March 30th 996 — Wave Country
Sakura's never stood in front of a grave before.
Actually, if she's being honest, it doesn't really feel like she's standing in front of one now. She feels strangely disconnected from everything around her, like she's somewhere far away, drifting listlessly in the dark and murky sky overhead; it feels as if she's connected to her physical body by nothing more than a thread, the only thing keeping her from floating away and never coming back. Sakura can't feel her face. She can't feel the late March chill clinging to her skin or focus on the way her breath fogs as it leaves her lips. In fact, she can't feel much of anything —she thinks she hears Naruto saying something, or maybe it's Sasuke-kun or Kakashi-sensei… she's not entirely sure, really. It's all so strangely muffled, like when Sakura curls up with her head under the water of her bathtub to ignore her nagging mother.
This is different, though, because this doesn't feel like the warm comforting water at home. She feels like she's sinking in the cold, foreign water of Wave Country, somewhere deep and dark and so very far away from her soft sheets and father's tired laughter bouncing off the walls. Right now, Sakura couldn't feel any farther from the sunny, glorious daydream she'd convinced herself life as a Konoha shinobi was going to be.
Sakura had convinced herself that becoming a shinobi like Ino would be easy —in fact, the only reason Sakura, a civilian girl with civilian parents and hardly any chakra to speak of, had joined the Shinobi Academy was because of how she'd idolised her best friend. Sakura had wanted to become as strong and vibrant and amazing as the bright-eyed, blonde-haired heiress to one of Konoha's Great Clans, and how better to close the gap between them than to join the same position? She'd hoped to be on Ino's team, to stay by her side forever and protect her and thank her every single day for helping build up Sakura's pitiful self-esteem… and yet, once Sakura had finally stepped onto that path she'd been so determined to follow, that friendship she'd treasured so dearly had crumbled into dust in the face of an ultimately petty rival over a boy.
After all, that's what Uchiha Sasuke is—a boy, nothing more than a boy that they'd set up on a pedestal and claimed to love with their hearts and souls. Sakura had determined she would grow up to marry him, that she would become the new matriarch of the Uchiha Clan and restore it to its fullest after winning Sasuke's undying devotion once they'd graduated the Academy… and yet, in this moment in which she's so detached from herself that she can barely recall the faces of Zabuza or Haku, Sakura can't help but ask herself question after question.
Just what did she love about Sasuke-kun?
When did this love start?
Does she even really know what love is?
The Sakura of yesterday, or even of earlier today, would have claimed she loved his dark eyes or his cool attitude or how he was top of their class. She would have claimed it was love at first sight, that she'd fallen head over heels for him after one single glance, and that she'd felt the red string of fate around her pinky coil wrap around her heart like a noose and begin to tug towards him, linking them together forever as decreed by destiny. She would have said that of course she was in love with him, that she was an expert on love—that this was the real deal, a true fairy tale romance.
Now, though, those rose-tinted glasses have been ripped from her eyes and hurled into the uncaring abyss that Sakura finds herself standing just on the edge of. The Sakura of today who's suddenly seeing the word in startling, vivid clarity cannot answer those questions with that sort of conviction. Turning tear-dark eyes to where Sasuke-kun is standing, she finds no miraculous answers or dramatic music. His eyes do not meet hers, he does not comfort her with his strong gaze or a warm smile.
He doesn't even look at her, and Sakura wonders when she'd deluded herself into thinking he would.
Sakura's face is numb and she can't feel her fingers enough to even grip the tattered material of her favourite red training dress, and eventually she turns her gaze away from him and back to the makeshift graves in front of them. Staring at his profile hadn't made her feel any better—it hadn't filled her with conviction that it's true love, that everything is okay.
Nothing feels okay.
Is this what being a shinobi is really like? This death and destruction, the fear… for herself, for her comrades, her teacher, her client? Was this all part of the career she'd so blindly and childishly rushed into? Part of her is furious that she's shocked, that she's standing here in genuine shock over her first brush with the casualties of this job. Of course it's dangerous! Iruka-sensei had told them all the time, had warned them, had stressed how this was not a glory-chasing career and that the real world had no safety nets. Their special instructor for kunoichi classes had made it very clear the dangers Sakura could face as a woman, as a kunoichi, and the kinds of missions she could be asked to eventually take on…
So why on earth is she so surprised? Why is she so shocked that their enemy is dead? Why can't she stop playing the image of their bodies on a loop? Why can't she stop seeing Sasuke-kun bleeding beneath her trembling hands again and again and again and again—
A warm weight settles on Sakura's shoulder and effectively pulls her head from the thoughts she'd been drowning in moments before. Looking up in shock, Sakura stares at Kakashi-sensei in completely bewildered silence. She doesn't know what time it is, doesn't know how long she's been staring at these two graves with hollow eyes and a heavy heart, but the hesitant gentleness of her sensei's gesture is like a solid anchor to cling to in the maelstrom of confusion and grief and anxiety that's whirling around and around her skull.
Kakashi-sensei's lone eye stares back at her, and she wonders if she's imagining the way it's not quite the flat black colour she'd believed before. Can grey be warm and soft? What a silly question, so trivial in the wake of the day their team has had, and yet it's the more foremost question on Sakura's mind in that moment. His eye closes after a moment, crinkling at the edges in a smile that is only his, and Sakura feels something sharp and painful shift deep within her chest, a realisation that fractures pieces of her like tectonic plates moving, bruising, colliding within her heart. She feels raw, exposed in the face of this undeniable truth, and so very young in that moment as she reaches up and clings to his fingers with her own as if the moment she lets go he'll leave her there—and he should.
Because all she'd done was watch.
