Tsunade is the one to tell her about Team Seven's official disbandment.
It doesn't come as a surprise, not after her last visit to her teacher's— former teacher's—apartment. The bitterness continues to swell in the depths of her stomach but she bites her lips and balls her fists—she knew this was coming. It's the only logical option with Naruto gone and the insignia on Sasuke's headband scratched through. Team Seven is no more.
Team Seven is no more.
Tsunade, the Godaime Hokage, delivers the information in a neutral tone, eyes glinting like steel. She has no remorse for the faith of a team that was meant to fall apart the moment it was created. How could it not? With the last Uchiha and the village's most hated kid (and it still tears at her, that one time Naruto flinched when he walked through the civilian district with her) paired on one team, nothing in between their clashing ideals but an inexperienced genin and a man that should never have been a teacher, not under these circumstances. So, she breaks said girl (the only one remaining, chopped pink hair, and curious green eyes) with the orders she believes in.
But.
Tsunade, the mentor of said little girl, softens her gaze mere seconds after and sighs, her heart aching for everything that went wrong with the cursed number seven. Under the gazes of the people watching her back and the little girl in front of her, she smiles, sour but warm and strong .
"This is a new beginning, Sakura," she speaks, voice firm, "not an ending."
Under a vast blue sky on a Thursday, Team Seven ceases to exist quietly and yet, hauntingly.
Who will remember it?
Who?
"Sakura," Shikamaru drawls lazily, staring at the shogi board in between them, "it's been a while."
Back in the academy, Sakura had never had many interactions with the boy sitting opposite her. Maybe as kids, considering their matching quiet nature and preference for intellectual thinking, but by the time she had cut ties with Ino, he was gone from her life too. It didn't bother her as much as it probably should have back then—she had other issues to concern herself with (and surprisingly not all of them had to do with Sasuke).
Honestly, she didn't expect to start talking to Shikamaru again after rekindling her friendship with Ino, but maybe she should have had her suspicions. Team 10 was everything Team 7 could never have been; close-knit as a family, flowing together perfectly. A puzzle with pieces that perfectly fit together.
(She thinks of blue eyes resembling the sky and black hair the color of ash—and ashes of a broken bond he left behind, that's for sure.)
Thus Ino, wanting to kill two birds with one stone (1. spending time with Sakura and 2. spending time with her team), decided to drag Sakura along to some of her daily meetings with Team Ten.
As uncomfortable and anxious as she was about tagging along, Ino left her no choice, firm with her decision to have Sakura interact with her friends. Naturally, one thing led to another, and suddenly she had begun weekly shogi matches with Shikamaru.
"Sure has," she mumbles in reply, looking at the board with a contemplative gaze before sighing, "I'm losing, aren't I?"
Though recently, thanks to her training under Tsunade, she's been unable to attend a few meet-ups.
"Yep." He leans back on his arms and stares up at the sky, eyes following the movement of the slowly drifting clouds. "Ino is worried."
Ah. That makes sense.
He blinks before he looks at her, a calculative glint in his orbs.
"You've been very busy recently." Busier than you should be.
Sakura scoffs. She's not sure what she finds more amusing—Ino setting her up with Shikamaru so he could quietly interrogate her about her suspiciously large workload or Shikamaru outright giving the whole thing away.
She shakes her head softly and grants the other a small grin.
Since he's been honest with her, she'll pay him back as a sign of appreciation—she's a very polite person after all.
"I've been requesting more training and work shifts at the hospital," she admits and observes as confusion settles in his eyes for a single moment before it's already gone.
He raises an eyebrow. Why?
She halts for a moment. Sakura, of course, knows why. The answer lies at the tip of her tongue, carefully constructed word by word but—she can't bring herself to say it, to speak it out in existence. Seconds pass and she sighs.
"Team Seven."
The lie tastes sour on her tongue but she knows he won't question it.
Recently, no one dares to approach the topic of her former team with Sakura. Not that she can blame them considering she doesn't quite like to talk about the catastrophe that was her former team.
Of course, he knows that's not the answer but the probably most irritating thing about Shikamaru is that he always seems to gather a lot of information and yet rarely acts on all of it. Sakura doesn't blame him though. Due to her shy and self-conscious nature, she holds back a lot as well. Though recently that's starting to change as well and she seems to do exactly the opposite of him more often—act on her knowledge. She can't pinpoint when she started to be a bit more confident, but she's sure it's because of Team Seven's absence and her training under Tsunade.
