Title: Rebuild
Full Summary: Somewhat AU. Following Pein's Invasion and Uchiha Sasuke's return, Haruno Sakura struggles to cope as Konoha struggles to rebuild itself. The terrifying, familiar poison of yesterday's past is back. Learning how to trust again is not an easy task - especially when her life is a spin-cycle of betrayal. Bang and beat, rinse and repeat.
Pairing: SasuSaku
Inspiration: How - Maroon 5, Still Frame - Trapt
You may not rest now, there are monsters nearby.
It was in that moment Sakura had detected him, a flicker deep in the mountain, hope setting her aflame. She found the cave with ease, using her chakra to light a path. Her eyes fell upon a thick, soot-stained rope lying in the cavern, following the fraying line up to the chamber Sasuke was housed in. She could barely hear anything above the pounding roar of a waterfall, feeling Naruto at her back. For once, she mused, he was watching her back, not the other way around. The thought didn't bring a smile to her lips, not now. She'd detected Sasuke was unconscious from the brief spike. Her predictions supported her hypothesis. Sasuke had given into pain, which had then given up his position.
She scrambled forward, stunned, her throat dry and her eyes wide. Sakura fought the gloom, a beacon of light even without her glowing hands. She stood out in the darkness, like a target in the night. Naruto was no better. Sakura gave a little cry as she spotted Sasuke's dusty feet, unable to believe the sight before her. She stumbled over the uneven cave floor, unable to filter any thoughts. Naruto gave a similar, strangled shout, and Sakura's feet seemed to slowly melt into the floor. Naruto shot off like a rocket, falling to his knees beside the fallen Uchiha. Sakura snapped out of her trance when Kakashi appeared behind her, touching her shoulder gently. Sakura flinched before she began moving again, falling roughly to the ground beside Naruto.
But there was something eerily wrong. Sasuke lay unnaturally still, his visage paler than snow. Sakura froze, choking on breath, unable to meet Naruto's eyes. She reeled in silence, not wanting to face the truth. She squeezed her eyes shut and counted to ten, hoping, fervently praying, desperately wishing. She opened her eyes again, taking a second to adjust to the light, seeing bursts of color across her vision. With a trembling, pallid hand, Sakura felt for a pulse. There was none. She tried to summon chakra to her fingertips, but her hand shook too badly and her concentration was shot. She sucked in a shaky breath, unable to keep calm under the pressure. Naruto started realizing that something had gone terribly wrong and he watched his teammate with bated breath, puzzled at her erratic behavior.
Sakura tried thrice more before she could accurately use her medical ninjutsu, closing her eyes as she sunk her chakra into his system. It was no use. Everywhere she felt, everywhere she searched, there was no activity. Sasuke's body was as lifeless as it looked. Sakura felt ascending horror steep in her chest, crashing in her ears, her heart pounding a staccato beat. Her vision grew blurry and black, her breath coming in short, frantic bursts, her whole frame shaking.
"No!" she suddenly screamed,
and sat bolt upright in her bedroll.
Sakura stumbled upright, shoving the heavy blankets off of her, teetering to the bathroom, white-knuckled grip threatening to crack the porcelain of the toilet seat in two. She barely lowered to her knees before the toilet, bruising her kneecaps as she collapsed on the linoleum before she retched, emptying the contents of her dinner into the clear water. Her stomach heaved again and she groaned, lightheaded and extremely nauseous. She couldn't shake the image of Sasuke's lifeless body from her head - the paleness of his face, his sunken cheekbones, his skin taut and slightly waxen. His hands and feet had turned a pale, sickly blue, his eyes sunken into his skull. Sakura encountered death everyday - she worked alongside death, and sometimes she administered it. But this was different. All the times she'd thought about Sasuke, she'd never thought about him dying. It had never been a possibility in her mind.
She retched again, but her stomach was empty, and as her dry stomach heaved she felt gentle fingers gathering her hair and pulling it away from her face. She coughed, grateful for whoever was behind her, rubbing her back and holding her hair.
"Are you alright, Sakura?" Kakashi asked her, his voice low as to not disturb the others.
