Chapter 2: Tangled Paths and Twisted Vines
War is war. It spares no one. It is bigger than her and there is no escape.
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As the war drew to a conclusion, Sakura found that there were some things to be thankful for. Her father had returned home safely, as had Naruto and Sasuke. The same could not be said about many of the others in their small village and that in itself was difficult. With a town as small as theirs, there was no such thing as an unfamiliar face. In the few summer months following the end of the war, there were funerals upon funerals for their fallen. They began to blend together and they were all the same routine, but their names rang clear as she laid a bouquet on the freshly dug graves.
Other than that, there was not much change in the village. Since the war had, luckily, been fought away from Konoha's lands, their livelihoods had been mostly untouched in the past few years, save for what had been taken for the sake of the war effort. That was inevitable, however, they were mostly farmers after all, and their food was needed to support the soldiers.
Sakura refused to talk about the Great War. Even though she was regarded as somewhat of a legend, whose tale became whispers between wives and mothers (because who had ever heard of a female serving on the battlefield?), she never spoke a single word of her service. It was partly because she resented those years so much. She spent some of her most important years fightings, years were she, and many of her compatriots, should have grown without strife, learned a trade, discovered what life had to offer a growing child. Instead she spent it shooting a gun she never wanted to hold and taking lives which were never hers to take.
So she tried to forget.
It was hard. It took countless sleepless nights and a gun tucked under her pillow at night for the memories to start to fade and things to go back to some semblance of normal. But try as she might, they would never be gone.
When she first returned home, it was like she brought them with her. They followed her, tugged on her clothing, and whispered in her ears. She never dared to acknowledge their existence and she dared even less to look them in the eyes. She had made the mistake before and she will never forget the rage and the fear that was something just shy of human.
It was only in sleep that their whispers became screams and their soft tugs became clawing and grabbing. She may not have woken with scars, but she woke with more memories to add to the long list of those she wished to forget. But slowly, they started to leave on their own, stopped haunting both her dreams and her waking hours, and she could only hope they were finally at rest.
On the good days, Sakura was too tired to remember. She fell back into a routine not too unlike the one she had when she left. Gather the eggs the hens had laid, feed the pigs, an entire assortment of tasks to keep her mind busy and never wandering.
On the bad days, she doesn't remember to forget. She doesn't bother to gather the eggs, or feed the pigs, or even leave bed. Instead, she woke up screaming, then broke down and cried and hated herself for doing so because she didn't cry at any of her victim's deaths but she cried out of pity for herself and her own selfish nightmares.
Her mother taught her to sew and mend (which she should have learned in those years, but she pushed those thoughts deep down). Sakura's fingers were nimble and she took to it easily, but never did as exceptionally as Mebuki. The voice in the back of her mind laughed and reminded her that her hands were made to fit the handle of a gun and her fingers were meant to pull the trigger. And that was all she was ever meant to be.
It was one of those good days that Mebuki came and sat on her daughter's bed, before they were to set to start their chores for the day. She said nothing at first and only brought her daughter up to a sitting position. Sakura did not protest, but only closed her eyes and leaned into her mother's touch as the older woman ran a brush through her daughter's wild pink locks and tied them back into a loose braid.
"Have you ever thought about marriage, Sakura?" she asked, twisting the strands of hair together with masterful skill. The action took her back to a time long forgotten, before Sakura has left and before the war had ever started.
Her daughter laughed, soft and hollow, and the words slipped through Mebuki's fingers and became lost.
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School had been canceled in their absence. There were not many students to teach and no resources or time to dedicate to their lessons. And even when the students returned, how could years and years of lessons be made up?
Sakura took to reading, because the thought of not knowing something that she should bothered her. When she finished her work for the day, she sought out Naruto and Sasuke and they taught themselves the things that the world had been too cruel to teach them. It was a nice distraction.
Eventually, books were written about the war and though she resisted for some time, curiosity got the best of her. There was a library in the city to the north, which she visited in order to read one of such books.
It was surreal, to say the very least, to read about the very event that she had been a part of and had encompassed much of her life. The book told stories of battles she had never known the existence of and did so in in a manner than it captivated her attention and drew her deep within its pages.
