Chapter 21 The Union

Sakura stood there silent, wondering what her counterpart was going to do. They were talking about the dark recesses of her mind, this wasn't exactly something she could be prepared for.

"For us to combine properly, I think we first need to address the big things creating the divide in the first place." Dark Sakura started. "Right now, I can think of three such things that we should cover right away."

Sakura nodded. "Okay, what are they?"

Dark Sakura looked relaxed despite still standing, as if she were leaning against an unseen wall. "I think the first place to start should be this simple question. Why didn't you give Naruto-kun a chance years ago?"

Sakura blinked. "Huh? You know why."

Dark Sakura nodded. "I think I do, but I want to hear it come from you."

"It was because I liked Sasuke-kun and-"

"Not that, I'm not talking about romance. I mean yeah, that's a part, but Naruto-kun tried to be your friend before he tried to be your boyfriend. And even that was unappealing to you. You didn't want any relationship with him, be it platonic or romantic. Why?"

Sakura looked confused. "I told you, I liked Sasuke-kun."

"No! No, take him out of the equation entirely. Pretend Sasuke wasn't involved, because frankly he wasn't. He never returned your affections, hell he never even encouraged them. You didn't owe him your loyalty, so don't use it as an excuse here. No one ever told you that Sasuke was the only option you had, you could have given Naruto-kun a chance to be your friend back then. So why did you refuse him?"

Sakura blinked, surprised by the passive hostility her dark side had towards the Uchiha. "But... but Sasuke-kun is the reason. I didn't give Naruto a chance back then because I didn't want to. I wanted to be with Sasuke-kun."

Dark Sakura looked annoyed. "And why couldn't you have been Naruto-kun's friend and be interested in Sasuke at the same time?"

"Well, if he saw me be nice to Naruto then Sasuke-kun wouldn't have given me a chance."

"Did he give you a chance after he saw you be rude to Naruto-kun?"

Sakura froze, unable to answer that.

"And are you saying that Sasuke was the kind of guy who wouldn't let his girlfriend have other male friends? Was that the kind of guy you were interested in?"

"What? No, Sasuke-kun wasn't like that."

"But you yourself just said that you couldn't be friends with Naruto-kun because Sasuke wouldn't have liked it. That means in your eyes, either Sasuke wanted you to have no male friends period or it was just Naruto-kun he had a problem with. Which was it?"

"Don't you know the answer?"

"I want to hear it come from your lips."

Sakura fidgeted, unsure what to say. "I... I don't know. If I had to guess... I'd say it's a bit of both. I couldn't be friends with other boys, but I especially couldn't be friends with Naruto."

"And why?"

"Because Sasuke-kun was so determined to be alone back then. We all tried to get him to open up, but he never did. I thought if he saw me with others, he'd be more likely to keep dismissing me. But if I had no other friends, not even Ino, then he'd be open to accepting my company. It would be easier for him to open up if he didn't feel ganged up on."

"That doesn't answer my question. I asked why you couldn't be friends with Naruto-kun specifically, not why you couldn't be friends with anyone."

Sakura hesitated, making sure she got her words right. "Because Sasuke-kun would have taken offense at that. Even then I could tell that Sasuke-kun disliked Naruto the most out of everyone around him, so he might have been forgiving if I was friends with others, but he wouldn't have accepted me being friends with Naruto at the time."

Dark Sakura crossed her arms. "Okay, so you've established that being friends with Sasuke was your big priority, and you thought being friends with anyone else would only jeopardize that goal. This brings me to my second question. Why did you choose Sasuke back then? If he really is the primary motive behind all your social choices, then what made him worth it?"

"First, tell me what you think of Sasuke-kun. I get the feeling that you don't like him, and I'm not going to challenge that, but why do you dislike him? I've seen some negative aspects of him but it's not like I ever expected him to be perfect." Sakura asked.

