Sakura's Point of View
I couldn't believe it. I could not believe it. I couldn't believe I'd lost them—both of them…
It had been so long since I last lost a patient… I had honestly—and quite foolishly—believed I had left that period of my life behind, that I had finally acquired enough strength and knowledge not to allow another person to die before my own eyes—at least not that easily, not without putting up a fight, not before exhausting all the possibilities, not before putting into practice everything I had in my arsenal.
But those men… they had been dying right in front of me, and there had been nothing—absolutely nothing—I could have done to stop that. I'd just stood there, helpless, at a total loss of what to do, of where to start.
There were so many injuries, so much blood… The image haunted me; as much as I wanted to, as much as I willed and prayed for it to go away, I couldn't erase it from my memory.
I kept on training. I kept on pushing myself to the limit. I kept on punching the ground with what little chakra I had left, watching it erupt beneath my hands. The pain seared my arms, shaking me down to my very core, but in that moment, I couldn't bring myself to care. I needed something to distract me from the painful way my heart was clenching in my chest, and I was willing to try out anything that could possibly help.
The problem was… it wasn't working. Nothing was.
And it was killing me.
Hot tears flooded my eyes as the bloody image of the operation room flashed through my mind once more, but I forced it back and punched a tree instead, watching as it fell to the ground, a thick layer of dust rising to cloud the already stuffed atmosphere. A long time ago, I'd made a promise to myself: under no circumstances was I ever to shade a tear again. And I wasn't about to break it now, when I was on a mission, in Otogakure, bringing down the trees in my ex-teammate's backyard.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
Speak of the devil, I thought as his voice sounded from behind me. Hazily, I realized I should have been able to sense his chakra signature approaching, had I actually been paying attention to my surroundings.
In an instant, he had me immobilized, his strong hands holding onto my upper arms.
"Let me go, Sasuke!" I snapped, and tried to break free from his grasp, but in my haste, I failed to realize that he wasn't even holding me all that tightly, so I ended up falling, rather ungraciously, on my butt. Not only that, but my right foot managed to get caught in the rumble of earth I had created earlier, ripping a pained 'fuck' from my lips.
"What the hell, Sakura?" he hissed as he crouched down at my level, his hand instantly reaching for my ankle.
"Don't touch me, bastard!" I growled lowly and slapped his hand away, not giving a single damn about how much of a temperamental bitch I was probably being in that moment. I had no right to lash out at him for my own weaknesses and mistakes, but I was angry, and not in the mood to deal with his bullshit.
"Stop being so stubborn," he told me with a slight roll of his eyes, surprising me when he didn't throw in a curse word for good measure. He sounded uncharacteristically gentle because of that, but instead of pleasing me, like I knew it should have, that realization only served to annoy me more.
"Stop acting like you actually give a fuck," I snapped back as a consequence, placing my hands on his chest and pushing him away.
It was all he could do not to fall backwards, so he stood up, looking at me with surprise clearly etched on his features. "What's your problem?" he asked, raising an eyebrow and placing his hands on his hips as he continued to stare me down.
"Fuck you!" I spat, before quickly standing up myself, doing my best to put as little pressure as possible on my injured leg. Under normal circumstances, I would have healed it immediately, but I barely had enough chakra to keep upright, so I would have to deal with it until the following day. Truth to be told, it was taking all of me to stand tall, proud and strong when, in reality, all I wanted to do was slouch over and give in to unconsciousness.
"What are you doing, you crazy woman?"
I heard him sigh in exasperation behind me when I started walking—well, limping—back towards the house. In an instant, he was behind me, one of his hands gently holding my elbow in order to keep me upright.
Was my exhaustion that obvious? I couldn't help but wonder with annoyance. Even if it was, though, I wasn't about to give in so easily.
"Get your hands off me," I snapped. "I can handle a twisted ankle on my own, thank you very much."
"Well, it certainly doesn't seem like you can," he shot back, and I had a very hard time resisting the urge to punch in that pretty face of his.
My barely-restrained control almost snapped when I felt him grab my upper arm once more. Better said, it would have snapped and I would have beaten him to a bloody pulp—that, if my knees hadn't buckled unexpectedly underneath me, unable to support my weight anymore. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited for the inevitable impact with the ground, but to my surprise, it never came. Instead, I felt a pair of strong arms wrapping around my waist and pulling me back up, my back colliding with a familiar, well-built chest. Against my better judgment—which, in retrospect, must have been on vacation at that time—I let my head lean tiredly on his shoulder, my eyes slipping shut on their own accord.
"Stupid woman," I heard him mutter under his breath, and instantly sobered up, pushing him away once more.
In a daze, almost, I made my way in the direction of the house, stopping for a moment when I reached the pool. And then, in a sudden fit of rebellion, I closed my eyes and dove straight in, certain that a cold shower was exactly what I needed in order to bounce back into shape and hurt him—if only a little before passing out.
Underwater, I had barely managed to clear my head enough for my instincts to kick in when a strong arm had already wrapped around my waist and pulled me upwards. I gasped as my head broke the surface of the water, only then registering my desperate need for oxygen. I must have been in the pool for longer than I'd thought, I easily concluded.
Languidly pushing the wet, pink locks away from my face, I allowed the owner of that strong arm to lead me back to the edge of the pool, flopping down on my back as soon as he hoisted me up on it. In an instant, he was above me, cupping my face in his hands, the temperature of his skin feeling much warmer than I was sure it was in reality.
He had to call my name at least twice before I finally found the strength to open my eyes and look up at him, and even then, my brain didn't seem to be able to make the necessary connections to let me know who exactly was standing above me. All I knew, all my body had the power of communicating to me, was that he meant safety, that he meant security, that I could trust him—and that he looked too perfect to be real. I briefly contemplated raising my hand and touching his face, anything to ensure he was actually there, with me, but that thought went out the window as soon as I realized that I had no control over my limbs anymore.
At that point, the realization didn't bother me as much as it probably should have.
My eyes chose that moment to slip shut again, and he had to slap me lightly on the face in order to stop me from falling unconscious. At his unusual request, I forced them open again, and he seemed to wait until they were focused before he started to talk.
"What the fuck was that, huh?" he demanded to know, his voice harsh, yet… concerned?
It took me a while to process his question, and when that finally happened, I refused to waste more time by trying to form a coherent answer. "Need… cold shower… wake up…" I mumbled tiredly.
"Are you insane?" he hissed lowly, though he seemed more shocked than anything else. But I was in no state to make such observations, because I was long gone before any other piece of information could reach me. The last words I heard were, "Stupid woman. How do you always manage to be so damn annoying?"