Wait For Me
Blanket Fic Disclaimer
Original Prompt by: @toscafan
"Olá. Você poderia escrever uma fic onde após Sasuke voltar para a vila, Sakura vai em uma missão e é gravemente ferida. Então Sasuke percebe que seus sentimentos por ela cresceram quando ele a vê ferida no hospital. Talvez com um pouco de Naruto preocupado também. Eu imagino isso entre o período que Sasuke volta para Konoha e antes de eles partirem juntos em suas viagens. Suas histórias são maravilhosas :) eu sinto muito não escrever em inglês :( “
[Roughly: Hello, Could you write a fic where after Sasuke returns to the village, Sakura goes on a mission and is seriously injured. Then Sasuke realises that his feelings for her have grown when he sees her injured in the hospital. Maybe with a bit of Naruto worried too. I imagine it between the time Sasuke returns to Konoha and before they leave together on their travels.]
Author’s Note: As promised during Evil Author Day, I am trying to finish some of my WIPs. I actually managed to finish this one (Prompt # 4), which is a total miracle given how I’ve been feeling lately. And the fact I think this one is like...two years old. So yeah, major backlog of stuff that needs writing. Enjoy!
Beta Reader: None but me and my editing software :)
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⁂ ⁂ ⁂
It shouldn’t have happened.
The words repeat themselves on a loop in Sasuke’s head, like a record player tossed asunder, skipping unerringly back over the same line in a song. In every momentary pause where the words begin to repeat, there is a breath, an extended moment of tension where his chest feels tighter and tighter.
She hasn’t been on active duty rosters since the war. Her field is medicine, not defense or combat or infiltration, and as strong and talented as Haruno Sakura is, she’s still human and prone to mistakes. Shinobi work isn’t like riding a bike. You have to continue to exercise your particular skillset daily, or mistakes can be made, leading to mishaps, leading to—
It shouldn’t have happened.
サスサク
When the call came in for a relief-force of medicnin, it wasn’t unusual. War or no, there are still major medical emergencies and disasters. In this case, reports reached Konoha of an earthquake 350 miles away. Though the village had barely experienced a tremor, the quake had apparently devastated the shepherding community living at the base of the mountain.
As a rule, Sakura should have stayed behind to coordinate everything from the village; with Tsunade on another of her gambling jaunts, she was the most senior healer.
But the devastated town was without its own medical corps, and the number of injured was overwhelming. Every able pair of hands was needed and naturally, Sakura volunteered herself for the mission.
“I can do the work of a dozen medics and they might need someone to lift debris,” she informed the Sixth Hokage when he seemed likely to protest. “I also trained the latest group of emergency medics going out there; they’re still relatively untested in the field. Better they take their orders from me than some random jounin that you assign.”
Kakashi knew better than to argue with his former student, but he was reluctant. For some reason, he was uneasy. There was little reason for it that he could discern, but after all his years as a shinobi, he had learned to heed his instincts.
“Please, Lord Sixth, there are many large families there, with children.”
Against that—with no concrete reason to give—he could not say no.
“Do you need anyone else beyond the emergency medics?”
“Any civilians with basic first aid training,” Sakura replied, pleased at the response. “Whichever doctors and staff can be spared. The general surgeons, perhaps, but no one with specialized training or technique that we would supper from losing.”
Kakashi nodded and made a gesture she recognized to mean an official granting of the request.
“Ideally, you’d send Naruto as well. He could use the Nine-Tails chakra to mass-heal the simplest injuries. It would make triage a lot faster.”
“That’s not in my power. I’m already on thin ice with the Elders for my executive order to pardon Sasuke. I doubt they’ll want him leaving the village any time soon.”
Sakura scowled.
Under normal circumstances she would argue—she had long ago made clear her dislike and distrust for the village Elders—but every minute spent arguing was wasting crucial time.
“Can you try to convince them?” she asked as she turned to leave the office. “We should be sending out best for this.”
“We already are,” Kakashi said with ease, and there was a smile in his eyes. The one Sakura returned was only a little strained, mind already on her future patients.