"But you did expect him to return your affections at some point." Dark Sakura countered. "For years you did everything you could short of whoring yourself to him in order to gain anything more than indifference or tolerance from him. You were patient and hopeful, but there were other feelings too. The hurt of being ignored, the jealousy of being led on, the bitterness of being abandoned or taken for granted. You tried to rationalize it, justify it, but a part of you was fed up and wanted to yell at him."

"Yell at him? For what? I was trying to make him happy. Sure it would have been nice if he had accepted my help but it wasn't like he owed me anything."

Dark Sakura surprisingly smiled at this. "That's right, he didn't owe you. You gave him all your attention and affection, but he was under no obligation to return it. Nor was he under any obligation to reject it. After all, it wasn't like he already had a girlfriend and thus couldn't be your boyfriend. Nothing was stopping him from having friends and nothing was stopping you from having friends. Nothing except yourselves that is."

"What's your point?" Sakura asked.

"My point is that if Sasuke was miserable, it was his choice to be. You, Ino, and several other girls were offering him the chance to be happy, but he accepted none of it. That means he could have been happy but instead he chose to be miserable. That is the boy you decided to sacrifice your friendship with Ino and Naruto-kun for. A boy who chose his bitterness over you. Repeatedly. So again, what made him worth it?"

Sakura thought it over, then slowly hung her head. "Nothing that I can say with confidence anymore."

Dark Sakura walked up to her counterpart and put her hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, I'm not here to judge you. I'm here to get you to understand what you didn't understand before."

Sakura lifted her head and smiled a bit. "Thanks. I guess I was immature back then, and I guess a part of me didn't outgrow it. But it's still hard to not feel anything for Sasuke-kun anymore. I mean, he was my first love interest."

"It's okay, we all want to believe that our first love is our true love. We all want to believe that we got it right the first time. But there's no shame in admitting that you were wrong and the right guy for you was someone else. What would be shameful is devoting yourself to Sasuke just because you're afraid you won't find happiness with anyone else."

"Is that why you're suggesting the open dating policy with Naruto? Because you don't want him to have that same approach with me?" Sakura asked.

Dark Sakura nodded. "That and because it will help him get more friends. Plus it would be nice to have a chance to kiss Ino-chan more, and get frisky with her."

Sakura blushed and her nose bled despite this being her mindscape. "Are you... am I... bisexual?"

Dark Sakura shrugged. "I think it's more pan or poly, I forget the specific. I'm attracted to the person more than anything, and sure their body does help but I don't see it as a make-or-break factor. So yeah, I can love both Naruto-kun and Ino-chan and not care that one's a man and the other's a woman. If anything that just gives me more ways to have fun with them. And yes I'm willing to see if I can love Hinata-chan too. Give me five minutes and I'll turn that quiet girl into a real screamer."

Sakura blinked. "Wow, you're horny."

Dark Sakura nodded and snickered. "Repressed sexual desires."

Sakura could only slowly nod in understanding. "Okay, so what was the third thing you wanted to talk to me about?"

Dark Sakura lost her smile and stepped back. "This is the big one, the one that could undo any progress we've made so far, and I need an honest answer from you here more than anywhere else."

Sakura got nervous. "What?"

"If Sasuke came back, would you go back to ignoring Naruto-kun again?"

Sakura blinked and silently gasped. "What? No, of course not."

"Are you certain?" Dark Sakura asked. "Think hard. I'm hoping for us to date Naruto-kun. As in legit relationship boyfriend-girlfriend date. If we actually date him, I'm in it for the long haul, not just having a fling until the passion fades. So if Sasuke came back to Konoha, and by some chance he wasn't arrested or anything like that, can you look me in the eyes and promise that you wouldn't try to give a relationship with him another chance?"

Sakura thought it over. On the one hand, that was everything she had been hoping for since Sasuke left the village. For him to return and then give her the chance to be his girlfriend. It should have been perfect, yet right now it felt... wrong. This time she didn't just see Sasuke ask her out, she saw the pain on Naruto's face from him hearing that question. And if that wasn't bad enough, she saw him expecting her to say yes, walking away letting her go without a fight. Because Naruto wouldn't stand in the way of her happiness, even if it broke his own heart.

