Authors Note: WE HAVE A DISCORD NOW! { h t . t p s : / / dis co rd .g g/C Bs X 55 D } You have to take the spaces out, but that's the invite! I'd love for my readers to join and hangout! I post sneak peaks for next chapter and chapter updates there, along with fanart for the fics, among other things!
This LONG chapter is dedicated to the reviewer under the name 'Guest' from February 7th, your lovely review inspired me to write this chapter faster.
Title: If I Live
Author: ALightLit
Beta: - MIA (as in Missing In Action)
Type: AU
Status: Incomplete - Ongoing.
Rating: T (Rating may change due to maturing characters.)
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto!
Pairing: Undecided.
Word Count: 4,468
Intro: It took one minute, one choice, and one girl, to mess all of Orochimaru's plans up. Sakura Haruno managed to beat fear – with love. She moved in front of her crush as a last resort. However, every victory has its price.
R&R
"God knows we're all drawn toward what's beautiful and broken; I have been, but some people cannot be fixed. Or if they can be, it's only by love and sacrifice so great it destroys the giver."
― Cassandra Clare
The rain didn't stop.
Sky overcast with grey dark storm clouds, a torrential downpour falling across the valley, the Nakano flooding the forests to the north and west and eventually, that overflow fell into the village.
During rain seasons most of the village still operated, even with the flooding, it was just a bit different. Most civilians traveled through the village via small canoes, while the merchants set up on floating platforms. Classes at the academy were condensed to the top two floors, the top floor turned into an extravagant training room while on the second classes were crammed together. This was much the same with the hospital, as many patients put into the same room as safely possible.
Nurses didn't even scoff anymore when their Ninja patients slipped from the crowded rooms after being deemed healthy and just in need of rest.
Sakura was crouched a top a roof in the civilian section, the supposedly waterproof white cloak she wore over her clothes doing very little to actually keep her dry. Rain slid down the back of her neck as the girl grimaced.
Sasuke was casually walking across the flood water down below, as most Ninja did during this season, henged to look like a normal, nondescript shinobi. Kakashi-sensei was in one of the canoes below, also henged, though as an elderly civilian woman. Naruto was nowhere in sight.
The village seemed to dim and quiet for a moment, wind making wet, pink hair slap against Sakura's cheek and stick there. The rain seemed to lighten for a brief moment, and below everyone paused, the village collectively holding its breath- lightning flashed across the sky, a clap of thunder following it, then rain fell on with vigor.
Sakura ignored the sudden flash - blood up to her elbow, bright blue eyes, the darkness consuming her heart, he was there even now, laughing in her ear and- she took three small breaths. Focus on the mission. She told herself sternly and she tried to ignore the shadow of a man dancing in the corner of her eye. The village carried on, so did Sakura.
A flash of dark, chocolate brown and then- "There!" She hissed over the earpiece that connects her to the rest of the team. "Engaging! South-west street corner!" Sakura took off, hurtling herself over the edge of the roof and dropping downwards. The wind of her decent billowing her cloak up, Sakura landed atop the water silently, the surface rippling from her impact, she shot forward as Sasuke closed in ahead of her on the target.
In the end, it was Naruto who caught it, the target having run and jumped straight onto the 'boat' with the elderly woman. That was all Naruto needed to transform back into himself, effectively capturing Tora the cat in his arms while dumping Kakashi-sensei straight into the water.
"Mah well," The man mumbled, brushing his soaked hair up and out of his eye. "I suppose that's a success."
.
.
.
Pockets a little fuller from a successful D-rank mission, team 7 stood atop the water of what would have been a crossroads, the mood surprisingly solemn. Naruto had a bag resting on one shoulder, a tight smile pulling at his face. "Ero-sennin said we'll be back soon, it's a super important mission!" Naruto rocked back and forth on his feet, eyes shining. "We'll bring back the next Hokage, believe it!" With his signature thumbs up, Sakura wondered how the blonde could always seem to yell about the simplest of things.
Sasuke, who stood closer to Naruto than Sakura and Kakashi, also had a bag secured to his back, face as emotionless as ever despite how he recently had been better about that. The elders had decided the safest place for Sasuke was not within the village walls, but with Jiraiya. They didn't trust Orochimaru not to get his hands on the boy before the new Hokage was chosen, and so off he went.
