The Beginning

Things had changed for Sakura since Sasuke had deflected. She had always thought that her 'love' for him would be her one constant, but then he had gone and left her – passed out on a bench in the middle of the night, vulnerable as the day she was born – her and everyone else who had ever cared about him. Clearly she'd romanticized his character more than a little because his behavior got even better! He, the love of her life – or at least the boy she'd once believed deserved such a title – had done all of this so that he could seek out Orochimaru, the murderer of her parents, who'd died during the invasion. Meanwhile, Jiraiya seemed to have chosen to follow his example and had taken Naruto on a training trip. Unlike Orochimaru, he at least hadn't killed anyone Sakura cared about, but the man was an infamous pervert who had often spied on women in the very hot springs Sakura had used to visit with her mother on Sundays... back when she'd still been alive. Sakura sometimes had to wonder whether Jiraiya had ever seen either of them naked, but promptly shelved the thought whenever it popped into her mind. Best not to know.

Regardless, all of this was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered now, Sakura told herself, was that she had been left behind. She was done with the concept of 'abandoned', abandoned like a discarded, dirty rug in a boot cupboard. She needed to improve, needed something she could throw herself into, body and soul, in order to forget. Or well, not forget, she didn't think she could ever do that to her parents' memory, but in order to stop wasting away, in order to have something else to do besides for mourning, for sitting on her window still and staring at the moon at night and wishing she wasn't such a stupid, useless crybaby. At the same time, she longed for someone to talk to, someone who would hold her or cheer her up or at least ask, but she and Ino had not spoken civilly for a long time, and both Naruto and Sasuke had left. Neither of the boys had even stopped to question whether she was okay, back when she'd shown up to the hokage's funeral with puffy eyes and a sickly complexion. Naruto she could understand, he was a bit of a doofus – but Sasuke? Sakura knew he was one of the most observant people she'd ever met, and after all the concern she'd shown for him, time and time again – he couldn't even ask?

Sakura hadn't wanted to bring up the matter of her parent's deaths because of the Konoha Crush herself, hadn't known how to broach the topic. So what if they'd been crushed by fallen debris? It couldn't compare to the horrific deaths she'd heard her teammates's parents had endured. Once again, Sakura was mediocre even in this.

Naruto, Sasuke and even Kakashi were orphans, all of them much younger at the time of losing their parents than she herself. So how could she now make a big deal about something they'd all lived through since a much younger age, something that was their reality as much as it was now hers? Even so… a part of her had wished they would ask, had wished they would notice something was wrong... they hadn't. Now Naruto and Sasuke were gone on their quests of self-improvement, Kakashi had vanished into thin air, and Sakura… Sakura was a sitting duck, left behind by all of them with nothing to do but walk aimlessly around her empty excuse of a flat, avoid her old neighbors' pitying gazes whenever they passed her on the street.

The first days after her parents' deaths were occupied with sorting through her small inheritance and enduring the debt collectors who had circled her like vultures, demanding immediate reimbursement for the loans her father had taken just before the invasion to pay for a business expansion – a new shop which was now left in ruins. But after her house was sold and everything was said and done, it got even worse. Because then she was alone, all day, every day, with nothing to occupy her but grief and guilt.

Throughout all of this, the only thing that kept her crawling out of bed bright and early every morning was the need to reach the graveyard before her old neighbours, many of which were now widowed. If they saw her, she knew she'd have to listen to them gossip about how her poor parents must have been targeted because she was a ninja training under such a prestigious jonin and how she should've done something to protect them if her teacher was so great, and Sakura didn't think she could endure hearing that one more time – because deep down, she knew they were right.

What had she even done during the invasion, besides for leaping 'heroically' in front of Sasuke, only to get caught in Gaara's sand claw thing and almost being choked to death? Why hadn't she sought her out her parents like any self-respecting daughter would have? Perhaps then they'd still be here. Why hadn't she trained harder, been better, smarter, stronger…?

Now, it was too late. Her neighbors would have to be disappointed, for this was the only thing she'd picked up from Kakashi.

Speaking of – she needed to find him, needed to know where he'd gone, whether he could train her – but who would she even ask where he was? Him? Sakura didn't know any other ninja. None of the jonin she knew from sight were around at all – most of which probably wouldn't even have any idea of who she was, even if she did manage to find them. What was she supposed to do?

