THE DAY IT HAPPENED
SAKURA
Trauma did strange things to people. But for most, the experience is described as an out of body experience. It was a sensation of weightlessness - floating up, up and away from yourself, away from the pain and as an third party, watch it happen to yourself. It was a defense mechanism, Tsunade had explained once to Sakura, for the mind to process everything without breaking apart. Tsunade had beaten any such reaction out of her. Medic-nin and trauma were inconvenient but inevitable lifelong acquaintances.
So when it happened, there was no gentle rise of consciousness, pillowing her up on a cloud to carry her to safety. There was no other entity taking responsibility for her actions. When it happened, she did what she was trained to do. She flipped the switch in her mind and worked. Present in the moment, clear headed, she made impossible, life-altering decisions as simply as picking out her clothes for the day. Then when it was over, when it was too much to handle, she would shatter. Completely. Painfully.
Training can only take you so far.
All that held her together were the thin layers of her skin as she told her body to lift one foot, then the other, then the other. Again and again. She wondered how long her fragile skin would hold her splintering self. Long enough for one more step. Left. Then another. Right. She willed it so because she had a job to do. She had a responsibility to uphold. And part of her knew there was no going back after what had just occurred – no what she had just done. She would never be the same.
Left, right. Left, right.
Her footsteps were heavy. Her head was unbearably noisy with the roar of the town around her. She looked around, images coming to her in jagged flashes, her vision like broken glass. The hospital doors, a blonde woman inspecting fruit at a stand on the main street, Tsunade's face carved eternally young in the mountainside, an off-duty nurse waving at her in the lobby. Then suddenly there, in front of the Hokage's – of Kakashi's – office. She watched her hand reach out and turn the handle.
The office was mercifully empty, save for Kakashi, a shock of silver and his advisor Shikamaru, a streak of green and brown coming in and out of focus beside him. Both craned over a large stack of papers, more critical than she was.
Kakashi says something, but time shifts again like light shimmering through her cracked windowpane of reality, and now both men have all eyes on her.
At once, a scattering of reactions played out in front of her. Kakashi's head in his hands in disbelief. Kakashi shoving the stack of papers scattering across the room in anger. Kakashi's face sour with disappointment as she let him down another time. Kakashi striding across the room to gather her in a forgiving, fatherly hug.
None of these were real.
Because when she opened her mouth and did her job, the next moment only stretched out in a cruel, long silence. Both men were transfixed on her words, flickering through the air in a gothic mosaic of stained glass—shards of truth, shards of lies.
Lady Tsunade passed away this morning.
It was quick.
She felt no pain.
And I did everything I could to save her.