サスサク
Sasuke was on a short, probationary mission at the time, in the complete opposite direction from the disaster zone. He didn’t even hear about the earthquake until two days later.
While handing his mission report to Kakashi, he may have been somewhat surprised to learn Sakura would not be around to greet him the way she usually did—and Kakashi’s eyes had a far too knowing gleam in them when he mentioned it—but it never occurred to Sasuke that she would be in any kind of danger.
At least, nothing she wasn’t capable of handling for herself.
For those two days, Sasuke carried out his usual routine, slowly acclimating to being back in service to the village. It still wasn’t his preference to be around so many people, and there was a constant sense of discomfort that lingered at the back of his mind. The sensation of eyes on him from all over, ANBU and civilian alike, heavy with judgement and fear. The only time that feeling abated, even for just a little, was when he was around Sakura, Naruto or Kakashi.
Still, he wasn’t willing or able to seek any of them out. They all have busy lives, and he earned that judgement and fear from the village. It would be an easy feat to leave and never return, but he didn’t deserve easy. Remaining here was part of his punishment, and so he would learn to live with it.
At home, when the constant surveillance became too much, he went to an empty training ground and put himself through various sword forms or engage in other exercises. In two years, he’s grown used to living and fighting with only one arm, but it’s the constant practice that keeps him lethal.
On the morning of the third day he is going through one of his complex sword kata in the training ground where Kakashi made them genin. He tells himself it’s coincidence and not sentimentality that brought him here this morning, even as the three posts stand vigil over his training like towers of memory.
Today he is working only on form and movement, not using any techniques requiring chakra, just trying to sharpen his movements into their usual lethal grace.
As he uncoils from a low final arc of his sword, returning to a resting position, there is a sudden cracking noise; his gaze snaps toward it, and he watches as—apropos of nothing—the wooden post to his far right splits right down the middle.
Sasuke immediately goes still, focussing his awareness around himself and the area, scanning for danger. There is no one in this place foolish enough to try something—even if he wasn’t lethal on his own, the ANBU escorts hidden in the shadows would have been alerted.
The wind continues meander, sending leaves rustling; the sound of birds and the distant crash of the river do not change. There is not threat that he can detect, nothing but a growing sense of foreboding.
And then the ground begins to shake.
As far as earthquakes go, it’s not the worst he’s experienced. He has no problem remaining on his feat as the ground roils and trembles. Even the trees surrounding him show no sign of shuddering.
It’s small and innocuous, nothing on the same level as the one Sakura was sent to help with.
His eyes drift, lingering on the cracked post.
Memory conjures an image of a gawky twelve year old with too-long-to-be-practical hair and luminous green eyes betraying strain and discomfort as she feeds their third teammate tied to the middle post.
It’s probably nothing.
But for some reason his focus on his exercises vanishes, replaced instead with a growing disquiet in the pit of his stomach.
It only grows with every moment as he returns to the village proper and, without knowing why, makes a beeline for Hokage Tower. All around him, people talk excitedly about the tremor, laughing it off and telling one another what they were doing when they noticed it. It’s just a facet of their day, something that—while uncommon—is not dangerous enough to merit panic.
So why does he suddenly feel uneasy?
サスサク
Sasuke arrives at the Tower at the same time as Naruto, a face which causes his inexplicable agitation to ratchet immediately higher, especially given his friend’s uncharacteristic frown and the absence of his usual joking greeting.
Without exchanging words, they enter Kakashi’s office and are immediately treated to the sight of their former instructor pacing by the window, a frown drawing his brows together. The coiled cord of the telephone stretches and relaxes with his back-and-forth movements. It’s so in contrast to his usual demeanor—lazily slouched in his chair—that Sasuke’s spine stiffens in response.
Kakashi eventually hangs up the phone and faces his students.
“There was a second earthquake,” he tells them gravely. “Right next to the refugee camp we set up. According to reports, about 180 million tons of mountainside have crumble down onto the camp. They don’t know if there are any survivors.”