All Sakura had been able to do when faced with Zabuza and Haku was watch as her comrades threw themselves into battle, and if they'd needed her at any point in that battle, she wouldn't have been able to do anything for them. If the tides had shifted into their opponents' favour and they'd died—and Sasuke-kun almost did, she remembers the helplessness and the fear and the heartache as if he were still bleeding beneath her—all Sakura could have done was watch as they died, standing in front of Tazuna with a kunai and fear-locked muscles. She would have been powerless to stop it.
Unable to look away from Kakashi-sensei after this realisation and wishing he'd stop with that understanding smile of his, Sakura realises that she could have lost him. She could have lost all of them. Her entire team could have been killed and she wouldn't have been able to save them. Shame twists painfully in her gut and Sakura tears her eyes away from her sensei's face, her hand dropping back to her side as if he'd burned her.
Shinobi who don't follow the rules are trash, but shinobi who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.
By just standing by and watching the fight, by being unable to properly support her teammates or watch their backs for them, she was effectively abandoning her team. Sakura isn't just trash—she's worse, the very kind of shinobi that Kakashi-sensei hates.
That chilling realisation stays with her even as Kakashi-sensei turns her—his hand still on her shoulder and guiding her way—heavy as a stone in her gut that steadily pulls her down to the bottom of the frigid river they'd spent so long battling over. Down, down, down…surrounded by nothing but her own failure and the choking sense that she'd weigh them down or be left behind.
March 31st 996 — Wave Country
Having been unable to stay asleep the night before, Sakura finds herself rising from bed before the sun's first rays have managed to peek over the horizon. She's not even sure if the boys are actually asleep or not as she creeps out the door and down the little hallway, but Sakura doesn't stop to let one of them know where she's going if they are awake. The threat is gone, right?
(It's not gone from beneath her skin, from her dreams where she sees Zabuza in the mist and her comrades are dead and it's only her left—)
Cupping her hands and using her breath to warm her fingers, Sakura steps out into the morning-chill with a shaking heart and a determination to at least do something. Yesterday had been hard for her, had completely destroyed any self-worth she'd built up in her time with Ino, and had completely shifted her world, dangerously tipping its axis. Everything Sakura had known and believed has been challenged by this mission, has been dragged into the spotlight and scrutinised until she'd felt like a doll pulled apart at the joints, broken and left on the floor and waiting for someone else to pick up the pieces.
She'd never dealt with death before and she's still not sure how to deal with it. Sure, they were her enemies and it was her job to dispose of them, but… how is she supposed to actually cope with the knowledge that two lives have ended because of her team? She didn't lay a single finger on either of them and they'd attacked her teammates first, but logic can't seem to wash away the guilt clinging to her like the ghosts of the two Mist shinobi buried in a shallow grave far from here. Instead, it settles like a heavy cloak on her shoulders and Sakura's left grasping at straws as to how on earth she can get rid of this crushing weight before it pushes her so far down that she can never resurface again.
Sakura finally moves away from in front of the front door and moves around the house, eyes staring unseeingly into the thick fog that encircles Tazuna's house. She doesn't feel safe, paranoia creeping up her spine and along her limbs, but Sakura continues telling herself the threat is gone. Zabuza is gone. Haku is gone. Gatō is gone. There's nothing to be afraid of, not even the looming threat of her teammates' deaths because of her incompetence, because of her fear.
The chill of the morning air bites into her so sharply that she remembers the apple she'd snacked on before they'd left on this mission—it had been such a crisp sound, her teeth cutting into the apple. (Would she sound like that if the air had teeth?) Shaking her head and trying to focus, to pull on that string that's keeping her tethered to her body, Sakura lets out a heavy breath that leaves her ribs rattling and her fingers trembling. She has to focus on something, anything, so that she can try to salvage what's left, of what still makes sense, and try to become something more than the dead weight of Team Seven.
Dropping into a simple seiza, Sakura closes her eyes and wills the world around her to fade away, focusing inward on a single point, a memory to help clear her mind of the seemingly ever-present hurricane of yesterday's events. She recalls the day with absolutely perfectclarity: Iruka-sensei had been sitting just as she was outside the Academy, all of her class copying his stance and watching him closely. The sun had been shining, warm on her cheeks and the backs of her hands. She remembers the sound of Iruka-sensei's voice even as her head had turned to stare at Sasuke-kun's face, her attention evenly divided in a way that she'd perfected in her years of being friends with Ino and learning from her.
It's as if Iruka-sensei is there with her, instructing her—as if yesterday never happened and she's still in the warmth of Konoha, not the brisk cold of Wave. She does as she remembers him instructing, steadily easing herself so far inward that even his own voice in her memory begins to fade away, until she's standing in the endless dark of her own mind. Her surroundings are empty and endless, but instead of focusing on that or allowing her mind to wander into the newly discovered depths of grief and confusion, Sakura pictures in her mind's eye her own chakra.
Her method of meditation had always been rather unorthodox, according to Iruka-sensei, but it's never failed her before. He had explained to her once that it's much more difficult and strenuous on her system, as she's forcing it further outward and then inward again rather than pushing it from her center, but for Sakura it's just much easier to imagine. Instead of imagining her chakra within herself, Sakura instead pictures her chakra as a pool of green water by her feet. It's a mere puddle, not nearly as big as she's sure Sasuke-kun or Naruto's would be, but it's hers and she can work with this.
(She doesn't focus on how this puddle was like the puddle they'd ignored coming into Wave, not at all—)
She imagines dipping her hands inside the shallow puddle in front of her on the ground, fingers splayed in the chill of her chakra, drifting through it as if it were water and allowing it to coat her fingertips. In her mind's eye, Sakura pulls it up across her forearms, directing her chakra to follow the well-memorised lines of her coil map. It surges along the veins of her network and pulses inward towards her chest… not that her chakra actually makes it that far; she's entirely tapped by the time it hits her elbows and knees—which is ratherdiscouraging, she realises, as she remembers how long and hard Sasuke-kun and Naruto could fight and use chakra.