The thought made her shed a tear. She wiped it, but more kept coming. Unable to stop herself, she let herself cry and fall to her knees.

"What's wrong?" Dark Sakura asked, coming back to her.

"I... I can't do that to him. I cold never hurt Naruto like that and be able to live with myself. But.. but Naruto is so caring to me, so giving, that it wouldn't matter. He'd give me that chance even if I didn't ask for it, didn't want it. He'd do it, you know he would. Because my happiness was always more important to him than his own. I can't make him go through with that. I can't. Naruto doesn't deserve to have his heart broken. He deserves love, and... and I want to give it to him."

Sakura wiped her eyes and looked into her dark side's own eyes. "I want it. I want to love Naruto like you do. I was naive before, not knowing any better, but I do now. I want to feel everything you feel and not be afraid of it. I want... I want to be complete."

Dark Sakura smiled and knelt down. "That's what I wanted to hear."

The two girls started to glow pink.

"What's happening?" Sakura asked.

"I think we're starting to merge."

"But... just from that? Shouldn't I have like a thousand repressed thoughts to sort out first?"

"I would ask Ino about that. For now, what do you say we go show our man what we really think about him?"

Sakura smiled, the glow getting brighter. "I say what took us so long?"

Back in the real world, Naruto continued his meditation besides Sakura, finding this to be one of the easy times for him. His mind had been a little troubled thanks to what he had learned, but a little trick called the healing hands mantra helped calm him down. Fukasaku taught it to him, telling him this was a medical jutsu one cast on themselves to steady their chakra and encouraged their bodies to recover faster. Doing the hand seals without casting the jutsu helped the mind focus and keep other thoughts at bay long enough for him to not be overwhelmed, and thus address them with mental clarity.

'I've basically stopped being a ninja, which means I've basically given up any chance I had at being hokage. I should be devastated, regretting this and begging her to give me my job back... but I'm not. I'm... strangely calm. It's like... I don't know how to describe it. Why am I not afraid?'

He opened his eyes and saw his pink-haired teammate sitting there beside him, her eyes closed and her expression serene. 'At least I've got her support. It's nice that she's willing to sacrifice her chances to help me make my dream come true. But now how can I help her dream come true? How can I bring Sasuke back if I can't do ninja work? Hokage-sama better come to her senses and take me seriously soon, so I can become chuunin and someday give Sakura what she wants. It's what she deserves.'

Sakura quietly sighed and slowly opened her eyes, looking like she just woke up from a refreshing nap. When her eyes adjusted, she looked to the whiskered blonde and smiled. This smile was different than her normal ones, this one was warm and, for lack of a better word, loving. She was looking at Naruto like he was the only thing in the world that could make her smile.

"Hey Naruto-kun."

"Did it help Sakura-chan?" He asked.

"Yes, very much so." She said smoothly, crawling closer to him, which he did not oppose. "I really needed that. It helped me out so much."

"How so?"

She sat next to him and took his hand in her own. "I got my priorities straight now. I know what I want, what I need. And that's you."

Before he could say anything, she leaned in and planted a searing kiss on his lips. Naruto was surprised but let himself enjoy it and put his free hand around her, rubbing the small of her back.

After a moment, they parted and looked in each other's eyes.

"Which Sakura is in charge now?" Naruto asked.

"There's only one Sakura now Naruto-kun, and she loves you. She loves you so much that she never wants to go another day without telling you."

Naruto's eyes lit up. "I love you too Sakura-chan."

Sakura smiled, happy to hear those words. The one downside was that she knew he didn't mean them romantically, even if he wanted to. He meant he loved her as a friend, as a teammate, that sort of thing. Right now it was the only kind of love he could feel for her, but that wouldn't be the case for long if she had anything to say about it.

"Tell you what, tomorrow we'll have our first date. Since this is new to you, I'll set this one up for us. That way you won't worry that you did anything wrong. But the next one I expect you to surprise me."