There was an awkward moment between the team, as they shifted and flicked wet hair away from their faces, it was Kakashi who spoke next, his free hand - the one not holding his perverted book - coming to rest on Sakura's shoulder, where the seal was. "We'll be fine." He said gravely, but the boys seemed to understand. Naruto moved first, bursting forward and nearly dropping his bag into the water if it hadn't been for Sasuke catching it.
Naruto pulled Sakura into a fierce hug, practically shoving off Kakashi's hand in the process while dragging Sasuke into it by tugging on his bag. The three Genin huddled there for a moment after only a brief struggle, arms on each other's shoulders as they rested heads against each other.
"No one leaves," Naruto said, the quiet tone he held jarring to his two teammates, they all knew what he really meant. After a pause, Sasuke added just as quietly, voice suspiciously hoarse. "No one dies." Sakura looked at her teammates, her family, in a way. She wasn't sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line, she had started to love Naruto just as much as Sasuke. "We all come back." And the boys would, she knew that as well as they did, but it was her who really needed to come back to them, but she was still lost in the darkness of her own mind.
Sakura and Kakashi stand at the gate, watching the pair fade into the landscape as they walk away until they're no longer in sight, and then Kakashi nudges her and offers to buy her some dumplings, so off they go.
What happens next changes nothing, and everything.
.
.
.
Two days Sakura stays up all night reading the packet that was in the manilla envelope, bundles of paper full of damning information. There were things in here that Sakura never wanted to know, but someone else clearly wanted her to know. Someone wanted her to know that the massacre happened because the Uchiha were planning a coup d'etat, that there was more to Naruto's heritage than meets the eye, that the third Hokage wasn't quite as innocent as everyone thought, and that there was an organization within Kohona that stole children from their beds and turned them into machine shinobi.
There was so much to unload here she wasn't even sure where to begin. The thirteen year old girl at her desk until her back was screaming and her legs ached, and then she moved to the floor because the history of her village was stained in a blood that ran so deep she couldn't see where it ended and where it began. In whole, the only reason Konohagakure was labeled "the good village" was because they were apparently so good at hiding their sins.
Most of the really important information was what was blacked out, like who ordered the dismantlement of the Uchiha, why Naruto's father decided to put the entire village at risk just to have his own child, who was running the organization that didn't have a name in the files but made the back of Sakura's neck itch.
There was too much there for her to fully process, so when she got to the end with a handwritten note hastily added to the last page, the young girl nearly felt faint at the words that were written, and what they meant.
Her eyes burn from having been awake for a full twenty-four hours, and from the harsh truth she's being forced to realize about Konohagakure.
.
.
.
What will you do to protect them? The note reads.
.
.
.
It goes something like this - Itachi Uchiha came into her village, nearly killed her Sensei, and now he was going after the rest of her family.
Sakura decided she would kill him before she even took off in the direction she knew her team to be in, the seal breaking free as she willingly used it to speed herself up, to move forward faster than the lightning that crackled around her, fury in her eyes and coldness in her heart.
(anything for them, She had decided, come hell or high water, anything for them.)
Sakura arrived in time to watch Sasuke's wrist get broken, and then she was there, throwing the Uchiha into Naruto's arms and aiming to hit Itachi square in the jaw, but the man easily deflected her blow. One cold, tense hand catching her wrist and holding her there, eyebrows raised in mild surprise as he took in her seething form.
"So you're the other one stunting my brother's ascension to power." His voice was surprisingly smooth and cultured, hinting at the intelligence the man was brimming with. Two days ago Sakura maybe kind of sympathized with Itachi, but now she wanted nothing more than to see him bleed.
"If you think allowing a monster to sink his fangs into Sasuke's neck and brand him like cattle is an acceptable form of power, I think you should stay very far away from my team." She spat, the sheer amount of venom in her tone leaking through as Sakura's teeth ground together, and then, because Sakura is only ever full of bad ideas, she told him the one thing that would probably get her killed.