She doesn't allow herself to focus on this particular shortcoming, though… instead, Sakura focuses on her meager chakra reserves and directing them back down her limbs again, back into the puddle she imagines at her feet. Then, once it's all back in place and twinkling back up at her with a tell-tale glow, Sakura steels herself and repeats the process once more. Up and down, over and over, stretching and pulling until her muscles as screaming and her chakra is flickering and—
Sakura's eyes snap open with a startled gasp, her body lurching backward with the force of her coming back into herself; her back drops against the still-damp grass with a dull thud, her chest heaving with laboured breath as she stares at the still overcast sky overhead. She stays like that for a while, catching her breath, trying not to focus on how uncomfortable she feels to be soaked in sweat in the still-early morning chill. Her dress is clinging to her and she frowns, lifting a hand with so much effort that her fingers tremble to brush a stubbornly-clinging piece of hair from her face before she pulls herself into a sitting position. Her entire body is screaming at her in protest, and belatedly Sakura fumbles to remember Iruka-sensei's lectures on over-taxing during chakra meditation.
Pushing yourself so hard you black out won't help you in the long run, she remembers Iruka-sensei warning the class. If you want to improve your chakra reserves and improve your replenishment time, you have to be patient and ease your coils into it. It's like exercise—push too hard and you'll only hurt yourself instead.
"Well…" Sakura murmurs to herself after a long moment, voice hoarse and lungs adamantly protesting she speak any louder than a whisper. Her muscles are trembling, fingers spasming as she clutches at the grass, her legs quaking so hard that she wonders if she'll ever be able to stand again. "At least I didn't black out…?"
"Mah, there is that."
Sakura's head snaps up at the sound of Kakashi-sensei's voice and squeaks in pain, the muscles in her neck pulling back in a violent protest that leaves her on the brink of tears. She's not sure whether she's actually all that surprised to see him checking in on her or not—after all, she's coming to the conclusion that Kakashi-sensei just seems to have a weird sort of sixth sense in regards to his students—but she finds herself grateful for his presence. That feeling of being watched, the irrational fear that somehow someone will come and get her for her failure, will finish what Zabuza or Haku should have… Kakashi-sensei being around makes it fade away, just a little.
Something about his gaze feels off, though, and Sakura can't help but furrow her brow at him. The way he's staring down at her is almost careful, like how Sasuke-kun had looked down at that demon of a cat, Tora, when she'd been yowling and backed into a corner. Is she in trouble for coming out so early without telling anyone where she was going? She supposes that could be possible.
Swallowing thickly, Sakura drops her gaze and waits for him to rebuke her, to scold her… anything, really, anything at all—but after a few excruciating seconds of silence, Kakashi-sensei simply closes his eye in that strange smile of his and squats down to her level, reaching out to ruffle her hair.
For once, it doesn't annoy her.
April 6th 996 — Konohagakure
Haruno Sakura had left Konohagakure a twelve-year-old girl with love-struck eyes and a thick shell of naïveté that protected her from the harsh realities of her chosen profession. She'd been wearing her favourite red dress and spandex shorts, had brushed her hair until it shone and put on light makeup with her favourite cherry-flavoured lip gloss, and she had made sure to wear a brilliantly wide, toothy smile for the boy she dreamed of one day marrying. The most pressing concerns of that Haruno Sakura's life had been focused on keeping Ino-pig from getting close to her Sasuke-kun, her annoyingly late sensei that didn't seem all that invested in teaching them a single thing, and dealing with her absolute plague of a teammate, Uzumaki Naruto.
Haruno Sakura returned to Konohagakure a thirteen-year-old girl with dark circles under her eyes, their vibrant green having dulled considerably by loss, guilt, and fear; once vivid and full of big, girlish dreams, her eyes now properly reflected one who understood the very real threat of the title shinobi. She'd finally witnessed the brutal reality of the path she'd run down without looking back: being a shinobi wasn't just a game of dress-up, and if she wasn't careful, if she didn't make sure to pull her own weight from now on, her teammates could very well die. She was wearing her favourite red dress, caked in mud and several patches of Sasuke-kun's blood, her hair falling in matted tangles down her back that she'd given up pushing away from her eyes, and not a single smudge of the makeup she'd been so preoccupied with before remained on her face. Now, the only thing that seemed to be looming on her mind was one simple yet terrifying conclusion:
If she didn't start training now, she would become the very trash her sensei had warned her about.
It's with this train of thought circling her mind on a constant repeat, whispering in her ear again and again and again in a voice that sounded so much like Kakashi-sensei's that it startled her, that Sakura finds herself standing before the Hokage's desk. Everything feels hazy, disconnected just like before—if she tries, she can replace Hokage-sama and his desk with the graves that she hasn't stopped seeing when her eyes close—and Sakura's own voice sounds muffled to her. She's back underwater again, far away from the memories and the fear and the self-loathing Hokage-sama is having her relive for him. Her body may obey, her mouth mechanically delivering the mission report as is her duty, but her mind is somewhere so very far away from here, away from them.
She doesn't notice Naruto looking at her or the sympathetic stare of Hokage-sama, nor does she even feel Kakashi-sensei's hand on her hair all the way back to her house. Her body just moves, a hollow shell that Kakashi-sensei dutifully escorts to her home, her legs taking her up the stairs to her room on muscle memory alone. She doesn't hear what her sensei says, she doesn't hear her parents' responses, doesn't say goodbye or goodnight or acknowledge when her parents try to knock on her door.