Sasuke’s fist clenches and Naruto’s eyes blink into slits as he activates his senjutsu.
“I can’t sense Sakura’s chakra,” he says, a panicked note in his voice. “Usually I get a definite flicker from her, even at this distance…”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Sasuke tells him. “She masks her chakra when she’s on medical missions to avoid presenting a target.”
He’s not sure how he knows this, since he can’t recall if she mentioned any such practice in their conversations since he’s been back, yet he knows it to be true. Still, this knowledge brings no comfort with it, because the uncomfortable pit in his stomach remains.
“She would be healing everyone after a huge disaster like that,” Naruto protests. “I’d definitely sense that. But I can’t.”
Which, admittedly, worries Sasuke a little despite his unshakable faith in Sakura’s abilities.
Naruto turns to Kakashi, his shoulders squared as if in preparation for a fight. “I’m going to check on her. Even if she’s fine, they’ll need help digging survivors out. I can definitely help with that.”
“Fine,” Kakashi says. The fact he doesn’t argue or mention the concerns of the Elders is telling. “If you leave now, you should get there within—”
Sasuke doesn’t stay to listen.
He’s already climbing the stairs to the roof where there is more open space.
He is by no means an expert at using his Rinnegan yet—every day heralds a new ability or application—but he has more or less figured out how to travel between far distant locations instantly.
“Oi! Sasuke! Wait up!” Naruto shouts from behind as Sasuke focusses himself on creating a pathway. He glanced the coordinates he needs on the papers covering Kakashi’s desk, knows where he’s supposed to go—
The space in front of him crackles, displacing the air, and then rips open, forming a portal of swirling violet energy. On the other side, he can discern a giant wall of rubble.
He wastes no time slipping through, trusting Naruto to follow directly behind him.
サスサク
The sight before them is a grim one.
Sasuke hasn’t seen destruction on this scale since the war.
Mountains loom around them, the closest one looking misshapen due to the giant shelf that has vanished as if scraped off with a giant chisel. Its remnants spill out in front of it, creating a smaller mountain of churned earth and rock, uprooted trees and other debris.
People gather around, civilian and shinobi alike, covered in dust and digging frantically at the rubble. Likely the lucky few who were far enough away when the second quake hit to avoid the harm.
There are almost no Konohanin, medicnin or otherwise, that he can see, suggesting a grim truth to him: they are all underneath the remains of the mountain. Dead, most likely, or trapped and dying as the seconds pass.
But where is Sakura?
She could survive being buried under such weight, and should have dug her way out by now. Stone and rock are like cottage cheese to her strong fists.
“Naruto!”
The two newcomers glance up as a Konohanin scrambles toward them. As he gets closer, Sasuke recognizes him as the kid Sakura has taken on as an assistant. Ando something or other.
“We need help!” the kid gasps when he arrives in front of them, dust-covered and exhausted. “We can’t shift the earth using doton because it could hurt the people underneath.”
The jinchuriki is already forming the signs to summon up shadow clones. If this has to b cleared by hand, he’s the best man for the job. “Don’t worry about it, kiddo.”
“We’ll get through this without a problem!”
“Believe it!”
The clones are already spreading out across the landscape, like a sea of orange washing over the scene.
Sasuke stares down at the boy. “Where is Sakura?”
Ando goes pale beneath the fine layer of dust, eyes pained. “When the earthquake stared, she was trying to get everyone in the medical tents to safety. When she realized she couldn’t, she tried to create barriers to stop the worst of the damage using doton. But it was coming on too fast, and so she tried to slow down the avalanche—"
“Of course she did,” Sasuke murmurs to himself, teeth gritted.
“—but it wasn’t enough! The last I saw, she was destroying the rocks coming at her, but then she was buried.”
“And where were you in all this?”
There’s an accusation in his words that has made stronger men tremble, but Ando merely shudders and clenches his fists. No shrinking violets working with Sakura, that’s for sure.
“I was on water duty. The rivers here were all polluted by the first quake, and so I had to travel far. I saw it all from that cliff up there and hurried down here as fast as I could to help, but…”
He gestures ineffectively, clearly not knowing where to start.
