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Covenant
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Synopsis: In a harmonious world, who takes the blame?
What sins are punished and who decides?
Does vengeance leave with the last of its enemies?
As society rebuilds itself, Sakura learns some things can't be restored.
Not all beginnings start anew—not every ending brings closure.
And sometimes, peace isn't always that peaceful.
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3:15. A Step
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FOR MOST people, the hospital was a place of death. For Sakura, it was an escape.
Hospitals were always alive with motion. New tasks piled up faster than the old ones were finished, patients came and went in an endless stream. That was what she liked most about them: the constant busyness. The peace of mind that came with having no idle time. The fulfillment of being valuable, prepared, needed.
For over six years, she'd leaned on medical hubs like a lifeline. Hospitals, base medical. They were known, useful crutches. The perfect places to run when she didn't want to face reality.
But today was different.
Today, she came to this hospital upset, starving, and wearing the same clothes for the third day straight. Her thoughts were tangled and frayed, refusing to smooth out like they usually did when she stepped through those familiar doors.
She didn't recognize the boy in the receptionist's chair. The hallways felt backward. The placement of the wards made no sense. There were too few chairs in the lobby and too many inside the examination rooms. Whatever antiseptic they used didn't smell like one she made her staff clean with. It was all…off.
In this hospital, something was wrong, no matter where she looked.
She snuck into the medic's lounge to clean up but couldn't relax. She had to shower facing the doorway, breath tight in her chest.
When she went for breakfast in the cafeteria, a trainee dropped a metal tray, the crash echoing like a thunderclap—and she barely redirected the chakra scalpel she instinctually hurled at his heart. It harmlessly disappeared into the wall behind him a second before the apology spewed out, her cheeks hot with embarrassment.
During the head medic's briefing, his voice warped, and his hair grew, and suddenly—suddenly, it wasn't him anymore. It was Tsunade standing at the head of the table. One hand on her hip, the other wrapped around a flask. Scowling at the shinobi sitting next to her.
Sakura stuttered out an excuse and fled from the room.
Hospitals had always been her safe space. But all alone, with no larger cause reminding her that her life wasn't her own, no threat beyond suggesting a useless training program, no Council to appease, and no friendly faces to ground her… The sanctuary she'd always counted on offered nowhere to hide.
As she rushed away from the meeting, walking too hurriedly through too-narrow corridors back to her too-faraway temporary office, the realization stabbed through her like a sword. There was nothing wrong with this hospital.
Something was wrong with her.
And it wasn't a new awareness. She'd harbored that truth for years. Ever since the war began, everything inside her had shifted. All her parts had broken. The longer the chaos stretched, the more damaged she became.
But when the war ended, though it was her job to heal everyone else, she never bothered to glue her pieces back together. She focused on work. She poured herself into others. She fixated on the hospital, and then on the trial, and then on the funeral. When it was apparent that would break her even further, she fixated on not fixating on anything.
Instead of getting better, she chose to ignore all her fissures—and she called that progress.
Compared to before, it felt like progress. Most days, anyway.
Anything too sharp and heavy was shoved back, boxed up, and shelved away in places easily forgotten under monotonous daily tasks and mindlessness. She swallowed it down enough times that she got used to the knot in her throat and the churn in her stomach.
And when peace arrived, bringing its own kind of pain, she'd survived like that. Not because some higher purpose demanded it. Not because a Kage might summon her for another battle or an army needed her to stay unshaken and ready. Without the war, she didn't have to keep choking down the hurt.
Nothing stopped her from letting it consume her completely.
Yet, somehow, she hadn't.
Even after the Memorial was erected. Even after they'd carved her shishou into Hokage Rock. After Sai's letter, and losing Ino—Sakura always managed to go back to work. Even when she didn't have to anymore.
But it wasn't just the work. Somehow, after everything, she still managed to laugh with Naruto. Eat with Kakashi. Chat with Hinata. She'd accepted a mission with Sasuke that pulled her away from home and never once saw her dead friends haunting the forest shadows unexpectedly.