Her body just drops face-first into the familiar softness of her pillows, but even that doesn't bring Sakura back to her body. She's still floating high in the darkened skies of Konohagakure, tied to her string and hovering over her body so very far below, so very far away from the memories, from the emotions, from the constant string of thoughts and insecurities and fears. Up here, away from herself, Sakura can't focus on the way her mind tries to play tricks on her, on the way her mind swears that she hears the rustling of leaves and the sloshing of puddles outside and the whispered song of a blade being drawn by her ear.
The first time Sakura snaps awake and back to herself, Sakura doesn't know where she is or what day it is or if she's even safe. Something in her, some cowardly piece of her, chokes down any sound she might make in the hopes of not being discovered, her mind whirling in a chaotic mess of terror, confusion, and still-lingering grief. (Does it ever go away?) She doesn't scream, she doesn't even whimper; instead, Sakura just stays rooted to the spot, curled in what she now recognising where she is, that she's home in her bed and she's safe, she's okay. It was only a dream, nothing more than her brain replaying a memory of Zabuza flying at her sensei faster than her untrained eyes could follow thrumming along the walls of her skull to the frantic beating of her heart. Haku. Senbon. Sasuke-kun bleeding on the ground. Kakashi-sensei's blood. Blood mixing with the water, so much water—she can't breathe—
The second time she snaps awake and feels like she's choking, drowning like she was in her dream as Zabuza holds her head under the frigid water of the river. As Haku holds her head under. Gatō. Faceless strangers. Once it is even Kakashi-sensei holding her head under, his words rattling in her mind like the sound of dirt thudding on the roof of a coffin. Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash. Sakura knows it's a nightmare. Knows Kakashi-sensei would never. Kakashi-sensei protected her, protected all of them—he won't let his team die, he won't, he'd never hurt her…
Sakura showers after each nightmare but she can't scrub it away, can't wash away the fear, the worthlessness, the despair. She feels helpless as she stands under the water, scalding hot but still so cold, and it's choking, choking—
Sakura doesn't like taking long showers any more.
April 9th 996 — Konohagakure
It takes three days for Sakura to seek Ino out.
She wanders around Konoha for nearly an hour, unwilling to ask anyone if they'd seen her but also unwilling to give up. She could just go to the flower shop, could ask Ino's parents if she's out on a mission or if she's too busy to help Sakura understand herself again, like she did when they were kids. It takes her two hours to find the blonde that had irreversibly changed Sakura's life, but the moment she lays eyes on her former best friend, Sakura finds herself unable to actually approach her.
Ino's laughing about something and obviously telling one of her wild tales, teasing one of the boys on her team at the dango stand she used to take Sakura to. Sakura can tell by the wild swing of her arms and the way Ino's tossing her head back and forth that it's a story about her dad—especially with the way Ino throws her arms wide and then rolls her eyes, because Ino only ever does that when she thinks her father's being over-protective or embarrassing. The boy she's regaling with her story has dark hair pulled up into a spiky ponytail, and for a moment Sakura fixates on him. She should know his name, should remember him, but she's still so disconnected from herself. She can't remember.
Why is she so focused on her best friend's teammates? She doesn't need either of them and she needs to focus. She can't disconnect again, not right now. There's so much to do, so much she has to work on, she can't keep falling behind. She needs Ino, needs to talk to her, to ask her for help and cry and just tell someone what she went through, beg Ino to tell her what to do—
But Ino is smiling, just as carefree as she had been when they were friends, and Sakura turns away.
Sakura wanders for yet another hour, struggling to remain fully present as her eyes trail over the signs of various shops, over the faces of people she passes by. She can't keep hiding away within herself every time someone's headband glints in the sunlight, every time someone stares at her for more than a single heartbeat… but she can't really help it.
The paranoia creeps up her spine every time someone's eyes pause on her for even a fraction of a second, numerous improbable fears clogging her lungs and rotting her from the inside out and sending her heart hammering in her chest. Do they see it? Do they see how completely worthless she feels in the wake of everything that happened? Do they know that she hadn't been someone Kakashi-sensei could genuinely count on? Do they know she insulted Naruto, belittled all the progress she's seen him make, disrespected Kakashi-sensei, constantly encroached on Sasuke's personal space, and never took any of her sensei's teaching seriously? Are they judging her as a failure of a kunoichi, mocking her for ever signing up for the Academy in the first?
Has she disappointed Konohagakure? As a shinobi of her village, wasn't that the worst thing she could do? She's not only let her team down, but her entire village, her Hokage, everyone.
Finally, Sakura slips into the first door she sees, the weight of her own paranoid thoughts becoming too much to handle, and hides within the building's walls, breathing heavily and resisting the urge to curl up and cry, or to just let go of that string that's keeping her tethered to her body and fly away again. No. No, she has to focus. Sakura looks up at her surroundings for the first time, surprised to find herself in the library, completely surrounded by walls of books.
The thing is, Sakura learned very early on in life that books don't judge you. They won't hurt you. Even better than that, though… is that books can answer questions. Sakura's good with books, had practically lived in them before she'd met Ino. As a civilian, her access had been severely limited, restricting her to romances and fairy-tales and dictionaries at best… but as a genin? Sakura had never even thought of coming to see what sort of scrolls would be available to a genin, what she might be able to learn from a place like this.
Distractedly reciting her identification number to the chūnin manning the desk, Sakura realises that for the first time in days she actually, genuinely feels safe. This was it. This was her finally taking her first step.
April 10th 996 — Konohagakure
It's their first day of training since their return from Wave, and Sakura had spent the entire morning worrying over what would happen. Would her team be angry at her? Would they blame her nearly as much as she blames herself? Would Naruto throw every awful, mocking thing she'd ever said about him back in her face? Would Sasuke tell her she didn't deserve to be on his team? Would Kakashi-sensei revoke her status as a genin of Konohagakure?
