Reupload of my old story from many, many years ago. Just some updated dialogue and grammatical changes. To anyone who remembers this angst from way back when thanks for sticking around! And to anyone new, being Sakura moody was a whole vibe back in 2014.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters used in this story
Being with them had been difficult.
In the beginning, she didn't remember feeling that way at least. But maybe she had never noticed the distance between them, in friendship. In skill. That had never seemed like a good enough reason in the years that followed when the thought would cross her mind and make her briefly cringe. 'It's more like,' she thought, 'it seemed better that way.' That her loud-mouthed anonymity should be normal, and that in some way (which she had never bothered questioning) it was right.
'I guess even my big brain was just for show back then,' She would think ruefully.
In her memories she had felt safe, as though nothing could truly hurt her. In part due to an oxymoron with silver hair and a hidden smile who would understand but never listen and be there without ever arriving. A ghost over her shoulder; the feeling of eyes that were never watching her. He was her sensei and a stranger. At the end of it all, she had never been taught by him, and the most grating part of it all to her in adulthood was that she hadn't cared. He would protect her. She would be taken care of. It was everyone else that needed to worry about things like brutality and distrust and hardship.
The Chuunin Exams had shown her how wrong she could be in that belief. For the first time she realized what she had gotten herself into, and the terror that struck her like lightning when there was no teammate to step forward for her, and no ever-present absentee sensei to save her at the last moment, was sickening. Her only protection was a fragile, pink girl shaking like the flower of her namesake.
There was screaming and scratching and tearing flesh as she dug her teeth into the soft tissue of an Oto-nin's arm. What pitiful bravery from a child that could do nothing, because at that moment she was no longer a girl or a ninja, but a simple creature throwing away everything to save the loves of her life and hoping to survive. Knowing that she would not.
When Yamanaka Ino and her teammates rescued Sakura from being beaten to death in that forest she realized that she had been searching for a word as the leaves overhead had swirled like paint and as the darkness had seeped in around her from all sides.
Powerless.
She nearly felt ungrateful for having lived that day, blinded by disgust for her ineptitude. She had been clever, even then, and her mind used that very simple word she had found in that forest as a whetting stone. Sharpened to a wicked edge against each syllable.
The gap between her and her teammates was so plainly obvious that she wanted to scream, and in her rage lay waste to all that she saw. The more upsetting truth came to light that she couldn't even do that. There was no outlet for the roaring fire in her heart, she wasn't strong enough to lay waste to anything. Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears, heat creeping up her neck as she remembered all the weak punches she had thrown. The endlessly half-hearted training sessions. Deluded by the vision of a dark-haired boy that she had believed to be a prince.
He would later leave in the night. A coward after all.
Her rage simmered to embers that night, and although they still burned, she began to dig past them inside her mind. A well dark and deep. Still and quiet with the silent rage that she had been left behind. Her former teammate's nonchalant cruelty fed a hate that she had not realized she was fostering. Where was the equity in this situation? How could this idiotic, self-absorbed bastard be better than her?
In the days that followed she trained harder, choosing to remember every sneer, every glare, every hateful word that had been directed at her. She pretended always that it was for love that she wished to make him come back to the village, and not that she wanted to prove that she could.
She began to lean on another boy, this one with blonde hair and dreams bigger than the whole sky. Her knight in shining armor. He was willing to see a world that didn't love him as a challenge to be conquered. And was so effervescently bright to her in those days that he could have shamed the sun. It was love that had propelled her in the Forest of Death only months prior and it was that same love that had her clinging to the hope that this blonde-haired hooligan would never leave her. Her last barrier between her and the crippling reality of a world of knives, poison, and death that she had studied all her life but that she had never understood.
Some believe that walls are meant to crumble.
He was going to leave the village and become stronger, he said. He was going to bring a traitor to redemption, he said. They will be the ones to save each other, the village said.
She wept.
The waters grew ever deeper. Ever darker.
It was with his departure that something inside of her split in two. She refused to believe it could be her heart, no failing organ could compare.
As the years passed her muscles hardened, her feet became swifter, her eyes too watchful, and her mind sharper than any blade she could ever wield.