“Sasuke!” Naruto yells all of a sudden, and Sasuke’s head whips toward where he is helping a woman with shredded clothing to climb from the rubble. She is remarkably stable on her feet, considering the situation, and Sasuke understands a moment later when he sees the white creature attached to her shoulder.
“Lady Katsuyu!” Ando cries and hurries over, followed closely by SAsuke.
“Where’ Sakura?” Naruto demands as the younger boy helps the quake victim to sit down. “Is she okay?”
“She’s at the very bottom,” Katsuyu says fretfully. “There’s an airpocket and she’ll still have air for a little while, but she’s gravely injured. Her entire lower body is crushed.” Sasuke’s heart constricts painfully. “I tried to help, but she insisted I attach myself to all the refugees, to keep them alive until help arrives. I fear she won’t be able to keep it up very long. Even my healing can’t save the people buried so long without oxygen.”
“Little fool,” Sasuke growls, the viciousness of the words surprising him more than the situation. Of course she’s more worried about the survival of her patients and the others instead of herself.
“We’re getting her out,” Naruto declares, summoning more clones. “We’ll get her and everyone else out!”
And Sasuke finds himself hoping this is another miracle that his friend’s mere presence and stubbornness will help pull off.
サスサク
The task is arduous and time consuming.
Sasuke is bizarrely conscious of the speed at which the time passes—too fast. They continue dragging survivors out from beneath the rubble—all unharmed, but looking more and more shambled as the rescue efforts reach deeper into the rubble. Every so often, there is a red glow, and the unearth another person being Naruto has managed to sense and enfold in his healing chakra cloak.
Sasuke uses his snake summons for the first time in years, sending them from his sleeve to slither around and crush rocks blocking their path. He digs one-handed while Naruto and the clones make quick work of their chosen debris fields.
They have yet to find Sakura, or a person that as died of their injuries; all of them so far have had a miniature clone of Lady Katsuyu attached somewhere on their bodies.
Yet he can’t sense Sakura.
“Her chakra signature is everywhere,” he frets. “She’s channelling it through Katsuyu to keep everyone alone. I can’t get a proper read on her.”
“And you won’t,” Lady Katsuyu says in a tremulous tone. “The byakugou has disengaged—her strength has finally run out.” She shudders. “We’re too far away. There’s no way we’ll make it to her in time. And I can only linger here a few minutes longer without her sustaining me.”
“We’ll make it!” Naruto growls, tone and eyes harsh like that of a cornered fox. There’s a panic there, belying his words, because he clearly has no idea how they’re going to do that.
It’s that panic more than anything so far that makes Sasuke’s guts roil and a sickening nausea of fear well up within him. Because Naruto never gives up, he always has hope and he always has some kind of harebrained plan to fix a bad situation.
And if he doesn’t have one in this case, it means Sakura’s fate is sealed.
Which—
No.
“You have a clone with Sakura now?” he asks Katsuyu.
“O-of course,” the snail replies, almost surprised at being addressed so directly.
“You can share your chakra between one another. Can you share the chakra of someone else the same way?”
Naruto’s eyes widen as he catches on. “Yes! If I share my chakra with you and your clone, I’ll able to sense where your clone is and we can find Sakura faster.”
“We don’t have that kind of time,” Lady Satsuyu replies mournfully. “And besides, I can’t share your chakra, Naruto-kun. The chakra of biju is too volatile, and unless a blood contract has been made, like yours with the toads, it would become too volatile.”
“You wouldn’t need a contract with me,” Sasuke says. “My chakra is entirely my own.”
The slug’s head bobs to one side in consideration, and then she makes a noise of assent. “We can try.”
Sasuke holds out his hand, allowing Lady Katsuyu to inch closer, pressing herself up against his palm. There’s a beat of tense silence as they both concentrate, Sasuke infusing a burst of chakra in the tiny creature’s body.
She shudders from the force of it, her energy signature changing to a mixture of her own and his.