All of her worrying was for nothing, just a byproduct of her now incredibly self-critical and overreactive imagination… and yet, the actual product of their mission to wave felt so much worse than what she'd spent so long imagining.
Sasuke and Naruto had apparently arrived well before her, each of them on either side of the bridge that Team Seven had long-since claimed as their own, their backs to one another as they stare out into the distance. Sasuke, leaning with his arms crossed on the railing and Naruto, sitting with his legs dangling over the edge, one hand absentmindedly gripping the rail as if he were inside a jail cell looking out. They can't be more than four feet apart from one another, and yet the distance seems so massive that Sakura's afraid she'd tumble off into a great chasm if she tried to breach it.
How will they ever work together as a team? Do the boys see that wide, aching canyon between the three of them, or is it only there for her? She remembers how well they'd fought against Zabuza, how they'd worked like a well-oiled machine, and a sharp twist of the knife in her chest tells her that no, the boys don't see it. They won't.
They aren't far from one another… they're only out of her reach.
Sakura doesn't stand on the bridge with them—she can't, she doesn't deserve to, they can't count on her—instead, she stands on the dirt just before the bridge, silently staring at them with a heavy feeling she can't quite describe. No one speaks a single word as the three of them wait for Kakashi-sensei to arrive.
April 13th 996 — Konohagakure
Sakura is sitting at the library for the third day in a row, table covered in various scrolls, an organised mess that she knows inside and out despite how it may look to an outsider. Sakura doesn't look up whatsoever from her work as she scrawls note after note, memorising the instructions, the methodology, and even the theory of the techniques contained in as many scrolls as she could feasibly have out on this table. She reads on and on and on, meticulously recalling every seal, every indication of chakra needed, every stance—she marvels at such an insignificant strength, her only real strength, and wonders why she'd never really tried like this before. Sure, Naruto may have so much chakra that he can hit the wall enough times to just punch on through, and Sasuke-kun may be a prodigy with the benefit of a kekkei genkai to launch him even further ahead, but Sakura can run with them with the right amount of focus.
She doesn't have to stand by and just watch.
If she can stay focused, and keep her head from drifting off and away into that far-away place of faux safety, Sakura knows she can do this. She can close the gap. She can catch up to them, can watch their backs properly, and she knows that she'll be able to become competent enough that they won't feel the need to glance over their shoulder to make sure she can actually protect their backs while they protect hers. With the right amount of determination, Sakura knows that she can have enough strength to not be a liability to them, but to at least be an asset.
She can be someone they trust.
She remembers the day Kakashi-sensei had taught them how to walk up the trees and grimaces, recalling how she'd stopped on the first branch without even attempting to go any higher. She hadn't striven to explore her own limits, to push herself—and with that absolutely mortifying realisation, Sakura cannot blame Kakashi-sensei for seeming to take no real notice of her in regards to training. After all: after realising that she'd had an innate strength, that she had a quality both her teammates lacked, Sakura had chosen to sit and watch instead of pushing on and actually doing something with it. She didn't push and pull like Sasuke-kun and Naruto did. She didn't try.
After she's taken a sizable amount of research with her, Sakura goes to their training ground. It's empty for the afternoon, since her team has taken the rest of the day off after a particularly startling incident involving Naruto's pants and a misplaced katon, and after a few hours spent reading more and more, Sakura's decided that today is the day she starts trying to put her money where her mouth is. She has all the information, all the tools… now, she just has to actually do something with them.
She's seen her Academy profile—all students are allowed to after they pass as genin, as a means of gaining self-improvement from any criticism one's sensei may have to offer—and she knows that Iruka-sensei had notated her as someone with above-average intelligence and focus, having labeled her eidetic memory from very early on in her Academy career. (He'd clarified eidetic, not photographic, and Sakura had spent hours reading into the differences and what that necessarily meant for her yesterday.) He'd also made note that she is what's called a "genjutsu-type," having very boldly written out that her chakra control is undoubtedly within the top two percent, with the capability to be labeled as perfect with proper practise, and he'd scribbled a suggestion that she look into genjutsu or the medical fields as a result.
For all that praise, however, there was plenty of red ink for her to look over. Distracted. Lacks motivation. He'd noted that she never made to perfect a technique he'd taught; instead, Sakura always simply learned to use them to the barest minimum in order to pass, having never made any kind of strides forward to actually ensure she'd have the skills to survive on the path of a shinobi. Iruka-sensei showed concern for her lack of any specialisations, having even scribbled notes about what team to place her on to help her flourish if at all. It had stung to see that he'd passed her without confidence that she could actually do it, but she understood that he'd done so because she did meet the requirements—she just found herself wishing Iruka-sensei had said something back then.
She wishes she would have listened if he had.
Laying out her notes on the cooling grass, Sakura sighs and begins with the basics: her stretches. She'd walked by several training grounds on her way here, peeking at teams that were still training, at shinobi simply getting in what time they could, getting ideas that simply reading on scrolls or seeing in diagrams couldn't tell her. Everything she'd read stressed the need for stretching before any kind of training, as had Iruka-sensei back in the Academy, and Sakura realises with no small amount of embarrassment that she'd just never bothered to try and stretch before… well, anything. She incorporates a few different methods with the standard Academy-taught ones, trying to hold them out as long as she guesses is appropriate, wondering if she should ask Kakashi-sensei to teach her how to properly stretch before anything else.
Peering at her papers, at the poses she'd both written and drawn out for one of the first katas she'd decided to try to learn, Sakura hums and wonders if this is perhaps too basic. She's a genin, after all, not a new student—but all the books had stressed that one should strengthen their basics, and Sakura knows that she needs all the help she can get. So, after several moments of memorising what she'd drawn out, Sakura moves a few feet away and allows her eyes to fall closed, the memory of her hands drawing out those poses playing against her eyelids as if on repeat, and Sakura breathes a silent prayer of gratitude for her eidetic memory once again. She slides uneasily into the first stance of Sanchin, breathing out through her nose and centering herself.
