Summary: Sakura is pleasantly surprised to find that she is not dead. Except she is, because she's a ghost. Being dead isn't going to stop her from finding her way home. Even if she is a ghost, it means she can't haunt the Kyuubi for eternity. If only someone could see her.
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Friendship
Warnings: after the fact character death, grief dealt with in unhealthy ways, ghost!Sakura, a Sasuke that acknowledges his emotions, suicide is briefly mentioned and then abandon as an option, so don't think it's the answer, maybe a touch of victim blaming since this chapter's Sasuke isn't last chapter's, references to previous trauma, and slight deviations from canon.
Rating: T
Sakura was uncertain how long she had lain in that spot. It seemed like ages to her since she had been engulfed by the orange light for a second time.
Only this time, she had not awoken to familiar surroundings. Instead the pinkette was surrounded by darkness.
She was too frazzled to discern just where she had ended up this time.
Actually, given that, best she could tell, she was in a sea of black nothingness and couldn't feel a single part of her body—she had tried numerous times to simply wiggle her toes, but that was to no avail, she was probably dead.
She had never put a lot of stock into the idea of an afterlife. She listened to Kakashi's tale of talking with his father after Pein's invasion with a pound of salt because, well, it was Kakashi-sensei and he lied every day. The man only told the truth in matters of life and death or when his smutty novels were involved. And while yes, it technically was a matter of life and death (the jounin had died and was revived), he dropped the act when there were lives at stake. And when he had told Sakura that story he had been a little too cheery. His eye had curved into a crescent moon, something that happened only when he was about to force them to suffer in the guise of D-ranks missions that were super important to the security of the village; his words, always delivered with a special chirrupy tone.
Still, considering how she died, which she could not think about right now, refused to think about, was absolutely not remembering because her mind would most certainly fracture further if she had to acknowledge Sasuke, a version of him, her brain helpfully reminds her, had tormented, tortured and raped a version of her, you, and she would be very grateful if her own subconscious wasn't sabotaging her efforts to dissociate that world's Sasuke and Sakura from hers, the fact that she was now proof that alternate universes did exist, not that the pinkette would ever be able to prove it since she was in fact dead, and the image she had had of Naruto at the end, Sakura had found herself hopeful.
But the afterlife appeared to be nothing but a never ending expanse of emptiness and inky darkness. Black was all she could see, or was it she couldn't see, and she sensed nothing.
And that was a tough pill to swallow. Sakura could almost believe that she had dreamt her traveling to some alternate universe where Sasuke had killed her, which was the most she would admit to because Sasuke trying to kill her was nothing new, if not for the fact that she had not woken to Naruto's concerned face hovering over her prone form, whether it be at her apartment, the hospital, or even still at their team's training grounds.
Since that had not happened, Sakura could only assume that she had well and truly died.
In all honesty, she found it really hard to believe. She was having a lot of trouble wrapping her head around the fact that, barely eighteen, she was already dead. She had survived the same war twice, but it was Sasuke of all people that killed her.
And Naruto, her mind viciously reminded her. The other world Sasuke's had killed the Naruto of that world as well. It was tantamount to killing her Naruto because the man had been exactly the same in both worlds.
Sakura closed her eyes, for all the good it would do her, against the onslaught of images. Naruto with a sizeable hole in his chest which was smoking slightly. The blood practically racing out of his body. The fury and cruelty and madness etched on Sasuke's face when he turned his Chidori on her at the end.
The hardest part of it all wasn't even that Naruto was dead or that her end had come at Sasuke's hand. Nor that she suddenly had multiple memories of the same event. Sakura was well practiced in compartmentalizing her mind. Even everything she was not prepared to deal with was confronted in the form of her inner self. What caused Sakura the most heartache was that she had died in a strange world; not her own. There had been no breathless goodbyes to her closest friends and her team. She had died alone, a replacement of that other world's Sakura.
She couldn't think like that. It was ridiculous to assign blame for Naruto's death when it wasn't her Naruto.
Her eyes flew open as soon as Sakura realized she had actually managed to close them, all thoughts of her gruesome death vanishing to the far parts of her mind, where they would probably never be dealt with because she was unsure if her mind could handle the stress of acknowledging that a version of Sasuke had killed her yet she wasn't dead.
Encouraged by the knowledge that she was not in fact dead, Sakura resumed attempting to move various parts of her body, to little effect.
A small part of the jounin was beginning to fear that she had wound up in a position just as dangerous as the one she had escaped from. She couldn't help but think of all the possible reasons for why she was unable to move.
The top theory was that she was currently under the effect of drugs, which lead to the conclusion that she had been kidnapped again. That recurring theme was getting old quickly. Sakura tried to access her chakra network, in hopes of hurrying the breakdown of whatever it was in her system along, only to panic when she couldn't locate it.
She couldn't feel her chakra. What in the Sage's name had they dosed her with? Which village was advanced enough to develop a chemical that completely cut a ninja off from his or her chakra? Kumo was highly militarized. Sakura wouldn't put it past them to create such a drug. But chemical weaponry was Grass's modus operandi. The village specialized in poisons and neurotoxins and other drugs that were almost untraceable once introduced to a person's system.
Dying once had hurt, and the rosette was in no rush to experience it again. She prayed that physically dying wasn't the key to moving to the next world. Not only was the idea horrifying and likely to turn her suicidal so she could return home, but Sakura was uncomfortable with the thought of killing other versions of herself in order to get back to her own world. She wasn't going to die repeatedly until she miraculous woke up in her world. How many lives would it have taken to stumble back to her own world? Even one was regrettable, though she was confident that world's Sakura would have also preferred death over a life of imprisonment at the Uchiha's Sharingan.
Not to mention it was extremely creepy. She was going to find a way to kill the Kyuubi when this was over. Bijuu or not.
Thoroughly fed up, Sakura focused her every thought on throwing her upper body forward, not caring that it would be just as ineffective as her previous one hundred attempts to move, determined to regain control of her body by sheer will power alone.
Miraculously, it worked this time. "Yes!" she shouted with glee, feeling inordinately proud of herself for simply sitting up.
Until she suddenly found herself staring at a wall of dirt.
Sakura twisted her head around but saw nothing besides the soft brown soil. Had she been buried alive? She shuddered at the thought. From first-hand experience, she knew suffocating was an unpleasant experience, and it would be infinitely many times worse to suffocate trapped in a wooden box in the ground.
Her brain processes came to an abrupt halt. Logically, there were so many things wrong with this situation. Maybe she was dead or hallucinating because of a lack of oxygen flowing to her brain.
First, if she had been buried alive, she would have smacked into the lid of her coffin and not be seeing dirt. Second, the rationale didn't explain why she still couldn't feel stimulation from any part of her body. And finally, what possible reason could there be for Sakura being able to see the earthen ground through the tip of her nose?
"It's a side effect of the drugs. It has to be," she muttered at length. Sakura had no choice but to accept that she was out of her mind at the moment.
Without warning, her insubstantial body began to rise. The dirt remained stationary as she floated up through it.
In order to keep her mind from utterly shattering, Sakura chose to look at the positive side of things. For one, she just learned that the phrase pale as a ghost was inaccurate, as it implied they had some color. She had none. She was transparent. Completely invisible. See through. Intangible. Lacking matter and color and life.
The world loved its ironies, apparently, because Sakura found herself in a cemetery once on the surface. But she was pleased to note the polished granite headstones aligned in neat rows that bore the insignia of the Leaf Village etched under the name and the red flame shaped statue that represented Konoha's Will of Fire in the distance, letting her know that it was Konoha's graveyard.
The dirt around the grave she stood before was dark, indicating that it had been dug recently. There were two metal cylinders that held a mix of violet-blue, yellow and pink flowers. They were bright and cheery and Sakura thought it fitting that such lively plants graced this grave. And to think she finally found a use for the floral lessons all kunoichi were required to take.
The bluebells, flowers dangling over the edge of the cylinder, represented gratitude, and the deep pink almost purple flowers in the center were sweet pea representing goodbye. The yellow tulips interspersed throughout added a lot of warmth to the bouquet. Sakura only hoped the person who gifted them meant to say there had been happiness in life and not hopeless love.
Drawn in by the colors, which strongly reminded Sakura of herself, Naruto and Sasuke, she bent down to read the name carved in the light brown headstone.
Sakura Haruno
March 28, 66 A.K. – June 6, 79 A.K.
May the Will of Fire light the way to the next world.
Sakura, whose brain had shut down for the third time from the shock of seeing her own name on the grave, let out a strangled laugh. Because thus far, a bright orange light had shepherded her from one world to the next. Because she was dead again and hadn't even had time to process her first death. Because she had to laugh so she wouldn't think about how there was no rhyme or reason to what the next world would be like (she had at least thought time would continue to flow linearly, but that was obviously not the case), seeing as how she died in the Chuunin Exams in this one.
The second stage, if she remembered correctly. The Forest of Death. Morbidly, she wondered what had been responsible for her demise. The team from Otogakure? She had gotten lucky then, saved by the arrival of Lee's and Ino's teams. Or one of the numerous, unnatural beasts that dwelled within the dense forest?
Sakura was pulled out of her dark thoughts by the sound of approaching footsteps. Feeling rather foolish, she ducked behind a tombstone further down the row. She was transparent for the Sage's sake. It wouldn't matter if she hovered over the visitor's shoulder, she probably wouldn't be seen.
But whoever had entered the graveyard deserved privacy, so she wasn't willing to test that.