"I'm fine," she answered shakily, sitting on her knees for another minute before she unsteadily rose, giving the toilet a flush. Kakashi released her hair, and Sakura took over, swiftly threading it into a ponytail. She held the sink and quickly washed her face, grabbing her toothbrush and smearing a chunk of toothpaste before meeting Kakashi's eyes in the mirror. He hovered behind her, fatherly concern in his eyes. He patiently waited for her to rinse out her mouth and dry her face before he pressed her again.
"Are you sure?" the copy-nin asked, and Sakura gave in.
"I had a nightmare about Sasuke," she admitted quietly. "I dreamt we found him in the cave... but he was dead." Kakashi's expression didn't change - as much as Sakura could tell behind his mask, at least.
"He's alive," Kakashi reassured her, his voice a little gruff. A strange protectiveness settled over him at the look of distress in Sakura's eyes, feeling the need to protect her rise within him. He shook his head, dismissing the notion as quickly as it had come. Sakura was more than capable of looking after herself physically and emotionally. She was seventeen, held her own apartment, and went on dangerous solo missions and came back unscathed. Kakashi reached out and placed a hand on his female student's shoulder, trying to show his support. Sakura smiled at him through the mirror, and Kakashi felt a bit guilty about never having focused training with her like he had with Naruto and Sasuke. He made up his resolve then to teach her everything he could, and bequeath his mother's personal belongings to her. He was unfit for parenting anyway, nor could he honestly see himself settling down to raise children. Kakashi had no kin to leave his possessions to, and figured that his former students could be considered family.
Sakura raised her hand to close over his, squeezing it warmly. She still looked a little queasy and pale, but Kakashi knew she was feeling better.
"Get some rest," he murmured, "you'll need it for tomorrow." Sakura's eyes darkened a little at the task before her. Granted, she had Ino and Hinata with her, but that made the feat no less easier. Sakura would need all her concentration and strength for what she hoped to achieve. She left the bathroom, Kakashi following close behind her as he hit the lights. She crept back into her bedroll, easing herself beneath the covers, gritting her teeth as she tried to ignore the roiling of her stomach. The material rasped against her sleeping clothes as she shifted, trying to lull her body to sleep. She couldn't wipe the images of Sasuke's prone and frozen body from her eyes, his bloodless face across her closed eyelids. Sakura groaned quietly, pulling the blanket over her head, trying to focus on steady breathing. It didn't work. She couldn't suppress the haunting visage of Sasuke's dead face, make her stomach lurch unpleasantly. With a heavy sigh she flowed chakra through her brain, coaxing the chemicals there to make her fall into an instant sleep.
The room in which all the shinobi had slept in previously was cleared of everything but medical supplies, Sasuke's body laid out in the middle. He still looked pale, his chest rising and falling faintly as he breathed, the only indicator he was alive. His cheeks were hollow and sunken, testament to his roughing it out in the forest. Sakura smoothed his bangs away from his eyes, careful to keep her touch clinical. She grabbed an alcohol swab and rubbed at the inside of Sasuke's forearm, taking the needle Ino handed her, flicking away the air bubbles with a practiced finger. The needle slid in without a hitch, depositing the fluid into Sasuke's bloodstream. Sakura was still at loathe to use drugs with his battered system, but he would need the anesthetic for the operation.
Ino and Hinata sat beside her, ready to take orders. Kakashi lounged beside the door, keeping guard just in case Sasuke managed to wake up. Although the odds of that happening were statistically improbable, Kakashi refused to take chances. He was the only one that could forcefully subdue Sasuke efficiently with his sharingan.
Sakura positioned herself behind his head, folding her legs beneath her as she took the sides of Sasuke's forehead into her hands, her fingers curving gently against the slope of his face. She closed her eyes, green chakra glowing around her hands as she focused. She travelled deep into Sasuke's system, ensuring he was out cold and that the anesthetic was working. Satisfied, she probed Sasuke's chakra channels next, exploring, making note of the location of all the damaged pathways. Sakura badly wanted to fix the muscles in his back, but knew Sasuke's eyes were her top priority. She drew in a rattled breath, releasing it long and smooth as she prepared to operate.