She didn't need tonics to get through the day. She didn't look at a knife and see an easy way out. She could cry without losing her mind and smile without feeling guilty sometimes. Somehow.
Yes, something was still wrong with her. But she thought that was progress. She thought she was doing better. She thought—
She thought things would eventually get fucking better.
Head in her hands, slumped in her too-hard chair over her too-large desk, Sakura let out a defeated sigh.
Progress? What progress? Who was she fooling?
She was no further from the ledge than four months ago on a Saturday. Or a year ago, at the final battle in Earth. No matter what she did, how much she ignored, where she went—the fall was always just one memory away. That she was counting her breaths and reciting the recipe for soldier pills in this dim hospital office on a summer day, a continent away from Konoha, proved it.
All because she'd remembered fifteen minutes of a five-and-a-half-year conflict.
She hated herself for it. Despised how easily one thing could still derail her. It'd been a whole year. A year—and she was stuck.
…Would this be her life forever? Was this what she was destined for? Fighting off panic attacks at a single vivid mention of the war. Losing all sense whenever a recollection burned too bright.
She nearly killed a chunin earlier, for God's sake.
Would she ever be able to eat dango again without feeling sick? How long would she have to avoid the rain before it stopped triggering a storm inside her?
And now, she couldn't escape it in a hospital. A hospital. The one place she'd felt slightly sane in the last six years. What was she supposed to do if even her haven made her jump out of her skin?
She'd never expected to leave the battlefield, but she hadn't anticipated the battlefield persisting so loudly into the peace. She never anticipated living in this peace at all.
Realistically, she knew nothing had changed. Logically, she understood the unlocked memory was a year and a half old. It couldn't harm her. No one was out to get her.
But her body refused to listen to reason. Her fingers trembled against her temple. Something leaden had lodged itself in her lungs. Without Sasuke's warm and calm chakra erecting itself like a toll road in her throat, her own chakra felt foreign and freezing as it surged through unimpeded pathways.
She wasn't well. Removing the seal had only made her feel worse.
It wasn't the emptiness of losing it that hurt, or the hollow silence of truly being alone for the first time in over two years.
It was the crushing, suffocating weight the absence of it had unleashed.
She saved Naruto. At the time, that was all she'd cared about. She'd kept him safe, and he made it out alive, and that should've been enough.
But eight months. By saving Naruto, she'd subjected herself to eight months of torture.
Not Madara. Not Sasuke.
She did that.
And Madara never would've kept Ino if she hadn't. Ino might've died on that Lightning field instead—but Ino died, anyway. At least in Lightning, it would've been quick. It would've been while she was still fighting, not broken in her kitchen, resigned and empty and abandoned. Ino wouldn't have gone through the whippings, the burnings, the drownings—wouldn't have been—
Sakura squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to think the word.
…If she weren't his prisoner, Madara would've never publicly slaughtered those other captives at his bases. They wouldn't have become unwilling martyrs. Wouldn't have been put on display to die as their medical commander in an Akatsuki robe passively observed next to their executioner.
If she hadn't been caught, her shishou wouldn't have been slain before a sea of their army, weak and wrinkled and shamed. She wouldn't have had to look upon her student in her last moments believing that Sakura hated her.
And Sasuke wouldn't have been obligated to do it. To kill the Hokage right in front of her. To play a part he never wanted, watching as his uncle tormented her. Helping Madara torment her. He'd killed countless Allies and his mentor. He'd taken beatings when Madara grew tired of her rebellion.
What was it he once told her?
You aren't the only one inside this cage you trapped yourself in.
The echo of his voice in her thoughts was like a crashing wave. The realization hit her so hard it blanked her mind—he'd been hinting at her foolishness from the start. He'd tried to tell her. She was the one too blind to see it, too stubborn to understand. She was the one who never saw the forest for the trees.