A familiar head of silver came to a stop before the headstone marking her grave. Sakura watched her former sensei, whom simply stood motionless, unseeing eyes locked on the engraved rock. His mind was far away.
"I'm sorry."
Sakura frowned at Kakashi's apology. It was unexpected, because the man never apologized for anything. He just invented wild excuses that no one paid attention to. Those two words had carried an unbelievable amount of regret.
"I shouldn't have let you sign up for the Chuunin exams. I knew you weren't ready. How could you be?" he scoffed, anger thick. "It's not like I taught you anything. You were my student for four months and the only thing I taught you was how to climb a tree.
"I told the Sandaime that I wasn't fit to be a sensei," Kakashi said wistfully, "but I didn't have a choice. The council insisted that I be Sasuke's jounin sensei. No one else would do."
Sakura had never wanted to hug her sensei so badly before. She had never wanted to, period, actually, but that wasn't the point. Kakashi sounded so broken, standing there in front of her grave extoling his failures with regards to his female student.
"You achieved your dream, Sakura. At least, I assume so, based on the glances you always threw Sasuke's way and your introduction on the first day. He noticed you at last."
If the rosette had still been twelve years old, her heart would have fluttered at earning his recognition. Either Sasuke's or Kakashi's. She remembered being pretty frustrated with her silver haired sensei at this point in time. Physical representation of her astral body aside, she was nineteen, not twelve. Still it was nice be acknowledged by the jounin.
"You don't know this, but you saved him. Leapt between him and Orochimaru. He couldn't pull back in time and wound up biting you instead. Obviously, you didn't survive, but you gave the ANBU and Hokage enough time to arrive and the snake ran."
That mollified Sakura. She might be stuck as a ghost in this world, but at least her death hadn't been in vain. Her sacrifice had spared Sasuke the Cursed Seal, and that meant so many things would change, the least of which might be the avenger's decision to leave the village.
Surely that was worth dying for? She chose not to acknowledge the fact that Sasuke was two for two in being involved in her death, even if it was indirectly this time. She was quite frankly concerned that he would use her death as a legitimate excuse to exact vengeance on Orochimaru, since his first revenge plot helped fuel the Fourth Great Shinobi War.
"So I suppose I did teach you more than tree climbing. The value of teammates and working together." Even though Kakashi couldn't hear her, Sakura spoke the words with him. "Those who break the rules are trash, but those that abandon their comrades are worse than trash."
Silence fell after his impassioned speech. Sakura rose from her crouch to stand at his side, pretending that the easing of his shoulders was because he could sense her presence and not because he had relieved his guilt by speaking over her dead body.
"I should be going," he said after a long while. "We're getting a new team member today. I'm five hours late."
Sakura swore he said that last part with pride. She watched forlornly as he disappeared via shunsin, leaving behind a swirl of leaves. What was she supposed to do in this world? She was already dead.
Green eyes were drawn to the pile of discarded leaves. Well, she had nothing better to do. Why not follow her sensei and find out who they had chosen to replace her.
Sakura didn't make it to Team Seven's bridge.
It was stupid, really. He wouldn't be able to see her, and it wasn't like this Sasuke had driven a Chidori into her chest. He might not have even learned it at this point, considering her death would have disqualified their team. Unless she died after she reached the tower. Anko was a huge fan of exploiting loopholes, and the waivers never stated that all three team members had to be alive at the end of the five days, just that they had to reach the tower alive.
It really wasn't important, because part of the third exam or not, Kakashi wouldn't have started the Uchiha on the one jutsu he created yet.
But still, Sakura couldn't bring herself to see him. She feared she would see only the insane version that had killed her, and she couldn't handle that. Not now.
So she went to Ino's home instead, hoping that the girl who was more attuned to spiritual energy, a requirement for a Yamanaka, might derive some comfort from her ghostly presence.
Her best friend slash love rival slash actual rival was an absolute mess. Her blonde hair was lank and oily, a sign that Ino had not showered in days. Her eyes were dull, sunken orbs of blue in a too thin, too tight, waxy face. Ino had clearly lost some weight, for her usual outfit no longer hugged her body.
Sakura might have mistaken Ino for a corpse if she hadn't known better.
She dropped onto the bed next to her friend, who she had given up for a boy who couldn't care less about her at the time. Sakura was firmly not thinking about the kiss they shared before she found herself flung into a world where Sasuke hated her. She was close enough that she could put her fingers through Ino's.
"Oh, Ino. I'm sorry"
Sakura was sorry for many reasons. For leaving Ino behind in this world so abruptly. For allowing their shared feelings to come between them. For doubting the sincerity of her Ino. Once upon a time the pinkette had thought that Ino had only befriended her to make herself look better in comparison to Sasuke. The young girl's devastation was proof of their bond. Since Sakura wouldn't have the chance to give apologies to her Ino, this one would have to accept them.
Of course, her lament went unheard.
Sakura was suddenly struck with the realization that she was invisible. It wasn't a concept she was unfamiliar with. When she was alive, she had faded into the background as easily as if she wasn't there because she wasn't anyone special. Just a girl from a civilian family with a preconceived notion of how romantic it would be to be a shinobi.
She understood, and truly didn't begrudge Kakashi's preference of the boys over her. What was she compared to the last Uchiha scion, who was so traumatized he probably shouldn't have been allowed to continue in his chosen career and a very serious flight risk, and the jailer of the Kyuubi who also happened to be the son of his sensei the Fourth Hokage? Before everything had fallen apart, Sakura hadn't put any effort into training and bettering herself. The invasion and its aftermath shattered her rose colored glasses.
Now it might as well be that she didn't exist. Which she technically didn't because she was dead, but that wasn't the point. No one could see her. No one could hear her.
The blonde curled in on herself, broken fingernails digging into her comforter. She breathed raggedly, hiccupping occasionally, and dry sobbing because her tears had long since ran dry.
Sakura could only watch with frustration as her best friend grieved. Irrationally, she felt that this situation was entirely unfair, and she wasn't referring to winding up in another universe. Wasn't there supposed to be one person who could see her? Someone who needed her?
That's how it worked in the books.
Ino was destroying herself in her grief. If her best friend didn't still need her, then who did?
Sakura probably would not have noticed if not for Kakashi-sensei.
When Ino had failed, the pink haired girl had hoped that a Hyuuga might be able to interact with her. The clan's kekkei genkai allowed them to see chakra, and Sakura reasoned that, since she still existed in an intangible form, she had to be made of spiritual chakra.
Hinata and Neji had proved incapable of seeing her, but Sakura had not given up so easily. She was certain that there had to be at least one person that could see her. Or at least, she desperately hoped so. Her time in this world would be heartbreaking if she could do naught but watch her friends and family from the sidelines wholly unnoticed as they picked up the pieces and moved on without her.
For nearly a month she had avoided checking in on her team, because even though she couldn't be seen, she was avoiding Sasuke. Sakura sank into the ground every time she so much as glimpsed black hair. She had tested it with the rest of her generation. On a lark she had also dropped into the Hokage's tower for a week. A multitude of people from all walks of life had come through, usually by way of window or shunshin to Sarutobi's exasperation. No one's eyes widened in shock at seeing a young girl's ghost sitting on the Hokage's desk nor heard her explaining in explicit detail how his second successor dealt with the enemy that was paperwork.
There was one particularly delightful incident (to Sakura anyway) where it had accumulated on her desk, and being Tsunade, the busty woman had broken out the sake, claiming that she'd need it to stave off a headache if she had to complete that much paperwork. One of the mission requests had enraged her, causing her to slam a fist on her desk, upending her sake bottle. The alcohol quickly soaked a good portion of her workload, and in a stroke of extremely unfortunate luck, that was when Shikamaru answered his summons. His casual flicking of ash from the tip of his cigarette set the Hogake's desk ablaze, and both shinobi had been too stunned to do anything more than watch as a week's worth of requests and reports went up in smoke.
It was harder to tell what horrified her Shishou more. That she had accidentally lost a week of paperwork and several hours of actually doing her job, or that protocol requiring all things to be written out in triplicate ensured she lost nothing and that she had to start all over.
But Sakura could only haunt the other people in her life for so long. Inevitably, she was drawn back to Team Seven like a bad penny.
It had been four days since she silently observed her team's daily practice. She had been insanely curious to learn who it was that replaced her. It was too early for Danzou to force Sai onto their team, not to mention he'd have no reason too. Sai's assignment had been to kill Sasuke, and probably steal his eyes while he was at it.
After everything she had been through, Sakura would be hard pressed to label every enemy as evil. Orochimaru was one, for his callous experiments on children and disregard for their lives. Madara was another. Even without his Eye of the Moon Plan, which was only an illusion of peace and not worth all of the lives that had been taken in its pursuit, Madara had set Konoha on the path of destruction by sowing distrust of the Uchiha clan in the rest of the village. She didn't view Kabuto on the same level. He was a broken man that had been betrayed on many levels.
But she considered Danzou evil. The man had committed numerous crimes in what he claimed was in the best interests of the village. Bloodline theft, sometimes not even waiting for the bodies to be buried. Child abduction and induction into his illegal ranks where he taught them to forget everything that made them human. He carried out his own missions and interfered with countless authorized ones. His actions, which were supposed to protect Konoha, endangered her, turning the Akatsuki from a group of resistance fighters into the greatest threat the village would face and sending Kabuto and all the information he had on Konoha to Orochimaru in gift wrap. It was a miracle that the silver haired man hadn't simply run off to Kumogakure or Iwagakure and sold his knowledge and secrets to the highest bidder. Even as he lay dying he insisted that his actions had been right.