Thin, barely discerinble chakra scalpels flickered to life in her hands, bypassing Sasuke's eye and reaching deep into the ruptured blood vessels, carefully bringing and stitching them together. It was a delicate process. Sakura had to focus on not cutting through the vessels more than they were already severed, knowing she couldn't let slivers of them be sliced off. She had to keep the chakra scalpels thin and the pressure light enough so they would only nudge the vessels toward each other, while her other hand sped up mitosis to rapidly advance the healing process. Sakura needed to repair the blood vessels before focusing on the chakra pathways, the real problem, and just the simple concept of reconnecting and healing blood vessels would take a good amount of time.
An hour later, Sakura pulled away, looking tired but satisfied. She gratefully accepted the glass of water Hinata passed her way, taking deep gulps to slake her thirst. Sasuke's left eye had completely repaired blood vessels, freshly healed, awaiting the second half of healing for its blood vessels. However, Sakura needed a bite to eat to replenish her energy and rework her focus. It was a maddening process. The operation was simple enough, but the size and delicacy required intense concentration and absolute precision. She'd had to nudge the ruptured blood vessels together before she sped up the phases of mitosis, coaxing the cells to rapidly divide much faster than they did ordinarily. To add to the difficulty of the procedure, Sakura had to do complete healing She would take no chances. Ordinarily, Sakura did not administer such a thorough reparation, mending whatever was broken or torn enough so that the body could take care of itself with no risk to the patient. She rarely heal people to their full capacity, often allowing the natural body to finish what she'd started. This, however, was an exception. Eyes were always an exception, as delicate as they were, and how vitally important they were to humans. Humans depended almost entirely on sight, their other sensory organs almost null and void compared to the power of the human eye. Thousands of years of evolution had slowly desensitized sense of smell and hearing because humans didn't depend on it like they did their eyes. The human eye relayed all information about the environment to humans, depending almost solely on sight for everything. To lose sight would be to die as a ninja. It was difficult enough being blind in civilian life. A blinded ninja usually wished he or she died instead.
Sakura rubbed at her eyes, unfolding her legs from beneath her, wincing at the stiffness of her knees. She stood, moving out into the hall where she careened into Naruto.
"How is he? Is he alright?" Naruto was always in a perpetual state of endless, boundless energy. The words flew from his mouth like bullets, never stopping, never pausing for breath. Sakura was long past feeling overwhelmed by her teammate's exuberance, simply nodding at all of Naruto's rapid-fire questions.
"He's fine, Naruto," Ino said crossly, pushing the excitable blond out of the way. "Sakura needs to eat and take a quiet, relaxing break," she groused, stressing her tone on the word 'quiet'. Sakura tossed Naruto an apologetic smile before being marched down the hall by Ino, looking a bit peaky. Naruto knew that Ino was right, but he grumbled anyway.
"Sakura is almost done with his left eye," Hinata murmured, coming to stand beside her boyfriend. Naruto turned, his face bright as the sun, all for her. Hinata blushed under his searching gaze, unable to be confident with him just yet. "She stitched all the blood vessels together. She is an amazing healer," Hinata said, awe coloring her voice. "She accomplished all that in only an hour... she has to mend Sasuke's chakra pathways and then start on his other eye. I am confident Sasuke will be able to use his sharingan again." Naruto smiled at that, thinking of his fiery, stubborn teammate. Then he swept his girlfriend up in a warm hug and showered her with the attention he hadn't been able to give in days.
Karin paced restlessly, her sandals sliding against the dappled green grass, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. She chanced a glance at Suigetsu, who lounged against his sword, apparently deep in thought. Zabuza's old sword was half-buried in the ground, creating a sort of post to lean against... you only had to be careful to stay away from the sword's sharper edge. Karin jaggedly ran a hand through her choppy red hair, pushing at her glasses in aggravation. She sighed, wondering how the hell Suigetsu was so calm. He looked peaceful, she noted, sunlight slanting over his cheekbones, highlighting the masculine edges of his jaw. Karin raked her ruby whorls down his pale neck, the alabaster skin shadowed where it met his purple shirt, the zipper pulled a little lower than normal, exposing the planes of his hard chest. Karin continued her visual assessment, glancing over his pale pants and dark shoes before skipping back up to his tranquil face. Suigetsu's eyes were closed, a tip of a fang poking out over his top lip. Karin wondered whose were sharper - his, or Kiba's. She was willing to put her bet on Suigetsu, wondering how fast it would take for her to bleed if he bit her. Suigetsu looked decidedly shark-like, the paleness of his skin tinged a pallid sheen of almost-green, purple eyes cold and calculating. Karin's eyes caught on his sleeveless shirt, lingering at the corded muscles of his biceps, wondering at the strength there. She wondered at how he could lift the sword with such ease. Before, she remembered him struggling to hold it, but now... Suigetsu wielded it as if it were light as a kunai.