Until it told about one battle that she had been apart of. The book told of an unnamed sniper and their spotter who had snuck behind enemy lines and caused just enough confusion for the Konoha forces to storm the enemy. It had been an overwhelming victory and-
Sakura slammed the book shut, reshelved it, and never looked back. But even so, it plagued her mind as she rode home. The words had glorified the war, and along with it, the bloodshed of the enemy. It said nothing about the losses Konoha ever had to face, not a single word about the horrors and atrocities that took place, and certainly not the civilians of Kiri caught in the crossfire. They were not from Konoha. Their deaths did not matter.
Worst of all, the book spoke of herself and it reminded her of what she had done and what she could never take back. The mere thought was terrifying, it made her crease her brow and bite her lip til the skin nearly broke and stain her skin with blood that was her own (for once). But it should not have been surprising. History was always written by the victors, spun into tall tales until the reality was lost behind pretty words and torn pages. She had known this since she was young. But the erasure of thousands and thousands of lives sat uneasy in her stomach and lighted an anger in her that she did not like.
Her knuckles grew white as she clenched her fists tightly around the reins of her horse. There was nothing to be done and she forced her mind away from it, from those times and the memories that came with them. She no longer wanted to think about war. Not now, and not ever.
She continued to visit the library every so often, though perhaps with less frequency. She stuck to other topics, from classical literature to theoretical philosophy, anything to occupy her mind. But she steered clear of the steadily growing section of books in the far corner of the library, all of which were dedicated to describing the war in detail.
It was hard, but eventually the nightmares visited her less and less frequently and those loud, disruptive thoughts became quiet whispers in the dark corners of her mind. For a while, things felt like they could be going back to how they once were.
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Konoha fell to the Second Great War when Sakura was 22, though it could no longer claim to be the victim. This time it had brought this war upon itself. After 5 impossibly short years of peace, Konoha declared war on Iwa, a nation that did not lie on its border, but was instead far to the west. The tension had been evident for years and had finally spilled over when a recent trade deal fell through.
And because she was raised by war, it was second nature to fall back into the rhythm of rationed food and worn clothing.
This time, Konoha had learned its lesson and not only took the men, but the boys and the girls and still not the women. Fortunately, Kizashi was out of the age of service, but Sakura, even though she sat well above the cutoff age, knew she would have to answer the call to action. War was war. It spared no one, and she did not have so lofty ideals to think that she was above that.
"Lie about it," Mebuki pleaded to her daughter, "I can't let them take you away from me again."
"They have all my documents," Sakura replied and looked away from her mother's crying face, because there was nothing more to be said and nothing more that could be done. She carried on with her daily routine, before that simple luxury was no longer an option.
The day before the date that the eligible were supposed to gather at the train station, there was a knock on their door. Sakura, who had been helping her mother prepare dinner in the kitchen, ran to answer it.
Before her stood a tall, silver-haired man, who did not seem quite as scary or as lively as she remembered. He stood at attention, with his hat in his hands. "Ah, Captain," she greeted him with a nod and a sympathetic smile, "I was hoping to never see you again." Her words meant no disrespect, but she had known him only in war, and not a moment before or after. She stepped aside to allow him entrance.
"It's quite unfortunate, isn't it?" he laughed as he walked inside, placing his cap back on his head. He was quiet a moment and looked around their house in a way that seemed almost reminiscent. "And, equally unfortunately, I am not here for just a house call-"
"Sakura? Who is that?" Mebuki asked, appearing from the kitchen. She wiped her hands on a rag and stopped dead in her tracks upon seeing the man in her living room.
"Captain Hatake, ma'am." He extended a hand towards her.
She ignored it and instead sneered at him. "And I suppose you're just here to take my daughter away, aren't you?" she hissed, her voice gradually growing louder, "You come into my home and smile to my face and pretend you're not just sending her to her death!?
"Mom-"
"She dared to survive the first time, and what? You're just itching to finish the job aren't you? You took her when she was just a child, you know that!? Do you even know what she's going through now because of your stupid wars?"
"Mom, please." Sakura stepped between them, holding her mother back as the older woman approached them.
"No, I'm not done! I-"
"Mother," Sakura repeated, in a voice no louder than a whisper, "The Captain and I are just having a conversation. Nothing has been said yet about my service."
Mebuki frowned and looked at Kakashi one last time before gritting her teeth and leaving the room without another word.
After a moment of silence, he finally spoke. "She's right, you know," he said, his voice holding a certain weight that she had never cared to notice before, "They want you to go back, just like before."