Sakura Haruno became a shinobi.
Red dyed her very being, she could no longer wash it from her hands.
The blood of those she had saved.
The blood of those she had killed.
Her life had begun again, her friends had forgotten her more humble beginnings. She worked at the hospital and became a true doctor. Always looking forward, for fear that if she dared to glance back, she would trip and fall, and that the waters inside of her would rise to swallow her whole. It was a descent that haunted her nightmares, and it took the shapes of a dark-eyed prince, a golden-haired knight, and a silver flash just at the corner of her eye.
These dreams faded with time too, as most things do, she spent her days making new and vibrant memories, ones that washed out her old life into indistinguishable shades of beige.
She had new nightmares now. In those dreams, she was back in that forest. She dreams she kills a little pink girl.
Sakura's eyes were bright from bloodshed the night that her past broke the dam of memory into the present.
Her team had been assigned a mission in Oto territory. A chuunin that she was particularly fond of had compromised his position before the scroll they had been sent for could be retrieved. The enemy had been alerted to the intrusion and hell had broken loose.
Sakura had found him, crumpled haphazardly on the ground, a hole plowed straight through where his face had previously been. The burns reminded her all too well that she could have sworn there had been birds chirping before they had been attacked by Oto-nin on all sides. The sounds of fighting were fading away, the chakra signatures of her team being moved by her summons to a safer rendezvous point. Escaping into the night, their bounty in tow. An Oto shinobi fell to the ground in front of her, bright red hair fanning out from her face and glasses shattered on the ground, an empty husk left behind as her spirit escaped into the night.
"Sasuke!"
It was not just the name, but the voice that tore through her senses like a lightning strike. Her eyes zeroed in on the end of the dimly lit corridor. She knew that voice, and now that the Oto-nin with the red hair was no longer shrieking vulgarities at her, there were other key tells of who was here with her. Years after she had laid flowers at their graves in her mind. The sounds of familiar steps, the feeling of familiar chakra, and the sense of familiar dread.
The blurry image she had chosen to forget seeped back into technicolor shades, three men that had left her in a village to grow old, give up, and be unbearably average.
There was a choice here: fight or flight. She took her time to think it over.
A half second later she was tearing down the hall, towards the sounds of an over-the-top fight, with grim expectation. Her summons had aided her team in escaping, if she were to die there would be no difference to the result of the mission. She was performing mental gymnastics to rationalize something unthinkably dumb. A jonin captain would always be more valuable than a bounty, and definitely more valuable than revenge for a lost chuunin. His shade had been added to the well of rage she had dug in her childhood though. And the waters were starting to roil.
The ground tremored beneath her, propelling her quicker into the compound. This was what they had left their village for. No revenge or redemption, but for each other. This battle of good and evil, right and wrong, Naruto and Sasuke. A story that would leave an imprint on the world for generations to come. She was a footnote here. She remembered her place in their world.
The corridor widened out and dispensed her into a cavernous room with two men so incredibly focused on maiming each other that they had not deemed her worthy to be acknowledge.
It gave her pause seeing them like this, her eyes sharp and searching. It was a vantage point that she had grown accustomed to in her adolescence and one that she now took full advantage of when given the opportunity. It was from this place that she first spotted the flaws in their approaches, the misstep that Naruto didn't see quick enough take advantage of, and the slight deceleration of his Rasengan in his fourth step that Sasuke was too focused to notice.
Powerful. Practically invincible. Flawed.
How strange to think of it that way. How inconceivable that she had never noticed it before now.
She stalked onto their battleground, just another shadow in a room of shadows cast by jutting rocks and debris. The massive room had probably started much smaller before the two men had decided to throw their weight around.
Taking in the panoramic view, Sakura felt the weight of the years on her shoulders again. Reminded that the world in this room was not reality, but a fantasy created by the two main characters of this story. There wasn't room for anyone else, but here she was. A red scarf and a black uniform, a girl that they do not know.
