinting to push it through the eye. "Is that what you came here to talk about?"
Kakashi sighed. "Well, you're right. I do have more than one bone to pick with you today."
Satsuki felt her arms yanked to the chair and something digging into her stomach. She gritted her teeth, looking down. Wire. The needle clattered to the ground.
Kakashi kicked the side of the chair, spinning it to face him and rocking precariously against the floorboards.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she hissed, straining against the wire.
Kakashi twirled the end of the wire between his fingers. "Well, I suspect you're not going to listen, so I decided to make sure you couldn't just run off on me."
Satsuki strained against the wires again, before leaning back, conceding Kakashi her silence with a scowl.
"Forget about revenge."
She gritted her teeth. Hard.
"They say, before embarking on a journey of revenge, you must dig two graves," Kakashi said. Satsuki could see the reflection of the town outside of her window in his forehead protector. She refused to look him in the eye. "Because people say that by pursuing revenge, you only condemn yourself. But that's not the truth, is it?
"When you condemn yourself to this path, you only lead your friends and family down the same, ugly road. Revenge."
"What would you know about it, huh?" Satsuki spat.
"More than you'd think," Kakashi said. "This isn't the first journey of vengeance I've seen. It may not be the last. If you want to understand what I mean, just look around you. Team 7 is falling apart. You and Naruto can't see eye to eye. And you aren't the easiest to judge, Satsuki, but I'd say you're unhappier than ever.
"At the end of all of this? You'll be alone or dead, and really, it won't matter which." The wire in his fingers glinted in the sunlight. "An unworthy end for someone like you, and probably what Itachi's wanted all along."
Satsuki scowled, clenching her fists. "I'm willing to dig my own grave to kill Itachi as much as I'm willing to dig his," Satsuki leant forward, her hands outstretched as far as they would go. "And don't talk about that like you understand, because there's no way you could know anything about what it feels like to lose everything!"
"Would you undo all of the time you spent with Naruto and Sakura? All the time you spent in Team 7?"
Satsuki opened her mouth, but stopped. A strange flash of green caught her eye in Kakashi's forehead protector, and her gaze flicked to the windowsill. The plant swayed under her gaze.
She hadn't looked at it in a while. When had it developed those tiny buds? Had she forgotten about them?
"You know what Naruto's revenge did to him," he said. "If you pick at your wounds, they simply won't heal, and when they do, they'll leave a scar behind that's bigger than ever. You can understand that, can't you?"
"And what would you know about these wounds of mine?" Satsuki's lips curled downwards, and when she spoke, spit flew. "What would you know about what it's like to lose your entire world?! If I killed everyone you've ever loved, then maybe I'd listen to you - because then maybe you'd understand what it's like to exist with this burden on your back!"
"It's far too late for me to lose the people close to me," Kakashi said. "They were killed a long time ago."
Satsuki's eyes widened, an uncomfortable chill running through her, and she looked away in shame. She heard people chattering in the streets; the sound was usually comforting to her, but now it pierced her ears like white noise.
"Ninja live lives marked by loss, and we've both suffered more than most," Kakashi said. "That's for sure.
"But that doesn't mean things can't change." Satsuki looked up at him. "That things can't get better. We both know that, don't we?"
Satsuki lowered her eyes, and Kakashi noticed their odd shine. She bit her lip.
"Team 7 is the best thing that has happened to the two of us in a long time," Kakashi said. His smile beneath the mask seemed so genuine and convincing. "Naruto, too. Even Sakura is falling apart without it."
Satsuki gazed at those twisted buds, blinking. Her vision was blurring.
"The chidori was something given to you because of the precious comrades that you have now. It's not for hurting them, or seeking revenge." The wires loosened, and Satsuki slumped forwards, her elbows resting on her thighs and her gaze straight at the floor. "I think you know what it's for, Satsuki."
Satsuki didn't say anything.
"I'll leave you to think, then."
Kakashi left. A minute later, Satsuki sat on the floor, leaning against the chair. She lifted the needle she'd dropped, scraping out dirt from beneath her nails with it. The apartment grew dark.
"Is it Uzumaki Naruto?"
"No, Tsunade-sama," Shizune said, exasperated. "But it is- ah… I'll let her in."
Sakura walked in, and she bowed stiffly.
"Hokage-sama," she said. "I heard that you're practicing again."
"Yes," Tsunade said, raising an eyebrow. "I'm easing back into it. I wouldn't treat one patient and not another."
She stood, looking out the window. "What is it to you? I've healed your friend."
Sakura stopped, clenching her fists and bowed her head. "I.. I have a request."