As if Suigetsu felt Karin's gaze on him, he opened his eyes, grinning toothily at his teammate. His smile was half-hearted, though, and his eyes mirrored the myriad of feelings coursing through Karin. Even if Karin ever forgave Sasuke... she would never be rid of the scars, physically and mentally. She was reminded of Sasuke's betrayal every time she gazed at her body in the mirror, shame coursing through her at the twisted scar. It was large and marred her breast, tendrils covering majority of the fatty tissue from the chidori. But then, her body hadn't been beautiful before the betrayal, either. Karin's arms, chest and neck were littered with half-moon scars made from teeth, mouths of all shapes and sizes decorating her skin. Karin had never shown them to anyone else that she hadn't healed. No one had seen Karin's body save for professional medics. Sakura was the only person here who knew of the extent of her scars. The only parts about her body Karin liked was her stomach and legs, choosing to showcase them in her outfits because there was nothing beautiful about the rest of her body.
Offhandedly, she wondered if Suigetsu had any scars. He was able to transform into water... did he heal normally? As a matter of fact, Karin suddenly realized she knew next to nothing about Suigetsu. Sure, she knew he was an ass with a crude sense of humor, but that was all she knew. She knew nothing of his childhood, his origins, his favorite things. She couldn't even name his favorite color, or his family members, or the sorts of things he liked... but she trusted him inexplicably. Humans were strange creatures, she decided.
Karin wondered what Suigetsu would think of her scars, peppering her flesh, a gruesome permanence on her skin. Would he be abhorred? Would he look at her the same way? Could anyone learn to love her body, with all her hideous scars? Karin didn't know. What she did know was that Sakura didn't care. Sakura hadn't even batted an eyelash, and Karin wondered at that, wondered what kind of things she'd seen to maker her immune to this. Sakura had roved over each of the bite-marks on Karin's body, curious but not probing. She'd tried to heal them, but they were too old for that. Sakura had tried to make the scars around Karin's breast fade away, but they were there forever. Sasuke was nothing if not thorough.
Sakura worked tirelessly over her ex-teammate, pouring all her strength and energy into someone who didn't appreciate it. Karin observed this fact as she lay in the sun-scattered grass, thinking sadly about Sakura. As much as Karin thought about Sasuke's betrayal, she thought of the moment she'd first laid eyes on Sakura; the moment she realized that Sakura was in love with Sasuke too. For Karin, the empathetic sorrow she felt for Sakura was indescribable. Her heart broke for Sakura that day, because in a single heartbeat, Karin knew that Sakura's love for Sasuke ran deep as the Marianas Trench.
Karin shuddered, under the heat of the sun, feeling as if she'd been rocked by an icy blast. The prospect of a conscious Sasuke made her terrified, more than she cared to admit. She knew he was heavily sedated now, and was set to sleep for several more days, but... Karin had residual nightmares of his betrayal, reliving the stabbing every night in her dreams. Suigetsu patted the grass beside him, silent, and Karin took his offer, reclining on half of Suigetsu's giant sword. She wondered how Suigetsu felt to be back in Mist - did he miss it? How did he feel about being in his home country? Suigetsu certainly fit in among the landscape and the locals. No one gave his shark-like features a second glance, and everyone was the same shade of pale. The rest of the Konoha ninja stuck out like sore thumbs, with bright, vibrant hair and outfits.
"You grew up here?" Karin asked softly, desperate to bring her mind away from Sasuke. Suigetsu looked startled at her question, his brow furrowing slightly as he contemplated her question.