They continued to dance through their fight, graceful as animals, casting jitsu that she had only read of. Legends at their finest. Sasuke had a bright crimson horizontal slice on his chest that she could see due to his ridiculous shirt, and Naruto had chakra burns up his arms that would have made her cringe were she not trained as a field medic. Also, if she hadn't also just left a man with his spinal cord ripped from his body lying on the ground a few hallways away. The burns did, however, make her quirk an eyebrow at how sloppy Uchiha Sasuke must have been to get so close and not strike more critically.
This was not a fight that she would normally involve herself with; she should be with her team returning to Konohagakure with a scroll that was almost definitely not worth the loss of a chuunin that didn't know any better. Instead, she was here, because she felt like she should be involved. She didn't want to think of the implications of her current mental state.
Her head dipped leisurely to the right and was followed by a rush of air that affirmed the kunai which had been aimed to pierce through her left eye. Sasuke's attempt to stop any interference from an inferior shinobi.
"Teme, this fight is between you and me!"
"I will destroy these bonds with you. With Kakashi. They mean nothing."
Oh, the banter. Her training was the only thing that stopped her eye roll at the pageantry of the situation.
She tossed a kunai into the mix, both men dodging it before it exploded. The shrapnel forced them further apart.
"On principle, I feel I should have been mentioned in there," Her voice was deeper in the night, dry from exertion.
She could practically feel the shadows shifting on her face, finally slipping away to illuminate pink hair and a bored expression.
Recognition.
"Sakura-chan, what are you doing here?!" Naruto shouted, hesitant to give up his position on the high ground to run to her. Which, to his credit, he was poised to do already.
"Don't get involved." Sasuke seemed to cut himself off from saying her name at the end. Pleasant as always. His black hair shined in the lamplight.
'He's too pretty to be taken seriously,' she thought. Finding the situation funny despite herself.
It amazed her how they did this. Both paused in their fight to inform their former teammate of what she could or could not do. Some things, she supposed, never change. They spoke as though they still had the right to speak to her, as though she had not been left to rot in a village and fester in her mediocrity and had most likely only been thought of by either man in passing.
Yet they both had the gall to stand there as though they weren't trying to kill each other and were trying to instruct her instead.
"One of you killed my teammate." She replied shortly, inclining her head towards the Uchiha clan member who looked as though he was preparing to make his dramatic departure before Naruto could drag him back to Konoha kicking and screaming, "I'm going to take a shot in the dark and guess who."
It was simple. Too easy. She took a half step to the right, using Shunshin to grab hold of the Uchiha's collar pressing the chakra seal against his chest. A whisper of skin contact before she was standing perfectly still. Exactly where she started.
Sasuke froze instantaneously, no doubt feeling the sensation of his chakra pattern redirecting. The slightest tinge of red crept over his neck, "What did you do, Sakura."
Her name. Finally. And being spat out like a curse word. Wonderful.
"Figure it out. Some of us don't like the pomp and frill of explaining our master plans." She should leave now, she knew, she should go while Naruto had the advantage, but she couldn't help the cheap shot that came bubbling up, "It's always been disgusting watching you slither away, I thought even ex-shinobi of Konoha would have more honor. Even scum like you."
A pause. A breath. And he was in front of her. Naruto's voice roaring behind him, panic and rage on his face as he sprinted toward them.s
"Run!"
"Annoying," the dark-haired man spoke slowly, his voice so intimidatingly low that would have scared most nin and would have cowed a younger version of herself. Fear was a distant memory; she had seen things that would have shaken any ANBU to their very core. Rationality on the other hand was her ever present companion, but as Sakura faced the boy in a man's body who had been her everything and still scurried away like a rat, who had killed a chuunin who had believed that he had a chance at the jonin exams in the coming year, that rationality was dimming. Like flickering candlelight at the bottom of deep, and dark water. The water was rising to the surface now, crashing against her mind, 'I will not run.'
She was not stronger than him, but she was far smarter. If it came down to an out and out fight she couldn't predict the outcome.
The smell of blood and fire filled her nose.
"Sasuke, get away from her!"
It was like watching a very boring movie, where you had already guessed the ending. The glint of a katana. The orange flash of a jumpsuit. A quirked smile that seemed out of place on such a sweet face.