"I know the truth." It was a biased whisper, a condemning truth that had Itachi Uchiha's rock solid composure crumble in a millisecond. His hand tightened around her wrist with bruising force until the bone gave way just as it had for Sasuke, and then Sakura was slammed against the wall across the hallway, one of his hands holding her up by her neck while the other traps her hands above her head, Sakura's breath tumblings from startled lips as Itachi moves so close she's suddenly aware of how much taller and stronger the man was compared to her.
Vaguely she can hear Naruto and Sasuke's enraged shouts, but she's more focused on keeping her eyes firmly set on Itachi's nose and not his eyes. She had read about what could happen if she so much as glanced at them, her own Sensei a living warning as he lay unresponsive in a hospital bed.
Itachi leans in closer then until their noses are nearly touching and Sakura has absolutely no choice but to close her eyes. Every instinct on her is screaming because this is a wolf with its teeth locked around her neck and she had to close her eyes! But then Sakura feels the unfamiliar sensation of lips brushing against her own and her eyes pop open in surprise.
Sakura has a brief second of justified outrage as she realizes that her teammate's brother just stole her first kiss and then she's looking into crimson eyes that are full of mirth and intent that demands answers, and then everything fades away.
[If I Live]
When Sakura opens her eyes, its to hell.
A vermilion sky, wispy black clouds float lazily, blown by a wind she cannot feel nor hear. Sakura herself is tied high on a cross, eyes set on the monochrome landscape and the red red red red sky, and she can't help but think that it's too familiar for comfort.
"What's this technique called?" She asks slowly, voice cracking at the end.
There's a pause, long and drawn out and Sakura watches the black clouds move slowly until-
"Tsukuyomi."
She blinks and then he's there, his red eyes spinning just as lazily as the clouds floated overhead, and Sakura doesn't look away this time. This does not phase Itachi.
"It was foolish of you to interfere with my fight with my brother," He spoke slowly, tone inquisitive despite the indifference in his face. Sakura is a smart girl, she's known an Uchiha for nearly her entire life and is practically a master at his nonverbal tells, she can read between the lines.
'Why.' He was never going to ask her outright why she'd done it, and so she'd never give him a full answer, but Sakura had thrown her life away for Sasuke more times than any sane person would have.
And she wouldn't change any of it.
"They're my team, my family," She spoke slowly as if Itachi was but a child and wouldn't understand what she'd meant. "As you did for the village, I would do for them." The words settle in with weight, and suddenly there's a shine of understanding in the man's eyes.
Sakura blinks and the cross is lowered. Her hands are still bound above her head and she can't move but suddenly Itachi is so close she can smell his hair, even in this God-forsaken genjutsu.
"You would massacre an entire clan for the sake of them?" His tone is steady, but his hands are harsh as he jerks her forward by her shirt, her shoulders screaming in protest as her confines hold strong but Sakura is very careful to give nothing away.
There's something horrifying about looking into the eyes of a man that's killed hundreds, but if she can do it with Orochimaru she can do it with Itachi, and so Sakura's gaze is level and honest as she stares up at him. From this distance she can see his fine long eyelashes, the pale pallor of his skin, smell the freshness of his soap and the slight hint of blood that will never truly wash away, and she tells the truth because honestly how many more bad ideas can she come up within the span of a year.
"No," She pauses as his grip on her goes lax, his eyes narrowed with what seems to be satisfaction at her answer. "I would burn villages to the ground for them."
Itachi steps away from her abruptly as if burnt, and finally, his composure truly crumbles to show the surprise that lays behind his carefully sustained mask. There is a beat of silence that lasts longer than any before as the two stare at each other. Sakura's expression conveyed nothing but a cold kind of honestly, and it took some time for the shine of understanding to come back into Itachi's eyes, but when it did he looked more tired than he had felt in years.
"How do you know?" And Sakura had learned a lot in the last two months, so she didn't hold back anything, she started from the forest of death, and went all the way to the mysterious folder, glossing over her encounters with Orochimaru and Kabuto.
Sakura tells him what she plans to do about the snake that's in the grass hunting her team, and about the dark roots tainting the great tree that's her village.
At the end of it, Itachi looks every part a seventeen-year-old boy should look if his village had used him for a scapegoat, and it makes the last bit of warmth in Sakura's heart ache. Itachi didn't deserve what had been done to him, and no one was going to ever bring him to justice.
