-Edited 5/28 -
Unspoken Bonds by Sandi
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Chapter 1: Mistake
The worn, tattered scroll dropped from pale, shaking hands, making a slight noise as it collided with the stone floor. Emerald eyes widened in disbelief, and the girl gathered up the confidence to look at the scroll once more.
Shinobi: Uchiha Itachi
Age: 13
Mission Rank: Unranked
Mission Statement: Eliminate the Uchihas. Details provided by client after acceptance.
She blinked.
Doubtful, she stared at the kanji again, as if daring it to change its strokes before her eyes. Her eyes perused the rest of that particular section.
Client: The Elder Council
Mission Status: Unsuccessful.
Additional Details: Uchiha Sasuke is still alive.
She ignored the rest of the scroll, re-reading the particular section over and over again to help allow it to sink in.
When it finally did, she slumped to the floor, her pink hair falling in clumps about her face, her mind muddled with so many questions that she could not answer. She gripped the scroll so tightly that she was afraid it might rip, but refused to loosen her grip for fear of not being able to prevent her hands from shaking.
A few minutes passed before she began to wish that she had never seen the paper.
Sasuke's revenge would have a decent motive, and she could go on being loyal to Konoha.
Stop, she told herself, why deny the truth? This was the rational side of her speaking.
Her other side was too committed to what she had always known, sewn so irreparably to her past. It tried to suffocate her inquisitive mind.
The two sides of her mind battled it out before she consciously came to an agreeable conclusion.
A mistake.
That was what it was.
She should have never seen the paper. It was not her business, nor was her chuunin status high enough to make her privy to such information.
Tsunade had simply asked her to retrieve a genin team's mission statement, nothing else. She grabbed the needed scroll, and resolved to act like nothing had changed.
In reality, nothing had.
At sixteen, she was still considered weak, emotional, and too attached to Sasuke, even though she had long gotten over him. Her position as a hospital medic and Tsunade's apprentice had given her a name, but she had never felt big enough to fill it.
Or perhaps, she didn't want to fill it.
What if she didn't want to be a hospital medic?
What if she wished to become a field medic?
They would laugh, that much she was sure of. They would all jest, not knowing how much their words hurt her.
And time and time again, she forced herself to accept her place. She was loyal to Konoha, and would do what was expected of her.
That was what she had thought until now.
Now?
She was indecisive, her mind lightly touching upon all the different methods of action. Rolling up Itachi's scroll, she hid it within her chuunin jacket, telling herself that she would read all of it later.
That is a lie, Inner Sakura pointed out smugly. The girl outwardly frowned; she would do it.
Eventually.
As she left the room, her hands tightened around the scroll she had been ordered to retrieve. Minutes later, she stood in front of the Hokage's desk, a smile spread across her face.
However, for some reason, it hurt to smile. It felt faker by the second, and any time now, Inner Sakura would call her out on it.
She extended her hand over the cluttered desk, murmuring a description before stepping back, waiting to be dismissed.
In front of her stood a relatively new genin team, their faces genuinely bright with hope and excitement. It reminded her of herself four years ago.
As she waited in silence, her mentor filled out some of the blanks before handing their team leader a mission statement.
Tsunade began to speak.
Sakura felt that these next five minutes were the longest five minutes she had ever spent, her patience being slowly drained.
The syllables became lost to her, and Sakura gazed into nothingness, willing her mind to think about what was for dinner.
As soon as it had become clear that Tsunade was wrapping up, she forced herself to focus on the words being said.
"Be careful Futeha-san, you might run into rogue-nin on your way there," the blonde warned.
The jounin leader nodded sharply and, after a courteous bow, walked out of the Hokage's office. His genin scampered after him, eager for their first real mission.
"Sakura."
"Hai, Tsunade-sama," replied Sakura formally. She tried to hide her uneasiness at the Hokage's tone.
"Your team... is going on a month long B-rank mission near the Village of Sand."
"Do you wish me tell them?" Sakura asked, her hope rising.
"They already know."
Sakura worded her herself carefully, "Why are you telling me this?"
"They have already chosen a different medic to accompany them... a jounin-medic."
The pink-haired girl was silent, her mentor watching her carefully for a reaction. Her voice was hollow when she responded, "I understand."
Tsunade breathed out, obviously relieved about not having to console her student. "If that is all, you are dismissed."
The girl did not move.
Her delicate lips opened, and her question rolled out more easily than she had anticipated.
"Will I ever become strong enough for them?"