Shift weight, fake left, grab hold of Naruto, and duck. She moved fluidly, even with the extra body that she had taken along for the ride. Shunshin to put space between them and the Uchiha. This was not her fight to become involved in, and all she had to do was evade. Now why she had taken the blonde man at her side with her, she had yet to process.
"Sakura-chan?" His expression confused and his heartbeat beneath her hands irregular. From the fight or from seeing her? She allowed herself the thought but didn't allow herself to think of the answer. It wouldn't matter in the end. She quickly forced them to the right, behind what used to be a part of the ceiling to avoid the bolt of fire streaming where they had once stood.
"I won't interfere if you two want to kill each other." She responded, releasing Naruto from her grip.
"Try not to wriggle away this time, Sasuke," she said lowly, knowing he could hear her regardless of her volume, "at least Naruto has the guts to take the stupid and honorable approach."
She was a ninja, and she could understand that tricks and deception were the basis of her livelihood, the tools of her trade, but if there was such thing as lying with honor, she liked to think she possessed it. Naruto had never grasped that concept fully. He was a terrible ninja but, she would admit, a fantastic hero.
He was staring at her instead of at his opponent, which was a rookie mistake to a degree that she wondered how he was still alive. If Sasuke could fight dirty and Naruto wouldn't, then taking up some slack to ensure that Sasuke couldn't run away maybe counted too closely to playing dirty for him.
His voice was too soft, "I'm not going to kill him, Sakura-chan." She internally cringed at the look in his eyes, "Oi, bastard, I AIN'T KILLING YOU. See?" He asked, having fully revealed himself from their shelter point, and then looking back to her his arms outstretched as though that was proof of his sincerity.
Did he think that she was upset over the prospect of him murdering someone? She was reminded again that he had not been around to see the terrible things that she had done. Sasuke was performing archaic jitsu involving purple flames to dissolve the chakra block, his attention split between his former teammates and his task. Doing what Naruto had no intention of doing apparently, she didn't take her eyes off of their mutual enemy, "He killed my subordinate, you're free to kill him. In fact, I can give you a nominal fee for the service."
Sasuke glanced towards them then, depthless eyes and quirked eyebrow disclosing more of a reaction than she had come to expect, but it was the voice next to her that made her eyes shift to the endless blue of the Kyuubi jinchurikki, "What happened to you, Sakura-chan?"
It should have stung to hear those words. If she had it in her, she would have laughed, but the weight of her mission pressed on her shoulders and the obligation to excuse herself from this fight and return to her home stifled the mirthless chuckle. Her eyes were now (stupidly) locked on the man in the ridiculous jumpsuit beside her. He was taller than she remembered.
"Abandonment issues, probably."
It was only partially funny, and probably only so to her.
"Tch. Annoying."
"Oh, give it a rest, Sasuke. No one cares." She said, glancing at him, not at all perturbed that he was much closer to them than he had been while they had been sharing in this inappropriately timed heart to heart.
His katana swept in a smooth arc towards her neck. It annoyed her that she was still here, being included as a prop in a fight that had started years ago and had never included her.
She contorted herself beneath the blade as though her bones were as flexible as clay and narrowed her eyes disdainfully at the missing nin.
"What is wrong with you?!" Naruto yelled, eyes bleeding to red and teeth elongating as his chakra spiked dangerously. Sakura marveled at the fact that he hadn't picked up on it. Sasuke had tried to kill her, halfhearted as it may have been, as he most likely doubted that she would be able to dodge in time. Or maybe he didn't really wish to kill her, which she found harder to believe. Either way, the aftermath would be enough to anger Naruto to the point of losing control. An infantile plan, and one that seemed to be working, nonetheless.
"I already told you. I must sever all bonds with Konoha. I must gain power."
Blah blah blah blah blah. Straightening herself she raised her eyebrows at his statement, "I thought I didn't count? Your monologue from before was very touching but I do know that my name isn't Kakashi."
He ignored her and it was just as well. Naruto was about to attack like a berserker, sheer rage swathing around him like fire. He had no plan, only raw and unyielding power. For him, it would probably be enough. It was always enough for Uzumaki Naruto.
