The summer in Konoha was hot and sticky. Sakura hadn't cut her hair since the end of the war and she was glad for it. She could easily pull it in a pony tail at the top of her head this way. She was currently packing up her possessions in cardboard boxes with Naruto and Sai helping.
"Hey, Ugly?" Came Sai's voice from her bedroom. "Why do you have so many bras? I've never seen you wear them," Sakura was on her feet in a second.
"Sai! You were supposed to pack up the bathroom! Why are you going through my drawers!" Naruto was hot on her heels, snickering.
"I've finished the bathroom. Thought I'd help some more," Sai gave her a smile that she assumed he thought looked innocent. "So why do you always bind your chest when there's all these colors and stuff?" He asked as he lifted a pink sports bra and a maroon pushup one. "And why is this so… plushy?" He squished the padding of the pushup bra between his fingers.
"Oh, my god," Sakura groaned. "Get out!" She shoved both boys by their shoulders out her bedroom. "I'll handle my bedroom, thank you very much! Go and help Naruto with the kitchen."
"That answers none of my questions," Sai pointed out as he helped Naruto pack some plates.
"Bindings are more secure. Happy?" Sakura grunted.
Sai gave her his well-practiced happy smile.
The boys finished with their job in the kitchen and moved onto the abundance of books Sakura kept on her shelves in the living room. They started packing them up, when Naruto suddenly noticed something.
"Sakura-chan? Why do you have so many books with the Uchiha crest on them?" He was holding up one of the medical tomes and inspecting it closely. Sakura blushed.
"Sasuke-kun found a bunch of medical manuscripts and gave them to me," she admitted and looked up to see the boys exchanging a look. "Now stop prying and just pack. I'm never asking you guys to help me with anything ever again." She taped over the last box that contained the contents of her hallway closet. She moved over to her bedroom to start packing up her wardrobe.
Naruto's head popped in the door an hour later. "Hey, Sakura-chan, we're done. We were thinking about getting ramen for dinner. You coming?"
Sakura looked up at him from the shirt she was folding neatly. "Yeah, I'll just be a second."
–––
"Thank god there's air conditioning in your apartment, Sakura-chan!" Naruto exclaimed. "I would have died if I had to pack in this heat. Not even Kurama could have saved me," he slapped a hand over his stomach.
Sakura chuckled at his dramatics. "You'll be happy to know that my new place has one as well," she chided. She was moving because while her current place was close to the hospital, the clinic was quite a bit of a distance away. Her new apartment would be somewhere in the middle between the two, which is why she chose that one in the first place. It also had an extra room, which she planned on using maybe as an office. Though, Naruto insisted it should be his room for whenever he missed her too much.
Suddenly, Sai perked up at the sight of a falcon hovering above him. "I'm afraid I have to go," he said, not at all sounding apologetic. "I'll join you for ramen next time," he smiled as he jumped on a hawk of his own making.
"Bye, Sai!" Sakura waved. They didn't see Sai for months after that and it worried Sakura more than she dared to admit.
–––
Naruto was lounged on Sakura's couch, he had grown so much, his long limbs took up the whole space. Sakura was forced to sit in the armchair she didn't particularly find comfortable, but kept because it was a gift from her parents. Sakura had the afternoon off for the first time since probably her move and Naruto insisted that they spend some time together. Something worried him, Sakura could see.
"Where do you think Sai has been all these months?" He finally asked the question weighing on his chest. Sakura had been wondering the same.
"I don't know… I hope he's okay, though," Sakura admitted. "Don't you know anything? You've been spending a lot of time at the Hokage Tower."
"They don't tell me confidential things," he shrugged. "I'm not the Hokage yet. Shikamaru and Kakashi are just working hard to make me one. Actually, I'm worried about Shikamaru as well…" he trailed off, a distant look taking over his gaze.
"I haven't seen him around much. Ino mentioned something about Shikamaru seeming very odd at dinner the other day."