The new girl's name was Shīru Kohaku. It meant seal in amber, which was apt considering her gold-orange eyes could stop someone in his tracks. The Kohaku clan was a minor shinobi clan that lived on Konoha's borders, near Amegakure, and Sakura couldn't recall them having any kekkei genkai.
She fit on Team Seven well enough and Shīru was more skilled than Sakura had been at this point. She wielded what the jounin would call a modified nunchuck. Instead of two metal handles connected by a chain, there was one handle and the other was the hilt of a short sword.
Sakura didn't see how that worked. Certainly a bladed weapon made the nunchuck more dangerous than a normal nunchuck, but swinging and twirling that blade around was just as likely to hit its wielder as it was its target. Plus, not being held in the hand, there would be significantly less force behind her sword strokes. They would be easy to deflect and incapable of causing much damage. Her misgivings aside, Shīru handled it with ease born from practice and familiarity.
Kakashi had them sparring the last couple of days. One on one, two on one, and an amusing, to the ghostly spectator anyway, one on three where he proved he is one of Konoha's elite even though he doesn't behave that way.
She watched from her spot in front of the memorial stone as he set the gennin to an exercise involving an unhealthy amount of explosive tags buried just beneath the surface and telling them not to get themselves blown up crossing the field.
Sasuke's dark eyes shot in her direction again, something he had been doing often. Sakura had ignored it, knowing that he couldn't see her and that he was probably brooding about her name on the stone, thinking her a fool for getting involved when he told her to run.
Her memories of this world had come much faster than the previous. She could recall with clarity the moment of her death.
She had been frozen, overwhelmed and shaking like a leaf from the sheer malice that was Orochimaru's killing intent. Never before had she felt something so utterly terrifying. It was so fearsome that Sakura imagined her death in the space of a second. Her heart might have failed from shock if not for Sasuke jolting her to awareness by grabbing her and jumping into the trees.
From there, she had watched helpless as Sasuke, and then Naruto, tried to fight off the Sannin. And she remembered not even hesitating when the snake's neck stretched and elongated. A slight difference in this world's Sakura, she had learned to use chakra to run away from her bullies and prided herself on being as fast as Shunshin Shisui. In the blink of an eye she had positioned herself in front of her dark haired teammate, knocking him out of the way.
A pair of fangs sank into her neck and her entire body felt like it had been set on fire. At that point she lost consciousness. Immense pain was her only companion. Sakura zoned in and out of the land of the living sporadically, enough to know Naruto and Sasuke found an Earth scroll and made it to the tower, completing the second exam. The two had been allowed to continue onto the third part of the exam because, technically, she had not died in the forest. Because she had reached the tower alive, Team Seven had passed the second exam. The other jounin sensei, the proctors, and even the Hokage hadn't agreed with her decision, but the purple haired woman had the final say with regards to the second exam.
In all honesty, Sakura wasn't surprised that she hadn't survived receiving the seal. She knew from research, and talking with Anko, that one in ten who received it survived the process, and Sakura hadn't possessed a strong will. There wasn't some ultimate goal that she had to live for. Not until Sasuke left the village.
Aside from being a unique, and vastly disturbing, experience, it was food for thought. Sakura wondered if that was how Naruto felt every time one of his Shadow Clones was dispelled. Retaining his clones' memories would go a long way towards explaining his exuberant personality. How he managed to remain so lighthearted when faced with countless memories of his own death stymied Sakura, for she was still struggling with her three competing life histories.
"What's the hold up, teme?" Naruto shouted from his position several feet away. He jumped about anxiously, shoving a fist in the air. "Kakashi-sensei said we only have until noon. That's two hours, teme. If we don't get started now we won't finish and then I won't be able to get ramen with Iruka-sensei and he's paying and he can only come today and—"
"Shut up," the black haired boy snapped, visibly irritated at Naruto's ramen related rambling. Naruto blinked, then huffed, turning his back on Sasuke and proceeded to drag Shīru to the explosively rigged training field.
"No using your clones as fodder, Naruto," Kakashi called, not looking up from his orange novel.
The blond tilted his head to the side, confused expression coming over his face. "What's fodder?"
"It means your clones are expendable," their sensei explained. "And you can't use them to trigger the tags preemptively."
"You mean I could have done that?" Naruto shouted, whirling to point an accusing finger at the jounin. "Just because you're a lazy bastard doesn't mean that I would cheat."
In the time it took to blink Kakashi hefted the hyperactive gennin, punted him into the river, and returned to the tree he had been observing practice from, picking up his smutty novel once more and continuing where he left off. Naruto dragged himself out of the Naka River, orange jumpsuit sodden and dripping, and was shooting the jounin mutinous looks.
"That ought to make this exercise a challenge for you, Naruto. The excess weight is more likely to trigger an explosive tag," commented Kakashi with appalling cheer.
Caught up in the excitement and chaos that her team was legendary for, Sakura completely forgot about Sasuke's out of place behavior.
"Sakura." Reflexively, the ghostly girl turned to answer the person who had spoken her name.
There was a glint of emotion in the Uchiha's eyes, but it was gone so quickly that Sakura convinced herself that she had imagined it. It wasn't like any look she had seen in his eyes before, and she considered herself an expert on reading Sasuke's thoughts and feelings via his eyes.
Later, when she had time to review the situation, she would say that Sasuke looked triumphant. No, that wasn't quite right.
Vindicated. It was more like he had confirmed something, done something impossible, finally succeeded where he had previously failed.
But she didn't pay the matter any more attention. As soon as she had turned to look at him, Sasuke had stalked off to join his teammates, loudly scoffing at Naruto's singed clothes and starting another argument between the two about who was better.
Not wanting to feel like some creepy stalker watching people while they slept, Sakura returned to her grave every night.
It wasn't as lonely as it could be. Everyone in her graduating class had stopped by at least once. Kakashi came by every morning and Sakura wanted him to stop. Standing before her grave wallowing in guilt, punishing himself, was a waste. The past was the past. He couldn't change what had happened.
The silver haired man carried plenty of baggage on his shoulders already. He shouldn't have been so anxious to add her to that weight. Sakura had chosen to participate. She had understood that there was a chance she could die in the exams. She might have naïvely thought the proctors would prevent loss of life, because Konoha was not bloodthirsty like Kirigakure, but she had known going in that the Chuunin Exams would be nothing like the Gennin Graduation one. The other villages would not be as honorable as Konoha.
Even Anko had stopped by once. The short-tempered, provocatively dressed woman had been frank, denouncing Sakura as an idiot for getting between Orochimaru and his prize. She mocked her intelligence as well, claiming that an academy student would have known to run. It was just like that woman to shift the blame to someone else.
Then the sarcastic, tomboyish mask had been replaced with a sorrowful face as she genuinely lamented that Sakura should not have been in that position at all, and that it was Anko's responsibility, as the proctor, to be aware of any deception. If she had caught on sooner, had listened to her instincts that had been fairly screaming that something was wrong with that kunoichi from Grass instead of dismissing her as weird, she might not be dead.
The only one she hadn't seen was the avenger. But that was only to be expected. Sasuke had hated her as gennin. Rightfully so as she was little more than an annoying fangirl begging for his attention. Plus, he wasn't the type to admit his guilt, even if he was in the wrong.
Not, for once, that this situation was his fault. That lied entirely with Orochimaru's obsession with immortality and desire for the Sharingan so he could learn every jutsu that existed. It wasn't like Sasuke had sent the nuke-nin an application for the opportunity to be his next vessel.
So Sakura could honestly say that she was shocked when Sasuke maneuvered through the cemetery, footsteps light as a ghost's, to stand at her grave.
Curiosity drove her to perch atop her gravestone, where she silently observed the boy, whose face was shadowed by his bangs. Had he come to apologize, to claim responsibility for her demise in some way like her previous visitors? He wasn't going to swear vengeance on her behalf, would he? That was the last thing she wanted, for him to run right into Orochimaru's arms.
"How long have you been a ghost?"
For a minute, the cemetery was still. Sakura didn't register his words at first, conversationally delivered; already anticipating they'd be an angry ridicule. Therefore, she felt completely justified in her overreaction.
She toppled backwards off her gravestone, and due to her lack in concentration, actually sank a few inches into the earth before she recovered. In a flash she was back up and standing before the Uchiha, who jerked back at her sudden movement.
"You can see me?" she whispered, strangled, hating herself for not knowing if the hoarseness was a result of disbelief or hope.
Of all the people she had actually been close to, whom she might have been able to comfort and ease their grief if only she could be seen, her parents and Ino most notably, it was Sasuke that could see her? She had wasted so much time avoiding him, fearing the effect looking into his eyes with or without the Sharingan, would have on her already fractured psyche. While she had desperately needed that time to come to terms with her trauma so that she wouldn't be laying the blame at the feet of a twelve year old boy who had no idea other universes existed, never mind the atrocities that other versions of him would commit, Sakura couldn't help but mourn her month of solitude. A month wasted searching for the one person whom she could interact with, and she had never considered that it would be the boy she had died to protect. And to think she had once prided herself on being the smart one.
Sasuke gave her his patented disdainful scowl, letting her know exactly what he thought of that question. "Of course I can." The otherwise I wouldn't have asked was unsaid, but Sakura heard it nonetheless.
"Since you got your new teammate," Sakura answered.
She had avoided checking in on her team, because even though she had thought she couldn't be seen, she still wasn't ready to confront this world's version of Sasuke. It was just her luck that the one person she didn't want to see was the only one that could see her. The last four days had required all of her mental strength to not flinch whenever he happened to look her way, seeing his gleeful expression as he used her and killed her. As it was, she flinched every time his eyes bled red during training. Turns out it wasn't just happenstance that he glanced over at her so often, but that he could actually see her.