Back then, he had every right to be angry with her. In fact, he should've been angrier.
Because it was true. When she forced him to choose Naruto, she had trapped Sasuke right along with her. Him, and Ino, and Tsunade, and those hundreds of captives.
All because she demanded to be left behind.
Saving Naruto should've been enough. It should've been worth it. She was glad Naruto was still alive. She needed Naruto to be alive. But—
But—
It was all her fucking fault.
Sakura didn't even know how to process it. So engulfed by self-loathing and regret, the tears that should've come just...disappeared.
That she saved Naruto couldn't erase what she'd caused.
What was she to do with the knowledge that her own hand doled out all those sentences? What good was knowing when it was already too late?
Hair clenched in her fists, she stifled a scream, muffled and weak.
She wanted to shatter. Wanted to sink into the bodies trying desperately to claw through the floor beneath her feet. Her mind begged her to find the lab and drown herself in calmative. Her hands itched to grab the desk, throw it against the wall, and give in to the destruction.
But she was in Kiri. There was no Kakashi here to save her. No Naruto to hide her away. Sasuke couldn't afford to expose himself just to calm her down in a city full of strangers.
This wasn't Konoha, where everyone knew exactly what sort of kunoichi she was. It wasn't safe to fall apart here.
Grind the rice. Quick dry and mash the flowers. Smash the seeds. Bind them with water and chakra. Pack it into a casing.
"Get it together, Sakura…" she mumbled.
It took her almost three hours of coaching herself through it and mindlessly listing ingredients before she could finally drive the memory far enough away to focus on what had happened that morning. When she'd pointlessly taken her inability to reconcile with the truth and turned it on Sasuke.
Since that was precisely what she'd done, wasn't it? Shunned the overwhelming guilt, fixated on Sasuke, and weaponized his shortcomings so she could ignore the new fractures splitting her apart.
She wasn't well. Not now. Not a year ago. Not when she'd been too late in Lightning.
...And none of that was Sasuke's fault.
So maybe she could admit that perhaps the abrupt culpability of it all had been too much. Perhaps the shock of reliving the war so sharply made her act a little irrational. Perhaps seeing Naruto's lifeless body had torn open old wounds and thrust her psyche back to a time when nothing Sasuke did made sense. When she'd often wondered if, despite his assistance, he actually hated the Allies, and their seal, and his involvement with her.
How it only took her half a day, nearly murdering a trainee, and holing away in a dark office talking herself out of a rampage to concede it probably meant she wasn't entirely wrong about making progress…
Leaning back in her chair, Sakura stared at the ceiling and released a long breath.
It was just a memory. It had already passed. It couldn't hurt her and she couldn't change it.
Pushing away the bad, she concentrated on the good.
Naruto was alive. Kakashi was alive. Sasuke was alive.
They were safe. It should be enough, even if painfully hollow. It had to be enough, or she'd never leave this room.
In this moment, quite quickly, she needed to make progress. Frankly, she wanted to make progress. She was tired of hating herself. She didn't want to let her fissures consume her forever, nor could she afford it here.
Fine. More clear-headed than a few hours ago, she'd admit it.
There hadn't been any reason to pick a fight with Sasuke.
He didn't do anything to warrant her brash treatment. He couldn't hear her thoughts anymore—expecting him to intrinsically know what she wanted was absurd. She'd never met a man less capable of emotional sensitivity than Sasuke Uchiha.
She shouldn't have taken her confusion and disgust out on him. Especially when he'd asked, multiple times, why she was acting out.
So he'd concealed the fact that everything that happened since the Lightning Ambush was her fault. Was that such a terrible thing? Now, she knew. And what could she do with it?
Absolutely nothing but let it eat her alive.
The captives who died for her silence were still dead. Tsunade was still a face on a mountain. Ino was still 22 below a dark gray stone and a plush skirt of green.
Knowing the truth didn't make a difference. Wasn't it a mercy never knowing in the first place? Hadn't he given her a year and a half to settle enough to handle it?