In the mornings, after her trip to the flower shop that wasn't Ino's, and after leaving white irises over the polished, cheap granite that was all she'd been able to afford to pay for after the debt-collectors were satisfied and her house sold, Sakura always made sure to choose a route that would pass by the memorial stone on her way back to the flat. Whenever she walked by the ominous slab of black stone and polished grief, she would whisper 'sensei' and 'please train me' into the dewy morning air. After all, Kakashi frequented the memorial too, didn't he? Perhaps he'd see her – since Sakura went every day, it only made sense that he would. (And oh how she longed for the times where she hadn't understood his compulsion to do so, but those days were long past and that Sakura was long since dead.)

Even so, Kakashi was a no show. For all that Sakura kept walking past the memorial every day and glancing around hopelessly, trying to spot the telltale shock of silver hair, he never did let himself be seen by her, if he was indeed there. In the beginning, she'd thought that if only she wished hard enough, Kakashi would appear and solve all her problems, like the invincible sensei he was supposed to be, the man who had turned to face his team back at the bridge and vowed to never abandon them.

("Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon her teammates–")

Only Sakura wasn't his teammate, was she? Had she ever done something to earn his respect? No. She hadn't. Naive idiot that she was, she'd assumed Kakashi would care about her just because a stupid piece of paper declared her his student.

She should have known Kakashi, like her, had only ever had eyes for Sasuke. Before, it hadn't bothered her, because Sasuke had been the center of her universe and she was happy for him, happy that he'd found a sort of father figure in Kakashi, but then Sasuke had turned around and spat on her and Kakashi both and Sakura–

– Sakura was done with just sitting down and taking it – his abandonment, Kakashi's abandonment, Naruto's abandonment, her parents' abandonment, the gossip, the feeling of useless, useless, useless! welling up in her gut. She needed to get herself up to Naruto and Sasuke's level, needed something to do that wasn't talking to ghosts and wishing pitifully her life were different. After two months of a pathetic existence that couldn't be labeled as 'living' so much as 'going through the motions of humaning', Sakura decided that that was that. She was past the point of giving zero fucks, she didn't care if the highest authority in the village shot her down and trampled on her metaphorical pride because she was an empty void, and at this point, she felt utterly disconnected with reality. All she knew was, vaguely, that she needed help. Help in the form of a teacher that could give her something to focus on, something to work towards, something to feel like her life held meaning. Such was Sakura's thought process as she planted herself before the hokage.

"Yes?" the woman asked her blankly. "Can I help you?"

Sakura took a deep breath.

"Please train me, hokage-sama."

Senju Tsunade, slug princess, sannin and now godaime hokage – creator of the entire field of modern medicine, laughed in her face. It wasn't anything Sakura hadn't expected. She would have expected herself to cry or be torn over the rejection, but she didn't and wasn't. She couldn't bring herself to muster the energy to sulk about it. Instead, she simply went about her day same as always, the hours just passing her by. When night came, she went to sleep, and when the next day dawned, Sakura got up, bought irises, visited her parents and ambled back to the hokage tower, same as yesterday. And when Tsunade rejected her again, she only nodded slowly and repeated it all.

In such a fashion, Sakura requested Tsunade teach her again the next day, and the day after, and the day after that as well. She had replaced pestering the wind with pestering the highest-ranking person in the village, and she found she rather preferred this to the sting of Kakashi's continued absence at the memorial. Visiting Tsunade was a decent addition to her routine. It gave her a reason to get up every day and to leave the graveyard afterward, so that was good.

One morning, perhaps two weeks in, the hokage's secretary told her that all meetings with the hokage had been booked three months in advance. Sakura wasn't an idiot; she understood Tsunade's game well, but she had nothing to do besides for sit by herself in the dingy flat for 'genin without resources' she'd managed to fight tooth and nail for, the flat without windows and stale air that always smelled of sickly stir fry from the bar next door… and Sakura found she didn't mind to move camp to the hokage tower at all: at least this way, she could feel like she was doing something useful. At least this way, she was surrounded by noise and people, even if none of them talked to her.

She would sit down with her back against the wall in the hallway outside of the bathroom closest to the hokage's office. Tsunade may be a legend amongst shinobi, but she was still human and humans need to take a leak every now and then. Thus, the blonde was forced to pass Sakura by whenever nature called, and when this happened, Sakura would briefly blink herself out of her catatonic state and heave her numb body up so that she could corner Tsunade to make her daily request.

("Please train me, hokage-sama."

"No, brat. How many times do I have to tell you?")