His face briefly showed his surprise. "Over a month? I hadn't thought it had been that long. I didn't see you until four days ago."
The pinkette was silent. She wasn't going to share that she had been ignoring him with a determination that rivaled Lee's. He wouldn't take it well and would demand answers she couldn't give. It was better that Sasuke believed her to be his guilty conscious, a figment of his imagination, anything that wasn't the truth, so that when she disappeared he wouldn't think twice of it.
"Why are you here?" Why didn't you move on? Why did you linger?
Sakura bit back her first response, to blame Naruto, instead shrugging casually, "I don't know." Sasuke would come to learn with time that it was always the blond's fault. The fool couldn't go within three feet of a battle without getting the person's life story and ultimately convincing them to quit being a bad guy.
The shift in expression was slight, but she caught the incredulous look he gave her. "Am I the only one who can see you?"
"So far, yes."
"Don't you feel alone?"
Sakura furrowed her eyebrows, studying her former teammate. Sasuke was awfully talkative and loose with his emotions. She half wondered if he truly did blame himself and seeing her ghost was the kunai that broke his back and now he was finally dealing with the trauma instead of ignoring it.
"Sometimes," she granted. "Mostly during the nights when I can't watch over someone. Well, I suppose I could, but I would feel like some kind of pervert."
Her words had the intended affect. Sasuke snorted, ducking his head to the side and trying to cover it up with a grunt when he realized what he had done. Sakura's grin stretched from ear to ear.
"Why did you do it?" His voice cracked with anger. The pinkette was unsurprised by the turn their conversation took. It was only a matter of time before he brought it up. "And don't," Sasuke hissed, suddenly furious, "say it was because you loved me."
It was regretful, she thought, when the idea of being loved by someone else caused pain.
The next time she had to relieve the Chuunin Exams, Sakura was going to convince her team to head straight for the tower and avoid the possibility of running into the Snake Sannin at all.
After a minute and a half of silence, Sasuke adopted an annoyed expression, looking ready to stalk out of the cemetery. She didn't know what answer to give him. The Sakura of this world had wanted to protect him because she cared for him. Sakura was hesitant to give him a response she knew he would dislike. Sasuke was not the ideal person she had envisioned being able to see her, but he was the only one and she didn't want to chase him away. One month of watching from the fringes, unable to interact, was heart-wrenching enough. She didn't know if she'd be able to handle being around Team Seven knowing that he could see her and was willfully ignoring her. If there was one thing Sakura hated, it was being overlooked. She had worked too hard, come too far since her gennin days.
"You're one of my precious people, Sasuke," she said at long last, taking a page out of Naruto's book. Said boy was dissatisfied with her reply. "I wouldn't go as far as to call it love, but I genuinely liked you. I wanted you to be happy."
Sakura eventually discerned that the flame she had carried for her teammate wasn't love. But it was still something. Infatuation. Puppy love. Call it what you will, she couldn't, and would not, deny that she held strong feelings for him once upon a time. Feelings that were being rekindled by her Sasuke.
"I know it's not what you want to hear, but it is the truth."
Sasuke's displeased look didn't budge. Gaze studious and contemplative, he turned away from her transparent form, dark eyes falling on her tombstone once more. The fingers of his right hand twitched, like he had wanted to reach out and trace the inscription but restrained himself.
"I haven't been loved for a long time."
The pinkette felt distinctly awkward at that admission. It was something rather private and she didn't think she was supposed to overhear him.
"After what that man did, I convinced myself that love was a weakness. Emotions were weakness. They'd only prevent me from becoming strong enough to achieve my goal."
Was he really going to spill his darkest secrets to her? In a convoluted way, it made sense. It's not like she could tell anyone else. Why was it she always had to do something extreme to get his attention? But she really wasn't comfortable with this. Sakura had trained as a medic-nin, not a psychiatrist.
"I can't care for anyone. He'll kill them. I can't lose another person."
Sakura's dead heart was breaking. She had never imagined there had been a motive behind his keeping his distance; that Sasuke feared if he came to care about his team that his older brother would swoop in and take them from him.
Nor had she thought that her death would take such a drastic toll on him. He did have a heart underneath that bristly attitude. One that had been pushed to its limits when his clan and family was massacred, and Sakura's death just might be the reason he gives up on love altogether.
She wanted nothing more than to hold him close and tell him that he was wrong. Of course he was loved. This world's Sakura had loved him. Naruto saw the broody bastard as his best friend and brother. And Kakashi cared, too, in his own weird way. But she knew Sasuke would ignore her if she tried to convince him of that, so she instead chose to correct his misconceptions about emotions hindering his progress.
"That's not true, Sasuke." She laid a ghostly hand on his shoulder and he looked up, revealing red rimmed eyes. It wasn't the right moment to tell him that Itachi was the anti-hero in the story and not the bad guy. But it was the perfect time to push him into following Naruto's ideals. "Just look at Naruto. He becomes stronger when he has someone to protect."
Sasuke looked away, not wanting to acknowledge the truth in her words.
"We're stronger as a team. Look at what we managed against Zabuza? We could help, if you'd let us," she offered gently.
He snorted, derisively rolling his eyes in her direction. "How are you going to help? You're dead."
Sakura ignored the venom in his words, a plan already forming in her mind. Now that she was dead, Sasuke found it easier to talk to her, to drop his mask and stop guarding himself. She had learned more about him tonight than she had in all their time on Team Seven. If the jounin stayed by his side, ingrained herself in his life, he'd learn to trust her. At that point, she'd be able to reveal Itachi's truth. Hopefully, she could keep him from going ballistic and vowing to destroy Konoha.
Currently, what Sasuke cared most about was use. Specifically, how useful people were to him, and she was in the unique position to be of the most use to the dark haired avenger. All she had to do was prove it, and tomorrow was the perfect opportunity to do so.
"Ne, shouldn't you be heading home?" she questioned, none too subtly changing the topic, knowing that her teammate would take her silence as she intended it, uncertainty. He would better accept her invisible help if it was his idea. "The finals of the Chuunin Exam are tomorrow, isn't it?"
The dark haired boy lifted one shoulder in a lazy imitation of a shrug. "No one there is strong enough to beat me."
Sakura hid her smirk, knowing just how wrong he was. It was too bad the village would be invaded; she would have enjoyed watching Naruto beat him. One lesson Naruto Uzumaki had taught the world was that limits were only for fools that believed in them. Or even Gaara. Though she really shouldn't wish for that because the Suna Jinchuuriki was more likely to kill Sasuke at this point in time. Without the Cursed Seal to aid him, Sasuke was at a disadvantage.
There was no denying that the Uchiha was talented, prodigal even. Even with only afternoon training sessions with Kakashi after he dismissed Shīru and Naruto, the preteen had grown in skill. But the next day's matches would end differently because this Sasuke was not her Sasuke. Whether or not he would win she would never know, since the combined Sand and Sound invasion disrupted his match.
Would there be an invasion tomorrow? Now that Sakura considered it, Orochimaru might not follow through with the rest of his plan since he failed to give the Cursed Seal to Sasuke.
The Sannin wasn't the type to give up easily, and no she did not just think about how Naruto was the same. Because they were totally different. It wasn't like the invasion had anything to do with his desires to have the Uchiha as his next vessel. He wanted to deal a devastating blow to Konoha by killing the Third Hokage, so chances were the plans to attack were still in motion.
"You're coming to watch."
"Wouldn't miss it," she answered, though he hadn't actually asked a question. If nothing else, Suna had no reason to call it off, and Sakura should be there to help him. "Good luck."
"Luck is for weaklings," he scoffed. Sasuke opened his mouth to say more, but then shut it, exiting the graveyard abruptly. The rosette watched him go.
How Sakura wished she had something to distract herself with other than her dark thoughts.
Sakura figured she ought to be surprised that Sasuke wasn't amongst the potential chuunin lining up in the arena. After leaving the village, the dark haired boy had developed a knack for showing up dramatically in the last place they expected to encounter him. Of all the bad habits Sasuke could have picked up from their sensei, he chose the worst one.
The rest of the competitors, lined up before the proctor to show them off to the crowd, were as Sakura remembered. Ino, shaken by her death, had quit when the opportunity was presented to her at the preliminaries.
Naruto exploded into action when Genma called for the match to begin. The blond persevered when others would have forfeited, and with a decoy clone, burst out of the ground to sock Neji in the jaw. It was as awe-inspiring as the first time, and true to himself, he convinced Neji that his negative view of Hinata because of her position in the Hyuuga clan and his hatred of the clan were misguided.
"I'll change the Hyuuga clan, when I become Hokage!" he declared.
It was a nice sentiment, although the Hokage didn't have the power to dictate how a clan operated. But, Naruto's ability to change people's hearts worked just as well on authority figures as it did on their enemies. Young Hanabi, emotions as jaded as her cousin's, would eventually become clan head, because Hinata could not as the Hokage's wife because of conflict of interests (and every person across the Elemental Nations knew it was only a matter of time before the blond was given the hat and married his girl), was also changed by this battle, seeing her talented cousin unable to move as Naruto regaled him with a tale of how he failed the graduation exam three times because of his poor excuse for a clone. She would wrestle the Hyuuga into a more modern mindset, doing away with the seal and branch house.
Kankuro chose not to withdraw, but she wished she had since his match was rather uneventful. Pitted against Shino and his hive of chakra leeching bugs, he didn't stand a chance. Breaking and reforming his chakra threads didn't prevent them from reaching his puppet, crawling into the joint and rendering it immobile.