And so what if he'd continued hiding his confession?
Sasuke was right; he always was. Since he wasn't at risk anymore, she could admit this, too: If he'd been executed, it would've been better had she never heard those words from his lips. It would've been easier to convince herself in the years after his death that all those quiet, abnormal acts of subtle affection were figments of a lingering attachment her seal had latched onto and cultivated into fantasy.
…It was a risky path to venture down, but—
Did he truly need to say it again?
He'd protected her, after all. He'd gotten her out. He returned to her in Konoha as promised, even though he never meant to survive. He held her when she needed him, let her see him laugh, and showed her where his family once lived.
She had entertained the theory hundreds of times over the past two years. He'd burned her for it nearly as many. But if she genuinely thought about it…
When was the last time Sasuke was cruel to her, just for the sake of it?
If the seal was the sole rationale for his kisses, his jokes, his concern—he was doing a piss poor job of showing it. She'd sensed that even through all her damage, although she reasoned away his considerate behavior with history each time, daunted by the risk of inviting his former ruthlessness.
He couldn't hide behind the seal anymore, anyway.
She should've stayed at the camp. Should've answered his questions. She should've asked if he meant that desperate winter confession.
He'd been willing to talk. For an instant, it had seemed as if he wanted to.
She shouldn't have run from him in anger and fled to the hospital like a coward.
She couldn't keep doing this.
The war was over. At some point, she needed to get over it, too.
If not get over it, at least learn to live with it better. The last two and a half weeks spent outside her village had shown it was possible. Away from the constant reminders of all her losses and the expectations of her responsibilities, she'd almost forgotten how broken she was for the first time in six years.
Almost.
But for now, almost was enough. Almost had felt so much better than the fragmented shell she'd left Konoha as. It felt infinitely better than the panic of nearly hyperventilating in an unfamiliar hospital.
She couldn't spend the rest of her life destroying her apartment at any reminder, suppressed in a bed at every new loss, or lashing out at anyone who couldn't read her mind. She wouldn't survive living this way.
And even though she didn't have to survive anymore… She hadn't gone through all of this not to. So many people had paid the price for this peace. Too many of her loved ones gave themselves for the world she was haunting like a ghost.
They hadn't sacrificed everything just for her to sit here a year later, no better off. Only just now willing to consider stepping away from the cliff.
Grabbing the slim notes she'd taken during the meeting, she packed them into a bag and swung it over her shoulder. Clearly, today was a lost cause. Before she got cold feet, she needed to settle her nerves, and take care of the necessary conversation with Sasuke.
If she couldn't even express it to him, the one person who'd seen everything—then who would she ever be able to talk to? Only so much progress could be made by avoiding every heartbreaking thing that dredged itself up.
Maybe the first step was confronting it.
Maybe if she could talk about it, some future version of her wouldn't need a hospital to escape.
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As she crossed into the front lobby on her way out, she heard a faint, "...Haruno?"
Pausing at her name, Sakura scanned the crowded room and found a kunoichi rising from a chair near the entrance. An older woman in Kiri jonin attire with long, curly hair. Her translucent irises reflected the ceiling lights' glow as they locked eyes.
A shiver snaked down Sakura's spine. She froze, forcing herself not to flinch as the woman approached. The buzz of awaiting patients' chatter faded into nothing when the woman stopped barely two feet away.
Voice low, head bowed, she began to speak. "You probably don't want to see me again, but I heard you were visiting, and I—"
"What do you want?" Sakura cut in, bristling.
Sasuke had said he sent a number of Madara's former followers back here, but she hadn't expected to come face-to-face with one of them. One so tightly wrapped up in her nightmare, at that.
She didn't want to deal with this. Not now. One reminder of that awful time was enough. She'd just spent hours wrestling herself out of doom, persuading herself to try to take a small step forward.
And now, here she was, threatening to send her two steps back.
