She had an invitation for an interview at the end of the week, and the clinic was only a two hour drive away. Shizune was lending her a car and Sakura had spoken to the boys about it. Neither liked the sound of it, but they had to admit that a two hour commute was better than moving out of Pompeii where they were most comfortable moving around and being themselves.
Neither Sai nor Yamato had an overwhelming love for Pompeii, but as much as they denied it, Sakura knew that Pompeii was where they felt the most on top of things. If they left the place where Tengu and Kitsune could walk openly through the streets and not fear human persecution it would mean learning to live in hiding. She didn't want them to have to go through that, so she had been purposeful in searching for places that would take her close to the limits of Pompeii's boundaries.
She needed a source of income. She couldn't get by much further without one and it was killing her inside to have to forgo the gift giving season for financial reasons. It was so stupid to admit, but with everything piled on top of each other, the spare cash for presents wasn't there and she was reduced to old fashioned, silly coupon books and cookies.
God she was nearly out of flour too. Soon she'd be stuck with ramen again. What sort of doctor lived off ramen out of med school?
Sakura hated how ashamed she felt.
She loved Sai and Yamato and wanted to bless them, wanted to treat them right and show them as much kindness as they had shown her.
With a frustrated grunt Sakura pulled out a box of old, mostly forgotten, art supplies that were mostly dried up and old. She couldn't make art like Sai could, but she did have one or two hidden talents she could put to use if she remembered how to utilize them.
Sakura prepped a piece of parchment and tested out the calligraphy pen on some scratch journal paper. She practiced the words a few times, unsatisfied with the results until the fifth page. She remembered the feel of the flowing script and wrote out her words again and again until she was positive she had it down.
Your arms like branches encircle me
And I am made well in the shade of your love
The first poem was finished without issue, and Sakura was worried her good luck wouldn't hold for the second poem, but karma must not have been a bitch just then because the second poem came out just as she had hoped it would.
Sakura blew on the ink until the gloss was gone and dried. She then hid the poems in the pages of a book and set that book aside under her table. The noon day sun was up and she felt like she had finally done something productive in the morning. She never got patients anymore, but at least she had accomplished something.
She would never think anyone silly for complaining about lack of work again. Her mind was ready to go numb from the disuse. If she didn't have the castaways to help out she didn't know how she'd manage to hold onto her sanity.
Kin and the others were still a little weary of her, especially after hearing about the town hall concerns, but the more the Senju vilified Sakura, the more Kin and the others seemed to welcome her. They might suspect her to be more dangerous than appearances suggest, but they didn't hate her or think her the great evil the rest of Pompeii thought her to be.
"The Senju are all liars anyway. You have to look at where they are in the hierarchy and ask yourself how they've managed to maintain that much power for so long. No one at the top is there without a little blood on their hands or sin in their shadow," Dosu had scoffed one day when Sakura came to bring them books and magazines.
"The world needs villains in order to make heroes and the Senju have always been heroes, even when there was no evil," added Kin.
Sakura remembered being nervous, licking her lips, and then voicing her thoughts to the group. "What do you think I am?"
Kin had stared up over the edge of the magazine that was seven months old and a little battered around the edges. Her stare was half lidded and lacking the energy to be piercing. "You're neither. You're just a person. Don't be so full of yourself."
Sakura couldn't help but like Kin for her attitude.
She had more magazines and some books she could take down to them. It was better than hanging out in her house for another day, waiting for the hours to pass before Sai came home from work and Yamato came home from the errands Sakura could no longer safely go out and complete. (The grocery store run was a suicide mission in her mind.)
Sakura dressed for the cold, noting that last year she needed almost twice as many layers. Maybe it was global warming or something else, but Pompeii was unusually warm in ways even she noticed.
She left out the back and had her hands stuffed deep in her pockets when she heard the shouting two blocks over. Like other times, the streets were mostly empty, but there wasn't supposed to be a town hall meeting…at least…not one that she knew of. Tsunade had been kind enough to keep her up to date on such political maneuverings so far.
Sakura ducked into the shadows and pressed herself close to the side of a building. The voices sounded stationary, circling around a central point. They were loud and angry and the sort of voices Sakura wanted to avoid. Sai wasn't anywhere nearby and Yamato…she wasn't sure. If she left now there was a chance she'd be seen. Had she already been seen? They were close enough to hear, maybe they had heard her already.
She smelled something strong and nearly gagged as the accelerent burned with a roaring woosh. There were a few cheers and then some more angry screaming. Sakura hated the part of her that couldn't help but be curious.
Curiosity killed the cat-
Sakura edged around the corner of the building to see the back of the crowd lighting a stray man, a literal man made out of straw, on fire. Inside the burning man there were branches, flowering branches with the blossoms dripping with flame. The straw wasn't stray, but bleached wood. Around the head of the effigy was a grown of blossoms trailing in pink layers.
