Death.
Disc: Ha. Ha. Yeah. Okay. And I'm a 22 year old blonde supermodel named Candy.
She awoke in the cold, buzzing darkness. Cold, it almost seemed… refrigerated, buzzing, the sound like florescent lights, and dark, pitch black…so black, she thought she'd gone blind. Oh, and there seemed to be some sort of cloth over her face.
Excellently, she remembered what had happened before she'd ended up here. A fight between her and Uchiha Itachi. Of course, Sasuke hadn't been there (when had he ever?) and Naruto and Sai had been distracted with Kisame. Personally, she thought she'd been doing pretty well against someone who could take on the Godaime without changing his expression. A few cuts here and there, a broken wrist (that she'd already healed once, damn it!) and a deep gash above her right eye. Then there was the singed calf, second degree burn on her forearm and the confident smile that was stuck on her face.
She wasn't the only one with wounds, you know. Itachi had four broken ribs (well, she thought it was four, maybe five), a crushed left hand, ripped tendons in his right leg and a pretty cut on his cheek.
They had been fighting for awhile, a few hours and they'd sent one of Sai's birds to get help, but if Sai didn't make it through the fight, the bird wouldn't either. Therefore, it was safer not to rely on back-up coming because you never knew if they'd end up there in time, if at all.
Nightfall was setting in on them when she landed another forceful blow to Itachi's left side, and he disappeared for a few moments. Her next move, she decided was to not decide anything. That damn sharingan could see every move she was going to make, and it was better not to think when you were fighting with someone like that.
Also, she'd been avoiding his eyes the whole time.
Ugh. Difficult business fighting the brother of the boy she loved. Yes. Loved, as in… past tense. Who could continue to love someone who had left you on a stone cold bench and then never come back to say they were at least sorry? Well, Sakura had managed for awhile, but it got to be hard work…too hard, for her heart in the end.
But that's all really beside the point. Anyway, she was working on not thinking when suddenly, the world blacked out around her. She remembered thinking about what had gone wrong, and in her mind, nothing had. So why had she blacked out?
She scrunched her nose up, reaching her arm around and pulling the sheet off of her face. Now, what was going on again? She took a deep breath. Why did there seem to be no freaking air? Did they want her to suffocate? She blinked again, still seeing only black.
Slowly, she reached her arms up. About a foot (if that!) above her head, her hand met more metal. Her eyes widened in the darkness. Her foot, she moved gracefully to the side, where it also met more cold metal. Freezing cold metal. Un-characteristically, she began to panic because damn it, she was in a box!
But then, thankfully, she remembered that she had chakra. Pushing some into her leg, in one quick and fluid (well, as quick and as fluid as it could possibly get when you're trapped in a cold metal box) she kicked the side closest to her feet out. It landed with a clank on the floor and then slid away farther, crashing into something out in the room (wherever she was) and stopped.
Carefully (and kind of painfully, what the hell!) she slid out of the box and landed gently on the floor, despite the sudden throbbing in several parts of her body. The room was pretty dark and the floor was just as cold. There was light coming in from a window on the door, but it wasn't much. It was about that time that she realized she was naked, save a sheet that had landed by her feet on the floor. She picked it up, wrapping it around her body.
And then she moved for the light.
She opened the door tentatively, feeling chakra signatures all around her. She then noticed that her hands were slightly blue, and her skin was a weird color. She didn't like it. It was freaking her out. On a pull out table next to the door was a bunch of papers. She walked over to them, peering down. Okay, so she knew the date. And it'd been a day since Itachi. Her heart dropped when she saw the sign over the door.
'Konoha Morgue'.
She almost threw up. She'd been in the morgue? On a cold metal slab in a refrigerated box with a sheet over her face? Something was terribly wrong here. She blinked back the tears forming in her green irises. She had just woken up in the morgue. Morgueeeee.
A chill went down her spine and she ran for the elevator, effectively stopping when the pain in her leg was so intense she had to stop. She paused, looking around and then un-wrapped the sheet. Her leg looked… terrible. Of course, if they'd thought she was dead, they wouldn't have healed her! She healed it quickly and moved for the staff elevator again.
Once in, she pressed the floor that her office was on. On the way up, her mind wandered aimlessly through the possibilities of this dreadful mistake. Her teacher probably would've checked her body to make absolutely sure that she was really dead, before sending her to the morgue. So what had gone wrong? She wasn't dead! And yet, here she was, blue-ish, clawing her way out of a box.
