Don't go.
Stay.
I beg you.
If I still have a place in your heart.
…
A silent cry broke from her lips. Those four short sentences had been haunting her for a week. They couldn't leave her, reminding her of the patheticness of the whole situation.
Tears streamed thickly down her cheeks, so Sakura covered her face with a hand, hiding herself from Kakashi's gaze. She didn't want him to see her broken down again, with a hole in the heart. Her former sensei had been through as much or more than she had, he didn't need to worry about her just yet. She tried to act normal.
Taking three daffodils, she put them in a vase, lighting incense. The smoke rose upwards, enveloping her with its beautiful fragrance.
The war not only took away her mental health, but also her two friends. The two people closest to her heart. Men with their whole lives ahead of them.
It was so close. Not much separated her and Naruto from bringing Sasuke back to the village. If only her words meant more to the boy. As if she could stop him. But she hadn't accomplished that. Sakura spent her days thinking of other paths their last conversation could have taken. She was able to lie in bed and not come out of it, imagining Sasuke's face - softer and calmer and full of gratitude - with her eyes misty from tears. To fantasize that he had turned around and apologized, ending this masquerade. Just dreaming of him coming home alive.
But dreams remain only dreams. A broken heart cannot be pieced back together again. The love for Sasuke and Naruto filling her to the brim did not melt away, forever intending to stay with her.
Sakura knew she would never feel the same for anyone in her life as she did for a certain young boy with black hair and equally dark, beautiful eyes that she could drown in.
Their love ended tragically.
A slight gust of wind splashed a single drop of salt water. Sakura rose from her knees, unable to look at the surrounding graves any longer.
"Shall we go, Kaka-sensei?"
The older man looked at her, smiling pale from under his mask. The red eyeballs couldn't hide anything from the world.
The war is not over - it has continued for her and thousands of other people.