"Troublesome," he mutters, showing her which turn brought upon her loss on the board.
He agreed to not telling Ino about her little lie with his actions and she couldn't feel more grateful.
Even if Ino told him to do something about Sakura's questionable mood, there's not much he could do against the jarring absence of her former team anyway.
Just as there's nothing he could do against the true reason behind her desire for a larger workload.
Then he grins at her as they hear Chouji and Ino get back with the snacks.
"Another round?"
Sakura thinks she'll be just fine for a little bit longer.
Except there are top secrets hidden for the village's safety, by all means, nothing gets past Konoha's rumor-mill. Knowledge travels throughout many mouths, so if one has a good network they'll gain a lot of useful information. That's the first form of gossip coursing Konoha's streets. It's hushed and not easy to obtain but usually worth it.
Then there's the second form of gossip which is loud and absolutely everyone hears about it even if they don't want to know about it.
The knowledge of her team's disbandment sadly belongs to the latter category.
It's not like Sakura didn't anticipate it. Team 7, after all, has always been the talk of the folks' gossip. With Konoha's Jinchuriki, the sole survivor (minus the murderer, of course) of the Uchiha massacre and the famous Copy Ninja Hatake Kakashi, there was much to say.
(Later, through the mentioned rumor-mill, she learns of Kakashi's other infamous title, Nakamagoroshi no Kakashi.
Friend-Killer Kakashi.
That day she recalls all the times she has spotted him at the memorial and craves every single time into her memory.
Then she starts to question the accuracy of that title.)
So, yes, her former team has always and probably will always be the center of the village's gossip. She's gotten used to the people pointing at her teammates and the hushed whispers following them everywhere.
Now, though, people point at her.
She's the only one left behind, they say, what a poor girl.
Sakura stumbles upon variations of those words everywhere and it's starting to irritate her but she refuses to embarrass Tsunade by letting her temper take the reins, so she bites her tongue until it draws blood and walks on. One day, she'll grab those words right out of their hands and shatter them. One day.
She does, however, also stumble upon Aburame Shino. Back in the academy, she sat frequently beside him. Mostly because she couldn't snatch the seat beside Sasuke.
Partially, because she was one of the few people who didn't mind the bugs and his whole silent nature—in fact, she quite appreciated the silence. It's one of the reasons she never practically liked Naruto, considering he's always been a bit too loud.
Sakura winces.
Though now, she realizes that she has been loud and rude too, especially with her fangirling.
Naruto deserved better than that.
"Shino," she greets him, letting a small smile onto her face, "didn't expect to see you here."
They are currently in front of Konoha's hospital. Her shift only starts in an hour but there's something else she needs to do at the hospital.
Still, it's surprising to see her former classmate there. Whilst the members of the Aburame clan do as well have frequent check-ups or need healing, that's rarely the case. Shizune told her at the beginning of her training at the hospital that the Aburame's clan technique does interfere with healing done by medical chakra to some extent. It's not impossible but it's certainly uncomfortable at least, therefore they tend to avoid healing sessions whenever they can.
"Since they tend to keep their distance from outright directly fighting their foes, they don't get many injuries anyway."
"Sakura-san, it appears I've arrived at a suitable time," he mutters nodding at her, "why? Because I wish to sign up for the medical ninjutsu training program."
She blinks, her eyes widening a little in surprise. That's something she certainly had not expected.
Noting her surprise, he decides to quell her curiosity and explain.
"My goal is to be able to use my kikaichu for remote healing."
Sakura grins at him. "Something akin to Tsunade-shishou's slug summons, huh."
At his nod, she shakes her head gently.
"Well, I won't be much help. I'm still only a trainee, so I can't sign you up or anything."
Right as he opens his mouth to reply, in a feat of boldness, she grabs his arm.
"That said, even if I can't help you, I'm sure Shizune can."
And then promptly drags him in.
(Sakura remembers the boy sitting beside her who would quietly watch the insects crawl on his desk whilst every break, without failure.)
Yes, this might work out just more than fine.
After dropping Shino at Shizune's office, she walks the hallways towards a certain room.
On her way there, she encounters Kame.
It's not that unusual to see Anbu in the hospital. There's a whole section dedicated to them. That section is, of course, meant to help keep their identity secret, and not every nurse can just waltz into there. Every Anbu has one assigned nurse, in rare cases two—that's to prevent nurses from knowing a lot of Anbu's identities at once (of course even that rule is discarded in life-threatening situations). All nurses are sworn to secrecy as well and need to overgo some evaluations to gain the clearance to work in that sector—Sakura suspects that some of them are probably Anbu themselves.
