"You're a lifesaver, Sakura!" Naruto grinned from ear to ear, he only had eyes for the fresh bowl of ramen in his lap. "If I had to eat this hospital grub one more time I'd die!"
"Naruto, you only woke up a few hours ago. You couldn't have eaten it more than once."
"Once was bad enough! Next time I see Granny Tsunade I'm tellin' her to get this place some better cooks!"
Without wasting another second, Naruto took apart the chopstick and chowed down. It was even better than he imagined. Old man Teuchi had brought out the good stuff for the toppings, a special kind of barbecued pork he only ever gave Naruto for his birthdays. It made every single bit of the ramen taste like a giant slab of meat cooked to perfection.
"Ah, it's so good!" Naruto said through a mouthful of noodles. "I'm definitely sending some clones out to get more!"
"You're definitely not doing that!" Sakura glared at him from the foot of the bed. "I know you've got a crazy amount of stamina but you need to rest too, Naruto! I've never seen you this beaten up before!"
Naruto stopped to think it over. Gaara had gotten him pretty good, so did that traitor creep Kabuto. All the same, thanks to that nasty fox's powers, he knew it wasn't that big of a deal. Even as a bandaged up mummy man, Naruto figured he still probably had way more chakra than a lot of the pro, grown-up ninja.
"Eh, it doesn't matter much," He shrugged, taking some more noodles into his mouth. "I heal pretty fast too, remember? I'll be ready to kick more butt before you know it!"
"You shouldn't have gotten hurt in the first place…"
Naruto paused and glanced at her. Sakura wasn't looking at him anymore, she stared out at some point in the wall. Naruto had been so happy to get another visitor and over the ramen he realised he hadn't really looked at her. Sakura's eyes were red around the corners and she looked pretty tired.
"If I stopped Satsuki, if I was stronger…" Sakura lowered her head, grabbed a handful of the bed sheets and squeezed. "Nobody would've gotten hurt."
"H-Hey, come on now!" Said Naruto. "Everything worked out in the end, didn't it? We're all okay!"
Shikamaru had told him that much when he visited just an hour ahead of Sakura. Sure, everyone took a few bad hits from it but that was unavoidable. Sometimes helping out one of your friends or comrades meant taking a few nasty hits. They all knew that going into the mission and nobody regretted it. At least, Naruto sure as hell didn't. He'd have done it all a million times over again if it meant stopping Satsuki from making the worst mistake of her whole life.
"What if next time you aren't okay, Naruto?" She said in a low voice. "You've seen how crazy things can get out there. Think about it: if you had someone to patch you up out there, nobody would've had to go into surgery."
"Well," Naruto scratched his chin. Try as he might, he couldn't come up with any answer for that. "I mean…"
"What's even worse is that you had to do it all alone."
"H-Huh?"
"I talked to Lee, Naruto," Sakura's voice fell to a whisper. "He was busy doing hand laps around the hospital. He told me the whole squad was in pieces by the time he caught up to you. You had to face and take everything Satsuki threw at you by yourself. I'm your teammate too, I should've been there to help somehow."
Naruto especially didn't know what to say about that idea. All at once, the fight in the valley came rushing back like one of the worst memories in his life. He remembered how Satsuki was there, how coldly she decided to cut off all ties with Konoha. How she smiled when she tried… to kill him. Sakura being there to see or experience that made his insides twist into a knot.
Would you have done it to her too, Satsuki? Naruto wondered, staring at his reflection in the leftover soup. The memory of the Chidori going through him set his chest on fire. Would you have tried to kill Sakura like that too?
"I'm sorry," Said Sakura after a long, uncomfortable silence. "I came to cheer you up and I just made us both miserable…"
"It's not your fault," He said through gritted teeth. "It's that pasty-faced creep Orochimaru, he's the reason everything's been so screwed up in the village lately! If he just stayed away none of this would have happened!"
He expected Sakura to agree with him. Instead, Naruto noticed her bite her bottom lip and shift uncomfortably on the bed.
"W-What, what is it?"
"Orochimaru's a vile monster and I'd like nothing better than to wring him by that ugly long neck of his… But…" She sighed. "He's not the one who messed up Satsuki, Itachi was, remember?"
Naruto's growing anger shrank in the memory of that name. He'd only seen him for a little while but his face, his dead eyes. They were freakier and scarier than any glare he'd seen with the Sharingan from either Kakashi-sensei or from Satsuki at their worst. He felt totally vulnerable and exposed under them, like he knew more about Naruto than Naruto knew himself and there was nothing he could do about it.
"He killed almost all of them," Sakura went on. "Almost every single person in his clan except Satsuki, the entire Konoha Police Force. He didn't even spare the other kids or little babies. M-My parents… they were so terrified they didn't let me leave the house for almost two weeks. They wouldn't let me go to the academy on my own for eight months, they almost took me out of the academy."
Naruto really didn't know what to say about that.