Of course, it was all a distraction so that Shino could plant a female kikaichū upon him. The males in his colony could track her scent anywhere, so Kankuro's switching his body with his puppet trick failed to deceive his opponent. No less than he deserved. If she remembered correctly, he had pulled something similar in both the first and the preliminary stages of the exams. One-trick ponies did not last long in the shinobi world.
The kikaichū descended upon him, swarming until every inch was covered in the chakra eating bugs. Kankuro collapsed, screaming, as he was quickly drained of chakra. Distasteful as it looked, Sakura would have kept her mouth shut. She had no desire to accidentally swallow an insect. A shudder ran down her spine at the thought of it.
Sakura would say that Shikamaru's battle was interesting, but that would be a lie. Describing it as such would imply that the Nara heir put in more effort than was necessary to make a splash and show off all his chuunin-esque qualities. As it was, he would be the only shinobi awarded a flak jacket. Still, for someone who claimed fighting and girls were troublesome, the center of his strategy was to draw out the match by making Temari lose her head. It was a simple task, because the Suna kunoichi loathed how laid back he was and his lack of ambition.
When the time for Sasuke's match finally came, the gennin in question arriving just before his match was announced, the rosette couldn't contain her anxiousness anymore. She abandoned her haunt up in the competitor's box to hover beside Genma. If an invasion was to occur still, she wanted to be nearby to warn Sasuke.
Dark eyes flickered in her direction. Sakura waved cheerfully. "Good luck."
Sasuke, shooting a heavy glance at Gaara's serene form, rolled his eyes. "I don't need luck."
Genma tongued the senbon in his mouth, eyeing the Uchiha curiously. The clan's arrogance was well known, and Sasuke appeared to have it in spades, but from what he heard from Kakashi when he dropped by the jounin station, he was also a man of few words. Plus, he couldn't help but notice how the boy didn't direct the statement at either him or Gaara. Had he suffered a mental break with the death of his teammate earlier in the exams? Was he checked over at all?
It wasn't really his prerogative, so beyond a decision to let his jounin sensei know, Genma announced the start of the match and leapt back to the wall so he'd be a safe distance from the fight.
Intangible as she was, Sakura saw no reason to move. She remained between the two preteens as they sized each other up. Looking at it objectively, there was no decisive outcome. Gaara had a nearly impenetrable defense that protected him unconsciously, one he could manipulate without hand signs. Sasuke was fast and combined that speed with heavy hits that were meant to be devastating attacks. Plus he had a trump in the Sharingan which would allow him to cast genjutsu and keep up with the future Kazekage's speed.
Knowing this, and exactly what went down during his month of training, Sakura was surprised. Her teammate was nowhere near as fast as she expected.
Sasuke tested his opponent's sand. His form moved fluidly as he shifted from quick uppercut jabs to low kicks to spinning on his hands and slamming his calf into Gaara's chest. The sand shifted perfectly in tune to absorb the blow.
He jumped back, studying the red head once more, not impressed, but intrigued by the challenge his sand defense presented. Sakura couldn't resist the opportunity to tease him.
"What was that about not needing luck? Because no one who was left was strong enough to beat you?"
Sasuke was irritated by her teasing. She could tell by the way his eyebrows almost knitted together. But he deftly ignored her, something she was used to after years of experience. Sakura was unbothered by his attitude. Now that he had tested the waters, so to speak, it was time to get serious and step it up a notch. He couldn't afford to split his attention between her and his deadly opponent. She was just pleased she was able to rub his cockiness in his face.
"I like a challenge," he said at length. "Proves that I'm stronger when I win." Sakura nodded her head sagely.
"Of course," she said patronizingly. "Unless you lose because you underestimate Gaara. Do me a favor and don't take as long as Shikamaru. I'm not sitting through another two hour battle."
Sasuke shot her another sharp looking, whether because he understood her hint that speed was necessary to defeat Gaara or in response to her calling the red head by name, she didn't know. In retrospect, it wouldn't do to be familiar about the friends she had made in her universe. Sasuke would pick up on the tone and she would be stuck scrambling for decent explanations as to why she spoke Gaara's name with fondness. Honestly, it was difficult to not love the guy. Once he had gotten over his homicidal tendencies (meaning that Naruto had knocked the value of friendship into him), the sand wielder was easy going. He had opened up his home to her for a brief stint when she was on loan to Suna's hospital for a week. And what an insane week that had been, trying to get the doctors, nurses, and volunteers into a semblance of working order.
Perhaps he had seen underneath the underneath, because the Uchiha's next series of blows were delivered at a greater speed. However, it still wasn't enough to get pass Gaara's guard.
Sasuke's frustration was easy to see in the tense way he held himself. It was the one thing that she found surprising about him. Sasuke, for all that he pretended, felt emotions as deeply as Naruto. It didn't take much to work him up. The second he lost control in a fight, he also lost his handle on his emotions.
As she expected, after a smattering of attacks that failed to get through Gaara's sand defense, Sasuke retreated up the arena wall, hands flashing in a familiar sequence. The sound of birds chirping increased, growing louder until they drowned out all other noise. Sasuke's arm shook from the force of the jutsu as he continued to pour chakra into what would become his signature technique. And wasn't it ironic that Kakashi's lone original jutsu would be stolen and evolved by an Uchiha.
In the blink of an eye he was racing across the arena floor, his Chidori scarring the ground.
Sakura froze. The stadium around her vanished. In its place was seventeen year old Naruto, pierced through by Sasuke's hand. Blood dripped down the back of the orange jacket. It was the Uchiha, face twisted in insanity, as he plunged his electric coated hand into her own chest.
Kakashi was a man of many masks. He had layers of them, and not just the physical masks that hid the lower half of his face. His students had tried to see underneath once, but their attempts were all too obvious. And in Sakura's case, ill-planned. Why she thought he would remove his mask before the memorial stone he couldn't fathom. Her name was now on that very stone. She was one more on a list of people he needed forgiveness from.
The jounin slouched slightly at the thought of his deceased student, something that only Gai picked up on. His self-proclaimed eternal rival didn't comment, didn't act beyond a quick glance, before boisterously commenting on Sasuke's flames of youth, and a snide remark that his speed would never compare to Lee's. It was easy to know what was on Kakashi's mind. He should be attending this event with a full team of gennin, maybe even see all three of them earn promotions. Gai was feeling the same, with his star pupil in the hospital with no chance of recovery.
His extravagant behavior was just another layer. The Icha Icha novels absolutely were works of genius, but he giggled over them in public to keep everyone else at a distance. Everyone he was closed to suffered. His father. His team. His sensei. Kakashi wished he had been strong enough to send Team Seven back to the academy, gone against the Council's wishes, but how could he turn away Obito's and Minato's legacies?
Sakura had paid the price for his incompetence. Torn between not wanting to coach green gennins and teach them the realities of the world that existed outside their classroom, and wanting to honor the teammate he hadn't appreciated until it was too late, Kakashi's female student had fallen through the cracks. It didn't help that she reminded him of Rin at times. Sometimes, he would look at her and see Rin's scared brown eyes as she begged Kakashi to kill her so Iwagakure couldn't use her to unleash one of the Bijuu on Konoha.
The tell-tale sound of his own original jutsu pierced the dark fog surrounding his thoughts. "So soon," he murmured, watching the Chidori crackle to life in Sasuke's palm. The boy only had enough chakra to use that particular technique twice, so he couldn't afford a mistake. He needed to make this attack count.
"His speed needs work if he ever wants to master that jutsu," Gai mused next to him. "I could train him, if you're willing?"
Kakashi turned to show him his lone eye. Sasuke would swear vengeance on him next if he agreed to the Green Beast's proposal. "Hm? Did you say something?" The silver haired ninja promptly ignored Gai's rant on how he was so hip and cool. He often acted oblivious, but there was no one in Konoha with a sharper eye. Kakashi's mind was a steel trap. It needed to be in order to protect where he had previously failed.
Sasuke's attack slammed home, penetrating the ball of sand the Suna shinobi had hidden behind. The blood curdling scream that followed told everyone that Sasuke had hit his target.
The crowd roared their approval, but Kakashi cared naught for the fight. He cared about the pale form that suddenly appeared just to the side of the battle. Even washed of all color, he would recognize that figure. But he could see her with all the color and detail she had possessed in life. The bright pink hair which matched the beautiful flowers she was named for. Sparkling green eyes, always eager to face the day. The joy in her laughter when she challenged the boys to a race, who were always too stubborn to refuse.
"Sakura?"
Even lacking color, she looked washed out, like a child when her worst nightmare came to life. Eyes glazed over, trapped in her own memories. Had Kakashi overlooked something about the Forest of Death? She couldn't have seen the Chidori before. The bridge had been covered with fog when he had slain Haku. She didn't have a horrible memory to associate the sound of the Chidori to.
But even as he watched, Sasuke's Chidori dissipated, and his female student's transparent figure vanished. She must have been a figment of his guilt, manifesting only now due to his maudlin thoughts about how Sakura should have been there.
Perhaps it was time for Kakashi to leave the past in the past.
Sakura forced herself back to the present. She didn't have time to think about the previous world. This was it. If there was to be an invasion, it was going to start now. Viridian eyes scanned the stadium. She was uncertain if the invasion would come to pass, since Kankuro had actually fought his match against Shino. But just like last time, civilians and shinobis alike were falling victim to the wide area genjutsu, slumping in their seats or listing completely out of them.