At the front of the circle Shikamaru and Choji stood there, glaring at the flames. Sakura recognized Kankuro and Temari, remembering how Gaara had fallen sick not too long ago. Shino was there too, hanging close to the back with the collar of his hood popped. There were others she didn't recognize except by their faces from moments in passing, but the ones she did remember hurt so much worse.
"Look at it, it's not even burning right. The wood ain't natural," someone screamed before throwing another bottle at the burning body. "Bitch, burn!"
-But satisfaction brought it back.
Behind the effigy on the wall in graffiti streaks were the words she had been seeing all around the clinic on the outside walls in different strokes. 'Burn the disease' 'Purge the outsider' 'drive out the sickness' 'Plague bitch.'
"What are they doing still talking about it? Pretty soon there won't be anyone left. My old man's out of it now."
"My parents too. The neighbors said their kid was sick with fever this week too. It's everywhere."
"It's too many places for them to be doing nothing about it," Kankuro bit, voice deep and angry. It was then she remembered that Tenten had also fallen ill. Hadn't Kankuro fancied her?
Shikamaru lifted something to his lips and the lit the end up, smoking a thin white roll of tobacco. "Naruto isn't even waking up anymore. Pretty soon that will be everyone who got touched by it."
"And Ino…"
Choji's words were harder to hear, but they made her heart fall like a lead weight in her chest. She nearly lost her footing as the shock and horror washed over her. Ino? She hadn't heard about Ino. She hadn't known….
"I'm not going to listen to them any longer. They know it just like we know it, so I'm going to do something about it!" One of the citizens Sakura couldn't name spoke up. He pointed to the burning body and snarled. "She'll burn better than these cursed trees."
Too many more voices roared in agreement. Kankuro looked ready to march along with them when only a year ago he had looked so happy just to see her visiting Gaara. Even Temari looked ready to draw blood for the sake of her youngest brother.
Someone threw something at the burning body and Sakura saw it was a cinder block. It sailed through the air and landed on the twigs, tearing it down from the post into a pile on the ground at a young woman's feet. She screeched and stomped at it and the sound of cracking branches sounded louder as her efforts were aided by another pair of stomping shoes.
The twigs were in pieces but still smoldering as the group started to turn, rallying behind a cry that sounded familiar in a way she didn't want to know.
Sakura braced against the wall, safe in the shadows, watching the group move like the mob she knew them to be. A mob hungry for her blood.
They didn't get far before a gust shrieked through the air and shoved the first few bodies up and over the heads of those behind them. There was tumbling and flailing limbs before the front row was upright and looking at the body of the man responsible.
"You!" Temari hissed, reaching for her brother. She grabbed for Kankuro and helped him up. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be gone from Pompeii."
Pein angled his chin up so that he was staring down at the clustered bodies in front of him like they were nothing more than dirt at the tip of his shoe. His eyes rippled with purple light and the air hummed with his energy. He looked regal in a double breasted pea coat the color of coal, cut to flatter his masculine figure.
"You are unsightly. Disperse." His words were curt and dismissive just like his tone.
"What the hell. He's in on it with the bitch, that's why he's never here, staying out of her way while she cleans us out," someone hissed. The woman then turned to Pein, shouting out the rest of what she had to say. "You've always been a villain, looking down on us. You're no better than any of us and we all know it. Get out of our way."
Pein made a dismissive sound with his teeth and his lips before closing his eyes and then looking away, completely disinterested with the woman's accusations.
"Bothersome."
The woman's eyes flashes and she reached out with her hand, growing scaly with the beginnings of her transformation before a jagged bolt of white lightning ran through her palm and then struck the ground in front of Kankuro and his sister. They both jumped back as the woman dropped to the ground in a cry of pain, holding her smoking hand that was burned too bad to bleed. Another vein of lightning shot out and scarred the ground in front of the group.
"You can't do that, the Senju-"
"Are running around with their heads up their asses, I know dear," Pein drawled lazily. "And the Uchiha and their shiny gold badges are nowhere to be seen. Ask me if I give a damn, darling."
He looked up from his fingernails as if waiting for an answer but smirked when there was only tense silence from the subdued mob.
"You're a villain," Choji challenged.
The roll of his shoulders was less of a shrug and more an act of nature. He stared at the sky when he spoke. "There are worse things to be."
"Are you in on it with her, then?" Shikamaru asked, stepping in front of his more agitated friend. He pushed Choji back and held him with the palm of his hand, a gesture that was more meaningful than purposeful. "You've never claimed to be a good person, Pein, but people tend to forget that about you after years of your quiet. I may not be my father but I know almost as much as him."