"Yeah," Naruto said. "He has been acting very… I don't know. Cold? Distant?" He tried to find the right words. "And now he's gone on a top-secret mission as well, and I know he's out there probably risking his life, so that he can make sure I get to be Hokage someday… and I'm just not sure it's worth it," he admitted quietly. "Don't get me wrong, Sakura-chan, I'm grateful for his faith in me but… if it means giving up his life, or even just a part of himself… I don't think I can live with that…"
Sakura was stunned into silence. All these years she'd known Naruto, always cheerful, always hopeful Naruto… It never failed to surprise her just how serious he could get. She hoped he knew he didn't have to put up a happy façade around her all the time. That he could share his worries with her, however big or small they were.
"Naruto…" She spoke. "I wish you would have told me sooner. You don't have to carry these burdens all on your own. I may not know what's going on with Shikamaru, or how Sai's mission is going. But you can share these thoughts with me. We can shoulder them together," she leaned forward and grasped his artificial hand.
He managed a small but relieved smile. "Thanks…"
–––
Not even a month had passed before Sakura was called to the Hokage's office. When she walked in, she was greeted by Naruto, Chouji and Ino already there, with worried looks on their faces.
"Now that you're all here," Kakashi said. "I need you to go to the Land of Silence. Shikamaru and two ANBU were sent there on a secret mission a few weeks ago, however, their reports of the infiltration suddenly stopped. We suspect they had been captured, as well as Sai and his men. Your mission is to bust them out and help them finish their mission. You leave immediately."
The four shinobi nodded and scattered to gather their mission gear.
–––
The sight that greets them in the Land of Silence breaks Sakura's heart. Sai had pierced Temari with a kunai, and was going in for a fatal strike, though tears were glistening in his eyes. Chouji thankfully was quick to restrain him. Sakura quickly leapt over to Temari to heal the heavy wound on her abdomen.
"Are you okay?" Sakura asked as the wound closed up slowly. "What happened?"
"It's some sort of genjutsu," Temari spoke, her voice raspy. "Shikamaru said it's in his voice."
Sakura exchanged a look with Ino and the blonde was entering Sai's mind within a few moments, trying to guide him out of the genjutsu, while Chouji kept him still. Sakura watched in silent distress as Ino lured Sai back to consciousness, and when he finally emerged, he gave Ino the most true, genuine smile Sakura had ever seen on his face. It made Sakura's heart sore for her friends.
Shikamaru's original three-men squad managed to defeat Gengo and took him into custody. Shikamaru stayed behind to clean up the mess Gengo had caused with his troublesome genjutsu, along with Naruto's squad, while the other Konoha-nin took Gengo back to the village to prosecute him.
After Sakura had arrived home, she decided to write about the unusual genjutsu they had encountered. She wondered what a master of genjutsu, such as Sasuke himself, would think about one that did not require ocular prowess but rather relied on vocal manipulations. She also told him that she had seen Shikamaru ask Temari out, though, she wasn't quite sure why she included that in her letter.
A letter from him came a few days later. He thought Shikamaru and "the Sand girl" would make an interesting pair. He also told Sakura that his brother could cast genjutsu with a flick of his finger, not just his eyes. Sakura smiled softly at his response.
–––
"Hey, Hinata," Sakura stepped into the staffroom of the clinic. "What are you working on?"
Hinata looked up from the red yearn she was knitting something from. "Oh," she blushed as deep as the material in her hands. From her reaction, Sakura had a pretty good guess who this was about. "I'm, uh, making a scarf for Naruto-kun. To give to him at the festival."
"Really?" Sakura smiled. "That sounds great, I'm sure he will love it. You know, he's a great guy and I love him like my own brother, but he can be dense sometimes. He might be oblivious to the depth of your feelings
–––
"Hey, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked one afternoon. It was getting colder again, as the winter months approached. They were sitting inside a newly renovated and extended Ichiraku's, awaiting their dinner. "How would you like a guy to go about asking you out?" He asked sheepishly, and with each word, his cheeks grew warmer and warmer.