The other two thirds of the Sand siblings jumped down to the arena's floor, landing on either side of Gaara. With shared looks of uncertainty, they grabbed their brother and hauled him away. But they didn't move towards the forest. Instead they took off in the direction of Konoha's center.
The only thing there was . . . "The Hokage's Tower."
Sasuke's head whipped to the side. "What did you say?"
"They're heading for the tower, but I don't understand why?" There wasn't enough space for Gaara to fully transform there. Not to mention they were guaranteed to be waylaid by every Leaf shinobi they came across.
Unless they intended to unleash Shukaku in the center of the village and let him destroy everything. It would be just like when Madara summoned the Kyuubi. Konoha would be faced with one of the Bijuu with no forewarning or preparation.
"Sasuke, listen," she said urgently. "You have to follow them. Your opponent is a Jinchuuriki. He holds one of the Bijuu within him."
His eyes were blown wide in surprise. "Like the Kyuubi?" he demanded.
"Exactly. If Gaara releases his Bijuu in the village—"
"Konoha will be decimated," Sasuke finished evenly.
"Just like it was twelve years ago." Sakura saw no problem dropping hints about Naruto's secret. The law only said that no one could tell Naruto about the burdened he bared. It was a law made in blind ignorance anyway. Only the Sandaime could believe that the village would treat Naruto as a boy and not a demon. Sarutobi was lucky that the blond was literally the densest person to exist, or he would have put two and two together during his first year at the academy. Hopefully, once Sasuke understood where Naruto's power came from, he wouldn't be quite so gung-ho and willing to do anything necessary to acquire it himself.
"Ah, good, you've already figured out for yourself the danger we are facing. I have a mission for you, Sasuke," Kakashi said seriously. "This will be your second A-rank mission. Chase down Gaara no Sabaku and defeat him. Do not let him release the One-Tail."
Sasuke scoffed. "I was already going to do that. Bastard can't just run away from a fight like that."
"This is not an exam any more. This is war. There won't be a proctor to call an end to the match. If you can't treat this situation with severity I'll have you seeing civilians into the tunnel as you should be doing as you're still a gennin."
Sasuke grit his teeth at the blatant threat. Sakura laid a hand upon his shoulder. "You know he's right. If not for the fact he's your jounin commander and his orders exceed any but the Hokage's, shinobi are supposed to defend those that cannot defend themselves. We are not just murderers in the night."
She probably should be concerned that she felt no guilt over revealing state secrets, but Sakura couldn't bring herself to care. The decisions made surrounding the Uchiha clan and Naruto were just horrendous.
"I understand," he said at last.
"Good, and Sasuke," their sensei called as the preteen prepared to leap away, eye twisting into the crescent moon shape that spelled bad news, "I want to talk to you and Sakura when the dust has settled."
Sakura, baffled, wasn't given the chance to respond as both her comrades ran off. Since when could Kakashi see her? She was half tempted to chase the man down and demand answers, ghost or not she would kick his ass if he had been capable of seeing her this whole time and had done nothing, but she couldn't waste the opportunity to prove her use to Sasuke.
Catching up to her teammate was simple. All she needed to do was follow the trail of destruction leading in towards the heart of the village. Judging from the wide scale devastation she was seeing, Sakura assumed Gaara was already partially transformed.
When she finally caught up, it was to the site of Gaara, layered in sand to create human sized Shukaku limbs from head to knee, his lower legs were still human. His black eyes vibrated in their sockets. It was an eerie sight to witness. Sakura idly mused how Sasuke must feel to have such an unsteady gaze directed at him.
"Blood!" the Suna nin cried. "Mother demands it! Your village will drown in blood to prove my existence!"
Sakura shuddered at the unintentional reminder of Pein's invasion, how he had decimated the village entirely before Naruto had intervened.
"You need to stall him," she ordered Sasuke. "Kakashi will send Naruto along shortly."
Sharingan eyes glared at her. The pinkette's flinch went unregistered. "I don't need his help!" snarled Sasuke. "Gaara is my fight."
"Have you lost it? Kakashi literally just told you this isn't about him being your opponent anymore. You are a shinobi of Konoha and it is your duty to defeat him. So forget about the damn promotion and work with Naruto so that he doesn't kill any more of our people!"
Maybe it was due to her cursing, but Sasuke visibly took a deep breath and centered himself. He was then forced to leap up and away to avoid a barrage of sand projectiles.
"And what would you recommend?" he bit out once she settled beside him again.
Sakura laid out her plan. "Don't use your Chidori yet." She was very careful to not trip over the name of that jutsu. "You'll only be able to use it once more, so you'll have to make it count. He's currently focused on you. Naruto's clones will be a great distraction, but until he gets here you need to keep Gaara's attention. Lead the fight away. Outside the village if you can manage it, but a training ground would suffice. It'll minimize damage and lives lost. Naruto's been working on a summoning contract. If Gaara fully releases the One-Tail his toads will be able to help."
"Toads."
"Giant toads," she cheerfully clarified. "Also, if you know any water jutsu, it might slow him down." Sasuke glared balefully. He was well aware that she knew he did not possess any water jutsu.
"What about his siblings?"
Green eyes flickered in the direction of Kankuro and Temari, both of whom were cowering on a nearby rooftop. Blindly loyal enough to point their youngest brother in the direction of the Hokage tower, but not trusting or courageous enough to fight beside him to get the job done. From what Gamakichi of all beings had eventually cleared up for her, Gaara's siblings hadn't interfered until he had been beaten. "They'll most likely follow but won't get involved. They're more terrified of him than you are. I wouldn't worry about them."
Sasuke nodded, trusting her analysis of the situation. His opening salvo was his clan's Great Fireball jutsu. The blistering ball of fire raced between the two ninja. Sakura winced at the resulting damage of using a 3600 degree fire on a crowded street. Several building fronts were already warping. Gaara batted the attack away, seemingly unharmed. The building to his left erupted in flames. The dancing shadows behind him and the hypnotic gleam of the fire reflected in his eyes did nothing to quell Sakura's concerns that the Uchiha would last long enough for their third teammate to arrive.
Sasuke seemed to sense this was the best opportunity he had to move the fight to other advantageous grounds. He balanced atop a power line, spat a, thankfully, smaller fireball at his enemy, and retreated in the opposite direction of Gaara's final goal. The Suna nin gave chase eagerly, still screaming about how his existence would not be denied and how Shukaku wouldn't be satisfied until he was drenched in the blood of his enemies.
If Sakura wasn't already aware of what a shitty childhood Gaara had had, raised solely to be his village's weapon and how he would move on to overcome it and become Kazekage, she would have felt pity for him. What was the world coming to when Naruto's life of neglect, isolation, harsh words, fearful stares, and an occasional drunk beating were considered decent in terms of the lives Jinchuuriki lived? Only Killer B could claim to have lived a semi-normal life.
She laughed when she cottoned on to Sasuke's plan. Not having any water jutsu in his repertoire, an oversight he would be sure to fix after the invasion, he had lead Gaara to the hot springs.
"Well?" he taunted levelly, easily finding perching on the shift water surface. The ever rising steam distorted Gaara's, who had come to a halt at the edge of the baths, view. Sasuke, shrouded in the center, had given himself the advantage. Thanks to his Sharingan, he wouldn't be fighting blind, and Gaara now had to be extra cautious due to the presence of water. "I thought you were going to kill me!"
Gaara gave an inhuman, shrill scream of rage. This time he launched sand projectiles from every part of his body, followed by a vicious sweeping of his arm, the length of which had been extended by the addition of more sand.
Sasuke retreated further, thus avoiding the blue veined limb, arms crossed in front of his face to protect his eyes from the sand, mind furiously tossing aside every jutsu he knew. He was aware of three water jutsus: the Great Waterfall technique, Water Clone, and the Water Prison. The former two were definitely too advanced for him. While the latter was a C-ranked jutsu, he had never used it before. Plus, his affinity for fire natured jutsu would make utilizing a water technique that much harder.
But he knew, once trapped inside, the water sphere was inescapable. Kakashi had been unable to break free of Momochi's until he and Naruto had intervened, forcing the missing-nin to drop the technique or lose his arm. Hopefully, it would hold against a rampaging Jinchuuriki.
The only downside, aside from it being a jutsu he had never used, was that it was short range. He'd have to get monster to come onto the water, and then Sasuke would only have one chance to trap him. If he failed, regardless of the reason for doing so, the Suna nin wouldn't step foot on the water.
He dug into his weapons pouch and dug out eight shuriken. Temporarily holding them between his teeth as fingers raced through the required hand seals. "Fire style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!" he cried, hiding the four-pronged metal stars within the many fireballs.
It wouldn't amount to more than a distraction. He rather doubted that the either attack would pierce the demon's sand armor, but he couldn't stand around waiting for his idiot of a teammate to make an appearance. He honestly wasn't sure what Sakura was thinking. Naruto might no longer be the dead last he had been in the academy, but he still wasn't stronger than Sasuke. He didn't need the dobe's help to defeat Gaara. He just needed to slow down the monster enough that he could hit him with another Chidori.
"On your left," Sakura warned him. He nimbly danced out of reach of several sand javelin projectiles which retreated back to their source.
The pinkette cursed the fact that she was dead for the umpteenth time, as it left her unable to sense chakra. How much further was Naruto? Surely the blond had already left the stadium. Sage forbid Kakashi hadn't sent him and Shikamaru as back up this time. Even he wasn't foolish enough to let Sasuke face an uncontrolled Gaara alone, right?
