III
What Duty Is
Senbon stand out between the gaps of Kakashi-sensei's fingers and the sight of them pangs against her ribs. Her eyes snap to Sasuke-kun, fast enough that she catches the tremble of his fingers before he curls them into a fist.
He doesn't hesitate before attacking Sensei, there isn't a hint of fear in his eyes or his stance, his fluid ruthless movements, but Sakura saw it and Sakura felt it as if it was her own hand shaking.
After the training ends, she catches up to his fast strides, her heart a small fluttering bird. With a swipe, she fixes her hair and turns her head slightly to watch him, head straight, expression smooth. His steps are wider than hers and still Sakura follows beside him and with a smile tells him that she is scared too and she is always there for him.
His lips spread into a sneer and he hisses, "Coward" "Annoying" "Weak", each word like a stab so much worse than when he denies going on a date with her.
Sakura cries against her pillow that night, her heart broken into tiny pieces, her love handed back to her like a useless dull shuriken.
Sakura knows she wasted a year being petrified. She is still terrified, but at least now she can move. In the hours between team trainings, missions and hanging out with her friends, she squeezes moments to get her skills back on track, to familiarise herself with the forgotten weight of a kunai, to bear through the prickling until it isn't there anymore.
The nightmares eased and her smiles rise to her eyes without the shadow of blood behind their green.
It's too soon still, the day that Kakashi-sensei arrives late at the red bridge and Sakura wishes he never did.
Naruto throws himself at him with a grateful squeal and Sakura hides her dread behind her back and another one of her smiles.
It's too soon.
She is still weak and she is still useless.
For the following week, her eyes glue themselves to the dark characters of the application paper for the Chunin Exams, a piece of paper with more power and more fear over her than any exploding tag.
She doesn't understand why Kakash-sensei thinks she is ready when his eyes still pass right through her and he still pulls her away from the path of kunai before she can do it herself.
He won't be there to save her, he won't be there to save any of them.
Her nights are once again filled with Sasuke-kun's blood, with his trembling fingers and her empty hands.
Her pyjamas are damp with sweat when Sakura opens her eyes to her bedroom ceiling, a scream trapped in against her hand, against the ache of a bite, so her parents don't hear her.
"I won't let my comrades die" is a mocking whisper, narrowing her, showing her just how little she is, when before it made her heart overflow with resolve.
"Coward"
"Annoying"
"Weak"
Resolve isn't enough to erase the words from her flesh. Her cells don't burn with a powerful bloodline limit like Sasuke and her heart isn't strong, steady against any storm to come its way, always getting back up to fight for what it believes in, like Naruto's.
Sakura is weak.
She jumps from her bed, hair still plastered to the back of her neck and her forehead. Before she can lay eyes on it, her fist crumbles the paper and she throws it away, watches it fall near her bedside table, watches it fall below Team 7's photograph.
Her feet drag across the cold wood floor and with gentle fingers she picks it up. Kakashi-sensei has an apologetic eye-creased smile as he keeps both his students quiet through his hold on their heads. Naruto is glaring at Sasuke-kun and Sasuke-kun's dark eyes are turned away in annoyance.
Even through her fear, Sakura was happy that day, the grin on her face reflecting the fullness of her heart because she had hope that maybe there she would belong.
Their hitai-ate's gleam under the light.
Somehow it is the perfect crystallisation of their team's dynamic into one still image. Sakura loves it and her lips shape into one small genuine smile.
Her team.
She is weak but she also burns with love for them. Resolve isn't enough to make her strong but it will be enough not drag them down with her. Their backs may be all she sees, but at least then her eyes will be on them.
She remembers the full emotion of watching her work on Kakashi-sensei's bandaged hand and sits down to make a list of all the supplies she needs for a first-aid kit.
Her fingers still tremble as she picks up the paper and smooths it down, hides the creases so none of them will see her doubt. Dread still stirs in her stomach as the pen scraps against the paper and draws the characters of her name.
There's a fire in her chest, a fire that ignites her chakra and gives her courage.
The Will of Fire.
Haruno Sakura.