Her current determination to make progress extended only to Sasuke. It was too fragile to handle another.
Oblivious to Sakura's impending spiral, Kahyo dipped her head lower. "I have some things I need to say to you if you're willing to listen."
"What could you possibly have to say to me?"
Kahyo wavered, vision flicking to the full bench on her right before sliding to Sakura. "Maybe we can go into an empty room first."
"You can tell me here," Sakura snapped, louder than she intended. The curious gazes of those nearby landed heavily on the two of them.
"...Alright. Here, then." After a brief hesitation, Kahyo straightened with a nod and looked her dead in the eye. "I'm sorry, Haruno. It may mean nothing to you, and I can't undo what I've done. I don't expect your forgiveness. But I'd regret not telling you when this might be my only opportunity. I am truly, truly sorry."
The tension in her body eased away. What...?
Kahyo's words caught her flat-footed—the sincerity in them even more. It was true she would've rather not seen the woman; true that the sight of her watered the saplings of unpleasant recollections. Sakura could've gone her whole life never meeting Kahyo again and been okay with it.
Yet, the woman had sought her out. And for the life of her, Sakura couldn't understand why Kahyo was apologizing.
They'd barely spoken. Kahyo hadn't done anything to her. Not directly, anyway. Running around a continent on a detail team that had proven pointless was hardly something to feel guilty about.
As more shinobi turned to watch, the murmurs around them grew louder. Sakura cursed her pride for refusing Kahyo's suggestion to take the conversation somewhere private.
She leaned closer. "What exactly are you apologizing for…?"
"For my part in what happened to you. For not doing anything to stop it. It may have been Madara's orders, but—"
At his name, Sakura's hand shot up to silence her. That assuredly wasn't a topic for all these witnesses.
"Hold on. Give me a second," she muttered, tone clipped. Pivoting on her heel, she strode to the receptionist's desk, ignoring the whispers on her back. The boy there glanced up, his eyes widening. "Hello. Is there a room nearby I could use?"
"O-of course, Haruno-sama. Room one-twelve is available."
"Thank you. I'll only be a few minutes."
Waving for Kahyo to follow, she led her down the corridor behind the desk. The white-walled examination room was small and hushed. Sakura flicked on the lights as Kahyo stepped in and stood awkwardly beside the sheet-covered bed.
Sakura dropped into the medic chair, spinning it around to face the other woman. Her fingers drummed lightly on her thigh.
The irony of this interaction happening at this moment wasn't lost on her. If someone had approached her like this a month ago in Konoha, she would've immediately accepted the apology simply to end the discussion. She wouldn't have bothered to ask why or for what. Only a month ago, she hadn't cared to untangle the knots of hurt and history. It couldn't change what happened, and bringing it up only brought a fresh wave of pain.
Although, only a month ago, she was certain nobody was talking about the war. Was certain that everyone was trying their best not to even think about it.
But maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe it wasn't that nobody was talking about it. Maybe…it was just that no one was doing so with her.
It seemed ridding herself of the seal was bringing some startling clarity in more ways than one. Today, her brain appeared eager to piece together puzzles she hadn't known were there.
Because if she thought about this, too—if she honest-to-God thought about it—
Hadn't she seen Hinata with tears in her eyes as Naruto calmly held her hand and mumbled in her ear on several different nights since she'd moved in? Didn't she walk past people huddled together at the Memorial, trading tales about the one they laid flowers down for? Wasn't Kakashi occasionally nodding along in sympathy to a story when she pushed through his office doors, before the person in the chair opposite him quieted and turned to greet her?
In her efforts to keep everything safely boxed away, she'd written those instances off as meaningless. But maybe, after swallowing those feelings down thousands of times, she'd merely refused to see those occasions for what they were. She chose to see what she wanted to see in them instead.
Because here was a woman she'd all but forgotten about, braving the possibility that Sakura might scorn her, who'd bowed in a crowd of her own people to a kunoichi from Konoha—just to talk about the war.
