Prologue: Despair

Sakura sat in the stale hospital room for the sixty-eighth day in a row. The fluorescent lights still burned with the same brightness and the machines still beeped at the same frequency. But, today was different because Tsunade said she had important news.

"'Important news' doesn't mean it's good news. Foolish as always, Sakura," Sasuke grumbled from where he leaned on the wall next to her.

Even if she knew he was right, she snapped, "Shut up."

As if they had been transported to an alternate universe, Naruto was the quiet one in the room. It would have been hard for him to talk with the feeding tube in, though. If he had been awake, the Naruto she knew would have certainly found a way to protest his dismal condition.

Instead, he lied in the hospital bed as unmoving as he had been for the past sixty-eight days.

Sakura had tried everything she was capable of in the first seven days—she denied sleep for a solid week by the use of caffeine and other stimulants just so that she could keep working on possible solutions. After that, though, Tsunade banned Sakura from working on him. She cited a conflict of interest, but they both knew that it was because of the toll the situation was taking on her sanity.

Who would be sane after losing both of her teammates in one day, though? If such a person existed, it certainly was not Sakura.

The door opened and Tsunade walked in. She looked grim for someone who had important news.

Sakura fidgeted in her seat and Sasuke shot her a knowing look. Sakura ignored him.

Tsunade closed the door behind her and walked over to the bed to gaze down at Naruto.

Without meeting Sakura's eyes, she asked carefully, "How are you feeling, Sakura?" Tsunade seemed uncomfortable, like someone trapped in a room with a starved wildcat that might pounce at any moment.

"How do you think I've been? I'm sick of these blanched walls, Sasuke is no encouragement, and Naruto hasn't shown any improvement," she replied with frustration cracking in her voice.

Tsunade grimaced, "Sakura…"

"I know, shishou." Sakura did know, but she just could not do anything about it. Her hallucinations were vivid enough that it was easy to forget that they were not real. So, instead, she accepted Sasuke's presence as real, even though she knew it was impossible—Sasuke could not be in the room when he was dead.

Now her teacher moved from Naruto's hospital bed over to the window away from where Sakura sat. Her body was angled toward the outside world, so her expression was a mystery as she prepared to share whatever news she had with Sakura. The Hokage's body tensed for a moment and then relaxed.

"Sakura, I've done all I can for Naruto," she shivered again before continuing in a hollow voice, "The Kyuubi is dormant and has wrapped Naruto's consciousness and chakra in a sort of…cocoon. I can do nothing to penetrate it—especially since I believe that the Kyuubi's protection may be the very thing keeping him alive," Tsunade's voice shook as she finished, "All we can do is wait…and hope he wakes up." Her shoulders were trembling now.

From Sakura's seat, the world warped in ways that should not have been possible: Naruto began to melt into his bed sheets, Sasuke's brows furrowed in manner that looked concerned, and the floor was inching closer toward Sakura's face. Now, it was so close that she could feel the cold, linoleum tiles pressing against her cheek—she had slid out of her chair and was lying on the floor. She found that it was impeccably clean under Naruto's hospital bed and noted that there was at least one pleasant thing about this whole situation.

Sakura's face was dripping with what she presumed to be tears and her chest felt like it was being hugged by a too-tight corset lined with metal spikes. It was an awful feeling, but the physical aspects were negligible compared to her mental anguish—she had no idea what to do with herself.

"N…n…n-no," Sakura sputtered. It held little meaning, but it was the only response she was capable of offering at the moment.

Tsunade crossed the room and sank to her knees next to her unrecognizable student.

Drawing her disciple's head into her lap, she coaxed, "I'm so sorry, Sakura…I'm so sorry." Recognizable or not, it seemed that Tsunade loved her all the same. She stroked the mussed, pink locks in her lap like one would do to console a distressed child. Sakura could hardly be regarded as a child after what she had gone through to end up collapsed on the cold, hospital floor, though—if she was not an adult prior to this moment, she certainly was one now.

"There has to be something I can do," Sakura cried out in despair. Her eyes were closed tightly, but tears still leaked out at the corners.

Tsunade seized the opening to say the hardest part of what she had come to tell Sakura. "You're right, Sakura. There is something you can do. There is something you will do. As your teacher and your Hokage…more importantly, as your family, I urge you to make today's visit to this room your last. What you can do is live your life—you can carve out a new path for yourself. Naruto would want it and you deserve it. Start a new life for yourself, Sakura."

Initially, she recoiled from her teacher's words and sat up with a startle. How could shishou propose such a thing?

"What are you saying, shishou? That I should just…give up on everything?!" Sakura demanded with accusation in her voice. Even Sasuke had his eyebrows raised from where he loomed against the wall.

Tsunade locked eyes with Sakura and then replied, "Yes. That is exactly what I'm saying."

Before Sakura retorted, she reminded herself that the Godaime knew the meaning of love and loss very well. Tsunade must have known the despair that she was experiencing. So, how could she ask such a thing?

As if Tsunade had been listening in on Sakura's mind, she spoke aloud, "It may not sound like it, but it's your best option." Now the Hokage lifted herself from the tiled floor, brushed her clothing into its proper position, and turned to walk out the door. Her hand was on the doorknob when she hesitated.

"Sakura, this is the most difficult order I'll ever give you as a shinobi of the Leaf. But you must follow it. Mourn for your teammates and for the love you've lost, but don't come back to this room. Consider Naruto as good as dead and move on with your life. Please…for your sanity. You've sacrificed enough for your team. Now you must use your strength to support yourself."