"Oh?" Tsunade turned from window, eyebrow raised. "Go on."
Sakura took a deep breath, before she knelt down to the ground and pressed her forehead to the floor.
"Please take me on as your apprentice!"
Tsunade was silent. Sakura pushed on, feeling an uncomfortable rejection in the quiet. Her desperation was bubbling up.
"I've shown you my potential," Sakura said. "I can work as hard as I need to. I extracted Orochimaru's influence from Ino and woke her up. I have good chakra control, I have patience, I can work as hard as I have to, but you just- you have to give me a chance.
"For these past months, Team 7 has been falling apart piece by piece," she said. "And I've been powerless to do anything at all. I haven't been able to interfere with Satsuki and Naruto- I haven't been able to help them when they've needed me most. No matter how hard I've tried. Please."
"Sakura," Tsunade said, "Stand up."
"I'm not standing up until you agree to train me," she said. "I'll do anything-!"
Tsunade yanked her up by her collar, and dropped her roughly on her feet. She looked her in the eyes for a long moment, searching for something.
"Honestly, you piss me off," she muttered. "Because you're loud, you're gutsy, and you're goddamn stubborn."
But then Sakura saw a softness she'd never known in Tsunade's eyes, and for a moment she understood why Tsunade's beauty was so renowned. If you saw a sweetness like that for too long, perhaps you could fall in love with someone like her.
"But I was like that as a kid too," she said, a half-smile passing her lips. "So I'll give you a chance, kid. Come to this office tomorrow morning."
Sakura felt tears that had been welling in her eyes spill out unexpectedly, and she puffed her chest out and nodded fiercely. "Yes, ma'am!"
Tsunade watched with a tenderness as Sakura left the office. Shizune frowned.
"You have a meeting tomorrow morning, Tsunade-sama," she said, looking intently at a clipboard. "With the Elder Council."
"Oh no," Tsunade said dully. "I guess you'll have to cancel it."
The training was hellish.
Tsunade's guidance, Sakura felt, was about as guiding as a mothering spank to a child. It hurt.
She persevered.
Sakura got her house key back from Kakashi, and she soon went herself to see Satsuki.
Knock, knock.
"Satsuki-san?"
This time, she opened the door. Sakura instinctively bundled her hands behind her back, one foot rubbed the other, and she smiled. Somehow, no matter how tough she got, looking at Satsuki who she looked up to so much made her feel like such a schoolgirl.
Satsuki's expression was softer, but Sakura couldn't tell what she was feeling from her expression. She just looked tired. She was wearing some white pyjamas.
"Sakura," she said.
"Hi," Sakura said, feeling a smile on her face. "I was just wondering if you want to come out for lunch with me. And Ino."
Satsuki stared for a moment, before she looked to the ground. She scratched the side of her face.
"Okay," she said. "I need to get a shower. Come in."
Sakura came in and sat down, and she felt a deep nostalgia to when she had stayed with Satsuki. Those days had been so bizarre; she and Satsuki had coexisted harmoniously, even melodiously. It had been an odd but perfect peace.
Satsuki's place didn't evolve much with her state of mind, like Naruto's seemed to. She was too clean. Her plant wasn't, though. Somehow, it seemed to be in disarray.
The shower ran. Satsuki didn't sing in the shower. Living alone, too- if Sakura lived alone, she'd sing so loud the windows would crack. That fit Satsuki, though.
'But I bet she secretly really wants to sing in the shower. Everyone does.'
Satsuki left in a towel, and once again had little shame about getting changed in front of Sakura. 'Typical.'
But the typical, the normal, was exactly what Sakura wanted. She wanted normal back, so she sat back in Satsuki's seat, and smiled.
They left, Satsuki only having dried her hair a little bit. The day was bright, cheery, and Konoha was alive. Sakura loved the uniquely warm breeze of autumn - even if the leaves didn't change colour in the evergreen of Konoha.
Satsuki didn't talk much, but this was an odd day where Sakura didn't even feel the need to. The fact that Satsuki agreed to come out at all left Sakura feeling just an inch more hopeful about it all.
When she entered the small café, Sakura had no trouble identifying the right table. Ino's hand was high enough, but she didn't forget to yell anyway.
"Satsuki-san! Sakura! Over here!"
Sakura scurried over, pulling Ino down to the table. "Jeez, Ino, we saw you. Stop shouting."
"Hmph," Ino pouted. "Well, maybe I'm just excited to see Satsuki-san. You get to see her all the time, but I don't!"