“It’s done,” she says, and he can feel a tiny twinge in his senses calling from far beneath the crumbled mountain.
Sasuke nods and begins to back away from the rubble. “Get beneath her.”
“I don’t understand,” Ando is saying. “How will that be any different from before? Lady Katsuyu was already able to direct us to Sakura.”
“He’s not just looking for Sakura’s location,” Naruto says with a grim smile. “He needs to know exactly where she is.”
“But why—?”
Sasuke tunes out the useless questions as he positions himself somewhere with a decent amount of clearance all around him. Bracing himself—he’s never tried this particular gambit before—he activates the Sharingan and reaches deep within his chakra reserves.
Instantly, violent purple energy manifests, bones and muscle and armor, as Susanoo encompasses him all around. The burning, ripping pain of it has almost become distant by now, and he focusses past it, still holding onto that shred of his chakra beckoning him from wherever Sakura is.
He turns his head, concentrating on the space in front of Susanoo’s empty right hand and activates the Rinnegan.
A portal twists into being from thin air, and Sasuke hardly waits before raising Susanoo’s hand and pressing the limb through the portal. He can distantly feel the weight of her against the flat of the hand as it materializes directly beneath her body, and then pulls her backward, shutting the portal immediately after extracting her to ensure none of the rubble baring down on her might follow.
As gentle as he can, Sasuke lays Sakura down upon the ground, Susanoo vanishing as her body touches the earth.
サスサク
Everyone is already kneeling around her when Sasuke touches back down, the chakra giant vanishing once more. Lady Katsuyu vanishes, no longer having Sakura’s strength to draw on, and Naruto is snapping something at Ando, probably to get help.
All of it washes over Sasuke in a meaningless, soundless wave as his eyes fall upon Sakura. His lungs tighten as he takes in her broken body.
Her legs are bruised and battered, crushed inward in some places and bones poking out of other places; it’s the same for her hips and several ribs. Her eyes are open and staring, a trail of blood leaking from the corner of her mouth and nose.
The sight is terrifying.
For a short yet eternal moment he is back in the streets of the Uchiha district, surrounded by the bodies of his family. Just as he was then, he is frozen now—inutile and incapable of doing anything.
“Naruto…” he begins, not knowing exactly what he’s trying to ask.
“This is bad,” Naruto says, voice strained. His eyes are slits once more, his sage mode active as a red film covers Sakura’s body. “I can heal the big stuff, but so much has been pulverized…” He swallows as if in physical pain; Sasuke knows the feeling. “She needs someone that can do surgery at the microlevel. If I heal her right now, like this, I could do a lot more harm then good.”
It’s a measure of how far Naruto’s come that he recognizes this, that he knows not to simply ram through his power and hope it helps.
Sasuke doesn’t know what will help now.
Scenarios and plans speed through a mind more suited for battle tactics than life-saving measures, as he tries to think of any way that he can help her and wishing for the first time in a long time that Karin were here.
Wishing he had ever taken the time to learn more about the healing arts than how to kill.
All the while, the sight of Sakura’s shattered limbs taunting him as her blood seeps into the sand.
Sasuke blinks.
Sand.
The memory hits him out of nowhere, the way many of his recollections from before do. Waking in a hospital, distantly hearing people talking about a fight—sand versus strength.
“Tsunade,” Sasuke says, remembering how the Fifth Hokage dealt with something similar. Right around the time she healed his mind from Itachi’s merciless assault on it, she saved Rock Lee from a life of paralysis.
Naruto is frowning, once again on the same wavelength as him. “No one knows where she is.”
“I’ll find her. Get Sakura back to Konoha—”
“No…”
Both of them jump at the pained, feeble voice and glance down.
Sakura’s eyes are closed now, clenched as tight as her jaw when she speaks through gritted teeth. “There are still…people…” She tries to raise a hand, gesture toward the rubble. “Naruto…stay and…help…”
“Sakura, no!” he snaps. “You’re in a mess right now, I need to keep you going until—”
“…Too much…damage…wasting your…chakra…”
“Sakura,” Sasuke says tersely, and her eyes shoot open toward him. Awareness flickers behind green irises, along with some surprise, as if she didn’t realize or expect him to be there.