The woman's answer never changed. However, Sakura had nothing left to lose, so she didn't quit, enduring rejection after rejection after rejection with the resignation of one who is empty, one who just goes through the motions, one who can't even feel the sting anymore. Tsunade's negatives remained the same, until one day… one day they didn't. One day her answer changed. The blonde was already by the door of her office when Sakura heard: 'fine.'

Wide-eyed, she turned, almost believing she'd misheard.

"Hokage-sama?" she asked quietly, hesitantly poking her head into the office the woman had just entered.

From inside, Tsunade turned slightly, to face her, eyes glancing back over her shoulder, head tilted as she gave Sakura a hard, appraising stare. It felt like the first time anyone had truly seen her, truly looked in months. Sakura was jolted awake by that stare, and suddenly the weight of the world, of this moment, settled over her shoulders for the first time in months, heart pounding in her chest.

Tsunade continued staring at her in that manner, and eventually said: "Prove to me that you're worthy, brat, and I'll take you."

"Yes!" Sakura cried, surprising herself by her fervor. "Thank you! Thank you, thank you…"

Tsunade frowned. "You've got one chance, Haruno. Screw it up and you'll leave me alone for all eternity. I am fucking sick of seeing your face whenever I have to take a dump."

Haruno… she knew Sakura's name? Amazing. Someone… someone knew she existed, someone beyond the gossiping housewives widows – the most important person in Konoha.

Sakura's jaw clenched. She had to keep Tsunade from looking away. No matter the cost.

"I will prove myself to you," she pledged quietly, green eyes burning with the promise of a lifetime.

The blonde laughed and stood from the desk she'd just sat down behind, stretching idly. She crossed the room and produced a thick tome from one of its shelves by the door, clonked it back on the desk and began paging through it.

"See this, kid?"

Sakura nodded. Tsunade had pointed out a picture.

"This is a diagram of the human body, to be exact its chakra system. In other parts of the book, you will find similar diagrams detailing the nervous system, the human skeleton, the human muscle system, the lymphatic system, the organs… you name it. I am willing to lend you this book for one week."

"You want me to learn all of it?"

Tsuande snorted. "You truly believe you could?"

Sakura nodded decisively. "Yes, hokage-sama."

The blonde popped her shoulders. "Well, I was going to tell you to pick just one and learn it, including every component of that system and its functions of course, how the different pieces interact together and so forth… but since you seem so cocky? Go ahead. Surprise me." The blonde's tone was dry and uncaring. Her expectations were clear. Or lack thereof.

Sakura took the thick tome from her hands and pressed it to her chest. She bowed. "Thank you for this opportunity, hokage-sama."

"It's not an opportunity when you will fail, girl."

She thought, but didn't say: 'we'll see'.

Ever since her talk with Tsunade, Sakura began to study like a girl possessed. She managed to create two flimsy shadow clones and made them study too, alongside her. The shadow clones were weak and lacking in chakra, not combat functional whatsoever, but they could learn just as well as she. The exhaustion from their creation turned out to be cumulative, however, and by the end of each day she felt like she'd been studying for three.

Once the week was over, she entered the hokage office once again, though tired, pale and with dark bags under her eyes.

"You smell, girl," was Tsunade's greeting.

Sakura didn't know what to say to that. She didn't need to because Tsunade's next words were: "catch" as she threw something at her. Sakura did, clumsily.

"It's a blank scroll," she noted, opening it with puzzlement. She had expected a test paper.

"Yes, it is," Tsunade said dryly. "But if you've learned anything at all in these seven days, you'll make damn sure it gets fuller than full. I want everything you know about the human anatomy and modern medicine on there. The diagrams too, if you can manage it. You've as long as you like, so long as you're finished by the time I leave this office tonight."

She ended up asking for two more scrolls before the work day was over.

Against all predictions, Sakura became Tsunade's apprentice. Every day was a challenge; an opportunity to learn as much as an opportunity to fail and get kicked off the program. In Tsunade's words: "I ain't got time to waste on things that aren't alcohol or the fucking elders hellbent on ruining my day." Sakura was neither, and so she had to fight to stay relevant, to make herself a priority.

Two more girls managed to jump on the learning-from-the-hokage bandwagon, both of them clan heiresses. They hadn't even gotten an 'admission test' like Sakura had… but of course Ino-pig and Hinata-chan had gotten VIP treatment. She tried not to feel too resentful about that. She kept pushing on.

