Chapter 16 - Gone

Sasuke's ears roared. Vision blurring, thoughts scrambling, heart thrashing—he was overcome with it as he shouldered past all of the damn people in the hall and thundered as far and as fast as he could away from it. He knew they were talking to him, yelling at him, but he couldn't hear any of it, and didn't want to, either. When he made it to an open window, he launched himself into the air beyond. The cold air clawed at his face, and in that moment, he knew exactly what he needed to do.

Since that day on the water, he'd been so focused on how the portaling door had opened that he had not paused to assess if now he was even at the correct door. He didn't need to open it at all, he just needed to get close enough to that opening to skim along its surface, and launch himself back at the same reality he'd been in all along. Just in a new direction. So, as he fell through the air at the hospital, he bundled his chakra within himself, his rinnegan flashing as he focused on his destination. He opened his eyes one last time to snag a glimpse of Konoha, its mountains and rooftops reddening in the early evening glow, before a rumbling white flash consumed him.

For a moment, there was nothing. Just white, expansive, nothingness.

His knees slammed into the earth first.

His vision swam as the world tilted and he instinctively tucked into a roll to absorb the rest of the impact before springing up to his feet. He felt grass beneath him, smelled the earth around him, as he sank into a crouch, hands braced on his legs as his sharingan flashed his surroundings into focus.

The air, thick with salt and moisture, registered first. Then, the rustling of a breeze through the trees around him, followed by the very distant rush of waves on shoreline. He sensed small creatures—squirrels, sparrows and a few rabbits—padding through the underbrush nearby. Sasuke closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the sun, exhaling into the warmth against his skin. He was utterly alone.

A pressure lifted, somewhere deep within his chest, as he opened his eyes and moved silently and slowly through the trees and toward Kyreen.

She was sprinting. Like she had never moved before, hurtling herself across the waves toward her friends. Sasuke's moves were sluggish as he and Naruto grappled with each other in the water, and she could feel the Uchiha's exhaustion even at this distance. She didn't have enough time. She screamed out for them as their enemy flashed behind the boys, swirling in his red cloak as he drew back a hand. She flung herself forward.

At first, Sakura felt nothing at all. Her gaze was locked with this stranger, so close to him that she could feel his breath on her cheeks, see her reflection in his auburn eyes. Eyes that she recognized immediately, stirring in her a memory—

She was ripped from the revelry by the sight of his arm extended between them. She followed its path to her stomach and felt the pulse of his every move deep inside herself, like an itch she could not scratch. Her eyes wandered back up to his face. His hand was in front of them now—had it really been inside her?—covered in blood—was that her own? She was so tired. Everything weighed down by an indescribable heaviness. Somewhere in the haze, as she felt herself pitch forward, she knew what was happening. The medical terminology flashed before her. Hours hunched over textbooks, amounting to an exact understanding of just how quickly she was dying right in this moment. Shock. Blood loss. Ruptured organs.

She needed to stay awake, but she knew it didn't matter. There was no undoing the hole that had been punched through her, no medic within range, no hospital, no savior to bring her home in time. Time moved so still around her.

She forced her eyes open. She was laying down, now, and could just make out Sasuke through her half-lidded lashes. His mouth was moving. Was he shouting something? She felt his arms wrap around her, and then everything was gone.

Sakura's eyes slid open.

Her breathing was hitched, sweat beading her forehead while her heart hammered against her chest. Her hands flew to her stomach, ripping past the fabric of her shirt to the nest of bandages beneath. She stilled, distantly aware that there were tears dribbling along the edges of her face. She smeared them away and inhaled a shaky breath.

A hospital room greeted her. A familiar hospital room, a Konoha hospital room. She slipped the oxygen tube from her nose and took a delicate sip from the water at her bedside, relief flooding down her too-dry throat.

I'm alive.

The thought itself was quiet, as if thinking it too loud would render it untrue. Sakura sank back into the pillows, looking to the ceiling. She was so exhausted. How long has she been here? Her fuddled mind began to spin.

How had she gotten here? Where were her friends? Was everyone alright? What happened—

She heard footsteps down the hall. They barely registered through the fog of her head as the door opened.

And then there were people in her room. Nurses, her parents, Tsunade, medical nin she barely recognized, swimming around her in a rush. They were talking and laughing and crying and throwing their arms around her, but she couldn't hear any of it. Her skin was prickling, ears ringing… it was all so much, yet still, the person she wanted to see walk through that door, didn't.

Where was he? Where was he? Was he alive? Where was her team? What was going on—

Rough, strong hands suddenly gripped either side of her face. Tsunade's face hovered above her own, stern and unforgiving.

"Sakura, breathe. You're safe. Everyone else is safe and healthy, too. But if you try to ruin all of my hard work with this completely unnecessary hyperventilating, that is another story altogether," said Tsunade. Her voice was low and unforgiving, but there was just the slightest touch of softness. Her eyes crinkled as she rose to stand, turning toward the rest of the room.

"Everyone else, OUT. NOW!" she barked. She began shooing the nurses and Sakura's parents toward the doors. They disappeared beyond the door in a huff.

Then, as Sakura began to sink into the pillows once more, did she hear two sets up footsteps charging down the hall. Her eyes met Tsunade's in fear when the shouting started:

HOW DARE YOU COME HERE!