It wasn't something someone who hadn't spent any time reflecting would do. Someone more like herself would've never.
The simple fact that Sakura could presently acknowledge as much meant Kahyo's sudden appearance couldn't have been better timing for either of them.
If she was going to confront Sasuke, she should first get some of the nerves out with Kahyo. Though she could count the times she'd done it on her hand, and continuously told herself otherwise, Sakura knew it wasn't as impossible to talk about as she always made it out to be.
The difficult part was starting. And today, mere minutes ago, she'd finally decided it was time to truly start.
Closing her eyes, Sakura took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for being rude. You caught me by surprise."
"No, Haruno. I came to apologize to you. You have every right to be rude to me."
"I don't think so. Honestly, I have a tough time remembering everything, but I don't recall you doing anything that warrants an apology. I know some people joined Madara unwillingly. In the end, you came back to the Allies. And…" She fisted her hands, forcing the memory forward and the words out. "You saved my life once. So whatever you're apologizing for, let's call it even."
Kahyo stiffened; then a gentle, relieved grin spread across her face. "...I thought you might be angry about that, too."
"I used to be," she admitted, allowing a slight grin to match. "So rather than me, you should save your sorry for people you actually harmed."
"Don't worry. I've been making my apology rounds for a while now. Surprisingly, this is the easiest one yet."
"Is it?"
"Yes, but I don't blame them. You shouldn't be so easy on me, either. I did choose to return, and I'm thankful the Mizukage's given me a chance I don't deserve… But I wasn't forced to join Madara. Most people here know it. I'd just lost my son. His jutsu promised to bring him back, so I—" Faltering, Kahyo cleared her throat.
Sakura shifted uncomfortably in her chair. It was entirely opposite from what she'd presumed, and the confession settled sourly in her gut.
"Well, my reasons have nothing to do with this, so I won't burden you with stories that'll only sound like excuses," Kahyo said at last. "What matters is that I'm deeply sorry. For both my actions and my inactions, and the conversation we had when I was guarding you. I've felt bad about it ever since."
"What conversation?"
"On the first of Madara's bases we traveled to, here in Water. When I asked if you could bring back the dead."
The sour taste thickened, and Sakura fought the urge to scowl. "Oh."
"I was too encouraged by the rumors to think about what I was doing then. I realized later how careless it was to assume something like that."
"Forget it." Sakura was more willing than usual to talk, but this fiction always made her want to throw up. "I've been asked that a hundred times by now. It doesn't matter."
"It does matter. I shouldn't have done that. I understand what it feels like to lose someone. Knowing then how much you'd lost, and still believing you could do it… I'm sorry."
Hearing it in another's voice was strange. It was the very same sentiment that assailed her whenever strangers tiptoed around the tale bred from the war. If she could, why had she lost so much? If it were possible, why were her friends still dead? And this might've been the first time someone else had openly identified why that question caused her so much distress.
She supposed it ought to have brought some sort of vindication or consolation.
But it didn't, so Sakura inquired, "Did your son die in the war…?" in a poorly concealed attempt to change the topic.
With that, it was Kahyo shifting uncomfortably on her feet. "Not in the war, no. Though you could say it was the war that killed him… We were living in the Land of Waves. I was hoping to avoid it completely. But three months into the fighting, he fell into a hornet's nest. All the medics in town had been called away to join the Allied army... I couldn't stop the swelling on my own."
Sakura found herself grasping at faint fragments of memory. Was a conscription notice issued when the war broke out? It was so long ago that she couldn't remember. Like she'd told Kahyo—it was hard to recall even the most important parts sometimes.
If one had gone out, it wouldn't have affected her. She wouldn't have paid it any mind.
Head buried so deep in the sand of her pain, she often overlooked how others were suffering with their own demons. Although, that, too, wasn't a new awareness. She understood it was selfish each new time she realized it—how others were crumbling under the same war she repeatedly believed had only broken her.