"Why? Who do you want to ask out?" Sakura perked up. After the war, Naruto had accumulated quite a hefty group of fangirls, and while he was very friendly and nice to them, Sakura knew he didn't like any of them. She also knew his childhood crush on her was the thing of a distant path, which she was glad for. They had been best friends for so many years, but after he moved on, their friendship and understanding of one another grew deeper, their bond strengthened.
He scratched the back of her neck. "Well… you see… I, uh, I've been talking to Hinata-chan lately… and, um… well. She's really nice and really pretty and I… thought I'd, sort of, I don't know? Ask her out?"
Sakura couldn't help a chuckle from escaping her lips. She quickly covered her mouth with her hand before Naruto thought she was laughing at him. His antics were just too endearing, and she was also relieved her other friend. To have one's feelings reciprocated was truly beautiful.
"Well," Sakura smiled. "Taking her out for dinner would be a good start. Or maybe take her to the Rinne Festival? I'm sure she'd love that," Sakura said, knowing about Hinata's plans to give him the scarf at the festival.
"The festival," Naruto murmured to himself, deep in thought. "Yeah, that might work. And then, I can bring her to Ichiraku's," he nodded, satisfied.
Sakura sighed.
–––
Things in the life of a shinobi have a funny way of never working out how one would expect, much less plan on it. Hinata's little sister was kidnapped by Ootsotsuki Toneri and Kakashi put Sakura on a recovery team along with Naruto, Sai, and Shikamaru and allowed for Hinata to accompany them.
There was another problem, however. The moon was rapidly approaching earth. pieces of it were falling off, orbiting earth and sometimes even penetrating its atmosphere. If they didn't stop Toneri, the planet could be destroyed completely.
–––
"Sakura," Sasuke caressed her cheek. "Tadaima."
Sakura sent a wave chakra throughout her body to dispel the genjutsu, however sweet the image of Sasuke returning to her might have been. Time was of the essence, if they didn't succeed on this mission, there would be no home to return to. There would be nothing. God, she hoped he was okay, wherever he was.
Sakura looked around to see all of her teammates had fallen under the jutsu, she managed to quickly wake up Shikamaru and Sai, and even Hinata. However, Naruto, as always, was hard to wake up from his slumber. How typical, Sakura thought.
–––
They jumped over levitating orbs to get to a get, and emerged on the other side of what looked like a magical pond. Sai and Shikamaru took a look around but Sakura had an uneasy feeling. It wasn't like Naruto to fall so much behind.
"Should we go ba–"
Her sentence was cut short when a giant crab appeared over the rubbles of rocks. Shit.
"Is that… crab?" She asked incredulously.
"That must be the gate keeper," Shikamaru said. "Scatter!" Shikamaru shouted as the beast charged toward them, blowing some sort of bubbles at them. "Don't touch the bubbles! You'll be caught in the genjutsu again!"
Sakura jumped backwards and fired several kunai at the crab, however, they just bounced off its hard shell as though they were a soft breeze. Shit, Sakura thought. Sai took at his scroll and launched three ink lions to attack, but they were demolished immediately at contect.
"Fujin! Raijin!" He summoned the ink versions of the fearsome gods.
They struggled against the claws of the crab. One of them suddenly saw an opening, and kicked the crab off balance, sending it flying back several yards. The other grabbed one of its claws and hurled it toward the ceiling of the cave. The crab crashed down, along with debris of the ceiling.
Sakura had been crawling up the rocks, waiting for an opening and upon seeing the soft light pooling in through the hole, her eyes searched for Shikamaru. She saw him form the sign and hurried to take her place atop the rocks.
"Kage Nui no Jutsu!" Several threads of shadows raced toward the crab, binding it tightly into place. "Sakura!" Shikamaru yelled.
Sakura took off, building up momentum as she leapt from the cliff, gathering chakra into her fist. She let a battle cry rip out of her throat as she crushed the crab to pieces.
–––
A feeling of unease encompassed Sakura as they emerged from the cave. It didn't look much different from earth. Except… except that the edges of the ocean seemed to be curving upwards, and there was sunlight. So much sunlight, yet it somehow seemed cold, not like the warm caresses of rays she was used to at home. What worried her even more was Shikamaru. He was silent, contemplating, calculating, analyzing. Yet, he never came to a conclusion, not to one that he voiced anyway. This can't be good, Sakura thought.