He went on with his life after the news broke like usual. Oh, he'd heard about it, it was too big of a deal for anyone in the village to ignore. It was just that, he came to realise, he'd never really stopped to think about what happened at the massacre. Even after Satsuki talked about hating and wanting to kill her brother on the bridge, it was something so out of his way, so terrible he didn't even have an idea to imagine what it could have looked like. It was almost like a scary story made to freak kids out instead of a real thing.
Now, as he sat there and bored into his own reflection in the bowl, Naruto started to see it for the first time. He pictured an Uchiha family like old man Tazuna's. Just regular folks going about their lives, never hurting anyone or asking for trouble. Then he saw Itachi, with those cold, evil eyes coming for them.
Did Itachi torture them like he tortured Satsuki in that hallway? Did he let one of his aunts or cousins watch their kids or brothers or lovers die? Or did he just come for them like some demon, rip them apart like Zabuza did to his own classmates? Could he have made Satsuki watch it happen too just to mess with her?
She wouldn't have been much older than Inari or Konohamaru when he did that to her.
"You were alone to begin with!" Her furious, snarling face from the valley came rushing back into his head. "What can you know about me?! This pain is born from my family bonds! How could you ever know what it means to lose anything?!"
At the time he answered by talking about Iruka-sensei or how he thought of Team Seven as his family. Naruto believed it was a good enough answer, Satsuki seemed to get it. He knew she did, he spotted the look on her face when he called her family too. Now, he wondered what he would have said if she'd thrown the massacre's details into his face. What did he have that could possibly compare to watching your own family get killed at the hands of some twisted maniac? Especially when that same maniac was related to her too?
"I'm feeling pretty stupid right," He muttered. "We never really talked to her about it…"
"She'd have told us to mind our own damn business," Sakura gave a sad smile. "I dunno if that makes me feel better or worse."
Worse, definitely worse. Naruto knew she thought the same way. She'd probably still tell us to take a hike…
"Never thought I'd see you leave a bowl of ramen uneaten." A familiar voice from the window caught their attention. Sure enough it was Kakashi-sensei, climbing through it and giving them one of those closed-eyed smiles and salutes of his. "Sorry, if I'm interrupting anything."
"N-No, sensei, Naruto and I were just thinking about… stuff…"
"I can imagine," Sensei's face turned serious. "I won't ask how you're both doing, that part is pretty obvious. Still, I'm glad in times like these I can count on you to have each other's support."
But not Satsuki's. None of them said it but they were all probably thinking it.
"How are your injuries, Naruto?" Sensei said, walking over to the bed's right side. "Anything I need to tell the nurses about?"
"Nah, you know me, Kakashi-sensei, I bounce back real fast." He tried to smile but it felt… off, half-assed.
"Glad to hear it. Once you're feeling better, what do you say we all go out for a meal sometime? All you can eat at my expense?"
"Do you mean all of us here or all of us from Team Seven?" Sakura asked.
Kakashi-sensei gave her a long look and sighed again. "I wish I could say we could all pretend this never happened but neither of you are kids anymore, there's no point in denying it: Satsuki is in serious trouble and she's not getting out of it anytime soon."
That was weird to think about for Naruto. Satsuki was the best in their class, top marks all the time, never late for class or for training. He couldn't even remember a single time Iruka-sensei even yelled at her over anything.
"Is Lady Hokage going to show leniency?" Sakura asked, her knuckles turned as white as the sheets she was holding onto. "They won't… give her the full punishment, right?"
"Huh? Full punishment, what're you guys talking about?"
"Desertion is seen as an act of treason in the shinobi world, Naruto," Sakura's voice could've been made from ice. "Any shinobi who does it is labelled a rogue ninja, an outcast without a village and gets a kill order placed on them."
Naruto stared at him, then Sakura then back at their teacher. He felt like someone had jammed a fist into his ribs all over again. That can't be true… His hands shook. It can't be! Granny Tsunade wouldn't have let us go through all that, bring her back just to kill her! She couldn't have…
"Easy, Naruto," He felt Kakashi-sensei's hand on his shoulder. "Ordinarily, Sakura would be correct: the standard punishment for deserting shinobi is death. I know, I've seen… and had to hunt down some former comrades in my time. But we're lucky, extraordinarily so as Lady Hokage has chosen to give Satsuki a rare clemency."
"T-They're not going to kill her?" Sakura gasped and smiled, Naruto felt something dislodge from his gut. "Are you sure, Kakashi-sensei?"
"I spoke to Lady Hokage this morning. As the last of the Uchiha, Satsuki was deemed too valuable of an asset for the village to execute as an ordinary deserter. Although," He smiled under his mask. "I'd say a lot of it was thanks to our maverick ninja here too. Lady Tsunade not so subtly implied it was a big favour she was doing for your sake, Naruto."
"You could've said that from the start, sensei," Naruto laughed and shook his head. "For a second there you really freaked me out!"
