One more day has elapsed. I did it again.
Sakura and Ino met at Ino's garden to pick some flowers for a floral arrangement for a wedding ceremony. Sakura was happy to see her friend because it was a distraction from her daily emotional struggles. The girls picked the colors according to the bride's choices. Of course Ino was smart to recommend flowers that are easy to grow in this time of year, no extra effort needed in taking care of them had they been a different species. While talking, Sakura's eye caught a 10 year old boy running from a younger girl following him with a bucket. Sakura smiled, but then she saw him bending to pass under the branch of the tree. He stumbled and a sharp tip pierced his eye . Sakura's hands started trembling and she heard Ino in the distance:
"If you don't like these, we can pick others. There's no need to ruin this bouquet."
"Ha? Oh...yes, I am sorry. " She looked again and the boy was lying on the ground laughing with the girl. It wasn't the first time her imagination ran wild. More often than never, Sakura found herself strolling through the village looking at the citizens.
Out of the blue, dark thoughts cross her mind: I hope he breaks his spine., I hope he dies., I think she'll break her leg .They got her terrified. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. These thoughts couldn't possibly be hers. Someone must have put her under genjutsu. Someone must be messing with her brain, right? She always shook her head in disapproval to all this darkness, shut her eyes tight and tried to think of something else.
Sakura had been in control of her mind so nobody noticed anything different about her before the person who was closer to Sakura than anyone else felt there was something off about her student.
Whenever Lady Tsunade and Sakura went to the hospital together for their joined shift, Sakura always made up excuses to stay behind or stop walking. " I didn't know they brought new books at the library.", "That roof looks like it needs some fixing.". Lady Tsunade eyed her, but didn't speak her mind about it. She put Shizune in charge of keeping an eye over the pink haired girl.
Sakura was performing a surgery. A few minutes before the it was over, beads of sweat covered her forehead and she had a severe headache. She washed her hands in the sink and noticed the yellow color of her face. She came out of the bathroom and then back into the surgery room. Pain as sharp as a dagger stabbed her abdomen. Her right hand pressed hard against the aching part of her body in an attempt to relieve the pain. It didn't go unnoticed by Shizune who watched everything from the outside through the glass of the window. A few minutes later, Sakura moved slowly towards the exit. Once outside, she walked normally as if nothing happened.
Shizune followed Sakura for a whole week and noticed how the girl was apathetic, didn't leave the house when it wasn't absolutely necessary, she lay on the floor more often than the bed. Shizune often saw Sakura hugging her knees while sitting on the sofa, staring at the walls for hours. Lady Tsunade also noticed how Sakura took twice as long to finish the books she borrowed from her shishou than before.
Shizune reported back to Lady Tsunade and they both decided it was best to act sooner rather than later because something serious was going on with Sakura.
Later that night, Sakura went home after her usual shift at the hospital when she heard squeals. A bearded man had Tonton's tail in his left hand.
"Let's make him stake. I'm starving" said the man.
Sakura couldn't let Lady Tsunade's favorite pet be eaten by some stranger, so she intervened.
"Wait!". She grabbed him by the wrist just when the man was trying to stab the pig. When she wanted to snap his face in 2, Sakura felt a slight pain in the back of her neck and her vision turned black. The man transformed into Lady Tsunade, who carried Sakura over her shoulder back into the hospital. Shizune and Tsunade thoroughly checked Sakura and they both sighed.
"What should we do?" asked Shizune.
"Let her sleep for now. Tell me when she wakes up."
"Yes, my Lady." Shizune covered Sakura's belly with boswellia serrata tree compresses and replaced them every couple of hours.
Sakura woke up in the middle on the night, agitated and very tired, like she woke up every morning. There was something cold on her belly. The ceiling didn't look like the ceiling at home. She touched her abdomen and scratched a bit, then brought her fingers to her face and saw them covered in green. She smelled herbs which she tried to identify, but failed.
"They must be rare."
Tonton wiggled in Shizune's lap and woke her up. The woman quickly tried to find excuses for abducting Sakura, but the girl rushed to speak first:
"I am sorry, I think I worked too much yesterday. Please don't tell shishou that I fainted on the street."
A shadow fell over Shizune's black eyes, half closing her eyelids. Tsunade appeared from behind the door, looking at her worriedly. Sakura's eyes widened for a moment, then she felt ashamed and looked at the hands in her lap.
"You should have told me. I could have helped you."
"I didn't want you to worry over nothing. It's not serious, I can handle it. I am sorry. " Sakura said while faking a smile.
"Don't say that." Shizune intervened.
"You won't feel any better if you stay here. Your body associates Konoha and all the people here with stress. You need a change of scenery. Go to a place with new people, away from here for a while, until you recover. Then come back and you will be the old you again. You know, it's not unusual for a girl your age to suffer from this disease. It's because of stress that you..."
"Please don't say more".
Tsunade saw tears in Sakura's eyes and decided to let the matter go.
"Ok. You can rest here for the night, I won't let anyone know about this. Please think about what I told you. " Tsunade stroked her hair with a soft look in her eyes as if she was looking at her own child before she left the room followed by a very happy Tonton and Shizune running to get him.
Sakura wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and looked to the side at the dust particles dancing in the moonlight. Would it be that bad if I left? But where? What would I tell Ino? What if things only get worse?Dark thoughts enveloped her mind again and she shook her head in disapproval. She lay on the bed on her stomach. This was the only sleeping position she could use because it was the least painful. She put her hand between her stomach and the bed for additional pressure on the inside wound and tried to go back to sleep. Sakura tried to heal it many times, but failed because the pain came from the heart. How can I heal a pained heart?
The next day, when Sakura woke up, she went straight to her shishou's office.
"I thought about what you told me last night and I am willing to try."
"I see. What do you think about going to Suna? It's close to us and at least you know Gaara, Kankurou and Temari. No place can be any more different from Konoha than the desert. They will help you and you will help them. " Lady Tsunade said.
"I understand. How long will I stay there?"
"I talked to the Kazekage and he agreed to keep you there for 3 months to a year, if you agree. But this isn't a vacation. You will work, so you won't have time to think about..."
"And what will Naruto and the others think I am doing?" Sakura interrupted Tsunade.
"We will tell them you left on a mission.", which wasn't a lie. Sakura didn't seem very happy about this, but nothing ever made her happy lately. At least now, that somebody actually saw through her defense, she didn't have to hide anymore.