Chapter Text
Chapter seven - badasses and bullshit
“Sakura! You okay there ?” Naruto's voice brought her back to reality, too the two pairs of eyes resting on her. And the weight that she knew they would one day carry.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Three hours.
She had been sitting on this bloody training field for three fucking hours. Well—not sitting there. Well yes, sitting there. But it was productive sitting.
She sat beneath the tree Sasuke had once perched in, legs folded, arms resting gently on her thighs. Breathing steady. Eyes shut. Her entire being focused on her chakra—how it separated, how it flowed. She directed it into her hands, into her mind, into her muscles.
The rustling of leaves above her was rhythmic—almost musical. It provided the beat with which her chakra pulsed through her coils. The music of life. Leaves whispering long-lost secrets of lovers and war. Branches shifting like old bones left to rest. Small rodents scampered along trunks, finding homes in their protective embrace.
‘I wonder if chakra has a sound? You know, like how blood does when it’s pumping too hard? Or like when you hold a shell up to your ear? I wonder if rushing feels like running water. Or if it’s fizzy. Or if it sounds like how rain smells. Or if it tastes like lightning.’
‘That makes no sense whatsoever.’
‘Maybe it sounds like trees—the rustling of leaves, the groaning of branches, the cracking of twigs. Like summer trees full of birdsong. Or autumn, when the leaves brown and no longer rustle but crunch deliciously. Or maybe like evergreens covered in snow, growing too heavy until the snow falls off. Or maybe it doesn’t sound like that at all. Maybe it sounds like everything and nothing. Like the universe. Like silence.’
‘You are so weird.’
The rough bark against her back was grounding, following the curve of her spine to where her head gently rested against the trunk. It tethered her to reality, to herself. Kept her floating—but not adrift. The tree pulsed in sync with her. Almost like it was reaching out. Almost like it was alive.
Every ten minutes, she shifted the chakra’s direction, cycling through regions of her body until no part remained untouched. Her fingertips fizzed with energy—bubbling, invigorating, calming.
A bird’s shrill call cut through the silence.
Oh shit. Time was real. And it had, in fact, been passing.
The trees rustled again. Almost like they were laughing at her. Which was weird, seeing as trees couldn’t laugh.
‘You fucking moron’, Inner mocked her. Again.
‘You’re so mean to me for no reason’, she pouted, brows scrunching together. It was quite cute, actually.
The air clung to her skin, thick with Konoha humidity. Not even the breeze helped—it seemed to avoid every exposed inch of her body, yet somehow managed to blow her baby hairs against her damp forehead and her tied-back hair against her neck, sticky with sweat and now streaked with pink.
So apparently the wind hated her too. Not just her sensei.
‘You knew it was coming. Why are you so surprised?’
‘Because I thought it would be different this time.’
This time? What this time?
‘Why would it be?’ Inner replied.
But Sakura could feel the disappointment. Both hers and Inner’s. It pressed against her chest, nearly suffocating.
‘It really shouldn’t hurt this much. There was no reason to think he’d be any different.’
She wasn’t surprised he hadn’t shown up. But she was hurt.
Which, really, wasn’t that surprising.
Her hands slipped from her thighs and came to rest in the grass beside her. The morning dew had dried, but the damp air left the blades feeling wet—like breath on cold glass.
An army of ants marched up the tree to her left. Their tiny footsteps like a legion. Their loyalty to their queen indisputable. They moved in perfect formation. Purpose known. Duty fulfilled. No hesitation. No lies. Just loyalty.
(Just obedience.)
‘I wish humans were like ants… or bees. Bees are better. No—ants are better. Ants are stronger.’ Her fingers trailed through the grass, moisture co;;ecting on her fingertips.
‘ No—ants are mindless. There’s no individuality. Society can’t progress without independent thought. Diversity of thought is vital to innovation. Bad Sakura.’
(But at least the ants will never choose another queen.)
“Yo.”
A shriek tore itself from her throat as she whipped around toward the voice. Her stupid, fucking bastard of a sensei was crouched beside the tree she’d been leaning on—arms resting on bent knees, head tilted to the side.
He was eyeing her in a way that felt almost predatory. Contemplative, like a cheetah watching its prey, weighing whether the chase would be worth it. Whether the hunt would be fulfilling. Whether the kill would be delicious.