"You're not children anymore, any of you. It's important for you all to fully grasp the severity of Satsuki's situation, something I'm going to make sure she's aware of too," For a second, their teacher looked mad, really bad. But it passed as soon as it came. "Don't mistake Lady Tsunade's mercy for a slap on the wrist either, there are still repercussions. For one thing, Satsuki isn't allowed to leave the village for the foreseeable future."
"They're not going to let her go on missions?" Sakura asked, her smiling dying. "Even if it's with us?"
"Even if it's with us," Sensei shook his head. "They don't trust her not to go to Orochimaru's side and they can't risk him making another grab for her. No, Satsuki's going to be spending the next year doing jobs around Konoha and under my strict supervision which means I won't be going around anywhere either for a while."
"But how's Team Seven gonna work?" Naruto shouted. "We're ninja! We gotta go out there and kick ass! Finding cats for old lady's ain't gonna help us get stronger!"
"Unless Team Seven is disbanded," Sakura said in a low voice, her face downcast. "Think about it, Satsuki and Kakashi-sensei can't go anywhere. You'll probably be off with Master Jiraiya again, I've… maybe got some stuff going on too."
"But that's crap!" He yelled even louder, almost knocking the bowl out of his lap. "The whole reason we did any of this was to keep Team Seven going, right? Now we're gonna get split up anyway?!"
"It was inevitable at any rate, Naruto," Kakashi-sensei said. "Master Jiraiya was always going to take a more active hand in training you. I was going to do the same with Satsuki, to help her improve her Sharingan. Even if the past few months hadn't happened, Team Seven was going to get split up."
"And I'm saying that makes no sense! I mean, come on guys? We've always done our awesomest stuff as a group, right? If it wasn't for Sakura here I'd still be trying to climb that tree! If it wasn't for that jerk Satsuki, I wouldn't be half as good as I am now!" Something almost stopped him from admitting that last part but Naruto couldn't help it, he was too mad to care.
"Sometimes for the group to grow, its individual members have to on their own. Just look at yourself, Naruto," Kakashi-sensei said. "Through your training with Master Jiraiya, you've accomplished remarkable things, learned jutsu that would be the envy of anyone in the village. That's not even going into your growth as a person."
"I'm not talking just about strength here," Naruto replied, not knowing how to argue his point. "You guys are worried about Satsuki not being loyal? How's splitting apart the only people who care about her gonna help her? She's gonna think we all ditched her."
"I never said none of us can't see each other again. But right now emotions and tensions in the team are exceptionally high. I'm not convinced putting us all in the same room won't end with tears, shouts and fists getting thrown around. Can you?"
Naruto opened and closed his mouth to answer but nothing came out. He'd like to think he'd headbutted some sense into that jerk of theirs but he couldn't be sure.
"To be honest, I don't really know what I'd even say to her if she walked through the door right now," Sakura replied. "It kind of freaks me out to even imagine it. Maybe blowing some steam on our own time might be good for us?"
"It never hurts to take time and figure things out for yourself. Just as it is sometimes necessary for someone to drag you out of your shell to get some perspective. Rest assured, Satsuki's going to be seeing a lot of that in the weeks and months to come. The days of her being left alone to simmer about her revenge against Itachi are over."
Naruto guessed that sounded good, he just wished she could do that with them.
"At any rate," Sensei sighed. "I did have another reason for coming here besides just checking up on you, Naruto. I need a report about what happened in the Final Valley."
That didn't really surprise him. He knew boring reports after a mission were part of being a ninja. Naruto almost always hated doing them, he figured he'd hate this one the most. He gulped, feeling panicked and thirsty all of a sudden.
Where do I even start? Naruto wondered, not for the first time. When she came outta that weird coffin and started laughing like a maniac? Or when she turned around and I saw that evil monster face of hers?
"I know it's not going to be easy for you, none of this is," Kakashi-sensei said in a soft voice. "I've already guessed at some of the facts myself but I still need to hear it from you, Naruto. If I'm going to properly deal with Satsuki moving forward, I need to understand what kind of place she was in when you confronted her. Your honesty can only help your teammate moving forward."
I get what he's saying but… How do I do this? How do I tell him she didn't care we all risked so much to get her back? Or that… that she tried to kill me…
"Do it, Naruto," Sakura's voice broke through the daze. Naruto blinked in surprise when he felt her hand over his. "If this is the last thing we're doing as Team Seven for a while, then I want you to know I've got your back. Don't hold anything back, you hear? The burden of this mess is all of us, I don't want just the two of you to bear it. Understand?"
Somehow, she managed to smile at him. Kakashi-sensei did too. Naruto kept looking between them, a lump grew in his throat, something stung his eyes pretty badly. He furiously rubbed it away with the back of his free hand.
"Sorry, sorry," He sniffed a couple of times and steadied his breath. "Alright, I'll tell you guys everything."