She sighed and looked out the window. "I know."
They leave without any more wasted words.
"When's the last time you fired your rifle? Or watched someone else practice?" Kakashi asked, once they were a fair ways away from the house, and on their way to the recruitment office (which was really just a desk in the corner of the post office, since there was no time or funding to build a real building for military affairs). Because she was over the drafting age for females, they would have to go through a slightly different process, which meant much more forms for both of them to file.
"Why?" Sakura snorted in amusement, "It's not like I've forgotten how. Or have you just lost all faith in me?"
"That's not it, and you know it."
She sighed. "Stop being so vague, Kakashi, whatever you're trying to say, just spit it out already."
He fixed her with a hard look, which she returned. "Alright," he relinquished, "Let me show you what I mean." He drew his pistol, raised it into the air, and fired it.
The world froze around her and she stopped breathing. She didn't remember how, and nor did she want to, because suddenly, all that mattered was the gun in his hand. Instinctively, her hand flew to her shoulder to pull her rifle from her back, but she was only met with thin air. The pistol she kept strapped to her thigh wasn't there either, so she fell to her last resort, the small knife hidden within her boot. Sakura grabbed the handle swiftly, but before she could draw it, she was knocked to the ground and her hands pinned behind her back.
"Sakura. Can you hear me?" A familiar voice, steady and calm, called her name. And when she did not answer or stop struggling, the grip on her wrists tightened, and he repeated himself. "Sakura Haruno. You're safe now, you don't have to worry."
It was slow, but the rest of her surroundings faded back into view, and she was aware of the gravel digging into her stomach. She breathed in deeply. "Oh," she said, in a voice hardly above a whisper, her heart pounding and her eyes wide, "I see."
"That's what I meant." Kakashi helped her to stand, releasing his hold on her once she was steady on her feet, though her hands still shook ever so slightly. "You're not well."
"And I would wager that you aren't either, Captain."
He grunted, neither affirming or refuting her statement. "I shouldn't be surprised. The veteran's affairs department gets little funding, and even if it did, I doubt the budget would include anything for mental health."
"What are you implying?"
"Well now, you've always been a bright one." He continued to walk, not sparing a glance to see if she was following him or not. "War is war. It spares no one."
They approached the office building and he beckoned her inside. She obliged. The door closed with a soft slick behind her and she couldn't help but feel like she had been trapped in the maws of something much larger than herself. And it wasn't the first time.
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When Sakura arrived at the train station the next day like a good soldier, she had more than just the clothes on her back. Her uniform, while a little small, still fit fairly well and she had kept her rifle in pristine condition from the moment it had left service.
"Where are you stationed this time?" Naruto asked her, not dressed in his uniform because he had grown much too tall for it. He faced the train tracks, with his hands stuffed deep into his pockets as they awaited their departure.
"Foxtrot 12. What about you guys?"
Naruto frowned, "Same as last time." His nails dug into the flesh of his palms. "Can't believe they're actually splitting us up."
They turned expectantly to Sasuke. Sakura was only half-listening, however, it was evident where he would be stationed, seeing how they had worked closely together in the last war.
"3."
"What?" Sakura's eyes widened and then furrowed in confusion. If the two of them were stationed at the same base as last time, that would mean she was the one that was being sent away from them. And even further, Sasuke wasn't her spotter?
"Hey, it's okay, Sakura-chan," Naruto reassured her, with the best smile he could muster at the moment, "You're real tough, you'll survive without us." He placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a thumbs up, like he had always done when they were kids.
Sasuke said nothing, but only looked into her eyes and nodded.
Sakura bit her lip and nodded back. She knew she shouldn't have so easily assumed that the war effort would pick up where it had left them and it would be so kind enough to not separate them for a second time. The train rolled into the station.
"You guys write, okay? Keep me updated on everything!" She pulled both of them into one last hug and with those fleeting words, they parted ways to opposite ends of the country.
Somehow, the train ride was longer this time. It wasn't because Foxtrot 12 was farther than where she was previously stationed, but it was weighed down by her thoughts, which were her only company in those long, lonely hours.
The moment she arrived, she was greeted by Genma, who greeted her with a grin and a wave. The toothpick still hung from the corner of his mouth and though it was strange, it was comforting to see something so familiar.