They flew around on Sai's ink birds, Hinata surveying the surrounding area with her byakugan from above. The enemies were silent, still. Sakura knew it that they were watching them, that they knew exactly where they were and yet, they could not locate a single one of the enemy. It eventually got dark, they made camp, as there was no use in searching in the dark. There was even less a chance of encountering anything that way.
The next day they came across an abandoned, ancient town. "Let's split up and take a look," Shikamaru instructed. Sakura came across evidence of a fire that had happened there, who knew how many moons ago. She was following the trail burnt plants and ashy walls, broken glass from maybe an explosion scattering her path. occasionally.
"Sakura, come! Shikamaru found something!" Sai suddenly appeared above her.
–––
What is this place? Sakura thought as she scrutinized her surroundings. "Is this some sort of temple?" She wondered out loud.
Sai appeared with Hinata and Naruto in tow and Shikamaru led them all to an old statue, with ancient writing wrapping around it. He managed to read some of it, but it made little to no sense.
"… the tenseigan will destroy mankind."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Sakura asked.
"If the 'tenseigan' is making the moon approach earth…," Shikamaru suggested.
"Then Kakashi sensei was correct that the abduction and the moon are connected somehow," Sakura finished, though she still couldn't be sure how that would be possible
"Well… His assumptions are usually right on target, unfortunately," Shikamaru admitted.
Sakura heard Hinata gasp lightly, before she felt the ground shift beneath her. She jumped back just as a secret passage way opened up where she had been standing. It led down to some sort of ancient crypt, covered in dust and cobwebs.
A voice spoke from the darkness suddenly, startling them. Sakura raised her fists, ready to fight if needed. "Byakugan Princess… I can feel the byakugan… The Byakugan Princess," the old man mumbled as he took flimsy steps toward them.
"Stay away from Hinata-chan!" Naruto stepped in front of her.
The old man slowly opened his eyelids and they were met with… nothing. Just absolute darkness. Sakura felt sweat building up in her palms. This is not good. The man opened his mouth wide and a purple, brightly glowing orb floated out. Sakura snapped her had her left as she heard Hinata inhale sharply, then saw her collapse.
Naruto cradled Hinata's unconscious body and glared up at the old man.
"The tenseigan," the man's body started crumbling. "Has been revived," he rasped before falling to the ground. Sakura stared at decomposing body. "You have to… stop Ootsutsuki… or he will…"
They never found out what would happen, the man died. If he was even alive to begin with.
"Hinata, are you alright?" Asked Sakura as the dark-lavender-haired girl slowly opened her eyes.
"I think so, yeah."
–––
They spent the next day searching another abandoned village. Another dead end. They sat up camp in the woods and went to sleep exhausted and bummed. It had been days and there was still no sign of Hanabi.
Sakura woke to the sound of Naruto shouting Hinata's name. She was on her feet in a second, along with Sai and Shikamaru. When they finally caught up to them, Naruto was falling through the air, while Hinata was on some sort of floating machinery with Toneri. One of Sai's birds caught Naruto.
"Give her back!" He raged, a rasengan ready in his shaking palm.
Sakura couldn't hear the rest of their conversation, but all of a sudden, a green glowing globe flew toward Naruto. It encompassed his rasengan then pierced right through him, taking his chakra with it. As his globe of extracted chakra hit the ground, a huge explosion sounded, burning down the forest around it and penetrating the ground. It was then that Sakura and her team realized that they had been inside the moon. The watched as the surface of the moon was disrupted by Naruto's chakra, shattered pieces of moonstones falling toward and orbiting the earth in a ring. Sakura watched as Naruto fell toward the huge crater, tears gathering in her eyes.
One of Sai's birds caught Naruto again, and they took him to a cave. Sakura didn't waste any time, as soon as Naruto's back hit the ground, she started healing him.