The doors opened up and she was greeted with a mass of people running back and forth, all which would recognize her, and all which probably knew that she had just been labeled as recently deceased.
So she looked down at her wounded, blue, 'dead' body one more time before she stepped out into the open and waited for the screams.
Which came, mind you.
"SAKURA-SAN!" Nurses surrounded her, several screaming things at others, but all afraid to touch her. Shizune came, running down the hall, yelling.
"What is this I hear about Sakura-chan? Don't talk about her that way! She was--" Shizune's eyes widened considerably before her mouth formed a large 'O' and she let out a sob/scream. "SOMEONE ALERT THE GODAIME! IMMEDIATELY, DO YOU HEAR? AND SOMEONE CALL HATAKE KAKASHI!"
Shizune was the first to touch her, recoiling momentarily at the coldness of Sakura's skin.
"What have they done to you?" Shizune whispered in a pained voice, leading Sakura to a stretcher, where she laid down, finally noting the affects of her torn body. She looked up at Shizune, who's eyes were filled with tears at Sakura's appearance. "We thought you were dead, Sakura-san... I mean… I saw you myself yesterday and…"
But Sakura had closed her eyes, and all the feelings stopped again.
This time when she awoke, she was in a white room, well lit, that smelled like disinfectant (something she was used to) and it was warm. There was no buzzing and her windows were open. She saw flowers on the bedside table, pink, cherry blossoms.
Over a little to the right was a dark blue plastic chair that a boy had taken residence in. Naruto was slumped in the chair, his eyes closed. He normally snored but there wasn't any of that. He had dark circles around his eyes and he was pale. He looked more like death than she did. And she had been 'dead'.
"Naruto," She croaked, her voice was oddly cracked and dry. "What's happening?"
The boy's eyes snapped open with such force that Sakura was afraid he'd hurt himself. He stared at her blatantly for a moment before opening his mouth and closing it again. Her green glass bottle eyes connected with his cerulean ones and he lunged across the room and squeezed her into a gigantic hug. His sobs filled the room and his tears soaked her hospital gown.
"It's okay," She whispered sincerely as his body shook. "It's okay, I'm here, promise."
He lifted his head up gingerly, and she watched as he took in her face. He seemed shocked, but relieved.
"They told me you were dead, Sakura-chan," He told her quietly, "They told me that you…"
"I know, shhh, its okay," She repeated again, "I'm here. Feel." She took his hand and placed it on her heart, where the organ was beating out a steady rhythm. Naruto burst out in loud sobs again.
Later that evening, Kakashi came to visit. He sprawled himself out in the chair and stared at her. She waited for a moment to see if his little orange book would appear…it didn't. Slowly, his voice came through to her.
"I'm glad you're okay, Sakura."
His voice was slightly shaky. What she said next was sure to make him cry, but she just had to say it, "I need a hug, Kakashi-sensei."
Sure enough, a tear leaked out of his visible eye and he stood, coming over to her bedside and wrapping her up in a hug. He squeezed lightly and she could see his smile through his mask. "Sasuke should be home from his mission tonight," He told her gently, "We're going to tell him what happened…but not who your opponent was, alright?"
Sakura nodded. It was probably for the best.
The day broke with wonderful hues of orange and red, but Sakura was still unbelievably stressed. She didn't like keeping secrets from Sasuke, but it was the only way to ensure that the boy wouldn't over react and go psycho. She really didn't want to have to bash him over the head with a bat to smoosh in his common sense.
She tossed and turned tiredly in her hospital bed wide awake, waiting.
When he finally came in, she didn't know what to do. They sat there in silence for a long time, just kind of being with each other's presence. Sakura was ready to scream when the usually non-talkative Uchiha opened his mouth.
"How are you?" It didn't even sound like a question.
"I'm…alive," She answered honestly.
"…" They sat in more silence.
"Sasuke," She began with a trembling voice, "I--"
"I'm glad you're here."
Her eyes widened as she stared at him in shock.
So that's what it took. It took death to melt a heart of ice. It took death to wake him up from his oblivion. It took death for him to actually appreciate her.
'Huh,' She thought sourly, 'Maybe I should die more often."