Her brief slips of discernment didn't mean she was stable enough to do anything about the trauma of others, however. Nor was she whole enough not to succumb to self-absorption again once the moment passed.
Still, it was good she was pondering these things without promptly banishing them. Progress, she thought. That she could recognize something inconsequential to her—far removed from her own experience—had reshaped Kahyo's life forever and almost empathize with it. That she could do so without irritation or defensiveness creeping in.
A small victory, maybe. But a victory nonetheless. The person she was a month ago wouldn't have been able to.
"Were you angry at the Allies?" she wondered, soft but probing. Is that why you joined Madara?
"I used to be." Catching Sakura's gaze, a sad smile curved Kahyo's lips. "But I've come to see it wasn't their fault. And I've come to believe his passing then was a sort of mercy. Madara's forces came to our small village not three weeks later. My son—he inherited my bloodline. He would've been recruited right along with me. I never wanted the shinobi life for him, so he wasn't trained. I don't think I'd have been able to protect him from the fate he might've suffered trying to fight in a war he wasn't prepared for."
Sakura considered apologizing to her like she used to apologize to those who'd lost someone. The habit of it had the words hovering on the edge of her tongue.
But she held them back. After losing so many herself, Sakura knew well that hollow sympathy only came out sounding like meaningless pity.
Kahyo looked uneasy for a second longer, then rubbed her temple and wiped it away. "Anyway. Enough about that. I've taken up too much of your time, as it is. I hear you're helping with our hospital. I should let you get back to work."
While it hadn't morphed into the monster she'd braced herself for at the beginning, there was no reason to prolong the discussion. For as many months as they'd forcibly spent together, Kahyo was still a stranger. There wasn't much to reminisce about between them, and what existed wasn't anything Sakura wanted to touch.
So Sakura nodded in agreement, stood, and made for the door.
"I am helping, but I was on my way out for the day. Most of this hospital's issues lay in staffing. Not much I can do about that." She paused as she pushed it open. "Speaking of, I remember you were familiar with healing techniques. You should think about training as a medic. Kiri could use it."
"I've given up the shinobi life," Kahyo said, gliding into the hallway.
Sakura glanced pointedly down at the jonin vest. "Is that so?"
Kahyo chuckled. "Or I will be. Part of the Mizukage's terms for accepting those of us who defected back into town is mandatory service for five years. Once my time's up, I'm done."
"That's a shame," Sakura lamented. "With your bloodline, you'd probably be a good doctor."
"Just because you're good at something doesn't mean you have to do it, Haruno. Taking a break is fine, too. We all deserve a break after everything that's happened."
"...Huh." Trailing a step behind Kahyo as she ambled toward the lobby, Sakura mulled over her simple words. First Kakashi, and now this woman. Was taking a break really something people considered? What was she supposed to do without a hospital or duties? "Maybe so."
They reached the hospital's exit, and Kahyo turned to her. "Thank you for hearing me out."
Sakura didn't know what to say, so she settled on a neutral response. "Yeah... No problem."
In her opinion, much like the woman apologizing, there was nothing to thank her for. If anything, the conversation was a helpful preparation for the more important one to come.
But Kahyo wouldn't know that.
"Give my regards to Sasuke, will you? I'd tell him myself, but I don't think he'd want to hear it," Kahyo speculated. "When things ended and he found me on Madara's base, I tried to thank him for letting me come back here instead of killing me, but he completely ignored me. Irritable one, isn't he?"
"Sure," she casually replied, thoughts snagging on his name. It wasn't surprising Kahyo knew Sasuke returned or that he wasn't executed. At this point, the whole world probably knew. He was, however, expected to be on probation and confined in Fire. "I'll let him know when I get back to Konoha."
"I don't mind if you tell him now. Not like he'll hunt me down for it."
Was it that important? Sakura doubted Sasuke would even care.
"I guess I can send him a letter if you want," she offered, keeping up the act.
"Why would you need a letter? Isn't he here in Kiri with you?"