YOU DID THIS TO HER

YOU AND THAT MONSTROUS CLAN BRING NOTHING BUT DEATH

STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER

With each word, she felt herself shrink into the sheets. She was trembling. She could feel his chakra on the other side of the wall. She knew it so intimately, had touched it and felt it and healed it so often over the years. How it roiled and flared like a violet flame. It was so full of rage in that moment.

Then, just as suddenly as the shouting began, it ended. The door to her room slowly opened, her pairs shuffling through with faces reddened with anger. And as the door slid shut, her gaze connected with his.

He looked so young. Those mismatched eyes, wide and lined with dark, dark circles, staring at her like he was seeing a ghost, his mouth opening as if to speak—

The door closed. His footsteps, fast and heavy, as they receded down the hall. Naruto's voice, shouting something she couldn't hear. Then, a crack, so loud and so close that it shook the room like lightning. There was a flash, just as sudden, then stillness.

She didn't know at what point she'd started crying, only that tears were splashing down her cheeks in waves.

He was gone, again.

A week later, she was discharged to an outpatient facility. A week after that, she got to return home under the careful supervision of a home nurse, who visited her daily. Each day passed slowly, the nights even more so. In the mornings, the nurse would arrive at her apartment and shuffle her out to the porch, where she'd swaddle herself in blankets and stare out over Konoha while the nurse cleaned and prepared meals. Then they'd run through her core exercises and spend some time pouring chakra into her abdomen. Rinse, repeat.

Sometimes, friends would stop by to chat. She'd hang on to their every word, their stories the only window she had into the world. They were never quite the stories she wanted to hear.

"Sakura-chan!" a shout from her kitchen pulled her from her revelry. A month of this nonsense had passed already. She glanced back from her couch cushions at Ino, brandishing a knife as she arranged a charcuterie board inside.

"Should we do baked brie, or save that for next time?" chirped the blonde. Sakura exhaled as she turned back toward the town, the evening glow descending upon the rooftops around them.

"I'm not really hungry," she replied.

"Cold it is!"

Moments later, Ino skipped out to join her, plopping the platter on the table before them. She snagged a pear slice and popped it into ehr mouth with a hum.

"Cheer up, Forehead. Things aren't so bad—"

"Oh, piss off, Ino," Sakura hissed. When she saw the face Ino made, she exhaled. "Sorry, that… I'm not sure where that came from. I'm just… I'm allowed to be upset."

"Are you still not talking to your folks?" Ino asked. She put a comforting hand on Sakura's knee, and the pinkette leaned into her shoulder with a sigh.

"Definitely not," Sakura breathed. "I still can't believe my mom said those things…. I mean, I've really opened up to her over the years. She knows how much he means to me, and she still just went and… Ruined, everything."

"It's about time someone put Sasuke in his place, if you ask me," said Ino with a giggle. When Sakura threw her a glare, she shrugged.

"Have you heard anything, Ino?" the pinkette asked, tentatively now.

"No, sorry. I get the same story from Kakashi every time I ask - Sasuke is on some sort of covert mission, but the two of them are in touch," mused Ino as she nibbled on a slice of gruyere. "Seems shady as hell to me. Why won't he just come home?

"We both know the answer to that, Ino. My mother eviscerated him and his family in front of all of us. I wouldn't want to hang around here, either," said Sakura.

"He's Sasuke, for Christ's sake. You think one of Mebuki's temper tantrums would throw him off? That guy is a stone wall of emotion."

"But, there isn't really anything here for him, either? It's not like he and I ever really had anything, and Naruto's gone most of the time with Hinata these days, anyway."

"Sakura, shut right the hell up. The guy is crazy about you, I've told you that every time I've come over."

"Right. You, and everyone else keeps telling me that, but it makes literally no sense. And I'm tired of getting my hopes up over here."

She stood shakily to her feet, putting her hand out to balance herself against her furniture as she madeher way inside.

"I'm using the bathroom," she said shortly. After what felt like an eternity of slow walking, she closed the door behind herself and lowered to sit on her bath mat. She hung her head in her hands.

None of it felt real. She was stuck in a body that didn't work, isolated from her friends and family, while the love of her life was… who knows where. Gone. Disappeared, again. She had half a mind to believe that Kakashi was lying to her about knowing his whereabouts, purely to avoid upsetting her while she recovered. It was infuriating.

She'd had thousands of hours to mull over what had happened in the waves that day. She should have died, practically did die, and would have had Sasuke not performed some sort of miracle to get them both to safety. He nearly died, too, in the process, by Tsunade's account. But, typical of the dark-haired nin, he healed up quick, and was back to training and throwing chakra around at full capacity in no time at all.

Instead of heading out on the next mission, though, he'd lingered. Stuck around the hospital, spending weeks in town, so much more time than he'd ever spent at home. A part of her resented that she hadn't been able to be there for any of it. Apparently, he visited her too, although people seemed uncomfortable when she asked about it, so she could only assume it wasn't often. Again, typical.

What she wanted now, more than anything, was to get some goddamn closure. To heal herself up, march out to whatever hole he was hiding in, and drag him back to give him a piece of her mind. To tell him that she didn't track him across the country, risk her life and nearly die in the process, to bring him home safely, only to have him leave as if none of it had happened. As if none of it had mattered. As if she didn't matter.

No, she was furious. And she was going after him as soon as she was able to tell him that.

A/N: Oh hey! I'm alive! Enjoy this surprise update (after literally years LOL sorry) and more to come. :)

xo

Indigo