Sasuke released another fire technique, this time using his chakra to manipulate the path of the fireballs so that they came at Gaara from behind in an attempt to force him on the water. This attempt similarly failed as Gaara wasn't even inconvenienced by the fireballs.
Luckily for her, for after that unsuccessful attack Sasuke looked like he was contemplating moving the fight back onto solid ground, Naruto leapt forward with a primed kunai, which he sank into the sand flesh at the base of Gaara's tail and detonated.
Sakura couldn't help but open her mouth to uselessly berate the idiot, when he went up in a puff of smoke. Her blond teammate was certainly getting more strategic in his use of unending copies of himself.
The force of the exploding tag that had been wrapped around the kunai's handle propelled Gaara into the water.
"Did ya see that, you bastard?" Naruto did a jig as he crowed.
"You idiot! Don't just stand there."
Before he could respond to Sasuke's scathing retort, Naruto was knocked underwater as Gaara reemerged, sloughing off layers of sand. If possible, his black eyes looked even more crazed.
"Water Prison Jutsu!" Sasuke shouted, only to be flung aside by a giant sand tail as his water orb collapsed. Sakura was impressed the water had even come up from the surface of the baths. Naruto spammed Shadow Clones, using them as cover and to fling himself at Gaara with extra force whenever he saw an opening.
From there, the fight proceeded much like she had been told, seeing as she had missed out on witnessing the majority of it first-hand. Naruto's unconventional 'handbook' made him vastly unpredictable, allowing him to land several strategic blows. Backed up by Sasuke's heavier hits and now more effective fire jutsus, the duo quickly pushed the red head into fully releasing his demon.
Naruto's clones then went from providing overwhelming numbers to acting has physical shields, jumping in front to take the brunt of Shukaku's devastating attacks. If this fight had gone down anything like this in her world, Sakura wondered whether she should admire Naruto's tenacity or scold him for having the self-preservation instincts of a gnat.
"How long are you going to wait before you summon a toad, dobe?"
"Have you been spying on me, teme?" He asked, even as he bit down on his thumb to draw the necessary blood to activate the jutsu. "How'd you know I was learning the summoning jutsu?"
Surprisingly, Gamabunta the chief toad appeared on his first try. Sasuke immediately asked if the toad was capable of water jutsu, earning himself a derisive acknowledgement. For two creatures as massive as they were, both Shukaku and Gamabunta were capable of moving fast. The sudden rainfall from colliding wind and water bullets was torrential and short lived. But after every clash Sakura could see Naruto and Gamabunta directing Shukaku further out of the city.
Sakura's undead heart stopped beating for one terrifying moment when Naruto and Gamabunta transformed into the Kyuubi. Unable to look at the beast, partly because of her fear and partly because she might start screaming obscenities at him for being responsible for her current situation, she turned to find Sasuke's gaze riveted on the Nine-Tailed Fox.
She could see the moment all her of none too subtle hints about Naruto's Jinchuuriki status clicked into place.
Gaara's defeat was all downhill from that point. The Kyuubi's claws sunk into Shukaku's shoulders. Naruto undid his combined transformation, dashing up the sand demon's head while Gamabunta's now webbed appendages grappled uselessly. Sasuke slammed home his last Chidori in the demon's leg.
Shukaku howled in pain, remaining oblivious to the human running up to where Gaara partially protruded from his brow. His sand defense was still automatic it seemed, but not a match against a determined Naruto, who slammed his own head against Gaara's and broke the red head's transformation.
The duo watched from a distance as Shukaku crumbled into particles of sand, leaving both his host and Naruto to free fall several hundred feet.
"We'd best fetch Naruto. He's bound to be exhausted after a transformation of that scale."
Sasuke jolted from his thoughts, and spurred by her words quickly made tracks towards where their teammate fell. They found him, blood streaming down the right side of his face, unable to move any part aside from his neck, using his chin to drag himself closer to Gaara's fallen form as he gave the speech that inevitably was the driving force behind the Suna ninja's desire to become someone his village would respect.
Sasuke easily arranged to carry the now unconscious Naruto by draping one of the blond's arms around his neck and tucking him to his side with an arm on his waist. Sakura spared a cautious back glance at the other two thirds of the Sand Siblings, who had crawled out from whatever tree they were hiding in to pick up their defeated brother. They would eventually become good friends, but she wouldn't put it past them at this point to attack them when their backs were turned.
The trio hurried back to the stadium, for lack of knowing where else to go. The fighting was winding down, as evidenced by their coming across Shikamaru and his jounin sensei on the way in.
Sakura knew intimately, eyeing the devastation left behind as Sand and Sound retreated, that it could be much worse. Even having lived through Konoha's destruction multiple times, her heart felt heavy. She yearned for the days of peace that had come after the war where all she worried about was not getting reamed out by Tsunade for ignoring hospital protocol and avoiding her dark haired teammate like there was a trophy for it.
Pakkun was waiting to lead them to their sensei. Kakashi had made an obvious trail through the enemy hidden in the stands as he carved a path towards the special seating area for dignitaries upon which the Hokage and Orochimaru were still battling.
"How'd it go?" Kakashi asked conversationally, as if the beaten and bloody status his gennin were sporting weren't indicative.
"He beat Gaara," grunted Sasuke, adjusting the blond's weight.
"Really?" his tone indicated he expected nothing less when he sent Naruto to aid his teammate. Sakura could see how its casual delivery rankled Sasuke. His eyes hardened at what he viewed as a dismissal of his abilities. She knew it to mean the other jounin was preoccupied.
Kakashi's gaze finally tilted their direction, eyes flashing from head to toe, tallying physical injuries. "And where did Sakura run off to?"
Said ghost gaped at him, unwilling to believe her sensei had somehow contracted Naruto's foot-in-the-mouth tendencies. Couldn't he have taken a minute to praise Sasuke's performance? Sure, Naruto had dealt the final blow, but he wouldn't have had the opportunity if Sasuke had distracted Shukaku with a Chidori. Not to mention he had handled his own against an extremely unstable Jinchuuriki for several minutes. He had really only gotten thrown around by the concussive force behind Shukaku's air bullets.
At the silver haired man's question, Sasuke's eyes darted to the side, checking that she still hovered in his line of vision. Once assured that Sakura was indeed present, the dark orbs snapped back onto their sensei.
"Hallucinating, sensei? You should get your head checked."
Kakashi's normal eye curled into a cheerful U shape. "I'll give you points for trying the old head injury excuse, but I saw her before you pursued Gaara."
Sakura pressed against Sasuke's side, hissing under her breath for no reason other than it conveyed their shared annoyance. "How'd he see me in the first place? If he's been ignoring me for a month I'm gonna have to ask you to give him One Thousand Years of Death."
"Gladly," was his muttered rejoinder.
"There you are!" Kakashi said brightly. Sakura blinked owlishly at him, only to realize he was indeed staring at her and not just accurately directing his gaze at a point over Sasuke's uninhabited shoulder.
"You can see me?" the words came out just as tightly as they had the first time she spoke them only last night. Sasuke tensed besides her, shifting infinitesimally, just enough to move out of contact with her. Before her Kakashi frowned.
"You just vanished." The pinkette wilted. Kakashi's ability to see her, for whatever reason, was irregular. Still, maybe the longer she spent as a ghost the more people would be able to see her. "We'll have to continue this later," he said. "Looks like Hokage-sama is finishing up with Orochimaru."
True to his words, the barrier surrounding the rooftop was dissolving. The Sound Four converged on their fallen leader, lifting him between them before the ANBU even reached the Sandaime. And damn if they didn't need to train their reaction time. It was deplorable that Orochimaru's henchmen moved faster than those that were supposed to be the village's best and brightest.
"Take Naruto to the hospital. And let Sakura know that we're meeting at eight tomorrow," he ordered. He continued as Sasuke turned to leave, "and I do mean at eight. I want to have this discussion before Shīru shows up."
Unwilling to hover creepily while her male teammates were sleeping off the after effects of battle, Sakura had returned to her plot, anxiously pacing while her mind imagined Kakashi asking all sorts of intrusive questions.
She thought tiptoeing around Sasuke's triggers was hard enough, now she would have to lie to the master of lies. Everybody scoffed and rolled their eyes when Kakashi told one of his ridiculous over the top lies because they were obvious. He exaggerated them specifically to distract attention away from his actual lies. By delivering his false statements in the same manner he spoke normally, his lies passed for truth because everyone, even the Hokage for Sage's sake, was inundated to believe that the only lies Kakashi Hatake told were the ridiculous ones to explain why he spent three hours standing before a memorial monument.
Unable to contain her nerves any longer, Sakura made her way towards Team Seven's training grounds, where she continued her pacing. At least she was no longer pacing above decomposing bodies.
Sakura would likely be alone for a while yet, as it was several hours still before the sun was due to rise. Unconsciously, she found herself staring at her own name on the memorial stone. Trembling fingers reached out to tracing the engraving. How was she supposed to confront Kakashi in a couple of hours, knowing he had unwittingly spilled emotions and thoughts he kept close to the chest to her invisible ears? What about Naruto? Poor Naruto had no clue they'd be meeting, never mind discussing the ghost of a dead teammate that only he hadn't seen yet.
How was she supposed to hide everything she wasn't supposed to know? Sasuke was sure to mention several of the clues she had dropped, and while she could blame some of them on being an invisible ghost that could go anywhere in the village, Kakashi was still an elite jounin and would be able to suss out her lies.
Entrenched in her increasingly worrying thoughts, the rosette just about jumped out of her non-existent skin when Sasuke, carrying a half asleep blond on his shoulder once more, landed next to her. He dropped Naruto, who didn't react, except to drool about his ramen.