"Calm down." She ordered, feeling herself fall into a strange crevice between the mountains of she was and who she had become, and this new role was unappreciative of the lack of response from the former teammate who was currently losing control of himself. She wanted to leave but her feet would not lead her away. Her hands were unable to make the proper signs.
She had gotten herself mixed in to this confrontation, her regret was bitter on her tongue.
"Finally, I am able to see your true power."
Her head nearly swiveled like an owl to watch the dark haired man move towards the Kyuubi vessel, a smirk so arrogant settled on his face that she audibly sighed, "You should have your own stage drama, Sasuke. Saying only weird one-liners that no one could possibly take seriously. You could have a slutty little harem following you around like the old days."
His eyes narrowed, completely focused on her. The adoring fan that had loved him so deeply that she had nearly ruined her life to follow him into the dark. How incredibly underwhelming it had to be to see her like this, "Watch your mouth, Sakura." The warning was clear in his tone, she nearly bristled at the command.
Her old habits were dying a cold and hard death. It had taken years to destroy the inane sense of pride that had been her weak point for so long, and with every word that came out of Sasuke's mouth it was becoming easier to remember the feeling of sweet justice after punching someone in the mouth, "Or what, Sasuke? You're going to kill me?" She asked, winking at him conspiratorially, mocking him for his previous failed attempt to get a reaction out of the blonde jinchurikki, "If you would stop running away from Naruto maybe you could sever your bonds with-"
"Sasuke!" The roar echoed throughout the cavernous room and made her eyes narrow and her body whip around to watch Naruto slowly losing a battle with himself. Sasuke began readying a jutsu.
"Naruto," she said, getting closer to her oldest friend, her almost adversary, "Wake up." Her voice boomed in the room, her own jutsu amplifying her voice to the point that Naruto's transformation paused. The Kyuubi's hold on his mind interrupted for long enough that he was regaining control.
Sasuke's jutsu had lightening flashing towards them both, Naruto unceremoniously flung himself on top of her. She wondered what Jiraiya could possibly be teaching him that this was his version of dodging.
The wave in her mind crashed again, reminding her of what these two had given up to constantly chase each other. An ouroboros. No beginning or end.
She disentangled herself from Naruto and was halfway across the room, slowly sinking towards the shadows so as not to be involved in this showboating any further. She noted the perfect symmetry of their positions: Naruto and Sasuke, with her standing in between. Your team, a treacherous part of her whispered and it sounded like the lapping of water at the shore.
"Kill each other. Don't kill each other. I don't care. My mission was not to bring either of you back. I don't plan to try. Your goals will leave you chasing shadows, revenge, or a team that was dead in the ground the day you left it."
Deathly quiet descended. They were staring and a hand was halfway reached out to her, "Ja ne."
It startled her what she felt as she disappeared further into the night to reconvene with the squad that would be returning without one of its members. Two very distinct chakra signatures disengaging, but both reaching out into that dark void of night as they left. Searching. She shook her head and continued forward.
She didn't dare look back.
"I heard an interesting rumor today, Sakura."
A silver flash out of her peripheral that she didn't bother to look at as she walked into her apartment that she was sure that she had locked before she had left. She had anticipated this conversation sooner or later, and as she was still in her blood-spattered uniform, he clearly could not wait to ask her, "Really, Kakashi? And what rumor would that be, considering I only just gave my mission report."
He could not fool her with his fake eye crinkles anymore. It had been years since she had laid eyes on him, only catching glimpses of silver hair in a crowd or on a rooftop just passing by. He smiled at her, and it reminded her of the days that she had waited for him at the training grounds. The days he never came.
There was a time that she would have trusted this man with her life, would have believed that he would save her above all others but there would always be two that he would shield before her, and she was well aware that those two phantoms were who had driven him to break his unquestionable silence. To speak to her after all this time. "How strange that it spread this fast then!" He said amiably, avoiding the accusation in her voice, affirming his guilt, "I heard that you saw Sasuke and Naruto."