"Yeah," Suigetsu said. He looked out across the ocean, thinking of the time he and his brother had run along Mist's docks, diving and melting into the water as they'd played. "My brother and I used to live in the main city. We used to dream that we'd both become a part of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist." Suigetsu gave a wry smile at that, turning lavender eyes upon his teammate. "Mangetsu was one of them. After he died... I lost my motivation for a while. Orochimaru captured me then, and Kabuto experimented on me." Suigetsu offered the information willingly, watching Karin as she did so.
"I grew up in Grass," Karin divulged, seeing it only fit after Suigetsu's confession. Honesty was hard-won in this day and age, and personal information was even trickier to find. Karin was touched by Suigetsu's willing offer of information, and she surmised she could only do the same. "Orochimaru found me after a war razed my village to the ground. I didn't know it at the time, but when I was small, I sensed a large group of people were coming through my sensory ability." Karin smiled bitterly, thinking of the black rubble and smoking ruins she'd found when she was brave enough to venture back. "Orochimaru saved me." Karin reached out and traced the scars littered on Suigetsu's arms. "My loyalty to him after that blinded me to everything else he did," Karin admitted, locking her eyes with Suigetsu's. "That's still not an excuse for what I've done." Suigetsu absorbed that in silence, nodding ever so slightly. He remembered, as strong as the sun, the day Kabuto had first extracted his DNA. He remembered in vivid detail the experiments practiced on his body, the countless blood tests, the agony. He remembered the different poisons and wounds Kabuto inflicted on him for testing, all the times the twisted medical ninja had tortured his body. "I come from the Uzumaki clan, as well. Naruto doesn't know." Suigetsu's eyes bulged at that. He found absolutely no similarities between the two - besides their brazen personalities. Still, though, comparing Naruto and Karin was like comparing night and day. "If we are related, it must be very distantly. I don't ever remember hearing his name brought up, nor of any Uzumaki affiliated with Konoha."
Suigetsu soaked it up like a sponge, giving Karin a fleeting smile. Their relationship was strong but still a little rocky, muddied in areas such as their opinions on Orochimaru. Through it all, though, neither could think of anyone else they'd want to have their back.
Sakura exhaled through her nose, hovering over Sasuke's unconscious body for the nth time. She closed her eyes, visualizing microscopic capillaries as her chakra sought them out and bound them back together, connecting the frayed ends so that blood could flow through them again. Stitching back broken blood vessels was easy. Sakura healed Sasuke's multiple subconjunctival hemorrhages with ease, but ensuring capillaries healed correctly was a tricksome task. All capillaries are invisible to the human eye, and they are so small that red blood cells, one of the smallest cells in the human body, have to flow through them single-file.
This was part of the reason most medical ninja never knew how to operate on the eye. It was not uncommon for eye-transplants to be performed, but anything regarding healing trauma to the eye was usually untouched. Most medical ninja did not have the precise chakra control to operate on eyes, but luckily for Sasuke, Sakura was one of the few who possessed the skill. Those competent in the healing profession could stitch up capillaries when the need arose, but they were not always completely accurate and rarely were they fully-mended in the wound. Most medical ninja left the capillaries to heal themselves, but Sakura refused to take chances. If the capillaries in Sasuke's eyes didn't heal properly, then it would result in various complications.
Sasuke's eyes needed a regular flow of blood in order to function - without that flow, the organs would wither and rot. Without the capillaries to flow blood through Sasuke's eyes so that the cells there could receive nutrients through diffusion, Sasuke would be left blind permanently. Sakura poured all her energy and strength into healing Sasuke, running herself ragged for a man she didn't know anymore. She sat there for hours, healing, giving Sasuke a gift he would never be able to repay.
Sakura finished the operation as dusk filtered through Mist, the dying sunlight casting long shadows over the island chain. She sagged back, lightly dizzy, satisfaction thrumming deep in her bones. She gave a watery smile, licking her chapped, pale lips as she stared at her success. Sasuke slept peacefully, unaware of Sakura's sacrifice, lost in dreams. Sakura gazed across the tatami flooring, staring at the setting sun in relief. She'd done it. She'd saved Sasuke's entire future as a shinobi, and saved his eyesight in the process. The enormity of her actions wasn't lost on her - she knew that Sasuke would probably never appreciate it. She didn't want to dwell on the fact, though, and stood on wobbly legs, the pinks and golds of the sunset washing her pallid skin in color, highlighting her chin and collarbone.