"That cave we found with the crab's bubbles is probably a secret passageway that connects earth to the moon," Shikamaru said absentmindedly. He was staring at the clock ticking down in his palm. He inhaled. "How's Naruto doing?"
"Terrible," Sakura said, voice all professional, none of her agitated feelings slipping through. "Almost all of his chakra is gone."
Naruto shifted. "Hinata," he groaned.
Sakura let a soft smile curl her lips. It's about time you finally got it… You dummy, Sakura thought.
It took Sakura three days to heal Naruto, meanwhile, Shikamaru and Sai discovered where Hinata and Hanabi must have been held. Shikamaru also figured out how they could get in. Sakura finally collapsed, when Naruto was stable enough.
She woke up to Naruto embracing her in a hug. "Naruto," she said, voice groggy from exhaustion.
"Sakura-chan, I'm so sorry," Naruto said. He told Sakura he had confessed his feelings to Hinata, which Sakura was glad for. Based on him asking her for love advice not long ago, she never would have thought he'd get the courage to do it, much less in the circumstances they were in. But love always found a way, Sakura supposed.
"Remember when you were convinced you loved me?" Sakura chuckled lightly. Naruto gasped in surprise. "I wondered sometimes… if you only said that because I loved Sasuke-kun?" She shifted her eyes from the ceiling of the cave to him. "You guys and your stupid competitions. You just didn't want to lose to him, did you? But now… this is the real deal, isn't it?" Naruto grunted in agreement. "In all honestly, Hinata may be too good for you," Sakura laughed light-heartedly.
"It doesn't matter anyway. She left me to be with Toneri," Naruto scrutinized his hands. He looked so defeated.
"You are an idiot," Sakura said, furrowing her brows. "Isn't it obvious? She had a reason that she couldn't reveal to you, to any of us," she looked back to the ceiling. "When a girl truly falls in love, her feelings don't change just like that, if at all" she remembered soft eyes, one lavender, one onyx, staring into her own green ones softly.
They were silent for a while after that and Sakura eventually let exhaustion wrap her in slumber once more, dreaming of that mismatched gaze she so missed.
–––
Once Sakura was up from her sleep, they immediately took off to infiltrate Toneri's place. They flew toward the artificial sun on Sai's birds, as Toneri's men fired at them and flew toward them on birds of their own. Shikamaru managed to snag one and opened the entrance to the sun.
Inside, they were greeted with even more firepower and a shot even destroyed Sakura's bird.
"Sakura-chan!" Naruto dove after her, catching her and landing back on his own bird.
"Thanks, Naruto," Sakura said.
"Please, I could never repay you for all the times you've saved me," Naruto said and Sakura knew he meant it. He would do anything her for as she would for him.
They landed near the palace walls and ran toward it as more shots were fired at them. Marks appeared on Naruto's face as he activated his sage mode.
"Naruto, can you sense Hanabi's chakra?" Shikamaru asked.
"That tower over there," Naruto motioned to his right.
"Sakura, Sai! Go!" Shikamaru instructed.
They took off toward the tower. Once they were in the tower, Sai summoned an ink lion to carry them, so they could get to Hanabi faster. Just as they approached the corridor where Hanabi was supposed to be, their path was cut off by a group of young girls with identical white hair and faces, dressed in maroon and black.
"What the hell are…" Sakura couldn't finish, because their faces abruptly opened up like puppets, revealing sharp teeth and creepy gazes. Sakura smashed through them relentlessly, but there always seemed to be more and more coming their way. Sakura demolished them all into tiny pieces.
She burst through double doors and spotted Hanabi lying unconscious on a bed. "Hanabi…" she whispered as she approached her. Her eyes had been taken out, Sakura realized. "Oh, my god…"
"She's just a child," Sai agreed.
Sakura cast her eyes down, noticing shreds of red fabric. "Huh," she lifted the material in her palm, recognizing it as the same as the scarf Hinata had been making for Naruto. "Let's go back to the others," Sakura turned to Sai.