She sighed and placed her nin vest over the back of her desk chair and finally turned to look at him. As ageless as ever. Frozen in time beneath a mask that hid everything but what he wished it would. His heart and soul still exposed at the names of the students that he had lost, "Yes, I did. I'm sure Tsunade will share the mission report with you if you ask."
"I want to hear it from you."
He shifted his weight to lean against the wall, completely at ease in her home, and it made her wonder how many times he had broken in already. Of course, she had noticed before, some things being out of place, a pillow slightly off center, or a mug placed in the sink that had previously been on the counter. Momentarily checking up on the only student that had followed his rules, the only student that showed that they cared at all. All the attention that he could give her was to make sure that she was alive but only tangentially. Sakura shook her head, looking away from him again, "Why, Kakashi?"
"What happened, Sakura?"
His hand on her shoulder made her jump, he backed away hands up as though not to startle her further. She was tired, worn out, and the water was inching ever higher in her mind. She did not like the disadvantage that she was at. With a comrade or not she was too vulnerable, "I can only assume that you mean tonight, Kakashi. And not what has happened the past five years." She snapped, walking to her desk in search of a pair of gloves that were too soaked in blood to be left to itself overnight that were stashed in her vest pocket.
He watched her apathetically as she continued looking through her vest pockets, "I know I haven't necessarily been around much, but you see-"
Her hum of satisfaction cut him off as she pulled the pair from inside an interior pocket. Nearly black drops of blood fell sluggishly from the areas that had yet to dry, making soft dripping noises when the liquid hit her floor. The pink haired woman's shoulders slumped as the exhaustion settled itself as forcefully as possible into her bones, "Haven't been around much? You've avoided me for years, Kakashi – I was convinced you had forgotten I existed by now."
It was too truthful. Too much. She would have preferred cold silence to the bone deep tiredness she was feeling. Walking towards the sink, "They were both alive and- "
"Whose blood is that?" Kakashi was no longer smiling.
Sakura glanced at the gloves before running the tap to rinse the blood out, the water ran red to pink, "I don't suppose you would care if it wasn't either of theirs. It isn't, I was there as a spectator. I'm sure you've seen it all before."
He took a seat at her small kitchen table, and she realized in the span of a day her world had shrunk. The last piece of the puzzle fitting into place with her almost-sensei, "That isn't what I heard. I heard that you were very much involved. That you have a way to subvert the transformation of the vessels."
She shut off the tap, laying the gloves out to dry. Still not making eye contact with the man who should not be in her apartment, or acknowledging she exists. But she had been involved with his golden children, and now she was interesting. Another wave came crashing over her, the feeling of something darker than she knew how to feel, "I lost one of my teammates this mission. I have been put through hell most missions but today I lost someone, and you have the gall to speak to me about those two?"
Her voice did not come out as a shout but low and seething. He knew that she was on the brink of trying to attack him. He stayed very still, "I'm sorry, Sakura."
"Where would this concern be if I hadn't been associated to those two today, Kakashi. Make it less obvious at least, so I can pretend that you would have eventually come back for me." Then just as suddenly, the wave receded, she slumped into the chair across from him. Watching the ticks and twitches of his face that she had never noticed before, "I'll tell you all the details tomorrow, please just do what you are best at. Go."
"I didn't think it was theirs," he said, beginning to stand.
"What was theirs?"
"Your gloves. I didn't think it was theirs."
"Sorry if that's hard to believe, Kakashi. Why would you care if it wasn't them?" She asked, closing her eyes against the exhaustion from the day, the week, the year.
"It could have been yours."
"What?" She asked, finally opening her eyes but his chakra signature was gone before the word left her mouth. How fitting. There and gone again, as though he had never been there in the first place. It was a night of familiar things that made everything hurt. Heartbreak like an old wound tender again after being touched. She closed her eyes, slipping to the tile of her kitchen floor. She had no tears left for them. They had been spent filling the well in her mind that she had dug all those years ago. Now the water levels were slowly slipping back down, the water calm and no longer threatening to drown her.
Being with them had been difficult. More so than she had ever anticipated.
She contemplated in the cold of her apartment if being without them was worse.
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