She waved back. "Oh? And to who do I owe the pleasure of being greeted by the Colonel himself?"
"Well, it's because you're in such high demand, of course. Lots to do, people to see," he hummed, turning away and motioning for her to follow, "Things have been advancing far quicker than we initially planned, so we have to a get a move on, now."
She looked around them as they passed through the camp. Unsurprising, the layout was similar to Foxtrot 3, the infirmary was smaller, though, the space given instead to extend the length of the barracks.
"I think you've noticed by now you're going to need a new partner," Genma said as they reached his new office and sat down, "And before you go blaming anyone, it wasn't up to Kakashi or me. Woulda been dumb of us, we know how you two operate. I mean, geez, we've seen it in action."
In all honesty, Sakura was perhaps just a bit mad that she and Sasuke (and Naruto for that matter) had been separated, though she hadn't had much of a chance to express it out loud. The reason the two of them were so effective as a team was because they knew each other and worked well together, even before the war. The unspoken bond between them couldn't so easily be replicated. Her mouth twitched downward and she chose not to respond.
"I know, kid," he sighed, "I'm not happy either. But things have been changing a lot around here. The war with Iwa isn't going to be the same as the war with Kiri. The fighting's not gonna be on the borders, where we are close to home and close to reinforcements." He paused and chewed the toothpick. "Look, I shouldn't be concerning you with shit like this. I want you to meet your new spotter, he's with Kakashi getting the full rundown. I'm sure you'll find the greying bastard somewhere."
Sakura was dismissed and wasn't in too much of a rush to find Kakashi. But she had her orders and the man was surprisingly hard to find when he wanted to be, so she set off to go searching for him. Though his office was in the same building as Genma's, he rarely used it, so she bypassed it entirely.
Unsurprisingly, he was in the supply area, and more specifically, the armory. But despite what the Colonel had told her, he was standing alone. "Yo," he greeted, looking up momentarily from the pistol that he was inspecting.
"I thought you were supposed to be showing the new spotter around. Did you lose him already?"
"Maa, I'm not that irresponsible, have a little bit of faith in me. I sent him to find another .22, the one that was assigned to him was jammed."
"Captain." The sound of footsteps approached them and a man with long, dark black hair approached them and handed the pistol to Kakashi. "I believe this one should be in working order."
Sakura squinted, she swore she had seen him before. There was a familiarity about his face, especially in the deep stress lines that ran below his eyes.
"Well, seeing as the whole family's here, it's time to finally get you two acquainted. Itachi Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, you two will be working very closely from now on."
Uchiha? The same Uchiha like how Sasuke was an Uchiha? She knew everyone in Sasuke's family, even his uncles and cousins, but he never mentioned any family that resided out of the village-oh.
"You're Sasuke's brother, aren't you?" she asked, sticking out her hand to him, "I haven't seen you in a very long time."
He shook her hand politely. "Yes, I've been studying in the city for a while now. I'm glad to see you've been taking care of him, I heard you worked together in the past."
"Oh? You two are already acquainted?" Kakashi asked curiously, "I had figured the same last name was just a coincidence." With how many were required to enlist, it wasn't too uncommon for families to be deployed together. He had checked over the new gun that Itachi had brought and returned it after ensuring it was all in working order.
"Yes, but it's been a few years since we've last met." Sakura shrugged. The truth was that, even though she was best friends with his brother, Sakura knew little about Itachi. In the time that he had been in the village, he was always little more than the enigmatic big brother figure, coming to take Sasuke home and saying nothing more than a polite passing sentence or two to her or Naruto. At some point, she thought she remembered Sasuke mentioning that Itachi had been sent away to attend school in one of the cities, but couldn't be quite sure that she remembered right.
"I see. I was going to take him to the range to test this new gun, but now that you're here, I'll trust you to it. Report to my office in the morning and tell me how it goes." And with a wave, the Captain was gone.
The silence that fell over them was uncomfortable. It wouldn't have happened if it were Sasuke instead, but Sakura quickly forced away that train of thought. She shouldn't be so quick to make comparisons that she had no right to make.
"Did you fight in the last war?" she asked on their way to the gun range, then realized it was a stupid thing to ask. He had most likely been ordered to serve, as had most of the men in Konoha. So she quickly changed her question, "Where were you stationed?"