It's awkward at first, arms and legs trembling and her balance teetering at times. She's not entirely sure where to put her arms, her legs, her stance too loose and then too tight, legs too far apart, arms hanging too low, fists unclenched… but over time, Sakura realises it gets easier. She repeats these motions over and over, sliding through them until she's not hyper-focused on her mistakes and instead letting her mind wander, her body following the motions by muscle-memory. It's relaxing, in a way, like a form of meditation that leaves Sakura feeling refreshed even as a thin sheen of sweat starts crawling across her skin.
It feels like hours go by before she opens her eyes again, dropping to sit in the middle of an empty training ground, the moon hanging overhead her only company in the chill of night.
April 15th 996 — Konohagakure
The distance is what makes her decide to bring the lunches the first time.
She doesn't know their preferences—well, not Sasuke-kun's or Kakashi-sensei's, anyway, since Naruto is incredibly vocal about his love for ramen—but all the same, Sakura finds herself making four generic bentos and bringing them with her to training that day. Kakashi-sensei doesn't say anything when she sets the bag with them down off to the side, nor does he comment about the way she slides into her stretches without him giving her any instructions. She listens to the familiar background noise of Sasuke-kun and Naruto's bickering, a distant noise that grounds her as she closes her eyes, body moving through the familiar stances of her kata again with much steadier movements than she'd been able to use two days ago. She's so focused on herself in that moment that she misses the way Kakashi-sensei's lone eyebrow raises just a little at her, misses her teammates' twin stares as she moves with relative ease, misses the speculative, if not stunned, quiet that falls over her team.
"Mah, Sakura-chan… I'm hurt. You've been seeing another sensei." Kakashi-sensei's playful accusation snaps her from her trance-like state and Sakura turns, somewhat startled, to look up at her sensei with a blush crawling across her cheeks and down her neck. Had she done something wrong? Sakura fumbles to apologise when she notices that his eye is relaxed and closed, in that single-eyed smile he'd given her in Wave, the smile that had comforted her and also lanced her through the heart, and it's because of that expression that Sakura finds herself struggling to offer a small, timid smile in return.
"No, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura clears her throat and glances away from him as a sudden wave of shyness overtakes her, hand coming up to run through her ponytail nervously, tugging the end over her shoulder to allow her fingers to fiddle with the tip of it. "I was just doing some reading—in the library, I mean—and I worked this into my training routine."
"Oh?" Her cheeks burn at his obvious interest, a trickle of shame that he sounds genuinely surprised working its way into her heart, but what makes it worse is how Sasuke-kun and Naruto turn to fully face her now. "Have you been training without us, then?"
"I started coming here in the late afternoons after… our last mission." She hopes her hesitation isn't entirely obvious, hopes they don't hear the hitch, hopes they don't realise that Sakura hasn't really been able to look any of them in the eye since then. She hopes they don't realise that she doesn't feel worthy to. She hopes they don't already think she's just a burden. Dead weight. Trash. "I've just been trying to find my specialisation. Yesterday I was trying to teach myself to walk on water, and—"
"Woah! Really, Sakura-chan?!" Suddenly Naruto is upon her, leaning in closer than she would usually be comfortable with, forcing her to stare into that pair of impossibly bright blue eyes. Eyes that trusted her. Idolised her. Naruto doesn't hate her… and that realisation takes such a huge weight from her shoulders that Sakura can't help but smile blindingly back to him, nodding and finding herself suddenly as eager as he is and completely breathless with relief.
"I haven't perfected it yet, but…"
"That's so cool!" Naruto's gushing makes her cheeks flush and Sakura has to glance away again, still smiling broadly, a sort of grateful happiness steadily whittling away at the shame that had begun taking root deep in her chest, so she misses Naruto's accusatory glare that he throws Kakashi-sensei's way. "Hey! Kaka-sensei, how come you haven't been teaching us that?!"
"Mah… it's a little more advanced than walking on trees, you know?" Kakashi-sensei sounds so tired of Naruto's enthusiasm that Sakura actually feels a little bad for unleashing this beast on him, but she still glows when he turns his gaze to her instead. "Why doesn't Sakura-chan teach us today, boys?"
Sasuke-kun's responding scoff lances her heart, but Sakura can't blame him. She can't. She let them down. She let all of them down. She wasn't there for them to count on, she couldn't have their back—of course he'd believe he couldn't count on her to teach them anything when she hadn't shown any kind of capability on a mission where he'd almost lost his life. Her gaze drops to the ground and for a moment Sakura wants to hide away, wants to run, and that string seems so very tempting… but then that reassuring warmth is on her hair again.
"Come on, get to the water, boys. Sakura-chan is going to show us how to walk on water today—it'll be a good chakra-control exercise."
It's like he knows. Once again, Kakashi-sensei has saved her with a gentle touch, a gesture she'd forgotten him capable of that acts as an anchor to keep her mind from drifting away from her body again, and Sakura's heart swells just a little at the kindness. He doesn't say anything else, just smiles that one-eyed smile of his, but Sakura gives him a timid, wobbly smile in thanks and follows as Naruto tears off towards the water with a bellowed challenge towards Sasuke-kun.
They spend nearly six hours in the water, and Sakura herself only spends the last half hour on the water herself. Though initially Sasuke-kun had scoffed again at how she immediately fell into the water after giving them an explanation of having to account for the depth of the water and the movement of the surface waves, he'd been swiftly silenced by both Naruto and Kakashi-sensei, as well as his own immediate drop into the water upon trying to stand on it. He and Naruto were even worse with this than they were with the trees, and after hours of watching them Sakura came to a solid conclusion to her teammates:
Naruto had the chakra and could replicate the method if shown it, but he didn't seem to learn well by hearing long-winded explanations. Sasuke-kun seemed to better learn from her explanations, but he shared Naruto's lack of chakra control—though his was much more refined than their blonde teammate.
