Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
Summary: Seven deadly sins. Four missions gone wrong. Sometimes things don't always go the way they're planned. Sometimes you have to deal. Some people do it differently than others.
I'm changing the order of the chapters around, even though they will still be labeled in their original order (least sinful to most heavily punished), so it will be easier for readers.
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The Seven Deadly Sins
Chapter 4: Sloth
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Sloth: acedia; laziness; idleness and wastefulness of time allotted.
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Sakura struggled up to the hill her house was on. 'Right, left right left, right, left…' She managed to get her keys out of her pocket and she unlocked the door, pushing it open. With a thump, her bag fell to the ground and she trudged through the house to her room.
She fell before she reached her bed and stretched her arm under to find the futon she slept on after bad missions. It took all of her effort to drag it out and she collapsed on top of it, her breath coming in heavy pants.
"N-need to…need to…shower…"
Her muddled brain wouldn't allow her to form a complete sentence and she had felt her eyelids drooping the moment her head hit the futon. "M'be la'er," she mumbled and Sakura promptly fell asleep.
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A hand shook her shoulder furiously and jolted Sakura awake.
"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan!"
She opened her eyes and yawned, squinting at the bright light of the lamp by her bed.
"Sakura-chan! I saw your door open and I thought…" Naruto trailed off, worry clear in his eyes. He had remembered Sakura stumbling by him a little bit after Hinata had passed and checked on her when he heard the bad news of the mission.
Sakura sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her hand still smelled like blood. "I'm fine, Naruto, just a little tired."
Naruto nodded and, with a little wave, walked out of her room and presumably out of her house. Sakura's stomach rumbled slightly and she winced. When had she last eaten?
Sakura's mouth was open in a silent yell as she slaughtered the bandits around her. There was a loud shriek and she choked.
'What the…'
She reached into her mouth and pulled out a thin, slimy thing. There was a piece of flesh still attached at the end…
Sakura felt her stomach lurch and she quickly turned over onto her stomach and retched onto the floor. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and coughed. The pungent smell of blood and cooked human meat reached her nose…Sakura retched again.
She dragged herself to her feet and made her way to the bathroom where she was intent on taking a shower and brushing her teeth. She scratched the back of her neck and continued long after the itch was gone, idly moving her fingers down her shoulder and to the palm of her hand.
With a weak giggle, she traced the creases on her hand, filled with blood. She used her nail to see if she could scrape it all off. She couldn't. Some of the pigment had soaked into her skin and stained it.
Sakura's stomach rumbled again and she frowned, forgetting entirely why she was in the bathroom. Cooking would take too much time. She wasn't up to it, anyways. Sakura yawned and walked to the kitchen, grabbing a take out menu and pushing the 'speaker' button on her phone. She dialed the number and ordered tempura and onigiri with some miso soup.
Sakura didn't bother to hang up the phone and just listened to the flat dial tone. She sat in her chair with her head tilted back and her mouth open, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. She was almost tempted to just sit there when the doorbell rang, probably her take out, but decided that her stomach was more important.
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Her lips and tongue were singed and they felt a strange fuzzy sensation. 'Probably just the effect of burning them and then eating cooooold onigiri' she thought absent mindedly. The doorbell rang again and Sakura groaned, calling out, "IT'S OPEN!" and as an after thought, "AND I GOT A KUNAI! SO DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT ROBBING US!"
Ino poked her head into the kitchen and wrinkled her nose. "Ew, hey forehead girl! What's that smell?"
Sakura sniffled but refused to let the tears fall, "Vomit."
Ino made a face, walking over to steal an onigiri, "We were gonna go out today, remember Sakura-chan?"
Sakura shrugged, "No. Sorry. You still wanna go?"
Ino sighed and shook her head at her friend, "You're no fun today. Let's just watch a movie here or something."
Sakura shrugged again, "Whatever floats your boat."
Ino continued talking just for the sake of filling up the awkward silence that would've fallen around them had she stayed silent, "Stupid Chouji's at guard duty now. Man I hate being a chuunin sometimes. I mean, one and a half months of guard duty every year! What hell! He wanted to be here for the opening night of that new barbeque place so he didn't come when Shika and I went. Supposedly it's better than the one he goes to all the time already. He left a couple weeks ago."
Sakura nodded and ate a piece of carrot tempura.
"Let's go to the living room, eh forehead girl?"
Sakura nodded again and got up from her chair, throwing herself onto a beanbag in front of the TV. "Let's see what we have here," Ino muttered as she went through Sakura's DVD rack, "Zombies, Return of the Zombies, Return of the Zombies II… Kami Sakura! Do you actually watch this stuff?"
Sakura shook her head, "No," not offering any more explanation.