The bite of her hair being pulled shoots down her spine and Sakura clenches her teeth.
She shouts at her body to move, whatever strength she had before deserting her now. The Sound-nin spit threats at her, threats of Sasuke-kun's body in a pool of blood, threats of genjutsu and real images she saw before, threats that make up the shape of her nightmares.
Her fingers curl into the soil and she shouts inside her mind.
Move.
Move.
Move.
There was death in Orochimaru's eyes, his chakra stinking of blood, his gaze piercing like the stab of a kunai between their eyes. Sasuke-kun never trembled as much as then, his eyes wide with fear, and still he moved. Naruto held himself against an endless snake with the strength of a thousand men.
And Sakura can't twist away from the hold in her hair.
Her long silky hair that she straightened before the Exam, the hair she adorned with her hitai-ate, uncovering her forehead, framing her face, watching herself in her mirror to make sure it is perfect. The hair she is always so careful with, so proud each time someone comments on its beauty. Now the enemy kunoichi's mocking, praising words only fill her stomach with lead.
The hair that plastered in front of her eyes, stuck to her neck in sweat and to her mouth, the hair dirtied with bile when she first saw blood and death even if it wasn't real.
Pink and frail like cherry blossoms breaking in the wind.
All her resolve crumbles to ash, the fire igniting her before becomes nothing but a thread of smoke.
Shinobi don't cry.
The tears fall down her cheeks.
Sakura is no shinobi.
"I won't let my comrades die."
Shinobi like Kakashi-sensei, like Naruto, Sasuke-kun, Lee-san, protect others. This time Sakura thought she would protect the people precious to her. She is the one being protected still, her civilian heritage is marked into her, into every of her actions, into her chakra, her courage and her strength.
Sakura is weak and she is useless.
She is weak and she is useless and the nin continue to spell out stabbing words, taunting her with Sasuke-kun's death.
Her promise to herself is slipping between the gaps of her frail fingers.
Her hand curls around a lump of cold soil and she grasps tight onto it, tighter than she as ever grasped onto anything. Sakura moves her trembling fingers to her pouch, slowly, not certain if because of the fear freezing her muscles or an attempt at being secret.
"That's pointless, it won't work on me." The kunoichi scoffs with a pull to her hair.
Sakura glares back with fire in her eyes. The kunai prickles her palm and she holds onto it like a lifeline before swiping it back, the blade slashing through her long silky pink hair.
The tresses fall around her as cherry blossoms broken in the wind. Sakura raises, rage boils through her veins and she focusses it all on protecting.
Her fingers form through familiar hand seals. It's an Academy level jutsu, the only one she knows but she knows it and Sakura will use it, she will use her basic skills and take on everything that comes her way. And if she falls she will rise like Naruto and if she shakes she will fight like Sasuke-kun.
Sakura substitutes herself for a tree trunk and throws useless kunai at the nin. She does it again and again it is useless.
Her heart trembles, even if the fierce shape of her eyes never falters, when she sees the sharp points of the kunai glinting as they cut the air towards her, cut the air to pierce into her own flesh.
The pain lashes deeper and harsher than she is ready for but she never grunts and this time she doesn't cry.
She falls on the enemy nin, her own kunai buries in his forearm and her teeth clamp down on his other one. She grips him harder than she has ever gripped anything before, he is locked against her, his threats nothing if he can't move to actualise them.
The burning image in her eyelids is a mere illusion as long as she holds on and she will hold on. Even when he punches her and her brain clashes against her skull, even when warm blood slides down her face and stings her eyes, she holds on.
Until she doesn't.
Will isn't enough, even if it consumes her from inside out. She rolls on the ground, the earth scrapping her body.
Her bruised eye opens but there is no blood, no mark of failure in her heart and no dark sucking grief.
There's Ino instead, Shikamaru and Chouji.
"Take care of those two." Ino tells her and she does.
She kneels beside her own team as the other fights the Sound-nin.
It starts as a shudder in her stomach and it grows until she can't breathe through the smothering force of it.
It radiates off Sasuke-kun in sharp evil waves, her muscles clamping up against the familiar deadly feel of it. It's a mirror of Orochimaru.