It was with this in mind that she asked for a break, chewing her thumbnail with a contemplative frown and ignoring the boys' twin stares as she marched back to where she'd left the bag with their lunches. Unwrapping them, Sakura trotted dutifully back to the lake and started with who she assumed to be the easiest of the three, handing one to Naruto and trying to ignore the self-conscious shyness that wanted to creep up her neck and strangle her. What if they didn't want this from her? What if they weren't really there yet? What if they still hadn't forgiven her and this only offended them more and…
"Wh—" Was he tearing up? Sakura frowned, wondering if she really had been that awful to him, but instead of voicing that question—she's afraid of the answer, afraid of how badly she's let the team down—she simply beams at him and pushes it into his hands.
"I made it for you this morning, Naruto." She pats the top of the bento gently, firmly deciding to be better to Naruto. Kinder. She won't let him down ever again. "I hope you like it."
"Sakura-chan… I—" He swallows loudly, eyes misting over, and Sakura suddenly has the urge to punch herself, to punch Sasuke-kun, to punch everyone who was ever terrible to this boy in his life. "… thank you."
"Of course. What are friends for?" She moves on from him and decides to tackle the middle-child of problematic teammates, stepping in front of Kakashi-sensei with that timidly warn expression on her lips as she presents him his own lunch. "Here, Kakashi-sensei."
"Mah, Sakura-chan—you didn't have to." But he takes it, if a bit reluctantly, and Sakura's smile only grows. He doesn't say thank you, but she knows he's grateful all the same as he drops, legs crossed beside Naruto, and opens the bento with the same sort of reverence that Naruto had.
It's just lunch…
Sasuke-kun doesn't say anything and Sakura doesn't really expect him to. She let him down. She wasn't exactly the best teammate—regardless of her feelings for him, regardless of how much she'd wanted him to notice her, being a good teammate that he could rely on comes first. If he can't trust her to have his back, why on earth would he trust her with his heart? Her own heart drops low, but Sakura still offers him the bento with a weak smile, fully expecting him to stare at her and walk away, to scoff again, to even slap it out of her hand. She deserves that. She let him down. She let them all down—
He takes it without a thank you, without a word, and sits a little further from the others… but he's still closer than he had been on the bridge, and her heart feels a little lighter.
April 16th 996 — Konohagakure
She hit the bullseye.
Never mind the countless kunai and senbon littering the ground around the training dummy, because she's totally been at this all day after Kakashi-sensei was called away on a mission of his own—point is that, after hours and hours of either missing or only being able to hit the outer rings, Sakura finally managed to hit a bullseye. One out of so many isn't entirely impressive in retrospect, but pride still shines in her eyes all the same as she drops to the ground with a triumphant laugh, back hitting the grass with a dull thud.
She'd spent the first hour or so of today's solo training on memorising two new sets of katas and perfecting the transitioning between the three styles. Then she'd moved to target practice, something she'd been admittedly putting off for a while—after all, if there's anything Sakura knows she's subpar at, it's taijutsu and bukijutsu—and it had taken her well until dark to manage to hit the target in the bullseye. That was definite, tangible progress… especially if she could improve her aim so that she'd be hitting the bullseye every time!
The unexpected bonus to this endeavour was a sort of shocking revelation. Once the sun had set and she'd continued to press on, it became harder and harder to see the target properly; however, after recalling a particular scroll that she was still in the middle of during her library session today, Sakura decided to try her hand at chakra enhancement on more than just her legs and arms. In hindsight, Sakura acknowledges that this was incredibly dangerous, as she could have seriously damaged her optic nerves and possibly blinded herself since she had no real idea what she was doing outside of a few scarce medical texts she'd glanced at… but her gamble had paid off, and Sakura is still absolutely pleased with herself for this little victory.
Chakra-enhancement is now her first official "specialty," as she's the only member of team seven (outside of possibly Kakashi-sensei, she's sure he can do anything) that can control their chakra this seamlessly. She's been studying all week on a few different jutsu, as well as reading up on the nuances of genjutsu, though she's not entirely confident in her ability to learn that without assistance. Preferably from Kakashi-sensei. Sakura's not sure she could ever trust anyone else.
(Who would want to teach trash who just watches as their team nearly dies anyway—)
Glancing at the opened scroll resting neglected on the grass nearby, Sakura sighs longingly at the characters dutifully noted across the page. Doton: Shinjū Zanshu no Jutsu, the Earth technique that Kakashi-sensei had used against Sasuke-kun during the bell test. It has several possibilities for her position on the team, as it could be used in self-defense—trap and run—or in trap-laying, or even during combat for herding and thinning out multiple threats. She'd hoped to practice today, but as it was… well, she needs to get home, get cleaned up, suffer through those looks from her mother and father, and then meditate before she can get some sleep. Tomorrow is another shot at water-walking with the boys, after all.
Maybe another day, she tells herself woefully, closing scroll with a click.
April 17th 996 — Konohagakure
"You want us to what—?"
"Are you deaf or dumb, dobe?"
Sakura sighs at Naruto's indignant squawk, sharing a long-suffering look with Kakashi-sensei as the blonde hurls an insult back at Sasuke-kun and the two dissolve into a mess of an argument once again. It's literally all day with the two of them. It's like they were born to be rivals, like they can't go without making everything a competition, without insulting one another… it's absolutely exhausting, and Sakura has no idea how Kakashi-sensei deals with it. She wonders how she's never noticed it before and feels a newfound respect for their perpetually tired sensei. No wonder he takes his sweet time coming to see them every day—he's probably putting it off as long as possible!