Hazel eyes locked with her own, and silence penetrated the room.
When it became clear she would not receive a straight answer, she excused herself calmly and headed home.
The silence was clear enough.
It was true though, at her current training level, she was no where near as adept a shinobi as the other three.
She had to accept that and move on.
If only I could, she thought, as salty tears streamed down her cheeks in the privacy of her dark room after supper, if only I could.
Not allowing herself to wipe the tears, she simply waited for her tear duct to wear out.
It was sad.
She had become so used to bottling up her emotions during the day, and letting them out at night, that her emotional state had become less and less important to her.
It was in this moment of despair that she took out Itachi's record, and after unrolling about a foot of paper, began reading silently.
Shinobi: Uchiha Itachi
Age: 5
Mission Rank: C
Mission Statement: Retrieve stolen merchandise from the Gue family.
Client: The Husai family
Mission Status: Successful.
Addition Details: -
Shinobi: Uchiha Itachi
Age: 5
Mission Rank: C
Mission Statement: Steal a necklace from Noda Takumi.
Client: Yusei Chira
Mission Status: Successful
Additional Details: -
There was more and more, and by the time she drifted off to sleep, reading the scroll felt more natural than ever.
Weeks had gone by, and the rest of Team 7 was currently on a mission in Sand while she continued her daily shifts at the hospital.
In an intense attempt to become stronger, she had begun to train an additional two hours everyday. Her stamina, speed, accuracy, and even chakra pool size slowly began to improve.
She had learned that before, she had only been able to use a certain percentage of chakra before she felt like she ran out, making her chakra pool feel extremely limited. However, recently, in some old scrolls she had been looking through, she found a way to practice increasing the number, slowly, but surely.
Upon this discovery, she began to feel that the sky was the limit. She was no longer trapped in a cage.
She could have potential.
Genuine smiles began to work their way back on her sweet face whenever she managed to reach a particular goal.
It was difficult to train by herself, but when her team returned, she would ask them to spar with her.
She learned more and more jutsus by the day, becoming more confident each time she mastered one.
Her natural element was fire, the element of passion and desire.
Upon learning this, she threw herself into her studies, learning as much she could about that particular element of destruction. After a few days, she realized something.
If she only learned fire-based jutsus, she could easily be defeated by a water-jutsu user of the same level.
And so, she became an avid reader, not for the examination scores, but for information on old techniques she could learn to use or defend herself from.
During the night, it became habit to read over Itachi's file. For some weird reason, she felt a connection with the boy, now a man.
She felt a connection with a man she had never met, only seen.
Her innocence allowed her to keep this feeling, but her cynical side thought about why this was true.
Itachi had been loyal to Konoha.
He had been loyal enough to murder his entire family except Sasuke. Some day she would find out why he was given such an order.
His loyalty had been repaid by banishment and hatred directed toward his every movement.
Sakura was loyal to Konoha.
She never argued with what the council believed was right, and tried the best she could. She took in her friends' handful of hurtful comments in an attempt to fuel her desire to become stronger.
Her loyalty had never been repaid.
The pink-haired girl shivered, thin shoulders vibrating back and forth.
Was she afraid of becoming like Itachi?
She shook her head; she was not yet at that caliber. It was simply impossible for such a thing to happen to her. For some reason though, she felt oddly disappointed.
Then what she was searching for, recognition?
Did that mean that she relied on others' opinions too much?
No, she calmed herself, I was deserving of most of those comments back then.
Then what about now? Inner Sakura asked.
It was a good question.
What about now?
Was she satisfied? She could answer that question: No. She did wish to have her abilities be acknowledged.
Sakura searched for words to describe herself.
Innocent? No, not anymore.
Smart? Shikamaru had her beat. Plus, during a mission, being book-smart was not all that useful.
Unique? Her pink hair and green eyes set her apart, she admitted. But on the inside, she was just as insecure as anyone else, and she knew her skill level was not yet extraordinary. So the term was thus undeserving.
She stumbled upon another word.
Lost.
It fit. She no longer was truly a part of Team 7, and Tsunade had finished with most of her medical training, allowing her go loose.
Her friends served no purpose except to ground her. She understood that her character was still somewhat naive, and that a bit of this would always exist within her. They reminded her of her place in Konoha, a place she was supposed to belong.
She didn't.
She didn't belong and she didn't know what she even wanted.
As she looked bitterly on Itachi's scroll, she realized that all of this self-analysis was because of a mistake.
A mistake.