Satsuki looked vaguely uncomfortable, but sat down anyway at Sakura's motion. They settled, with Satsuki sitting beside Sakura and Ino opposite. Sakura spread a menu between her and Satsuki, but Ino didn't look; Sakura supposed she must have already decided.
"How have things been?" Sakura asked. Ino was looking around for the waitress, but turned to shoot her a smile.
"Fine," she said. "Things have been super boring, actually. All of my missions have just been D-rank construction, or outside of the village gathering resources…"
"Yeah, same here," Sakura said. "We were doing construction yesterday."
"Ahh, isn't it the worst? Not that I want anything, like, super intense, but it's also not easy labour, or quick. It's just long, boring, and it tires me out!"
Satsuki nodded. The waitress arrived, and Ino ordered sweet chicken with rice, Sakura the same. Satsuki ordered ramen, and though Ino carried on talking, it was so uncharacteristic of her that Sakura hesitated.
"But y'know, I tell you what, having the opportunity to just do boring tiring things? It's relaxing," Ino said. "When I see the village working together in hard times like this, I really know why the Third was willing to die for sacrifice himself, you know?"
"When you talk like this, I just- it's just weird, Ino," Sakura muttered. "All of a sudden, you're taking it all so… seriously."
"It's not like that. Seeing people get along just cheers me up, Sakura," Ino said. "No one likes arguments. It's like, y'know, rhododendrons are some of my favourite plants. A lot of them are evergreen, and they can bloom in the late winter.
"But if you try to plant a rhododendron in a garden with other plants, they can poison the soil," Ino said. "Sometimes plants use their roots to choke out the rest of the garden.
"Even despite being beautiful and sweet alone, they become vicious in the face of other competing plants. So even if you want the perfect garden, sometimes certain plants simply can't coexist. It sucks." Ino sighed. "But at times like this, it's like… the whole garden has decided to thrive together instead of competing. There's no equivalent for plants though - that's what convinces me that although plants are incredible, they're not quite as incredible as people." Ino winked. "When we work together, anyway."
Sakura rolled her eyes, smiling a little. "You need to get out of that shop more."
"Speaking of which, my dad has been doting on me ever since I woke up," Ino said. "Man, he must have been worried sick."
"Yeah," Sakura said. "He really was."
"Well, Satsuki-san," Ino said, and Satsuki looked up, "We're both super lucky that Sakura's got such a big brain behind that forehead, huh? We both owe her our lives. Who knows what would have happened if she hadn't worked her ass off to get Tsunade-sama to help us."
"No, no, it's uh- it's nothing," she said. "I was just- worried about you two. I couldn't just do nothing for all that time, y'know?"
"Shush, Sakura. I'll pay for this meal, okay?" Ino smiled. "But don't forget, Satsuki-san. You really do owe her!"
Satsuki stared, and Sakura seemed to panic. "No, it's really no-"
"No, you're right, Ino," Satsuki said, staring into her ramen. "I really do owe her. Thank you, Sakura."
"Take care of our Sakura," Mebuki says. "Please keep her safe."
Satsuki pauses, and then nods, resolute.
"I promise."
She clasped the chopsticks so tight the wood began to splinter somewhat. "I'll repay you somehow."
"Well, there's that festival next week, isn't there?" Ino said. "Are you going to get dressed up for it, Sakura?"
"Ah, I didn't hear," she blinked. "What festival?"
"Jeez, Team 7 really is in a special little bubble of its own. The one celebrating the… defeat of the Nine Tails," Ino said, stuttering oddly with the memory of that spectres glistening white teeth. "Uh, I'm sure it has an actual name. But it's a big one! So you've gotta get dressed up."
"Uh, well, I don't really… have anything to wear."
Ino rolled her eyes. "You're so easily outdone, sometimes, Sakura, it just makes things boring. You have to get dressed up so we can go together! There's no way Shikamaru or Chouji will go, you know?"
"What date's it on?"
"Uh... " Ino counted off on her fingers, muttering quietly. "October 10th?"
"That's Naruto's birthday."
The two stopped. "Oh," Sakura said. "You knew that, Satsuki-san?"
Satsuki blinked, and an uncomfortable blush crept across her cheeks. She nodded and turned away.
"Oh, I see," Ino said, and a gleeful smile spread across her face. Satsuki was staring out of the window with determination, stifling a blush, and Ino gave Sakura a wink and suppressed a giggle. "Perhaps we'll invite him out too!"
As the day went on, Sakura felt more and more as though perhaps things were looking up.
A/N: And now, the weather.
What weather do you enjoy the most?
Your favourite season?