"Mmm, I didn't serve in the first war, my illness prevented me from undergoing training and being sent to the field."
Ah, she vaguely remembered whispers about his disease from her childhood. Though it was all overheard snippets of the Uchiha family gossiping and whatever Sasuke had told them. It had sounded rather serious at the time, though he had never looked worse for wear. Even now, he seemed healthy. Well, he was rather pale, but that had always been a characteristically Uchiha trait.
"I see. And what of now?"
He hesitated, if only for a fraction of a second. "I have undergone many treatments," he replied, "But no, it is not completely cured."
For some reason, that made her angry. Irrationally so. It wasn't any of her business, so she had no right to feel anything over it, but she couldn't help the emotion welling, burning in the depths of her stomach. "Konoha sent a sick man to the front lines?" she seethed, "Knowing full well your condition?"
He didn't respond at first, only unclipping the pistol from his belt to test it, as Kakashi had instructed. He fired it once, and she flinched away from the sound. Two more shots followed, and she managed to control her reaction. Instead, she focused on the target, which now held a hole through the bullseye, and two more in the immediate surrounding ring.
After he reattached the gun to his hip, he finally answered her. "I appreciate the sentiment, Sakura-san, but you shouldn't be upset on my account. In any case, I think you should worry about your own health." Her reaction to his weapon had not gone unnoticed. Of course. He had always been observant.
"I am physically well, which is all that is required for enlisted," she snapped, the rage that had been building finally spilling over, "You, on the other hand, can't recover from your illness without proper medical treatment. Your life is already at risk, and they're just planning on speeding up the process!"
To this, the corners of his mouth twitched downward, and his eyebrows drew together ever so slightly. "Many lives were lost in the last war, Sakura," Itachi sighed. His voice was calm, but threads of exasperation were laced within it. "There's no helping the fact. I believe they assigned me as spotter because it's less physical exhaustion. They have done at least that."
The heat in her voice faded, but it still maintained some bite and she was no less accepting of the situation. "How are you okay with that?" she asked, furrowing her eyebrows in a familiar mix of confusion and anger.
He looked away. "From a young age, I've known I would die young. I suppose this isn't much different."
"Ah," she said, her hands clenching by her side, and nothing more.
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Hearing gunshots had been one thing, pulling the trigger was another. She had spent the short week before their deployment almost exclusively at the range, firing blanks until the quiver in her trigger finger ceased and she could fire without hesitation. Luckily, her aim hadn't taken a hit, and she could still hit the bullseye as reliably as ever.
It had been the first day in the range that stuck out to her the most. She had woken up early on purpose, so that there would be no one to watch her struggle in the abilities that were supposed to be her specialties, the only things she was capable of doing. It felt strange, standing with the target so far away, like a sensation both foreign and familiar. Had 1000 meters really always been such a long distance? It wouldn't matter anyway, since the only thing she had loaded into her rifle were blanks, but the sight of those black rings stared at her dauntingly, challenging her. Mocking her.
Sakura frowned, pushing those thoughts away and setting herself to work instead. The motions were natural, instinctual, and she fell into them easily and without much thought. Click back the safety, raise it to her shoulder, adjust the scope if needed, line up the shot, and-
For the first time in a while long (but not the first time in her life) she faltered. Her mind screamed at her to pull the trigger, an infuriatingly simple action that every other soldier could do without fault. She gripped the gun tightly, shaking with intensity and concentration, but as she tried again and again and again, her fingers refused to listen and the gun sat useless in her hands.
With a snarl, she threw her rifle against the floor, and it was a miracle that it didn't misfire. Even though no real damage would have been done, since there were no real bullets loaded in, it still wouldn't have been good had it gone off. She let out a frustrated scream, slamming a fist against the wall that separated her firing lane from the next.
"You're up rather early."
Sakura whirled to face the direction the voice had come from.
Itachi stood in the entrance, dressed in his uniform and looking exactly like a perfect soldier right out of the handbook. All that was missing was the starry-eyed gaze. The thought made her stomach churn.
"I could say the same for you," she replied wearily, too wrapped up in herself to feel ashamed that he caught the tailends of her tantrum. She turned away from him and picked up her weapon from the floor, inspecting it over for damages. Fortunately, there was only a small dent in the handle, but that was purely cosmetic.
