Agonizing pain embraced her in a chaotic abyss; screams erupted from her dry throat and nails gashed her naked thighs. It was not worth fighting it. She couldn't possibly outrun it. She wasn't capable. She had never been, as a matter of fact. And she would never be.

A sharp breath reached her lungs and she took it greedily. Honestly, she should have given up. Death was already lingering around her, spinning and waiting for the opportunity to grab her hair and drag her to her coffin. The only reason she was in this position was purely because of her atrocious idiocy. She should have known not every fight has a good ending.

What was she thinking, anyway? Taking on a Jounin squad when she was almost out of chakra. Never mind that they attacked first – and that it was a subtle declaration of war between Iwagakure and Konoha, seeing as the enemy ninja had sided with Amegakure and indirectly with Akatsuki –, she should not have acted so impulsively. She managed to hurt two of them before her stomach was ripped apart by a sword while someone else kicked her hard in the head. She swore she could hear some muffled laughs around her, or maybe it was just her blood in her ears. She wasn't sure.

There was some anger smouldering inside of Sakura, though, that just wouldn't let her lose a battle. Not after she had lost so many days trying to be better after she had lost herself to become a good ninja, a respected and seen one. She was consumed by the hidden and growing fury inside her so much, that sometimes it scared her. Unknowingly starting to disassociate with everything that was going on around her, she couldn't remember when she had used the Alive Burial Technique on the closest enemy, submerging him into the ground, but she could recall summoning all the power she had left to take the sword out of her and behead him.

Immersed in crimson blood and gripping rage, she couldn't care less that her back was pierced by four poisoned kunai, that the sword broke, or that one member of the squad didn't look a day over the age of twelve, when the gratifying feeling of burying whatever was left of her chakra in someone else's brain to stop their heart was so powerful. She felt powerful. In her disordered insanity, she didn't notice when the last member fled (in retrospect, that was a bit unprofessional, she would think later).

And now she was dying. Excruciatingly, really. She had barely managed to move herself to a more secluded place before she collapsed. However, besides the pain, she couldn't deny the tempting touch of Death, of everything ending. No more suffering, no more feeling worthless every day, no more unseen, failed attempts to improve, no more feeling left behind in every aspect of her life. She wanted to give up.

Nevertheless, Sakura was a medic-nin. She had to heal herself.

And just imagining – or hallucinating – for a moment her funeral, hearing multiple unfaced people disapprovingly muttering: "if only she was good at something… if only she worked harder…" made her angry enough to open her eyes and activate the Byakugou Seal.

Pressed lips and wrinkled nose seemed to describe the disgust she felt inside. Disgust at herself, disgust at others. Why did this always happen? Why couldn't anyone see she was trying?! No matter how much she trained, in their eyes, she was still the useless twelve-year-old, deeply in love with her already lost in the darkness teammate.

She winced. She did not want to think of Sasuke now. It was too much. However, her hallucinations – now becoming buried memories – took the form of a stormy day back in her village. One faithful day two months ago, one she wishes never happened, seeing as it changed her forever. She wishes she could blame him for her decaying sanity because it was learning about his mission that had messed her up. Who in their right mind would willingly massacre their whole clan just because they got an order? Granted, the files she read were severely damaged, so maybe she missed an important passage regarding his decision. But there was no explication for the trauma he had put Sasuke through or for joining an S-class organization or for haunting down Jinchuriki or for so many other things she did not have the energy to think about.

Really, fuck Itachi Uchiha. If Sakura wasn't so out of it from her injuries, she might have punched the ground. Instead, she bent an arm over her eyes, perhaps to hide her tears, perhaps to calm herself. She knew the truth and it completely changed her perspective on the ninja world. Oh, how she wished she had remained a clueless kunoichi, privileged for being the Hokage's apprentice, loving her village with her whole heart, believing with all her might that the Uchiha prodigy just went crazy one day and murdered his family for no reason. And yet, she couldn't. How could she look in her leader's eyes when she knew, she knew Tsunade was very much aware of that infernal mission and was more than likely the mastermind of countless other missions alike? How could she have any respect for hidden villages, now painfully aware of their poisoned acts that they took against their own people in the name of… of what, even? Power? Peace? How could she act the same when her mind was filled with guilt and sorrow for a man she had hated until that day? Why should she? Of course, as the coward she was, she purposely neglected the realization for two months. She thought she would rather die before accepting the truth.

Ironically, here she was.

Maybe it was because she was so close to dying that she decided going after Sasuke and telling him what she learned about his brother would be a good idea. Maybe this way, her teammate would heal whatever was left of his soul, decide not to kill the only alive person of his clan besides himself, and come back to Team 7. Maybe he would acknowledge her growth. Maybe everything would go back to normal and she wouldn't feel so eaten from the inside out by her reprehensible feelings.

Half burnt clothes, deadly pale skin colored by blood, filthy hair scattered on the auburn leaves behind her head, bleeding sky above her head, crow feathers falling smoothly in the distance. Dawn was approaching and she was expected back in her Shishou's office by noon.

Sakura had to heal herself.