Kakashi pushed off from the door he'd been leaning against, eyeing his former student with concern. Ino and Hinata set about cleaning up the supplies, though they didn't miss Sakura's exhaustion. Kakashi had never thought of Sakura as delicate - to him she had always been loud and exuberant, a feminine form of Naruto. She was strong and unbreakable in Kakashi's eyes, and this was exemplified by her ability to crush boulders to dust with her little finger. Now, though, caught in the rays of the sunset, Sakura looked fragile, breakable. For the first time Kakashi noted how small she was in comparison with himself and her teammates, the slenderness of her wrists, so thin he could wrap his forefinger and thumb around them with ease. He was startled by how delicate Sakura seemed, and wondered how such strength lay in her slender arms, his eyes falling upon her slim waist. Kakashi felt the strong urge to whisk her away and place her somewhere safe, somewhere far, far away from Sasuke. Sakura was like Rin in a lot of ways. They were both healers, and they both had worked on his eye. But it was more than that. They shared the same level of beauty and prowess. Kakashi saw a lot of Rin in Sakura, and he thought fondly of his old team. The similarities between his own students and his Genin team was striking.
Kakashi could only hope that he would be able to protect Sakura. He'd saved her from death a handful of times, but each time she was in grave danger Kakashi only thought of Rin. He couldn't let Sakura die on his account; it would be like losing Rin twice. Kakashi saw so much of Rin in Sakura that it made his heart hurt sometimes. He saw the way she'd pined over the Uchiha, much like Rin had over him. He'd seen the way Naruto had longed for her attention, anything, and sometimes Kakashi didn't see them as Naruto and Sakura. Sometimes, in his head, he'd called them Rin and Obito.
Sakura gave Kakashi a tired smile and drew him back to the present, and he proudly ruffled the hair on her head.
"You did well, Sakura," Kakashi praised his only female student, concern flooding his system as she drew closer. He saw the dark circles beneath Sakura's eyes, her complexion pallid. Her lips were whitened and she looked thoroughly drained, swaying lightly on her feet. Kakashi, unable to help himself, reached out and gently held her elbow, guiding her through the door and down the hallway. He nudged her into the other spare bedroom, the one currently uninhabited by Sasuke. Sakura followed willingly, almost blindly, and Kakashi knew she would've balked at the care if she wasn't so exhausted. Kakashi helped her to her bedroll, watching her like a hawk as she lowered herself into the blankets. "I'll be back, I'll bring you some soup and water. Don't get up," Kakashi warned, backing out, his last glimpse of her an exhausted but satisfied smile.
Sakura dreamed of Sasuke's face beneath her glowing hands, of midnight-black eyelashes fluttering and sliding back to reveal captivating obsidian, his eyes locking onto hers. She dreamed of the cut of his jaw, the strength in his muscles, she dreamt of the scars striping his arms and the profile of his aristocratic nose. Sakura dreamed in silence, completely enthralled by the Sasuke in her dreams.
Kakashi entered the room, his back leading the way, pushing against the solid oak with the bones of his spine. In his left hand he carried a bottle of water, in the right a steaming bowl of soup. A smile crinkled the corner of his eyes as he turned around to give Sakura her dinner, but froze at the deep, gentle breathing he heard, and noticed she hadn't sensed him at all. Kakashi smiled, silently exiting the room as Sakura soundly slept.
He retreated to the room Sasuke lay recovering in, peeling his mask down as he slowly ate Sakura's soup. Kakashi wondered if Team Seven could ever be whole again. Sasuke had physically matured wonderfully, with toned muscle definition and strong, striking looks to match. Mentally, however... Kakashi didn't lack faith in Naruto or Sakura, but he knew that what they wanted to accomplish was nigh impossible. The Uchiha Sasuke they knew was long gone. The man in his body was a stranger.