the first to go is her forehead.
forehead pig, they used to tease her at the end of class like clockwork. the six year old found herself lingering just a little bit longer on the mirror by the door every morning, trying to glare the gigantic waste of space in her face into shrinking into an acceptable size.
it didn't necessarily bulge out but it formed a noticeable curve where all the other kids her age had perfectly shaped ones – and for sakura, any deviation from what society deemed passable meant a step downwards perfection.
because uchiha were perfection embodied.
or at the very least the closest thing their tiny village had to liken human worship. they never ever settled for anything else.
having a massive physical anomaly taking permanent residence in her face was a glaring reminder just how far out of reach she was in the realm of belonging to the elite of the elite; merely a civilian with not even a particularly noteworthy family one at that – her fourty-year old father was still a genin for crying out loud – sakura has to make do with the cards she'd been dealt and emerge the unexpected jack of all trades.
it'll heal back, she tells herself when she is locked in the first floor bathroom holding a hammer too heavy for her nimble fingers.
it's not until blonde hair blue eyes – ino? – barges in with her long ponytail and offensive aristocratic temple and yanks the tool out of her hands that sakura thinks maybe she could settle for just being the queen.
her mouth is next to follow.
when he says something along the lines of you're annoying with no ounce of remorse but all the bit of certainty, she sinks into herself and doesn't speak another word for the entire day.
not when ino brings her favourite cupcakes from their favourite cafe just across the yamanaka flower shop, not when naruto asks her out for the nth time with the offer to pay for everything, or not even when kakashi-sensei compliments her kunai skills that would have sent her on a gratitude brigade.
none of them were sasuke.
if he didn't want cupcakes because he didn't like sweets, she didn't want them either. if their blonde teammate wanted to get her alone with him, she wouldn't leave his side for even a second. if he wasn't impressed with her throwing consecutively, she'd aim to hit them all at bullseye next time.
and if sasuke took even a rare second to part his mouth and address her directly about something he deemed too important to break his vow of silence, then she could very well be annoying.
she chops the rest of her hair in a single swipe.
when she feels the pressure of the shinobi who had their death grip on her head stagger, probably in shock from what she had just done – because no one ever expects the pretty one to cut their pretty hair and lose their pretty – she takes their prejudice-laced hesitance and goes in for the kill.
ino cleans up more than just stray pink locks afterwards; she takes her very spring too.
or maybe sakura took that with her the moment she decided her forehead held more promise for her future than her intelligence. possibly even a little after that, when the love of her life told her in more words than one she was an inconvenience and she believed him.
but when sasuke wakes and takes one look at her and flares up almost instantly; like she was someone worth the anger and mental anguish and protection – she believes that too.
her voice goes out almost the same time she feels him at her back.
yes, sasuke was fast, but he was never fast in front of her and only when he needed to be.
she guesses kakashi-sensei told him in advance to pace himself with his other teammates because not everyone is born an uchiha you know or perhaps he weighed the options in his head and decided matching with her and naruto yielded better results than advancing alone. but that confused her even more, because sasuke was always one step ahead of naruto.
even when kakashi-sensei scolds him the best he can to slow down, remember teamwork when he made them duel. or just about every paired work he threw at them in hopes of building some form of camaraderie only to have it backfire because they both took things personally and challenged each other endlessly.
still sasuke was never fast to her.
if she was being honest, it almost seemed like he accommodated her albeit a little delayed stride.
whenever they set out for a mission, she noticed he hanged back and even sometimes matched step with her. but that wasn't particularly alarming, it's his uncharacteristic defiance of naruto's constant race you to the end! jabs she knows he's dying to win that perplexes her.
or when sensei assigned them together for a friendly sparring session but she fears for her very life because the last sharingan wielder has been handed a literal license to inflict damage on a mere civilian. it's not that he went easy on her, it's that he never did. but always when he is a hair's breath away and one move from landing a winning strike – he steps down.
sasuke was always the clear victor in their fights.
so when he is fast, as in barely meets the eye and faster than lightning directly to her, sakura knows it is truly over.
her eyes betray her this time.
surely that wasn't the same boy who shared his mom's famed onigiri with the rest of the class, who lost them too young he took a full transformation in a single night, who gloomily said he didn't like or dislike anything in particular, who left her on a cold bench in a winter night but not before saying thank you – for what?