Sasuke-kun stands and instead of relief, there is only horror clashing through all of her. The mark near the bite spreads in dark painful swirls across his pale skin.
"Sakura, who did this to you?"
"Sasuke-kun, your body…"
"Don't worry, I feel good. I finally understand. I'm an avenger. I must put power in my hands even if it means abandoning myself to the devil."
The words are like poison seeping down Sakura's ears, are like the genjutsu of his mangled bloody body when he stands, proud and strong.
"Sakura, tell me, who harmed you?"
She doesn't want to tell him because for the first time in her life she is scared of Sasuke-kun. And terrified for him.
"Me!" The Sound-nin shouts, arrogant and so incredibly stupid.
Sasuke-kun doesn't waste time, the fight is over almost as it started. The nin is on his knees, his arms pulled back by Sasuke-kun as he pushes his torso down with his foot.
A sadistic smirk slithers in his lips. It is a warped version of his familiar confident one.
Sakura flinches at the sound of cracking bone.
She was terrified that someone would hurt him, break his body, actualise the genjutsu haunting her dreams. And now… now Sasuke-kun is doing it to himself.
"You're the only one left. Make it a little more fun for me." He sneers, but there is more than arrogance there now, there is malice, there is bloodthirst.
This isn't Sasuke-kun.
Before she can think, Sakura's legs are already spurring her forward.
"Stop!" The scream rips through her throat.
Her cheek presses to his back, holds onto him tighter than she ever held onto anything before, her gentleness stronger than any chakra-powered grasp.
Maybe all she can do is this, wrap burnt hands in clean bandages, press cool cloths on burning foreheads, hold together the pieces of a breaking hurting boy.
"Stop… please…"
His burning glare stabs into her even through the blur of her eyes. It is unlike his annoyance at her, this one is violent, vicious, another darker form of cruelty.
The marks in his body deform everything that is Sasuke-kun into a horrifying image of Orochimaru's evil.
Sakura holds on still.
The black swirls withdraw, the chakra washes away until she can finally draw a full breath into her lungs. They fall to the ground, Sasuke-kun panting beside her, her hand on his back, a poor attempt at comforting him.
Sakura watches him as he looks down at his hand. Is it astonishment?
It's not final.
The sight of him in the dark, moonlight making his porcelain skin glow and his raven hair shine in blue, is a stab deep into her heart.
Naruto believes he wouldn't, Kakashi-sensei tried to reassure her, but they don't see him.
Sakura is the one that knows him. Sakura sees him, she knows Sasuke-kun, and that is why, even against her hope, she is standing on the street leading away from the village as he walks towards her.
Sakura sees him but he doesn't see her.
Sasuke-kun passes right through her.
The village mocks her with its silence, its peace, the distant buzzing of cicadas and the warm breeze evening.
His slow carefree steps are earthquakes in the stillness, they ravage through everything around them like waves against withering rock. Sakura flinches with each dry thud, all of her pieces shake. They fall and crumble, nothing but dirt in her useless hands.
It is another ordinary night in Konoha but she is tearing in two and the world seems to crumble behind Sasuke-kun's parting steps, as if it cannot hold itself up without him there.
Again the tears just slip through her eyes.
"Why…" She whispers and finally has the courage to see the image of him walking away, backpack full, the village gates looming ahead of him.
It is always their backs she watches. Sakura would recognise the angle of his shoulders and the lines of his legs anywhere, it is as branded to her eyelids as his blood. Even when there's no knot of an hitai-ate pressed to his raven hair.
"Why won't you tell me anything?"
And then he stops.
"Why should I tell you anything? Get your nose out of my business. Stop bothering me over everything I do."
His words spread cracks through her heart and Sakura gives his back a sad smile.
She is weak and she is useless.
"I make you dislike me all the time, don't I?"
She always tries so hard but nothing she changes is ever enough to please him. It's deeper than that. It's deeper than details and appearances, it's deeper than things under the sway of change, it's her essence, her as herself, it's Sakura and she can never not be Haruno Sakura.