"I said I want you to use your hands this time." Sakura moves between the two of them, hands on her hips, glancing between the two of them as if challenging them to say something back to her. Her boys both fall silent, properly cowed and now paying attention to her either because of her tone or because of the look Kakashi-sensei levels them with, and Sakura steps a little deeper into the water hoping that they'll follow her in. Standing waist deep in the water, Sakura turns and holds up her hands, allowing chakra to coat her palm, and then she places them down on the surface. "It's harder to do it through the soles of your feet, so try with your hands first to get used to how to regulate your flow—that way, you can eventually do it through your feet instead."
Then, feeling more confident in herself than she has since before they'd left for that fated mission to Wave, Sakura makes a show of pulling herself up by her hands, like she's pulling up onto a ledge, and then focuses her chakra to move through her body. To her knees so as to kneel on the water's surface, and then to her feet so that she can stand over them and smile in what she hopes is an encouraging method. She can't feel her face again and that string is suddenly tempting her once more, trying to pull her off at the mere reminder of that mission.
But Sakura knows she can't just keep hiding from it—her team needs her.
"You're a genius, Sakura-chan!" Naruto crows, immediately setting out to try and do the same for her. He's kind of cute, she decides—watching him fall face-first into the gentle waves, standing back up to try again… he was like that in the Academy, too, she realises with a jolt. Never giving up, never stopping. Why on earth did everyone treat him so poorly, again? Why had she?
"Hn. I see." Sasuke-kun doesn't fall in, though he stumbles a little. He's tackling this new method with all the finesse of a clan-born shinobi, all smooth and refined movements and a mask of concentration. He's such a stark contrast to Naruto… and to her.
"I believe in you guys!" She walks around them, hardly going noticed in her departure, and ambles to the shore to sit on the ground beside Kakashi-sensei, allowing her smile to drop off her face with a sigh. It's not that she's unhappy… it just takes so much effort to smile right now, to stay present, to not show just how hard she's struggling right now. She hears Kakashi-sensei shift nearby and worries he may say something about it, but thankfully he seems to miraculously understand her yet again.
"Give them a method that speaks better to their learning styles…" Sakura glances to see Kakashi-sensei looking out at the boys over his books. She thinks he's smiling, but his tone is thoughtful, and Sakura wonders how he manages to look so completely inattentive and yet so alert at the same time. "I'm impressed. You're a good teacher, Sakura-chan. Maybe when you get promoted to jōnin you can become an instructor yourself."
"I just remembered how they struggled with the trees, that's all…" A less exhausting smile quirks at the corners of her lips, small and tremulous and barely even there, but she is rewarded with a eye-crinkling smile of his in return. After a long moment of just watching her teammates try and fail, Sakura takes a deep breath and lets her eyes fall closed, focusing on herself and pushing away the memory of Wave that had been flickering at the edges of her awareness from that brief moment of reflection.
She can feel Kakashi-sensei's eyes on her for a beat longer and works to focus on mentally grabbing the string that keeps her centered, to picture the familiar viridian pool of chakra at her feet, and steels herself for the long process of increasing and stretching her chakra reserves.
"Hey, hey—" It's Naruto's voice that eventually drags her from her meditation after what feels like hours. When she opens her eyes, she can see Sasuke-kun watching her as well from a little ways off, probably in what he thinks is a discreet manner. She blinks up at Naruto, head tilted slightly to the side, and she follows his movements with her eyes as he drops down to squat right in front of her her, looking from her posture to her glowing hands and then back to her face again."What're you doing over here, Sakura-chan?"
"I'm meditating, Naruto." She's developed a sort of patience with Naruto that she's heard Kakashi-sensei mutter as "sage-like," but she really doesn't mind how inquisitive he can be—in fact, her frequent trips to the library and her growing knowledge seem to be a point of intrigue for both of her teammates, even if Sasuke-kun won't voice his questions like Naruto does. She likes Naruto treating her like this. "I have really small chakra reserves, so I meditate to expand them, kind of like a muscle. It's the only way I'll be able to keep up with you and Sasuke."
(He doesn't hate me or blame me or—)
"Oh." Naruto says after a moment, managing to look thoughtful while also looking like he'd swallowed a bug. "I don't really like meditating."
"Of course you don't, dobe." Sasuke-kun's smirk immediately has Naruto up and ready for a scuffle, and Sakura can't help the fond sigh as their old song and dance begins anew. At times like this, the memory of the distance on the bridge feels like a dream—right now, in this moment, the four of them feel like a real and proper team. "You'd probably just fall asleep."
"Would not!"
"Would too."
" Boys," Sakura whispers conspiratorially to Kakashi-sensei, who only gives her a solemn nod in return.
(When they're like this, it's easy to forget.)
She won't ever let them down again.
10/04/18: This chapter has been fully re-written with added scenes, explanations, and hopefully some better fleshing out of the effects of Sakura's lasting trauma after Wave. Complete honesty: some of Sakura's dissociation from herself and her self-loathing, as well as her paranoia, is actually based on personal reactions I had to a similar (as similar as reality can be to ninjas with god powers, lmao) experience in my life, as I was too young to fully process what I'd seen/endured and I blamed myself entirely for a lot of things that were really just out of my control.
I really, genuinely tried to more properly convey in this rewrite that, on top of being afraid for herself, Sakura's biggest fear/regret/guilt stems from the fact that her teammates suffered, not necessarily because she experienced any of the same things Naruto, Sasuke, or Kakashi did. I hope that now this will feel more genuine, as some people said that it seemed like a severe drop and that her fear/guilt would come and go too sporadically.
The original word count of this chapter was 6,013. This revision's word count is now 8,789.
Thank you for reading!