He nodded and gathered Hanabi into his arms. They climbed onto the ink lion and started toward the entrance of the palace. All of a sudden, more puppets appeared, chasing them restlessly. Sakura kept throwing kunais with explosion tags at them, but more seemed to come from the smoke the kunais had left behind. Just as Sakura was getting ready to throw another one, the puppet dropped to the ground.
"What the hell…" Sakura muttered as the lion kept moving forward.
"Hanabi!" Came Hinata's voice as soon as they entered the courtyard. She rushed to her sister, cradling her face in her hands. Hinata realized sadly that she was still unconscious and her eyes were still missing. She stepped back, disheartened.
"You made this, didn't you?" Sakura handed her the piece of fabric she'd found next to Hanabi's bed.
"That's the scarf Toneri ripped to shreds?" Naruto recognized it immediately. Hinata gave him a perplexed look that prompted Naruto to go on. "When I extracted his jutsu from your body I… saw some of your memories," Naruto admitted.
"You were going to give it to Naruto, weren't you?" Sakura nudged Hinata.
"Yeah, but it's completely ruined…"
"Well, can I have it?" Naruto held out his hand.
Sakura took a step back and laced her hands behind her back, smiling. She felt like she was intruding as she saw the romance finally, slowly blossom between friends, but she was so happy for them. All she'd ever wanted was for her precious people to be happy.
Shikamaru grunted and looked at the clock in his palm.
"What is it?" Sai inquired.
"The clock… has started moving again." Hinata and Naruto snapped their gazes to Shikamaru, startled.
The ground shook beneath them. "What the hell is that thing?" Sakura asked as she looked up. There was some sort of monstruous moonstone beast, determined to destroy them. During the mayhem, Sakura got trapped under debris. By the time she managed to escape, she saw no one nearby. She tried to follow the sound of battle, but it seemed to be coming from all sides of the moon, all at once.
"Sakura," Shikamaru caught her attention as he landed along with Sai. A swarm of lilac-glowing orbs floated with great speed above them. Sakura quickly jumped on the ink bird behind Shikamaru and they took off in the direction the orbs were headed. Soon, they saw Naruto and Hinata on the ground. They jumped from the bird, running toward them.
"Naruto!"
"Hinata!"
Hinata was trying to reason with Toneri, who was half covered in byakugans. A green globe was forming in his hands, and Naruto suddenly fell to the ground. His Kurama Mode fading. Sakura saw as light orange streaks flowed toward the orb in Toneri's hands. Oh, no, she thought. That meant he was taking away Naruto's chakra again.
Hinata grasped Naruto's hand and infused him with her own chakra. This seemed to set Toneri off to a new level of madness. "The world of the Sage of Six Paths has fallen into darkness!" He screamed. "I will destroy it with the light of justice!"
The moon cracked beneath their feet again. New craters appearing. Toneri's orb started growing within his hands, and then he started rapidly ascending toward the sun. Sakura watched in shock as his form distorted, bubbling, blowing up in certain places, then bubbling again.
"What's happening?"
"It seems like his jutsu is absorbing the energy of the sun," Shikamaru said. "And it's too much for him."
Naruto leapt up into the sky, reaching his arm toward Toneri, despite Shikamaru's warning shouts. He managed to pull him back to the moon's surface, saving him from total destruction.
–––
Hinata led Toneri with the others to the crypt they had found when they first arrived on the moon. She and Naruto tried to convince him to join them on earth.
"I'm sure everyone would understand," Hinata reasoned.
"I will remain on the moon. I need to atone from my crimes," Toneri said, clear determination in his voice. Sakura's heart pang. My sins have nothing to do with you. She wondered how his road to atonement was going.
"Please come with us," Hinata tried again, watching Toneri's retracting figure.
He turned back slowly. "I vow the moon will never approach earth. Never again."
–––
"Your boyfriend swung by while you were on the moon," Ino told Sakura during lunch a few days after the mission to rescue Hanabi had ended. Sakura almost choked on her food.
"What?" She managed to ask.
"Like I said, Sasuke swung by, destroyed a meteorite about the size of the whole village and then disappeared into thin air," Ino said.
Sasuke-kun was here… He protected the village.
