Chapter Thirty-Three: Dispatch--The Final Solution
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto!
Sakura wept hard for more than a day before she finally steeled herself: She knew that Tsunade wouldn't...couldn't forgive another betrayal. Especially not to Oto.
And if it was necessary for him to die, she wanted to be the one to do it. It was no less than he deserved.
She had fought and cried and bled to see him come home...given him everything three times over...and it hadn't mattered at all.
In fact, she had asked specifically to be included on the assassination mission. And Tsunade had granted her permission.
Sakura dressed slowly--she wasn't going to use her traditional shinobi attire.
No...
She pulled out a black leather corset, strapless and snug with a sheath on the small of the back. It had a pair of matching pants, each with multiple pockets and holsters running up and down each leg. Trading her red headband for a black one, she pulled on a different set of boots: These laced up with buckles every other inch meant to keep the laces down. They had the basic combat heel--a blade hidden inside of them that could be released with a twist of the ankle. She pulled her gloves over her slender wrists and tied her headband in place.
Slipping a katana into the sheath on her back and the sheath on the outer side of her right leg, she attached three holsters around her hips: Her left one held weapons, the holster just under the katana held autopsy materials used to destroy shinobi bodies, and the right one held medical supplies.
She stole one last glance at herself in the mirror through the darkness of the late night. The dim moonlight afforded little little light...just enough for her to see the blood lust in her eyes.
The old Sakura would have been horrified, but she didn't fight it. She didn't embrace it...but she didn't fight it.
"Sa...Sakura..." Naruto trailed off, watching her walk past him and converge with Neji, Shino, and Shikamaru.
"Sakura, you don't have to do this!" The blonde cried frantically.
She hesitated, turned angularly to him as she glanced at the moon. And then the corners of her lips turned up...
"I want to." She smirked, taking her place among the small group.
Even Neji had to admit that the one kind kunoichi disturbed him now. It was the same feeling he had recieved from Sasuke in their genin years--a kind of battle within himself between good and evil.
But the idea of Sakura as anything but loving was foreign to him.
Sighing, he remembered that in the last few months she had been blinded, stabbed, attacked, used as a subject for experiments, violated, and betrayed multiple times.
He would not hold it against her.
TBC