Or whether it would just be an unfinished carcass, blood wasted, dripping from its muzzle. Gore trapped in its teeth and vengeance caged in its mind.
It felt odd, comparing him to a cat—when he was so clearly a different kind of predator. One with a fluffier tail and bigger teeth.
He was a wolf, after all. It was in his blood.
‘Oh shush, he's such a little puppy. I bet he likes head scratches.’
‘Are… are you feeling okay???’
Was Inner sick all of a sudden? Was this what schizophrenia looked like in mental constructs? Or maybe she was having a stroke… That must be it. Wait—Inner was a figment of her imagination. She couldn’t get ill.
‘He’s so cute. I wanna put him in my pocket.’
Maybe I’m the one having a stroke.
‘He's a mass murderer. And severely mentally unstable—he’d probably chew his way out.’
‘But puppy’, Inner whined.
She was…she had been thrusting over him not six hours ago… where on earth had this come from…
What the ever-living fuck.
‘i am so confused’
‘It’s good to acknowledge your limitations’, Inner grouched, retreating into the periphery of her mind to sulk. Over a twenty-something man with attachment issues a mile long and a list of mental health problems even longer.
Oh, the irony.
‘Huh… we twin.’
“You good there?” Kakashi’s amused voice broke through her spiraling thoughts before they could devolve any further. “We lost you for a minute, didn’t we, Pinkie?”
“You’re late, Sensei,” she grumbled, attempting to frown up at him. Physically forcing her eyes not to stray where they shouldn’t… like his arms.
‘Bad Sakura. You are loyal to your soulmate, Sakura. Be good, Sakura’
“Are you three terrible terrors ready for your test?” he asked, rising to his feet and turning his back on them as he walked toward the bridge.
Sakura and Naruto scrambled up. She brushed grass from her trousers; Naruto unaware of the leaves tangled in his hair made to follow their sensei.. Unconsciously, she reached out to pull them free before he could. Her fingers caught on a flash of green, and she gently tugged it loose.
Naruto turned to her, eyes wide, mouth gaping like a beached fish.
Sakura blinked once. Then twice.
A flush rose to her cheeks.
She turned away and hurried after her sensei. The thud of feet on grass followed her strategic retreat. Sasuke had jumped down from the tree branch he’d been resting on and was now trailing behind her.
Naruto remained frozen in his shock. She hadn’t touched him before—at least, she didn’t think she had.
She paused.
She couldn’t leave him behind. She didn’t know why. She just couldn’t. Even walking ahead of him felt wrong. A part of her brain was screaming, clawing at the cage that held it, pleading for her to go back to him.
So she did.
She walked back.
She reached out.
She grabbed his hand.
Tugging him along behind her, she followed where Sasuke had gone.
(And as always—he will follow where she leads him. His trust in her, absolute.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The test was a disaster.
An absolute clusterfuck.
A thing of such mind-space bamboozlement that Sakura would rather bleach it from her mind than attempt to remember it.
It was humiliating.
So humiliating.
It had gone exactly how she remembered it going—at first, anyway. A certain duckbutt avenger being arrogant and snide. A certain effervescent blond being overly ambitious and prideful. And her—sarcastic and wholly, pretty much, useless.
‘At least you were caught in a nightmare this time... That would not have been fun.’ Inner had finally decided to make an appearance…and she was being a bitch.
Her brain had a lot more ammunition to fire at her now. Memories she remembered having—and ones she didn’t. The feeling of broken glass embedded in skin. The feeling of salt water filling her lungs.
Her head was just as much of a mess as the rest of her. Leaves in her hair. Dirt under her trimmed fingernails. Mud splattering her soaked-through clothing.
‘At least you didn’t wear white.’ A massive bitch.
The mud clinging to her skin was like tar—drying into a layer that could, quite frankly, rival concrete with its sheer stubborn refusal to leave. Attempting to get this kind of mud out of white clothing would be about as pointless as trying to drag her sensei away from his porn. So unless you were down to attempt a one-man siege, it was best to give up while you were ahead.
The fucking mud.
“Oh my god, it's so itchy!” Sakura whined, voice high, wiggling in an attempt to shift some of the dried filth off her bare skin. But the ropes binding her to the log prevented any relief from the torture. And they were also really fucking itchy against her bare wrists.
“Shut up.”
‘He’s such an arsehole.’
‘ Well fuck you too, I guess, Sasuke.’