"And yet you continue to play the fool. For a Nara you're awfully stupid. I never thought I would see one in a mob. I'd rather be a villain than an idiot."
"And I'd rather not let my emotions cloud my judgments when making decisions, because that's where I think too many people have gone wrong. It's gotten to you at least. Or is it something else? You want Pompeii for yourself and she's the easiest way to get it?"
Pein closed his eyes and sighed, heaving out a breath that escaped his lips in a puff of steam. When he opened his eyes again there was lightning crackling behind his lashes. He was a barely contained storm in human form.
"You bore me boy. You're not your father. Go home and put this foolishness behind you before I am agitated further." Pein eyed the still smoking hand of the Naga woman to make his point clear.
"I don't like agreeing with him, but I don't think I can help it this time," a new voice interjected.
Sakura almost came out of her shadows to see the new form join the fray, but didn't need to. She knew that voice far too well to ever doubt it. A second later Yamato stepped up to stand beside Pein who was looking sideways at the new arrival with a slight curl to his lip.
A few bodies in the back started to break away, backing up and away. Pein was a powerhouse on his own that could likely wipe them out without the help, but there were too many stories and years of bad blood for most other residents to stand Yamato's presence. There were too many stories of what he did in the dark.
Sakura watched as more and more figures began to break away, grumbling to themselves and each other about the unfair circumstances. Someone bemoaned the fact that the Uchiha were all on holed up in the mountains and the Senju drawn back into their compounds. No one was managing the streets.
"You were entirely unnecessary," Pein huffed. "I was doing just fine on my own."
"I don't doubt that," said Yamato. "But it was less a desire to help you and more a need to stick up for my family when I see them threatened. I'm not about to stand back and let people talk about Sakura like that."
Pein sneered, a new sort of emotional anger coming into the details of his expression. He had been cool with the mob, mocking them nonchalantly with half a heart, but when he looked at Yamato he looked a little more expressive than before.
"You sound very high and mighty for the cast off bitch. I want to burn that look off your face."
Yamato glared back with a smile sharp enough to cut yourself on. "You're no angel either. Where do you think you get off talking down to them when you doubted her yourself."
"Ah, I see she tells you these things. You two must be…close."
"Huh, something like that." Yamato had a bag on each wrist, but he still managed to stuff his hands into his pockets.
There was a lick of light darting across the ground, uncontrolled and raw. Yamato didn't flinch as it burned the earth between them.
"I didn't care if it was her. I didn't care one way or the other if she was a saint or a devil. It didn't matter to me and yet you're the one she takes in. Revolting filth. You don't deserve it."
Yamato's smile slipped as a sound passed his lips. A soft chuckle sounded like how salt felt on an open wound and another lick of lightning danced behind Pein. There was the sound of thunder somewhere.
"It's not about deserving, shit face. It never is with her."
Yamato started to turn, taking a step away, and then another when Pein called out again.
"Then why is it you?"
Yamato took another step and then stopped, but didn't turn around. He glanced off to the side and saw the still smoldering remains of the burning effigy. He glared at the flowers on fire.
"She did tell me about it, told me about you, about how you doubted her. I remember thinking something similar, about how if it was her I wouldn't mind. If she wanted to raze Pompeii to the ground I would be her right hand in doing it, but that's not her. I know in her heart that this is nothing but grief to her. She's watching her friends suffer or hate her everyday and I wish there was something more I could do. This isn't her."
"You wouldn't have been the only one who would have stood with her if this was her doing. You're not that special."
Yamato looked back over his shoulder. "But I believed in her first and I'm the one that gets to make dinner for her tonight. You can keep your dreams if you think it'll help, but I don't need to."
The air around Pein clapped with a roll of angry thunder as another bolt of blue lightning burned the ground in front of Yamato, but the man was already gone. Pein snarled at the empty road, still smoldering from where his lightning had struck. His hands were fists at his side, curled so tightly the knuckles stood out white.
He turned and started to step away when he faltered. Pein looked to where the last of the burning figure still smoldered. He approached it and then kicked some dirt over the flames before sighing. The sight of what was left over wasn't anything worth a double take.
Pein stretched out his hand and water fell from his fingertips like a miniature mist shower. The water fell over the flames and doused them right away. Pein reached into the pile and pulled out a twig with a pink bud on the end. He worked it between his fingers and the bud peeled open for him.
Sakura blinked and he was gone.
To: Sai
Love: Sakura
You have taken the dull colors of my existence and made them vibrant
Where once the ash and gray was my horizon,
You bleed sunsets in my heart and stop up my veins with the blues of a thousand skies
I will forever be better for having known you
And forever changed for having loved you