He set up a few lanes to the left of her. She tried to ignore him and pretend that she was still alone in the range. The gun righted itself in her grip once more.
She didn't think that she hated Itachi, because that would be childish and wrong when she knew so little about him. But she hated everything about him. She hated his unwavering gaze. His disregard for his own life. The sympathy and pity in his voice when he had spoken to her just days before. The fact that he never had to go to war before now. The fact that he got to live and have a childhood and be free when she was on the battlefield risking her life for Konoha and its people and everyone she has never met or seen and him.
But really all of the other things didn't matter. They were all arbitrary points that forced themselves to the surface of her mind to try to convince herself to hate him. Above all else it was his presence. More specifically, his presence there, just a few yards away, separated from her by thin, flimsy walls. The thought was terrifying, it suffocated her, curled around her neck with icy fingers and choked the air from her lungs. Sakura wanted to leave, because she never asked for this and she certainly never asked to be this way. She never asked him to be there. If things had been her way, it would have been Sasuke. Actually, if things went her way there would be no war. There wouldn't have been a first war.
The gun in her hands fired, the evidence not lying in a hole in some arbitrary piece of paper with rings of ink painted on them, but in the trailing smoke that rose from the metal tip. The sudden sound shocked her, and she flinched away from the gun, but didn't let it fall from her grasp. Her heart sped up, or perhaps it stopped beating altogether, she couldn't quite tell, and tendrils of black encroached upon the corners of her vision.
From three lanes down, the sound of gunfire continued.
Sakura thought she would be sick, so she ran. And ran. And ran.
(Because she was a coward.)
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They were deployed the following week.
It had only been a short time, yet so much had already changed. With hours upon hours spent in the shooting range, Sakura's trigger finger rarely wavered, if at all, and her aim had improved since she had last been on the field. And, at the very least, she could breathe around Itachi. It wasn't his fault, and she truly didn't hate him, it had been a whirlwind of emotion that he had been unfortunate enough to be swept up in.
In reality, Itachi was nice, in a word. Perhaps a bit too polite and spaced out during some inconvenient times, but she could admit that he did his job and he did it well, which was all she could really ask for. Yet past that courteous and cool exterior, there was something that he did a rather good job of hiding. She couldn't blame him.
She saw a lot of Sasuke in him. The comparison made her flinch and she reminded herself to write a letter to him and Naruto when they arrived in Iwa.
The troops from Foxtrot 12 were called Platoon 24. Most of them were veterans of the last war and did not require the initial training that all soldiers were required to complete before seeing the battlefield. They were sent, by boat, to the rocky shores of Iwa, where Konoha forces have already managed to set up a base near the shoreline.
Within this platoon were both Sakura and Itachi, and they spent the ride to Iwa getting well acquainted with the new tools that had been developed between the years of war. The most important was the earpiece radio, which allowed discrete long distance communication. It meant that Itachi could travel closer to the camp to locate and tag previously imperceptible enemies.
They arrived swiftly, and the first thing of notice was how different the terrain was compared to that of Kiri. Gone were the swampy marshes and unbearable heat that seemed to slow down everything around it. Instead, it was replaced with towering hills and mountains, with bitter and biting cold, and uneven, rocky land for as far as the eye could see. It was no closer to the familiar friendly lands of home than Kiri had been, but it was still preferable to the muck that she had to wade through before.
The base in Iwa had no name as of yet, and it didn't really deserve one either. It was merely a messy and unorganized collection of tents. There were no permanent buildings as of yet, and the construction was prioritized on the building of a wall around them for the barest bit of protection in this foreign land. With Konoha having only been at war for a month now, the lack of a protective barrier was unsurprising, but none the less unsettling.
Life there was not easy in the camp. All supplies must either be scavenged from the area or brought in by boat or air drop from Konoha. Food was not the only thing rationed. Ammunition, filtered water, spare clothing, and even medical supplies were counted and locked away from the wandering hands of restless soldiers.
From the moment Platoon 24 arrived, it was abundantly clear that were wasn't much space to work with. It wasn't quite a matter of land as it was a matter of suitable places to lie down to sleep. Tents were something that were almost never sent in supply drops, no matter how frequently they were suggested, and soldiers were packed into wherever they could fit.