Sasuke speared him with a disbelieving look. "I thought you'd want to tell him first."
She bit her lip to contain her giggles. She knew he was thinking Naruto was ridiculous for being able to sleep so easily in the wake of an invasion. Though chakra exhaustion tended to have that effect on him.
"You mean you'll tell him for me," Sakura corrected. "Unless Naruto is secretly related to you, he won't be able to see me." Dark eyes looked at her quizzically. "I have a theory that only the Sharingan can see me. Couldn't tell you why that is, but thus far only you and Kakashi have seen me. The Sharingan is the only you two share."
The last Uchiha shrugged, conceding. It wasn't like she had an abundance of Uchiha to test her theory on. Itachi, Obito and Madara were all directly related. The brothers were descended from Madara, and if her sensei could see her, it was only because he had one of his former teammate's eyes, thus it reasoned that Obito would be able to see her as well.
It was unbelievable that her life—unlife?—in this world had come to revolve around the Uchiha clan.
"By the way, did you really kidnap him and sneak out of the hospital just to convince him you don't need psychiatric help because you're seeing ghosts?"
Sasuke determinedly ignored her.
Informing the blond of her presence went smoother than Sakura had imagined. Based off his reaction to Yamato's scary stories, she was expecting hysterics on the level of covering his ears and attempting to talk over Sasuke.
He started ranting loudly about Sasuke kicking him awake, but was quickly cut off.
"Sakura's a ghost."
Naruto's bright blue eyes flashed crimson, pupils narrowing to become more elongated than round. He rocked back on his heels, clasping hands behind his back. "I know."
He laughed lightly at her gobsmacked expression. "Sensed you yesterday while I was using its chakra. And while we're sharing secrets, I'm holding the Kyuubi in a seal on my stomach." The latter he tossed offhandedly at Sasuke, earning a smirk.
"I know," the dark haired boy parroted. "Sakura told me."
Said ghost fidgeted when Naruto pinned her with wary eyes, but continuing his bout of sudden maturity, he made no comment.
Team Seven settled into a peaceful silence. If their sensei showed up on time, like he had threatened to, they still had over an hour's wait. Not that any one of Kakashi's students actually expected the silver haired jounin to appear at the designated time. They would believe another village managed to impersonate (albeit it not very well if they didn't know Kakashi arrived late to everything; even the ANBU had given up on forcing him to arrive in a timely manner) their sensei before they believed him capable of being on time.
The idyllic silence was shattered by the sound of a thousand chirping birds. Sakura flinched reflexively, once more seeing the assassination jutsu as it slammed home in herself and Naruto. The blue-white lightning was already dissipating when she spotted Kakashi propped against the leftmost wooden post.
"I've never seen such a strong reaction to the Chidori. It's almost as if you've seen that particular jutsu before." The jounin stared dispassionately at her intangible form, flanked by her male teammates whom stood shoulder to shoulder with her. "Which is impossible, because you died never knowing it existed."
Damn that man. His mind was like a steel trap. Sakura had been prepared to talk her way out of anything he threw at her. Being Tsunade's apprentice required rubbing elbows with politicians, thus she had become skilled at manipulating words and perceptions. It wouldn't have been hard to convince Kakashi that she didn't have the answers to give him considering she hardly understood her own situation.
"I have never seen it before I died," she protested weakly, hoping he'd catch the distinction she made at the end and assume that she had witnessed, and consequently be scarred by, his original technique after she had died.
It really was a paper-thin excuse. Maybe Sakura should have lived down to his expectations of her based on her introduction and claimed to be terrified of birds.
Kakashi's eyes, and how did she only just notice the blazing red and black Sharingan was uncovered, narrowed dangerously.
"I know I taught my gennin better than to lie to me."
The pinkette wanted to scoff. Even if he had, it was hypocritical of Kakashi to demand truth from her when he breathed out lies instead of carbon dioxide. "What do you want, sensei? I can't tell you why I'm afraid of the Chidori."
How was that for truth, she thought bitterly. It wasn't as if Sakura could admit half of their team had died on the wrong end of that jutsu.
"I see," he said, deceptively calm. "Then I suppose I'll have to bring this matter to the Hokage."
Sakura snorted. "He can't see me."
"Oh?"
His tone was mockingly inviting. She saw no harm in revealing that nugget of information. "Spent a week sitting on his desk."
Sasuke glared daggers at her. Sakura cursed herself, forgetting that she hadn't told the raven she had spent the first few weeks of her afterlife trying to find anyone that could see her whilst simultaneously avoiding him.
Did it make her a horrible person if she wished that no one had been able to see her? Why did she care that this world's Kakashi didn't trust her? He wasn't her sensei. They didn't share the same rapport, one built from years of interaction. She'd probably be ferried to another world in a couple of months, so Kakashi's suspicion shouldn't hurt.
"You didn't see me either." Kakashi remained unmoved physically, but she enjoyed the way he reared back emotionally, as if she had slapped him, shutters lifting from his eye to show the myriad of emotions he kept hidden under his mask of indifference.
"The day I—awoke, I guess you could say, as a ghost, you were there. Blaming yourself for my death because you weren't much of a teacher." He flinched infinitesimally at the reminder. "I actually don't understand why you or Naruto can suddenly see me."
Sakura was actually curious about the latter, though. Yesterday wasn't the first time Naruto had drawn upon the fox's chakra, so she was certain that the Kyuubi wasn't the determining factor in why the blond could now see her.
"Heard that, huh?"
Her heart pained. She stepped forward, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his midsection. If a ghost could cry she'd be leaving a damp spot on his flak jacket. "Oh sensei. You know it wasn't your fault. All the training in the world wouldn't have helped me survive the bite."
Kakashi didn't reciprocate, not that she had expected him to.
There was more to be said still, but words would have to wait. The faint sound of footsteps announced Shīru's arrival. Sakura silently observed as the silver haired jounin explained that training would be done on their own time for the foreseeable future. All able bodied ninja were being conscripted into cleaning up the village and completing missions to bring in sorely needed revenue.
Sakura tagged along, for lack of anything better to do. Team Seven cleared one sector after another thanks to Naruto's unending ability to replicate himself. Despite having made what must have been a thousand clones fighting Gaara yesterday, he would pop out a dozen copies whenever he needed them.
Curiously, Sasuke would glance her way occasionally, as if to reassure himself that she was still there. She remained at a distance. Last thing they needed was for someone to overhear the last Uchiha talking seemingly to himself. Even if they deemed it an unhealthy coping mechanism, Sakura did not want to draw any more attention to herself.
She was surprised when Kakashi dismissed his team that evening. She had expected him to hint in some way that he wanted the original Team Seven to continue their conversation from the morning. But all he had done was compliment them on a good job and shunsined away without even a 'same time tomorrow' for her benefit.
Disappointed, she watched as the rest of her team headed home, weary. "Looks like another lonely night for me."
To her surprise, a familiar head of black was already standing before her tombstone.
"Sasuke?" she asked as she approached. "What are you doing here?"
"You're a part of Team Seven," he said, in lieu of answering. Sakura stared at him, slightly worried that his mind finally cracked. "Doesn't matter that you're dead. You're part of Team Seven," he repeated, "and we never abandon a team member."
Sasuke finally looked her direction, and she was stunned. She'd had never seen him look so at peace with himself.
"I know it wasn't my fault, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry."
"I never blamed you. Any of you."
Absolving Sasuke of his guilt made Sakura realized she actually believed what she said. Panicked, she had shifted the acts of the previous world's Sasuke over this one, because logic dictated he could grow up to be that version. But that was doing both him and herself a disservice.
Some things were unforgivable, and Sakura would never forget what she had endured, but she wasn't going to let that insane version of Sasuke color the one standing before her.
"You're coming tomorrow."
Sakura threw back her head and laughed, even as the bright orange light appeared. Sasuke waited patiently for an answer, leading her to believe he couldn't see the orange light.
"I'll show up when Kakashi-sensei does."
Tucked away behind the statue, Kakashi closed his eyes. In the short time since he had started seeing the ghost of his female student, he had noticed strangely close connection between her and Sasuke. The closeness they shared was part of the reason he had been so cruel to her earlier, because the Sakura he knew had never garnered that much attention nor instilled that much . . . he was inclined to say devotion. It came across as possession on Sasuke's part, if only because the boy's ability to interact on a social level had be warped after his clan's massacre.
He had dismissed his team, betting that these two would appear and that they would be more open without him present.
And while Sakura may not have blamed him, Kakashi couldn't deny the hand he had in her death. She was his student. Four months was a short time. Too soon to expect them to earn a promotion on anything other than sheer luck. At the time, he believed they needed the experience to shatter the rose-tinted glasses they all viewed the world with.
Not even in his nightmares had he dreamed he'd lose one of them.
Their conversation had been short, but it assuaged his concerns. He still couldn't see her or hear her, but the jounin could read between the lines and fill in what Sakura might be saying based on Sasuke's reactions and responses.
Still, Kakashi had heard what he needed to hear. He didn't really know what to think of his former student's ghost, and felt rather uncomfortable knowing he was unable to keep track of her. He would use Sasuke to keep Sakura in line and vice versa.
Sakura had come across some interesting village secrets since her death and no compunction about revealing them. For Konoha's sake, he needed gain control over her, and Sasuke had just, unwittingly, volunteered to be the means to do so.
I will be posting a poll on my profile for the next chapter. Make sure to go vote and tell me what world you want Sakura thrown in next.