As the months passed her by, it became apparent that for all that they tried, Ino and Hinata wouldn't catch up to her. Sakura refused to let them. She tried to play this success off as her natural intelligence and inborn talent for chakra control. She fooled the other two but not Tsunade.

"Lay it off on the clones, girl," the woman told her one day. "You're a goddamn medic in training. You should know the meaning of chakra exhaustion better than the back of your hand by now."

Sakura listened to her advice… somewhat. She started taking off Sunday evenings after that and slept in till nine on Saturdays. It was a reprieve. She still went to the graveyard every morning, before her lessons, but started visiting the memorial sometimes too once again. She didn't know why she kept on doing this to herself; Kakashi was never there. She respected herself too much now to keep squeaking out his name. In all that time, she had seen him once and exactly once, and he was gone before she could get close enough to make out anything but his disappearing back. She had clenched her fists and furiously kicked a stone hard enugh that it dented a gravestone upon contact. She'd felt terrible after that and lost the entire morning tracking down the family and apologizing to them, then paying for the damages.

When Tsunade told her that her first real test was coming, Sakura was excited. It was a project, the blonde explained. Sakura could research whatever she wanted to. It was a chance to prove that she was more than just someone with photographic memory; it was a chance to prove that she was someone who could be revolutionary, like her master. She choose the focus of her project with care.

"The sharingan?" Tsunade had repeated after her. "Are you sure? I don't think Hatake would want anyone to touch or study it, former student or no. He hates medics with a passion, the brat."

"I… I know…" Sakura had said. "I was hoping I could study your notes on the sharingan and, um… the notes on his implant surgery and see if I can find a way for him to turn it off at will."

From the very beginning, she'd wanted to become a medic because Sasuke and Naruto were idiots liable to get carried away and use the rasengan and chidori on each other over a simple spat, and the last time things had gotten out of hand, Sakura had been absolutely useless at helping them. If Kakashi hadn't been there, they would have killed each other. But in the future, with her knowledge of medical ninjutsu, such a disaster might be avoided… and now, she might even be able to use her newly acquired knowledge for the first time – to help Kakashi with his chakra-reserves problem by fixing his sharingan. Perhaps then he'd finally consider her his teammate.

Sakura blinked herself back to the present when Tsunade fixed her with a stern look. "You're biting off more than you can chew here, kiddo. Not even I could come up with a cure for Kakashi's eye transplant issue with just notes, or at least, not without working my butt off. As a first project, you need to pick something within your reach."

Sakura sighed.

Damn it. Would she ever stop being so freaking useless? She knew she'd never done anything to earn her spot on team seven, not like Naruto and Sasuke and especially Kakashi had, but why did everything have to be so difficult?

"Fine," Sakura agreed. She still had every intention on figuring out how to help Kakashi though. What if he died one day because his eye resulted in a case of fatal chakra exhaustion? She, and only she, could have prevented it.

"Kid? You with me?"

Sakura nodded and agreed. She'd picked accelerated finger-healing procedures instead, which Tsunade had still grumbled about but eventually let her. Sakura had chosen to focus on another project that was so difficult because it would be the most useful skill any ninja could have. Tsunade had promised Sakura that, should she manage to learn how to heal her own hands in less than an hour, she'd get her started on boulder-smashing lessons right after.

Sakura did figure it out, in three months. It was an amazing achievement, Shizune had told her later on, an encouraging smile on her face. Sakura loved that about her. You'd think that as Tsunade's former (and previously: only) pupil, Shizune would resent Sakura for improving so quickly, but if she did, the older woman never let it show. Sakura strove to be like that, too, to be a person who would not let envy and insecurity consume her as they always had, probably always would. There was a quiet strength in that, she realized.

After she'd thrived with her hand-healing project, Tsunade told her that she could figure out the boulder-smashing technique herself. Sakura cursed herself. She should have known the blonde would take that approach… ugh. Back to frustrating self-study and stumbling around in the dark. At least, she consoled herself, it would be good practice in healing her metacarpals even whilst in terrible pain.

Once again, she figured the technique out, though this one took longer. Shizune had never managed to pick up boulder-smashing in all of her years studying under Tsunade, so Sakura was proud of herself for getting it right, even if the only craters she could manage weren't even half as impressive as Tsunade's and still very painful for her. A few months afterward, between surgeries and lessons on poisons from Shizune, Tsunade broached the topic of Sakura's next project. Once more, Sakura begged the blonde to let her look at her notes on ocular transplants and on Kakashi's sharingan, citing that it would be a great learning experience, and that even if she didn't get it right, it would make for a great introduction into the more complex branches of healing.