Naruto nodded. "I can't wait. But what about Ino-chan or Hinata-chan?"

"You'll date Hinata after me, and Ino after Hinata, then back to me. Though that might change if another girl gets added later. I know you love me, but you're not in love with me so the sharing thing is still on. Besides, they both love you even if Ino's not ready to admit it. They deserve the chance to be loved by you too."

Naruto paused for a moment. "I can... love more than one person at a time?"

"As long as it's consensual, then yes you can. In fact, I think it's sexy for you to love them and me at the same time. Just imagine the fun we could have together as one big Uzumaki harem."

Naruto felt an unusual sense of joy to hear this. He didn't understand why, he had always been opposed to anything perverse and he still thought that being in an open relationship was asking for trouble. But a part of him was oddly relieved. If the girls really didn't mind him giving them all a chance, then did it really matter if other people didn't like it?

"I don't fully understand this Sakura-chan, but if you're really okay with it, I'll give all three of you a chance."

Sakura smiled and gave him another kiss. This one quickly got heated with her pushing Naruto on his back and her moving onto his lap. Neither stopped, but Sakura moaned when she started to feel his erection poking her.

"We better stop." She said after she broke the kiss. "Not because I want to, but because if we don't, I'm going to take this too far."

"Yeah you're probably right." Naruto agreed, getting up while she got off him.

'Oh Naruto-kun, you weren't even trying to turn me on and yet you did it so well. Then again my mental merge might have removed my buffers so I'm already a swarm of perverted desires towards you. All I know is that if you were actually trying to seduce me I'd be fucking you until I needed medical attention.'

"What's so funny?" Naruto asked, seeing her grin and hearing some snickers.

"Oh nothing, just thinking how lucky I am." She replied.

After everyone left his stand, Teuchi put out a 'Closed for thirty minutes' sign out in front of his store.

"Do you think it's really that bad for Naruto Dad?" Ayame asked, meeting him in the back kitchen to talk with more privacy.

Teuchi slowly nodded, looking solemn yet annoyed, though it was hard for Ayame to tell since he wasn't looking towards her. "I can believe it. You might not remember everything Ayame, but there was a time when things were really bad for Naruto. He probably doesn't even remember it all, which is best for him, but there's always been this underlying belief in Konoha that Naruto is... undeserving of equal treatment. This has shown itself in several different ways, but the most common one was ignoring him or denying him attention of access."

"Access? What do you mean? I've checked around and no store actually forbids him from entering them." Ayame replied.

Teuchi nodded. "True, not anymore, but there was a time when several employees of many stores refused him service and were not nice about it. They were all fired, or at the very least had the fear of Kami-sama put into them, but the damage was done and Naruto became convinced that his options for getting essentials was limited. To make it worse, he believed the store owners condoned it."

"But that was years ago. It's not still a problem is it?"

"The thing is Ayame, some store owners did condone it. It was a small amount, like one out of every three or four, but they did manage to convince Naruto not to show his face around them and they spread rumors. So even in the stores where Naruto could shop, he felt watched and mistrusted. So while not banned, it wasn't welcoming. He just stopped trying at some point. He was a child, how could he challenge the adults?"

Teuchi then looked directly at his daughter. "It's the entire reason I became head of Konoha's merchant guild in the first place. To make sure anyone who hurt Naruto like that didn't get away with it."

Ayame nodded. "So what now? Will you use your connections to make sure Naruto can find a job while this strike lasts?"

Teuchi stroked his chin. "I could, and if he needs it I will, but I'm aiming a little higher. After all, a strike accomplishes nothing when only a handful of people are participating."

"But what can you do? I mean, shouldn't you be discouraging this strike? I admit I'm no law expert, but isn't going on strike bordering on committing treason in a shinobi village?" Ayame asked.

Teuchi grinned a little. "I know what I'm doing dear, trust me."

He went to the phone and began to make a few calls. Ayame wasn't sure what to do, so she washed some dishes to keep herself busy.

'Weird, why can't I get that question out of my head? Would I date Naruto if he gave me the chance?'