‘I hope he’s just as itchy... bastard.’
‘Why the fuck did I ever like him ?????? he’s kinda pathetic’
“I’ll help you, Sakura, believe it!” Naruto exclaimed—from where he too was tied to a log.
“That’s sweet of you, Naruto, but I think we need to worry about getting free before we worry about that.”
‘What a cutie patootie’
‘When the fuck did you start saying that?’
Sakura tried to turn her head to look at him and managed to catch the bright smile on his face for a few seconds before her neck began to crick.
“How do we get out, Sakura?!” Naruto continued where they’d left off. Sakura paused for a moment before speaking.
“Can you do the thing you did earlier? With the clones? So they can untie us?”
She wasn’t supposed to know about the clones just yet, but Naruto had gotten rash during the test, and she had just so happened to be in the right place at the right time (i.e., not stuck in a nightmare about a boy she quite frankly didn’t like all that much being killed). So she had more time to pay attention to the golden ball of sunshine that was oh-so-desperate to prove himself to someone.
“Oh crap, yeah! I forgot about that. One sec!”
He was quiet for a moment before a second Naruto puffed into existence to his left.
“Hi me! Untie me.”
‘Oh he's adorable’
Naruto ordering himself around would never not be funny. It was such a weird thing to see—two of the same person. Two autonomous beings with the same brain, same thoughts, same morals, coming to completely different conclusions regarding the same scenario.
Which is why it was even funnier when the clone ignored Naruto and headed, distraught, for her.
“I’m not leaving Sakura tied up! You can wait a minute.”
‘So cute’
‘Since when have you had a thing for him?????’
Was it just her, or was Naruto significantly more eloquent than he was supposed to be? The way he spoke was just... different. Not bad. Just different. More aware, perhaps? Who knows.
Naruto has, and will always be, an anomaly.
He was kind and he was angry.
He was loud and he was silent.
He was always ready to fight, but all he wanted was peace—for the people he loved to be safe.
He took up space without even trying, but always gave others room to be themselves. So used to being ignored and pushed aside, he always made space for others when he saw they truly needed it.
Sure, he was loud and brash and somewhat abrasive sometimes. But he was also kind and caring and one of the most compassionate people Sakura had ever met.
He was everything she was not.
He was everything she wanted to be.
And he was nothing like her at all.
And he was her reflection.
She would come to love him, she was sure.
No matter what universe she was in, she would always adore the being that was Naruto Uzumaki. He made her forget how bad it could be sometimes. For a brief moment in time, her brain was quiet. So blissfully quiet. So full of cloudy skies and sunshine.
After all, the past is hard to forget when it’s written across your skin.
When the most harmful words you’ve uttered are scrawled across your palms.
(“Don’t fucking touch me.”)
The past is hard to forget when the words that hurt you the most emboss your ribcage—gory words carved into skin, rivulets of crimson dripping down pale flesh.
(“You will never be enough for them! You aren’t good enough, Sakura! You are a monster! You don’t deserve them.”)
The past is hard to forget when the worst parts of your life decorate your skin—an impressionist’s view of suffering.
(“O-oh god, what have you done… WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”)
But it’s easy to forget the past when kind words write over the pain.
(“Hey beautiful, let me help you, okay? Let me help you.”)
When the sweetest nothings are painted in watercolor over the hurt of your hands.
(“The stars themselves rejoice in our meeting. You are mine, you hear that? Mine.”)
When thoughtless kindness covers up the pain in your chest.
(“It hurts. It hurts so much.”)
When love itself engulfs your palms in warm and gentle hands, telling you nothing will ever hurt you again.
(“Shhhh, shh baby, I know. I know it hurts. But they will never hurt you again. I promise you. They will never hurt you again.”)
And Naruto was just that.
He was love.
(And he was hers. She just didn’t know it. Neither did Naruto. But he knew they were his. He knew. And they would one day be with him. They would lie back and watch the sky. They would know peace. He would ensure it.)
And still, there was mud caked onto her skin.
And her hands were filthy.
(But one day her hands would be clean. And if he had anything to say about it, they would never be filthy again.)
( Apart from if she wanted them to be dirty … he was too scared of her to forbid her from doing anything)
(And she would only ever be tied to things she wanted to be tied to.)
One day, life would be days spent under a sakura tree with cloudy skies full of sunshine.