Despite all that, she's rarely seen Kame in the hospital. She recalls having seen his mask exactly once before in the hospital. It was back when she started her training and she's pretty sure he wasn't there for himself.
Sakura expects him to walk on and ignore her. There's no reason for him to address her. They have never talked with each other before. Sakura rarely has to speak with anyone of Tsunade's guards, after all. Yet, he halts anyway and although the mask hides his eyes, she can feel his gaze.
"Haruno-san," he speaks and his voice sounds a bit stiff but mostly… childish? Young? She's unsure of the right word. "Could you lead me to Shizune's office?"
She notes the familiar way he addressed Shizune before she blinks. That's the whole way back. Turning her head, she glances at the door of room 106. The hospital is large. If she walks back there, she won't have enough time to get back to room 106 and then to the ward she's stationed at. Plus, she always needs some time for herself after visiting room 106 with patient number 327.
He catches her hesitance and shakes his head. "It's ok I'll ask someone else to accompany m—"
If he's considering asking someone else to lead him there instead of simply asking for directions, that must mean he can't go alone for some reason.
"It's ok, Kame-san. I can show you to Shizune's office."
She smiles at him politely and he nods his head.
"Thanks."
As they walk there, her curiosity gets the best of her and she musters all her courage up.
"Is there a reason you didn't simply ask for directions, Kame-san?"
Seconds of silence pass and she wishes to take her words back but then—
"I'm not good with directions," he answers, "plus the staff here don't like Anbu wandering around the place without a nurse."
A trainee usually doesn't pry , is what he doesn't say, Sakura figures.
Ferocious. She realizes startled, a grin forming on her face. That's how he sounds.
It's a bit different from the usual Anbu and Sakura is curious.
"… What were you planning to do before accompanying me?"
She wonders if he's trying to converse for his own sake or her sake.
"I was planning to visit patient number 327," she answers truthfully.
She can see the door of Shizune's office.
"Patient 327?"
She tilts her head at his curious tune.
"My mother," she answers and for one millisecond, she sees him stop in his place.
She doesn't think an Anbu is supposed to act like that.
"She's been here since Suna's invasion," Sakura tells him as they arrive in front of Shizune's office.
He grabs the door's handle but tilts his head so that she's in his view range.
"I wish her a good recovery."
"Thank you," is what she says as he walks in.
I hope she doesn't, is what she continues to keep to herself.
A/N: Hello, it has been awfully long... to be honest, this is mostly due to my dislike for the updating system. The cross-posted fic on Ao3 has as of today 11 chapters. Yeah. I'll move them over to but it might take a bit as I'm preoccupied with studying for exams...
Here are my notes on the cross-posed chapter:
I only had to write to him a little bit so far but I admit writing Shino seems a bit difficult for me right now. I'll rewatch some episodes with him later, in hopes to get a better grasp on how he behaves and talks.
He didn't go sign up for medical training in canon as far as I remember. I thought about Sakura bringing up the change but then I realized that if I could let Sakura make other decisions than in canon, that the same would go for other characters. So, here's Shino acting on his desire to be a med-nin.
This chapter actually has a few little hints for further events. For example, the thing about Kakashi's various titles and names, whoops.
Also more Kame! I wonder if everyone can tell who he is. I don't want to say it's obvious because I tend to be a bit bad at characterization and I tried not to mention a lot about him off-Anbu but... on that note, for everyone who liked Sakura going off to find out about various Anbu's identities... the next chapter contains exactly that, an annoyed Kame and a curious Sakura. Also, I think Neji might finally appear. Fun fact, this story actually got around to be written because of Neji's role in it.
On the topic of characterization, I do hope Sakura's is ok. I realized I could write her a bit elusive? Since I remember her not talking much about herself. Like, she was a bit vain as a genin, but she talked about Sasuke most times. Hell, her introduction was mostly about Sasuke as Naruto's was mostly about ramen. On the other hand, that makes for a good plot, don't you think? I feel like her being elusive is probably also a product of her low self-esteem but in this fic, it'll be one from the abuse.
Oh right, I didn't forget about the last chapter's thing with the Yamanaka clan technique but mayhaps Tsunade is avoiding her responsibilities a little bit. It'll be addressed soon though.