Sakura ended up having to share a tent with Itachi. With this, she had no qualms, even if it was a bit cramped. And though she certainly would have preferred a private one for herself, which was a luxury afforded to her in the past, she was certainly in no position to complain. With the night watch duties keeping the sleep schedules on rotation, there was just barely enough tents for all the soldiers to sleep.
The new arrivals were given a single week to get used to the uncomfortable life of the base before they are assigned to their first mission. Kakashi, who traveled with the platoon as the commanding officer, found them during the breakfast bell. They would head out early the next morning, and with any luck, would reach their destination by mid day and without any unforeseen interruptions.
"Good luck," Kiba muttered, through a mouthful of rations. He had been a part of Naruto's squad back at Foxtrot 3 during the last war, and while Sakura could not claim that they were friends, it was comforting to have some sense of familiarity around her. And in any case, it was someone to talk to and keep her from completely losing her mind.
"Thanks." She sighed, and then rose from her seat.
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The mission was a success. Rough, perhaps, but a success nonetheless. They had sustained several casualties, and though Sakura did not know them or their names, she mourned them silently.
At the very least, the mission proved that she and Itachi worked well together. They were efficient, and got the job done, though they it was certainly not as smooth as she was accustomed to. But that was neither of their faults. Even so, the word partners left a bitter taste in her mouth and she could not bring herself to ever think of them as such.
If hearing gunfire and firing a gun had been small steps, then the act of taking a life was a leap across a canyon. "Are you okay?" Itachi whispered, low and barely audible to even her at her position at his side. Together with the rest of Platoon 24, they stood at the gates, waiting for instructions to begin their assignment.
"I'm fine."
"You'll be able to shoot, then?"
"Worry about yourself," she snapped, clutching tight the strap of the gun that was slung across her back and turning away from him.
He did not seem to believe her, but if he had more to add, he did not voice it.
Only a few hours later, they sat far above the battleground, far away from the brunt of the action, and she readied herself. Itachi reported the wind and distance to her. He had forgone his binoculars and she her scope, which made their already difficult task even harder. The day was sunny and the glare would have surely given away their position. Another sniper and his spotter, similarly without their scope or binoculars, sat on the ground and tucked deep into the thick underbrush, about three and a half kilometers away. The distance was meant to confuse the targets, since shots would be coming from different directions, but just close enough so they could fall back to each other for backup if needed.
Unlike the range, Sakura had no time to hesitate. There were real consequences now if she couldn't pull herself together. Itachi had found their first target and she forced her trembling fingers still and the perilous thoughts out of her mind. She fired the rifle and with the sound, her stomach churned and threatened to rise to her throat. But that was another thing they could not afford, so she pressed forward and completed their mission.
By the time the short battle was over, she had pulled the trigger four times and landed her shot three. What remained of the platoon set up camp in one of the canyons, it was decided that they would head back to base in the morning. Sakura sat by the small fire and cleaned her weapon, slowly and absentmindedly. Itachi sat down next to her quietly.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, softly, as if apologizing for how roughly she had spoken to him earlier. Her fingers fiddled with the smooth metal of the gun, taking the parts she had stripped off and putting it back together.
"Fortunate, I think. I don't think I would have…" He trailed off slowly, the words falling from his lips and his gaze turning to something past her.
Sakura furrowed her eyebrows. She was used to him getting lost in his train of thought, but never in the middle of a conversation, she wasn't quite sure how to react.
He blinked, and his eyes suddenly did not seem so distant. "It didn't feel real," he concluded, not quite picking up where he had left off, "Like I wasn't really there."
"I… see."
She didn't. But she knew this was his first mission and that in itself was enough explanation. In any case, he was doing far better than her when she had gone on her first all those years ago.
"What about yourself?"
"Tired," she said simply, and he nodded in understanding.
The rest of the night passed by in a comfortable silence. It was only a week since she arrived. Two since she was deployed. She just wanted to go home, but war was war and it spared no one.
.
.
.
Yeah so Sakura has PTSD and, even though this has only been briefly touched on, Itachi has dissociative disorder, or more specifically depersonalization-derealization disorder.
The reason that Sakura reacts so strongly to him being there in the range is because of her own conviction to be strong. She's convinced herself that all she's good at is shooting, so if someone is there to witness her failing at this one thing, it would be hurtful. But unfortunately for her, Itachi is pretty observant. Konoha doesn't provide much funding or research to mental health and as such, Sakura is pretty dismissive of it.