“Sasu…ke…”
He shivers.
There has never been a time in his life when he and Sakura haven’t been aware of the presence of the other. The fact she didn’t notice him is telling in the severity of her injury…as is her not expecting him to be by her side.
After all, when has he ever been?
What has he ever done for her?
“We have to get her out of here,” Naruto says. “Do you have enough strength for another portal?”
Sasuke nods, though he isn’t sure; he’s used his abilities twice now in quick succession. But for Sakura, he’ll try.
The space beside them rips open, once more opening onto the familiar rooftops of Konoha as seen from Hokage Tower. All they need to do is step through, and so Naruto goes to pick Sakura up, only for her to scream in sudden sharp agony.
Sasuke’s heart stutters, his concentration wavering slightly, allowing the portal to shrink and contract worryingly.
“She’s too hurt,” Naruto says, panicked. “We need to keep her on her back or…I might sever something important.”
There are no stretchers here, no immobilizing aids to move her. If he had any idea where Tsunade Senju was, he’d seek her out and return her here instantly, but he doesn’t have that time and neither does Sakura.
“I’ll bring her,” Sasuke says.
“But—”
“You stay here. Help the survivors.”
There’s something on his face that keeps Naruto from arguing further, but Sasuke is no longer paying attention. Once again, he centers himself, trying to divide his power between the portal and call up Susanoo in just the right manner.
It takes searing concentration to manifest Susanoo’s hand in the space between Sakura’s body and the ground, letting the chakra fill in beneath her and keep her steady and supine.
Sakura’s eyes are wide, trained on him in something like desperation, before they roll back and she lapses into unconsciousness.
Sasuke’s lungs constrict, but he forces himself to work through it, to slide Susanoo’s hand straight through the portal until Sakura is no longer lying among the debris of the dead but in the safety of their village.
Sweat breaks out across his forehead and the back of his neck, and he tastes blood in his mouth, but he manages to retract the chakra within him. He’s about to step through when—
“Wait!”
He grits his teeth, eyes darting back to the kid—Ando—who has returned.
“Let me come too,” he says. “I can keep her stable, or—or go get someone from the hospital, or—”
“Go!” Sasuke snarls, half from effort and half from irritation the boy is taking up valuable seconds.
A terrified expression breaks over Ando’s face for a moment, before he throws himself headlong through the portal.
“Find Tsunade,” Sasuke tells Naruto as he follows. He doesn’t have to hear the response to know he will.
サスサク
He has no right to be here.
The intensive care wing of Konoha’s hospital is a flurry of movement as doctors and nurses and medic-nin rush in and out of the surgery where they are working on Sakura. He lingers outside the doors, his own self-recrimination keeping him out here more than the ‘Staff Only’ sign on the door.
He doesn’t deserve to be here, to hear news of her condition. He left—he’s always leaving—and she’s always waiting. She’s always here and he realizes with a sudden disbelief that somehow, somewhere along the line something in him has taken that for granted.
Ever since the War, ever since watching her blossom into her abilities and to demonstrate power that makes her neigh indestructible, he’s been thinking of her as if she is. As if she’s a constant that will never change, that will always exist.
Like she’s immortal.
Except she’s not, she can die like anyone else.
It’s something taken for granted in their line of work, but medic-nin die the same as anyone else in the service. And Sakura would be the first to insist she is no more important than anyone else, that her life is the same value as any of their comrades. He knows if given the choice she’d sacrifice that same life without any regret—hell, he watched her try to do just that today.
That knowledge—and the reality of what is happening behind that door in front of him, the image of the light in her eyes dying—steals his breath.
Will that be his last memory of her? A broken body pulled from a wreckage?
Very real terror grips him then, something he hasn’t felt in years. A close, clawing sensation and his lungs constricting as something jagged forms in his throat. Nightmares of blood in the streets, blood in his hands and the rush of a waterfall in the background, the chirping of lightning in his ears—
“Sasuke.”