Sakura peered over with a raised brow. "No, he's not."
"Ah, is it a secret? Don't worry, I haven't told anyone. And I won't."
The bright sun, an odd sight in Water Country, momentarily blinded Sakura as they stepped outside. She shielded her eyes with a hand and regarded Kahyo apprehensively.
His return and pardon were one thing, but no one was supposed to know about Sasuke coming here. Except for maybe the Mizukage—though she couldn't imagine the Mizukage had told a former nukenin of Sasuke's presence. And since Kahyo was asking her to pass along a message, it didn't seem Sasuke had reached out, either.
Did Suigetsu run his mouth?
Had someone spotted Sasuke at their camp outside the city limits?
…Was Orochimaru already plotting against them only days after they brought him back from the dead?
Regardless of the how, it was best to nix the immediate problem and figure it out later. "No, he really isn't here. Haven't you heard? He's on probation in Konoha," she maintained.
Kahyo crossed her arms. "Haruno. I had to watch you two for months. Even if I hadn't seen him, I knew he'd find a way to follow you the second I heard you were coming to Kiri. That boy hated leaving you out of his sight." As she spoke, she gestured towards the dirt path behind Sakura.
Over her shoulder, Sakura's vision followed Kahyo's cue.
What she found had her eyes widening in shock and air stilling in her lungs. The world seemed to slow to a halt. A bird sang in the distance, and she blinked, remembering where she was—in the middle of a foreign town, next to a former enemy.
Should she acknowledge it? Brush it off? Make up an excuse?
Unsure of the proper reaction to have in front of Kahyo, despite her obvious teasing, Sakura reigned in her expression and dragged her gaze back to the woman.
Actually, there was no need to react. Surely, she'd seen wrong.
He had never come to her like this. He wouldn't, now. Not after snapping at him and storming off the way she had.
"But I'm old enough to know a lost pup when I do see one," Kahyo finished, smirking. Then she held out her hand, waiting for Sakura to shake it. "Next time you're in Kiri, if you're willing, I'd like us to sit down and chat some more. Stay safe, Haruno."
Sakura took hold of the hand in a daze and watched until Kahyo's silhouette faded in the distance.
She was almost afraid to turn around—afraid her mind had slipped after so many minutes of forcing herself through progress and conjured a new apparition as punishment.
Hope had always brought about the worst kinds of punishment, after all.
Because, behind her, sitting 20 yards away on a weathered bench, Sakura thought she'd just seen a shinobi outfitted in Konoha's ANBU gear. An owl mask hiding the face. Hunched over, elbows on his knees, his hands locked in a contemplative steeple in front of his mouth.
A pose that was so distinctly Sasuke Uchiha that anyone who'd spent even a sliver of time with him would've recognized it instantly.
This morning, reeling and without the space to reconcile with what losing the seal unearthed, she'd been insistent—this time, he'd come to her. This time, he'd be the one to bridge the space between them. Yet, this afternoon, after much debate and self-reflection, she'd conceded that it wasn't important who started the conversation. What mattered was having it at all.
Admittedly, the shift in perspective was, perhaps in part, due to her not honestly believing Sasuke was the sort of person capable of coming to her in the first place.
And just like that, she'd once more found herself willing to yield the middle ground and go to him. Out of progress, or habit, or a weakness she couldn't shake. Whatever the reason, that was where she'd been headed before Kahyo snagged her in the lobby. To find the truth behind the walls he erected, like she always had to.
But behind her, outside the hospital on a bench—if what she'd seen when she glanced over her shoulder wasn't her imagination playing some cruel joke—
Sakura didn't want to foster any expectations. Again and again, experience had taught her to fear hope, but—
If Sasuke was sitting there in that unmistakable pose—
…It would look an awful lot like waiting, wouldn't it?
It would look an awful damn lot like he'd come to her this time.
.
This story is also found on AO3, just as a reminder.
and thanks to Leech for beta-reading