The woman sighed irritably and swatted at her with a report – but caved in the end. "That Hatake brat must have been a better teacher than I thought if you're this dedicated to him," she claimed with a grumble.

Sakura giggled. "Shishou, are you jealous?"

"What, brat?! Me? Jealous? Ha! It would sooner rain in Suna than that!"

"But it does rain in Suna sometimes, Shishou."

"Shut it, brat! Here, take the damn files and leave me alone. Sheesh!"

Sakura smiled and used her chakra-strength to heave the literal box containing Kakashi's medical files out of the room. She firmly did not dwell on Tsunade's first words. "That Kakashi must have been a better teacher than I thought if you're this dedicated to him…" Why was she doing this to herself?

She debated whether to say something to him about it or not in her many trips to the graveyard. She was at the stage where she'd already lost patients during surgeries now, so she visited more often. The idea of telling the silence about her project, the idea that Kakashi might actually hear her somehow, bothered her now. She didn't want to – couldn't – tell him. She didn't even understand why herself. She kept her lips tightly pressed shut and her hands around the flower bouquet steady as she made her rounds through the rows of graves that day, and the many days following.

One morning, she had a dream of optical nerves. Sakura bolted up from bed and rushed over to her desk, beginning to write frantically. That day, as she'd made her rounds around the hospital in the early hours, as she'd wolfed down the stale cafeteria food, as she'd dodged and ducked the boulders her shishou was throwing at her, all she could think of was the eye.

"God's sake, Sakura! What is the matter with you today?" Tsunade hissed, breaking her out of yet another reverie.

Sakura had caved and explained. She'd pulled the crumbled scroll out of her rucksack in which she'd written her idea on, and they'd sat down upon the tattered training ground and hashed it out for hours. Tsunade had fired question after question at her – many of them, things she hadn't even considered – but then the answers would come to her, or sometimes Tsunade would get too excited and shout them out before Sakura could – and so the sun set around them, and somehow, suddenly they were sitting beneath the stars as they discussed a possible procedure excitedly. Somehow, Sakura had never felt closer to Tsunade than in that moment. She thought that this is what having an older sister must feel like, an odd warmth blossoming in her chest.

Tsunade was proud of her, too, she could tell, trapping her in a headlock and ruffling her hair wildly, like a storm. It was a different head-ruffle from the one Kakashi had given her all that time ago, on the hospital rooftop (had it been three years already?). Tsunade's head ruffles were more intense, more excited, more there, closer, warmer, involved. Sakura had smiled wider than she remember doing for a long time.

The smile had been wiped off her face two days afterward with one simple sentence from the blonde: "he has refused the procedure."

"But – but why?"

The blonde had simply shaken her head.

"Can't we – I mean if this is about me thinking of it… we could just do the preliminary–"

"I tried, Sakura," Tsunade had said tiredly. "I really did. Short of commanding him as his hokage, there is nothing more I can do."

She'd felt her eyes tearing up. "But… why?" Suddenly, the sadness had shifted. "WHY! WHY! That jerk! Why doesn't he ever – UGH!" She had started sobbing in earnest, prompting an incoming client to flail confusedly at the door. Tsunade had barked at the guards to 'close the fucking door', completely disregarding the wide-eyed man, and circled around the desk to place a hand on her shoulder.

"Sakura… listen. This is a hard one to learn, but some patients are fucking idiots. They'll refuse to undergo procedures that are good for them and bitch about them being fine as they are. That's why we've got to be even bigger bitches and kick their asses into line."

Sakura looked up. "But shishou… how am I supposed to kick sensei's ass if I can't even find him?"

"Honestly, Sakura? You don't have to. It's his problem if he wants to refuse what's good for him."

"But – but why? Is it because of me? Because he thinks my idea wouldn't cut it?"

"I didn't tell him whose idea it was," Tsunade replied grimly. "I'd assumed you'd want to tell him yourself once he agreed… I… I'm sorry, Sakura. If you want, I can tell him for you later. Maybe that will convince him."

Sakura shook her head harder than she ever had. "No. No. I don't freaking care anymore! If he wants to keep being an asshole to everyone and rejecting their help, then that's his problem!"

Tsunade sighed. "Alright, kiddo… it's your call."