His head jerks up, the world around him returning, senses no longer going haywire to stave off the incoming panic.
Kakashi is standing beside him—when did he get here?—eyes somber. There’s a beat before he reaches out, hesitant, and lays a hand on his shoulder.
It’s as if a current is going through him, memories from long ago, that same hand on his shoulder. It’s the first time Kakashi has reached out to him since he left Konoha as a child.
“I’ve had news from Naruto,” his former instructor continues. “He’s found Tsunade.”
And somehow with those three words, every bit of tension in Sasuke’s body evaporates. He realizes he hasn’t been breathing and tries his best not to gulp for air, forces himself to inhale slowly through his nose, to not lose his composure.
Kakashi, of course, is not fooled. “Sakura will be alright. She’s strong.”
Sasuke wants to reply that he knows, he’s always known, but his tongue is still frozen. Instead, he returns his gaze upon the door, trying to sense what is happening beyond it.
He feels Kakashi remove his hand, but the man’s intense stare remains on him.
“I should go,” he eventually manages to say. Yet his legs refuse to move.
“You should stay. You’re exactly where you need to be.”
“I’m not—”
“You’re exactly where she needs you to be.”
Sasuke’s protest dies before it was truly born, and he goes back to trying to breath. Inhale and hold; exhale and repeat. It doesn’t matter what he needs or wants, after all.
Why?
Sakura is Sakura. Yes, they have always had a connection, a bond, but it’s the same connection he’s had with the rest of his former squad. You can’t go on missions or into battle with one another without developing a synchronicity. Even if the connections are different.
With Kakashi it’s the kindred spirit of someone who has lost everything almost the same as he has, with Naruto it’s a bond that can never be replicated for the most complicated of cosmic reasons.
And yet…with Sakura, there’s something different there.
He always thought it was nostalgia, the last lingering remnants of a weak child desperate for whatever scrap of affection was offered to him after losing his parents. Every moment he’s ever spent with her, he pretended like it didn’t affect him at all; and yet, there was always that eagerness he had to tamp down, wanting to see the smile on her face because he knew he didn’t deserve it.
A smile he missed in the years training with Orochimaru, then wandering the world in penance. He knows she’s had feelings for him since they were children, and has has spent most of his last years hoping against hope that she’ll let him go and move on.
That she’ll find someone else, someone worthy of her, someone who will keep her safe and guard her heart against pain. Because that’s all he can give her is pain; tht, and a soul that will never completely heal.
Except it wont matter, will it, if she dies?
She’ll be gone, and he’ll be empty again. No matter where he goes, he’s always known that somewhere, Sakura is out there, keeping him in her heart. He knows that even if she does find another, there will always be a part of her that thinks of him, just like he will always have a part of him that thinks of her.
But if she dies…if she doesn’t make it through this…
Suddenly he can see it.
Years stretch out in front of him, bleak and empty and gray. Visits to a gravestone of a life that could have been. Regrets and pain and an endless void of existing instead of living.
More of everything he endured as a child, only this time, without the tiny ray of sunlight that Sakura willingly gave him.
And suddenly, he realizes he doesn’t want that.
A world without Sakura in it, is not one that he wants to be a part of.
He wants her—needs her—to be happy. And if her happiness is him…if he could ensure that happiness somehow…
Well, he’ll do whatever it takes.
Sasuke takes a shuddering breath at the realization.
It feels sudden, like a switch has been flipped with realization, and yet at the same time he knows it has always been this way.
He’s in love with Sakura.
The world returns then in sharp focus, ignorant to the realizations he’s just made. Kakashi is still eyeing him with concern. Perhaps wondering if he’s going to have to talk him out of leaving the hospital, even though Sasuke knows that he’s not going anywhere until he can watch her open her eyes again.
Until she smiles at him again.
Maybe not even then.
“I’ll wait for her then,” he says, shaken but still somehow managing to control the timbre of his voice. He leans against the wall, eyes once more resting on the door in expectation.
I’ll wait for her forever.
終わり
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