"Like this time when we had just been assigned our teams. We were alone for the first time right here, and you got mad at me."
Sakura didn't know him before. She didn't see him, she saw only the cool glint in his eyes and not the bottomless grief, she saw only the confident turn of his mouth and not the doubt in his desperate reach for greatness, she saw only the independent popular boy and not the shadow of loneliness lurking in his steps.
"I don't remember that."
Why would he? Sakura has never marked herself into him as he is in her.
"Of course… it was a long time ago… But it was where it all began. You and me, Naruto and Kakashi-sensei. Those were tough and difficult times… but…"
But there were also nights when the three of them were already asleep and Sakura had spread her fingers over the cool damp grass, her eyes had been full in starlight and her heart with warm burning love.
She knew in those moments that just as the stars have their place in the dark stretch of the night sky, Sakura belongs in Team 7. It is as natural as the raising sun and as marvellous as its brush of red, yellow and blue.
"But more than anything it was fun!"
She saw it in Sasuke-kun too. After his bickering with Naruto, the corner of his lip spread, not into a smirk, but a smile, soft, hidden, shy.
"I know about your family, Sasuke-kun, but revenge… That won't bring anyone happiness, not even you…"
"As I expected. I'm different from you. I'm walking a road that is incompatible with the rest of you. Revenge is my purpose."
It is a repetition of the Forest of Death, when she watched him convulse in pain, his hand gripping hers in a breaking hold and she could do nothing to take it away from his flesh. The same as with genjutsu and in the bridge when she thought he was dead.
Sakura is weak and she is useless.
"Are you going to isolate yourself again, Sasuke-kun? You taught me that loneliness is a very rough thing. Now I know what it feels like, I have my family and friends… but if you're no longer here, Sasuke-kun…"
Her eyes burn and her lips twist into a grimace at the crying she could never keep away.
"For me… for me that would be the same as loneliness."
"From here, we're going to start walking our paths alone."
With a step, he rips himself from her, muscle and bones cracking, without one small break of his smooth voice, not one twitch in his pace.
"I love you so very, very much, Sasuke-kun!"
She pronounces her love, the sound physical and full, in her mouth. The entire scope of it smothers her, scares her, as it finally gains reality in her being, heavy and stuck forever there.
Sasuke-kun is her purpose.
"If only you would let me be with you, I would make it good every day. I would do anything for you, Sasuke-kun!"
Her presence made the cursed mark withdraw once, her arms around him made the deformed pieces of Sasuke-kun hold back into his true shape. Sakura can do it again if he lets her stay by his side, if he lets her love him.
"So please, stay here, I'm begging you, I will even help you with your revenge. I promise! Stay here… with me…"
She loves him still, even when he is betraying everything she holds dear. She loves him still when he sneers at her and explodes with murderous chakra. She loves him still when he abandons the place where she belongs.
"If that doesn't work for you…"
She loves him so much she will betray her own loyalty to Konoha, her own love for Team 7, because her duty to him is larger and burns deeper than her duty to her village and her teammates.
"Then take me with you…"
Sasuke-kun finally turns to watch her, his lips twisted into a sneer.
"You really are annoying."
The cruel disdainful words don't daunt her, her love thrown back at her as a useless dull shuriken that can still pierce deep into her, can still make her bleed. The rejection of all of her as she laid herself for him to take doesn't shrivel her into a shell.
Sakura always thought love was the fluttery feeling in her stomach and the heat of her cheeks when eyes met across the room. She always thought it was declarations in the rains that make all the pain worth it, wash away all of it as if it never existed. She always thought it was warm and happy and never sad, fruitful with a white dress and flowers in her hair.
There's a fire devouring her from inside out, more excruciating than good, and like Naruto she will fight through broken bones and crushed out hearts.
Sasuke-kun abandons her but she will never abandon him.
This is what love is. Unconditional even through the agony.
A shout tears through her throat, anything to keep him there. He flickers to stand behind her, watching her back. His presence is overwhelming, like cold waves washing against her back, even when he doesn't touch her.
"Sakura…" The softest he has called her name. "Thank you."