What's one more. Sakura thinks tiredly, because she loves Naruto and Sasuke, and she knew Sasuke's love for Itachi was what was crushing him, and Naruto loved Sasuke and watching Sasuke be crushed was crushing Naruto, and Itachi had the weight of a hundred lives on his shoulders, all dead and gone but the burden still there to bare.
You can't save them all! The voice that's not quite Inner and not quite Orochimaru hisses and Sakura's blood boils because she sure as hell can try.
And so, for twenty eight hours Itachi and Sakura talk and plan and plot.
"You realize what path you'll have to take, what you'll have to become if you do this." He says suddenly on hour thirty, interrupting Sakura mid-sentence. The scenery has long since changed, though still monochrome and crimson, she was no longer held on a cross but rather sitting across from the Uchiha, a Shogi board between the two of them. They were deep in the woods, a blanket of security over them as the great tree's overhead blocked them from the view of the world.
It's comfortable, despite the tiredness that is weighing on Sakura with each passing hour.
"I know," She says finally, meeting Itachi's cursed eyes with determination shining in her own. "Better me than them." She says at last, tone haggard but Itachi nods once and picks up the conversation where she'd left off.
He knew what she meant because he had once made the same kind of choice. No one had been there to stop him, and now, Itachi couldn't bring himself to try and stop her.
On hour forty, the Shogi board vanishes, and a cross rises from the ground once more. "Are you sure?" He asks even as a Katana materializes in his hand. Sakura doesn't fight the restraints that go up around her wrists, doesn't even blink at the gleaming weapon.
"I know the part I have to play," She says, and something in Itachi feels weak because this young child is willing to suffer psychological torture if it means furthering herself to protect those she cares for. "It'll be more believable if I have...this." And so she takes a slow, deep breath, and nods for him to go on.
"Show me whatever will break me the worst, and then drive the sword in deeper." Her tone is cold, hard, strong, and Itachi doesn't hesitate.
For thirty-two hours Itachi shows her the worst things he'd ever done, he shows her the massacre of his clan, children being slaughtered, parents begging for their lives. He shows her every cold, calculated kill, and then he shows her how her parents died over and over again, nothing but a healthy dose of imagination and Sakura's own memories to guide him along. When one memory fades away, before Sakura can catch her breath from the ragged sobs that rip their way free of her chest, the sharp sting of a sword breaking her skin and sinking in makes her scream.
She has to remind herself more than once that she asked for this, that it was part of the plan, and she had to follow the plan if she wants to protect those she loves, but somewhere along the way the cursed seal begins to seep in deeper than it had ever before, twisting her emotions and making the one objective she had in her heart become the sole fixation.
Hour seventy-two comes at last, and Itachi pauses for a moment, the tip of his Katana poised over Sakura's heart. Their eyes meet and Sakura feels closer to him than to anyone else she knows, even her team. The time shared in this Genjutsu changed her and him, formed a bond between the two of them. In their own way, they were teammates now as well.
"Until next time, Sakura." He says, and Itachi feels a lot like he's condemning her to a life as painful as his own as he drives the blade down into her heart.
"Until next time, Itachi." Blood spills past her lips, staining alabaster skin as the curse mark finally breaks free from the confining seals around it, and rages within her mind.
[If I Live]
Sakura Haruno is in a coma for the three weeks it takes Naruto and Sasuke to find Tsunade Senju, convince her to become their Kage, and return with her. The Tsukuyomi only lasted three days, but neither Kakashi nor Sakura wakes up, the psychological damage that's inflicted by the genjutsu too much for their minds to handle. Tsunade is able to rouse Kakashi first, reversing the damage with ease, she isn't surprised in the slightest when the man's eyes open. He sees three things in quick succession.
The first thing Kakashi notices are - of course - Tsunade's breasts, how could he not?
The second was Naruto and Sasuke, the boy's standing side by side with a comradeship that wasn't there the last he'd seen of them, it was a closeness that was forged from fighting and traveling and living together. It doesn't take much for anyone to realize the best place for Sasuke Uchiha to heal from the pain of his past was alongside the ball of sunshine that was Naruto Uzumaki.