And with that, Lady Tsunade opened the door and left without another look at her wrecked student. On the surface, her gesture seemed callous, but it was really a sign that she was mourning the loss of Naruto—and the loss of her student. This moment was nothing less than elegiac for Sakura; she would remain effectively dead until she could find her place in the order of things again.

Sakura was left kneeling on the floor with a silent Naruto in the bed next to her and an apparition of Sasuke still leaning against the wall. Suddenly, she was the most capable member of Team 7. She had not seen Kakashi-sensei in five weeks, so maybe she was the only thing left of Team 7 at all. Sakura was the last bit of legacy remaining—it was her responsibility to save face for Sasuke's discretions and Naruto's haphazardness.

Leaning back on her palms, Sakura asked aloud, "Sasuke, how the hell did we end up like this?"

His eyes slid from the window to her face and he was silent for a moment longer.

"Fate, I guess," he responded as his eyes slid back to the window. He looked like someone who longed to go outside and enjoy the day—it was sunny out, after all.

Sakura grimaced and spat, "That's bullshit and you know it. Not even Fate would be this cruel. This was the result of an elaborate series of events. It could be nothing less than that."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Whatever you want to tell yourself, Sakura. All I know is that I'll never get to see my brother burn now." Under his folded arms, his hands were clenched into fists to convey the anger he felt at having gone too soon.

Sakura assessed him for a moment; she had not thought of his brother. She found that the thought of him caused her insides to bubble with anger. If all of Team 7's pain could be traced back to Sasuke and all of Sasuke's pain could be traced back to his older brother, then…Itachi seemed to hold an awful lot of responsibility in this situation.

"Don't, Sakura," Sasuke snarled, "My brother is my burden." He read her line of thought so easily.

She laughed. "He's your burden and you're dead. Your burden is my burden now," she added after nodding toward the bed, "And his burdens, too."

"You'll never compare to his skill. You'll just die a pathetic death if you even try to face him," he chided coldly.

Sakura felt inclined to believe him, but she was not ready to give up so soon.

"I'll train," she countered defiantly, "I'll train as much as I need to—hell, I'll train even more than I need to. Whatever it takes, I'll do it."

Sasuke snorted. "Oh, yeah? Simple training won't prepare you for everything Itachi has to offer. Just wait until he snares you with his tsukuyomi. Then you'll understand that it takes a lot more than 'training' to top the man who massacred the Uchiha clan."

"…What do you mean?" Sakura inquired, feeling slightly put-out.

"It's a jutsu of pain designed for your mental undoing," he clarified.

Sakura pondered this for a moment. She knew that she should have been terrified, but instead, she found herself intrigued: Sakura had already been "mentally undone." What could possibly be more painful than what she had already experienced?

Sensing reason for her silence, Sasuke sent her a scathing glare. "Don't be an idiot, Sakura. Look at where that got Naruto."

The tsukuyomi could be more agonizing than this? Sitting in a hospital room with one teammate in a coma who was unlikely to ever wake up and the other present as a mere hallucination? Surely not; such claims sounded absolutely absurd. Even physical agony paled in comparison to the heartbreak of having loved and lost the two people she held most dearly.

"If he uses the tsukuyomi, I'll be ready," Sakura laughed emptily, "I'd love to see what kind of pain it must offer if it's worse than all of this. Ha! What a farce."

Sasuke's face grew dark as he warned, "Itachi is not to be underestimated, Sakura. And that goes for his jutsu, too."

"Maybe I just have a death wish," she quipped without humor. It was meant to be a cold joke, but she had always thought that most jokes held some honesty.

Her illusory teammate opted not to respond and that was fine because she probably would have ignored it anyway. Instead, she lifted herself from the floor and walked over to Naruto's bed to say goodbye to her beloved teammate. If he never woke up, this would be her last time seeing him until his eventual funeral. She just had to place her hope in the knowledge that Tsunade would do everything within her power to help Naruto wake up. But, she also knew that she needed to be prepared if the day when he woke up never came.

Naruto's sunny face no longer possessed its usual vitality. The breathing and feeding tubes looked more like soul-drainers than life-sustainers. Even his wild, golden hair had come to be matted to his head. She reached out a hand to caress his cheek.

"Please come home, Naruto. Even if it's years from now. Just please…come home," Sakura begged through a surge of silent tears. She did not want to write him off as dead, but she also understood that such a mindset was the exact reason why her teacher's orders were for her own good.

"I won't be visiting anymore," she continued, "But I won't forget about you. You're truly the best teammate I could've ever asked for. Thank you so much for everything."

With tears dribbling from her eyes, she leaned down and planted a kiss on Naruto's forehead. Sakura knew that she could not handle this much longer; if she stayed another moment, she might be consumed by her own grief and madness.

After giving her teammate a final, meaningful look, Sakura turned around and strode toward the door. With only the slightest hesitation, she left her hallucinations of Sasuke and her hopes for Naruto behind in the washed-out hospital room.

Sakura would train now and continue for years if necessary. No matter what she would be forced to endure, Sakura would accomplish everything necessary to prepare herself for facing Itachi Uchiha.

Hi, everybody! Welcome to my alternate plot-line, Naruto fanfiction. I am working on eventually getting this on a regular publishing schedule, but I do know that it will be upwards of thirty chapters to completion. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

Thank you for taking the time to read! I hope you enjoyed it!

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