Perfect
Week #17 - perfect
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
"Life...is perfect," she murmured, keeping her eyes closed tightly and her breathing even and shallow. She was routinely, methodically tuning out all of the noise and all of the distractions so that she could focus solely on the task at hand.
"Life," she started again, breathing in deeply and letting the air flow slowly through her lips, "is perfect," she breathed again, repeating the words over and over like a newly learnt mantra. She thought that they were helping - she felt calmer, wiser, stronger than she did before.
"Life," she breathed in, "is perfect," she concluded, breathing out slowly just once before reaching forward, drawing the curtain aside and opening her eyes in one quick, fluid movement.
The scene before her was grim at best, horrifying at the very worst. Within the tent, the medical ninjas scurried to and fro, looking harried and overworked, trying to treat the most urgent cases while more and more of the wounded poured in. They did not bother with the dead - not yet, at least.
All around her lay the wounded, the dead and the dying and she froze in the entrance, temporarily paralyzed as a wall of sound made up totally of the injured's groans swelled to a crescendo and crashed over her. She found herself drowning in a pool of despair and she didn't even try to fight back - really, what was the point? What could shedo here? What could anyone do to stop this - this madness?
"Sakura!"
Someone called her name - Shizune? - and snapped her out of her horrified reverie. She looked around wildly as her head broke free of the waves, searching for the speaker but there was no one to be seen. She could recognize no one in this chaos and she couldn't help but feel relieved, fearful of who (or what) she might have found.
As she moved forward to join the relief effort, still reeling from her initial impression and fighting back the horror that still threatened to overwhelm her, she thought one thing - who was she kidding? Life was far from perfect.
A/N: You might think this is out of character. You might be right. Written for the narutochoice weekly challenge. An (unintended) prequel to The Heart Always Brings You Back - Chapter 13.