Lastly, Kakashi's mismatched eyes land on the bed that's beside his own. A splash of pale skin, dull pink spread across the white pillow her head rest on, the sickly black ink that marks her neck. Kakashi takes in the bags under the girl's eyes, the cast on her left wrist, her sunken cheeks, and feels sick.
As Tsunade begins to work on reversing the damage done to Sakura's mind, Sasuke stiffly informs him what happened while he was on 'vacation'.
"Itachi," The young boy spits his name out like its vile, "Came after Naruto, he was...he overpowered us, but then Sakura showed up and-" Suddenly, Sasuke turns away from them all and glares out the window, refusing to further the conversation, and so Naruto picks up where he had left off.
"Sakura-chan showed up, she pushed Sasuke-teme out the way and that made the Teme's bastard brother mad so he-" Naruto stopped too now, his fast twisting as if the next words he was going to say caused him physical pain. "He uh, he hurt Sakura."
There was a steady beat of silence after that as Kakashi digested this information, making a mental note to talk to the young girl about self preservation because all she seemed to do was throw herself in the way to protect her team, and while that was the bare bone basics of the bells test, Kakashi didn't want to have to bring either of the boys to visit her grave when she inevitably gets herself killed for the sake of one of them.
"We went with Ero-sennin and found Ba-chan, and we brought her back here to help you and Sakura-chan!" Naruto seemed to brighten up there, his tone taking on that of excitement, and even Sasuke's tense shoulders seemed to relax. "And I learned a super awesome new jutsu! And I won a bet with Ba-chan! And we totally kicked Orochimaru's ass!" The ecstatic blonde ended it all with a fist pump in the air, and finally, Sasuke turned around, mumbling something about Dobes under his breath with the barest hit on fondness in his tone.
The Uchiha takes over explaining then because the Sannin's name alone nearly caused their poor old Sensei to have a stroke. And so Kakashi learns about how Orochimaru tried to bribe Tsunade into not coming back to Konoha, and how he tried to kidnap Sasuke only to be foiled by Naruto this time, who took a sword in his gut for his efforts.
By the time Sakura's emerald eyes blinked open, the two boys were comfortably bickering about some tomato flavor ramen while Kakashi slumped in his bed, eyes set on his favorite Icha Icha book but his mind far away.
They all turn to look at the girl as her breathing changes in surprise. Her eyes are trained on the ceiling for a long, long time, but eventually, she pushes herself to sit upright and turns to look at the group gathered there. Kakashi likes to think eyes are the window to one's soul, but as he looks into Sakura's empty green eyes, he hopes against hope that the saying is nothing more than a myth.
The young girl is like an empty shell of herself, face blank as she looks at them all, and nothing changes as Tsunade goes on to explain what happened to Sakura, the older woman's expression softening as she talks to the clearly traumatized girl.
"I want you four in my office in two days to recap everything that's happened," Tsunade says as she heads towards the door, blond pigtails swaying behind her with each step. She shuts the door as Naruto begins to eagerly tell everything she's missed, he either hadn't noticed the blankness in her gaze or was choosing to ignore it.
Sasuke was haunted by it because a part of him knew that it could have very well been him in that bed with the very same expression on his face, and Sakura had saved him from that fate by suffering for it herself.
The girl herself feels phantom wounds from the genjutsu lingering, the cursed seal rolling and roaring beneath her skin, and while she listens to Naruto her mind slowly clicks into place as her decision is made by the realization Orochimaru won't stop until he has Sasuke-kun.
So, The voice hisses in the back of her mind, When do we leave, Sakura-chan.
She blinks at her team, feels sorrow fill her to the brim, and lets the darkness in her heart have its way in her at last. Someday, she'll come back to the surface, but for now, for now, it's easier to not fight the poison.
(anything for them.).
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tsuzuku
WE HAVE A DISCORD NOW!{ h t . t p s : / / dis co rd .g g/C Bs X 55 D }You have to take the spaces out, but that's the invite! I'd love for my readers to join and hangout! I post sneak peeks for next chapter and chapter updates there, along with fanart for the fics, among other things!
This chapter took forever to get out and kind of ran away from me half way through and made a story for itself, but the plot is starting to shine through if you're paying close enough attention! Hope you all enjoyed!
Question for this chapter: who do youthink will be promoted to chunin?