...out of sight, out of mind.
Naruto awoke with a start, pumped full with an aggressive shock of chakra. He'd been having a pleasant dream, and pursed his lips in irritation to be shaken from it until he remembered it hadn't been a dream at all.
Damn, he thought, though with something suspiciously like pride, Sakura-chan really got one over on me.
"That genjutsu she cast," Tsunade was saying to someone else, folding her arms beneath her chest, "was pretty rough, huh?"
He blinked, sitting upright and holding his head in his hand. He was on the floor of the Hokage's office, and it dawned on him that they must have been unsuccessful in dispelling the illusion at the ANBU teleportation quarters, dragging him to shishou's office instead. When the hell did Sakura-chan get so good?
"Indeed. Sasuke tells us she applied it with a touch of her fingertips."
"Haa? We had someone with chakra control so precise in Konoha? She was your student, Hatake, and you didn't think she'd make a fit disciple for me?!"
As Naruto sat, he saw Kakashi put up his hands as if in surrender. "Now, Tsunade-sama, that's not entirely fair. She was still my responsibility, and far be it from me to pawn off my students to someone of your status."
Tsunade gave a dry chuckle. "Look where they are now!" She gave Naruto a pat on his head as he stood. "How're you feeling, kid? Dizzy? Cold?"
He pursed his lips again, stretching his body tentatively. His stomach felt a little sour, but his self-healing had ensured that all the hits he'd received from that four-eyed freak (and those last-second dodges against Sakura-chan's insane speed) had already become nothing more than memories. But then, he was slammed with the memory of Sakura-chan saying those horrible things, and he frowned.
"Fine, physically."
"Well, now that we're all present," Kakashi said, "we ought to discuss things. It seems we were correct to assume that Orochimaru was using Sakura in hopes that Sasuke would show himself."
"She's gotten strong," Sasuke said from his spot leaning against the far wall. "And she has a curse seal. I say he's covering his bases to use her body if he can't get his hands on mine or Itachi's. It seems he's also interested in Naruto, too."
When Jiraiya sighed, Naruto spun. He hadn't noticed him sitting in the open windows behind Tsunade-shishou's desk, where he glanced over at the others. "Using a young woman's pure heart like that is despicable."
Naruto hummed. "She denied that she was kidnapped or mind-controlled, but I don't know if we can trust what she says, you know?"
"I got a good enough look at her with my sharingan to see nothing like that in her chakra signature, though I can't account for brainwashing. Unless he's improved the curse seal in some way and using it to control her."
Kakashi took one of his bags then, shuffling its contents. "Before we ported back," he said, holding out a forehead protector, "she tossed this to me."
Jiraiya hopped from the windowsill and approached, standing far closer to Tsunade than was necessary as they both leaned over the object in Kakashi's hand. Sasuke looked on from his corner, but was the first to speak.
"No scratch."
"Her way of saying she's still on our side?" Jiraiya finished the sentiment.
"That was my first guess," Kakashi said with a heavy nod.
"Could be a cry for help," Tsunade offered. "Hatake, that look on your face worries me."
"She was quite upset," he said, dropping his head. He did not protest when Naruto took the hitai-ate from his palm to examine it closely. "But most of her anger seemed to stem from the insinuation that she'd been taken against her will."
Tsunade sucked her teeth, leaning back with one hand on her desk. "Tell me again: when did you first notice that she was gone?"
Naruto watched as Kakashi winced beneath his mask. "About three days after she wrote that note."
At that, Sasuke finally pushed off the wall and approached their small group. "And by that he means, an hour to midnight of the fourth day. Naruto and I were still in the hospital."
It was true, yes, the boys hadn't noticed an excessive lack of Sakura until—what they'd guessed was—the third day of her disappearance. Naruto had asked Kakashi about it that afternoon, who in turn hummed and said he hadn't seen much of her around at all. He'd reportedly done some digging, not wanting to alarm her family until he was out of leads and knocked on their door late in the night.
"What is it, Tsunade?" asked Jiraiya. "You look like you've got something to share."
"Yes," she said harshly. "I've had a theory brewing for months now—that she was subconsciously suppressing her chakra signature to such an extent that it affected how people saw and thought of her. This information of how she applied the genjutsu was the last bit I needed to piece it all together. It's the only thing that makes sense to me."
"She didn't have much self-confidence in those days," Sasuke mused.
"Haa?!" Naruto shot back. "That's because you kept calling her annoying!"
"I said all that and more to you," he said flatly, the smirk on his face so slight it may not have even been real. "You seem to be doing just fine."
The three adults were talking amongst themselves as Naruto scowled, first at Sasuke, but then down at the forehead protector in his hands. Of course it was the truth that they'd left Sakura behind time and time again, but that didn't mean they didn't care about her. Especially after all they'd been through together...!
But, he supposed then, he wasn't truly seeing it from her eyes. He knew all too well, after all, what it felt like to be overlooked and ignored and moved-on-without. They all knew, he and Sasuke and Kakashi. Even from what little he knew of shishou's life, he suspected that she and her old team all knew, too.
"Naruto!"
He straightened in an instant, his mind's wanderings forgotten. "Tsunade-baa—shishou! Ma'am! Yes, ma'am!"
"We have work to do; meet me in the library in an hour. Hatake, keep your ninken patrolling the area. Jiraiya—you keep up the good work with Sasuke."
The old man took his leave, making for the door, but before Sasuke turned to follow he gave one last look to Naruto, who'd expected that two years of working with someone like Jiraiya would have evened his rival out even just a little, but that would take years more, it seemed. As it were, his hard edge had only barely begun to soften, and now when their eyes met across the Hokage's office, Sasuke, completely stone-faced, stuck out his tongue for only a fraction of a second before joining the Perverted Sage in walking out the door.
Naruto couldn't help his grin, though it was tinged with sadness in an instant. To know a Sasuke who was healing, they'd lost Sakura to her pain. There had to be a way for Team 7 to be together and happy at last.
But he was the disciple of the Fifth Hokage, the greatest medical ninja in the world. In his long days spent training with her, he had begun to learn his most important lesson yet: there existed no wound severe enough to withstand an outpouring of both chakra and love of the purest kind.