they haven't seen each other for ages yet this one thought is what rings above all else. she wanted to ask him right then and there. nevermind that he's grown considerably taller or filled out his body leaner or says her name the way someone would a long lost lover.
then she is unraveling like the ground beneath her feet wasn't steady enough to anchor her into this world where her frantic eyes look upon a man's – steady, redredred, then a flash of something; was that hurt? who is this? where's sasuke-kun? – that it takes every fibre of her being not to close it.
because she wants to remember this in place to forget something else.
why wasn't what you were thankful for enough to make you stay?
the war takes everything, her brain is the last to go.
it wasn't kind on anyone but she knows she is the last person it should feel most sorry for. naruto had to meet his father for the first time and say goodbye for the last time on his birthday. kakashi has deep-rooted wounds only a few would still live life for yet put his best friend down all the same. and sasuke – he wasn't human anymore.
gods the uchiha were; the long-awaited epilogue of this nightmare fairy tale was that he was their latest offspring and they wanted to spoil him rotten by gifting him this world – her world – on a silver platter to the last heir as his personal hell he could reign terror in.
sakura would be afraid if she wasn't tired.
exhausted from slipping into the days of being knee-deep in people's bodies trying to find a source of anything to guarantee they could be saved or lying to naruto for the hundredth time we'll get him back or spending all the other time convincing herself she wasn't going insane. what she considered her strongest ally and a constant that has never failed her is now her worst enemy, because this one didn't have childish insults or red eyes – this was on her.
because the war couldn't kill her spirit so they aimed for her mind instead.
the first to go might have been her outer shell, but the last to leave her is her essence in its entirety. only there is no team seven to save her from herself this time; they were damaged as they were, psychotically functional if they tried.
if sasuke chose konoha as his next underworld, sakura had to find her last haven.
only it's not as easy as heaven and hell. because suddenly he is at their side again like nothing has changed, kakashi-sensei mutters something like they're all back with a sigh of relief, then all too easily he takes down his ancestor for the sake of the village he so loathed.
maybe sakura really was losing it.
the mind is truly a bizarre piece of thing. she feels it playing tricks on her and moving threads around and trying to associate safety with sasuke and it takes all of her wilting sanity not to rip the organ out.
i can still do this for naruto.
kakashi-sensei is going to need help with adjusting without the sharingan.
ino is going to need help after her father.
shizune-san can't heal all those people alone.
then she comes into the medic tent and sees jet-black hair and mismatched eyes and a bleeding arm – and knows insanity is better than this reality.
sakura is far from broken, but she also hasn't been entirely whole for a long time.
sasuke sees pieces of her go out one by one, only she doesn't see him pick them up every time.
when sasuke hears some kids call the girl with pink hair less than honourable nicknames, he threatens him with threats of the village's police force throwing them in jail. he didn't like to pull rank, but when he can't see her green eyes hidden in mops of bangs it tug his heart for reasons he couldn't place.
when sasuke can't catch himself from the surging affection at the same pink-haired girl shyly presenting the bento she made for him – i remember you said your mother made them for you all the time – he blurts out the first thing he can think of. only the pain in her eyes lasts with him forever.
when sasuke sees her in a dishevelled state with blood stains all over her porcelain skin, he is livid with unadulterated rage at the world that has allowed her to be in that state. his instinctive reaction is to kill, annihilate, completely destroy everything in his path; but then she hugs him. and he is soothed. because it's the first comforting thing he's felt in a painfully long time.
when sasuke is only a few inches from her back, her scent carries over. for the briefest of moments he is absolutely intoxicated and fights the urge to just bury himself with her comfort. she smelled like all he could ever want if only his will for vengeance wasn't what he needed. in that pregnant pause of a millisecond before he lays her to sleep, he is genuinely thankful to her for showing him the possibility of living outside hatred.
when sasuke looks down at her expression laced with horror, he reminds himself he expected nothing else. he is closer to his goal than he has ever been and he'll be damned if he let her vanilla-scented hair cloud his judgment. afterwards when he has long left the reunion and her scent somehow lingers on his clothes, he specifically instructs the servants not to wash them.
when sasuke sees her inching closer to naruto whenever he was near, he looks away because he deserves it. or sometimes when they heard a flock of birds chirping and she inwardly flinched, he fights the urge to kill the damn animals right then and there. this wasn't going to be easy, in some ways harder than him and naruto, but he was determined he could still have everything he wanted.
they were going to take some time, but then sasuke always matched pace with sakura.