Ino popped 'Return of the Children of the Zombies III' into the DVD player and laid down on her stomach next to Sakura's beanbag, "Turn off the lights."
Sakura glanced at her friend and sighed, making an effort to get up before collapsing in a heap on the piece of 'furniture' and Ino rolled her eyes at Sakura's laziness. "You're getting to be like Shikamaru now! Next think I know, you'll be staring at the clouds!"
Sakura didn't even bother to answer, she just stayed in the same position she had fallen in.
"ALRIGHT FOREHEAD GIRL! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!"
Sakura looked at Ino and sighed a long, tired, sad sigh. "You know that other smell? Besides the vomit?"
Ino made the same face she had before and made fake gagging sounds.
"Well, it's cooked human flesh. Entrails, skin, nails…the whole nine yards."
Ino blanched and grabbed her stomach, "W-what?"
Sakura's eyes glazed over and she turned onto her stomach, her voice muffled by the leather of the beanbag, "Yuppers. G'night, Ino."
She was asleep before Ino even got out of the house, and she slept for another two days. When she woke up, she scratched at her dirty hair and rubbed her grimy neck. She grabbed some of her leftover take out dinner and walked outside to her small backyard, where she laid down and stared at the sky.
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"Sakura-chan? We're home!"
Sakura had fallen asleep outside the day before and she turned her head towards her house. 'I probably chased the bugs away with my smell,' she thought as she nearly choked when she took a breath.
Her mother slid open the screen door to the backyard and grinned at her daughter, who didn't grin back.
"SAKURA!"
Sakura winced at the sound. 'So loud…'
Her father's angry face soon came into view and she gave him a blank look.
"Don't look at me like that young lady! You know what you did!"
Sakura's expression didn't change, "You threw up all over the house! You got blood and dirt all over your futon and the house! Flies are starting to come over to this tempura sauce!"
'Nope. The bugs live on. Just maybe not in the grass.'
Her mother's smile soon became a scowl, "I was wondering what that smell was! When was the last time you took a shower! Go clean up this instant!"
'Oh how quickly parents' moods change," Sakura lamented.
-There's much more to lament than just moodswings!- Inner Sakura screamed, angry at having to hold back the torrent of memories that was ready to wash over Sakura. –Just DEAL with it!-
Sakura ignored her inner voice and got up, shoving her hands into the pockets of the vest she still donned. She pushed past her parents and went up to her room where she shoved open a window and leapt out, hopping from one roof to the next and making her way to a field of flowers that she and Ino had once played in.
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Sakura swatted away another bee and groaned. This wasn't happening. Apparently her smell hadn't chased away the bugs. Not even the ones in a five foot radius.
-Denying it does nothing.-
'I was talking about the bees.'
-You still could've tried harder…-
'To swat the bees away?'
-Why did you only put a shield around Hinata and yourself?-
'Because I didn't have enough energy to put one up around the others.
-LIAR!-
'Because I couldn't pinpoint their position.'
-You fucking LIAR!-
Sakura sniffled and she began to sob at the viciousness of her Inner Self's voice; she rolled over onto her side, her shoulders shaking with hiccups. She didn't weep silently as she had done so often in her past, in an attempt to muffle them. She took ragged gasps and loud, sorrowful cries rang throughout the field.
'BECAUSE I WASN'T THINKING OF THEM!'
-Why weren't you thinking of them! How cowardly are you! You're not a team player you're just a fraud! Kakashi-sensei would be so ashamed of you!-
Sakura screamed and wrapped her arms around her stomach in an attempt to heal the hole she felt within her. "I didn't mean to I didn't mean to I'm so sorry…"
-Being sorry won't bring them back to life! Their dead! DEAD! Three more names to add to that beautiful black memorial that Kakashi-sensei visits all the time. Three more names. Three more dreams destroyed and three more mourning families and three times the shame and three times...THREE!-
Sakura curled herself into a ball and sobbed into her knees, relishing and hating the smell that came off of her. The blood was her fault. The flesh was her fault. The sweat and dirt and strained muscles and she hadn't been able to save them! She deserved this guilt.
'I didn't MEAN TO! Go away go away just go away and—'
"LEAVE ME ALONE!"
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Sakura had wandered over to the trees in the park and climbed up. She sat there for days, alternating between watching the sky and watching the happy families below her.
'I really should tell Tsunade-san that I won't be there for training today…'
Sakura yawned and stretched noisily. Naw. Too much trouble. She'd make it up the next time she saw her.
Sakura returned home four days later and carefully swept and cleaned the whole house.
'Until next time, then.'
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A/N: This fic was inspired by Elizabeth Culmer's Rituals, which is an excellent story. Please review!
