Haruno Sakura: Hands

Trouble. 7

Sakura sighed in content.

She was finally given some me-time in her bedroom and she was using the chance to look into a growing issue.

Her hands were aching more than usual, it felt like shots were hitting her nerves every other second and giving pulsating pain; worried, she decided to check if any physical changes had occurred. She pulled off the gloves from the tip of her fingers and set them aside, leaving only the removal of the special bandages. The slight hints of fresh air in her room felt so cooling and strange, encouraging her to take them off quicker.

Not much was discovered about the extension of her newfound power, two months of studying only resulted in the discovery of their ability to disintegrate any matter they touched; whether organic, solid, or liquid, but they had no effect on the rest of her body. Tsunade tried to test different types of gases like nitrogen and helium, but both experiments resulted in explosions that destroyed the secret facility they were occupying. On the positive side, oxygen and carbon dioxide seemed to be the only gases that didn't cause a reaction from her hands.

'I forgot what having them free felt like.'

Once off, Sakura finally got a good look at her hands. Her fingers had become thinner and shaper, like that of a skeleton. Alongside that, they were turning scarlet red and the tips of her fingers were dark violet, probably the cause of the pain, but besides that, the thick scars from her burns had not changed.

Her hands used to be hard from her training and work, but they still felt like hands, with a certain amount of softness that was natural. Now, they were tough, shiny and that was just from the burns. The reason behind the physical changes was still unknown and there was no known way to reverse them back to their original state. She rubbed them together and frowned. The only things she could touch now was the equipment that Tsunade and Shizune made her and her own body.

"What are you doing?"

Sakura flinched at the voice and hid her hands from his vision with her body.

"Sasuke! What are you doing in my room?"

He ignored her question and walked around her bed, sitting beside her, but she quickly put back her gloves to prevent him from seeing anything.

Once the panic settled, they both sat quietly together. Sakura tried her best to seem unbothered, but her anxiety crawled up her spine and she couldn't help but chew on her bottom lip. Sasuke, the observant one, noted this and decide to stay silent a bit.

"Are your hands that badly injured?"

Her head whipped to him as he broke the ice.

"Orochimaru is dead, but I heard that he survived our last battle and I don't know any other village as stupid as this one to go after him," he explained. "I also don't know anyone else as stubborn as you and the Dobe to refuse a retreat order, so I've concluded YOU fought him and succeed, but with some sort of price."

He pointed to her hands.

"He did that didn't he." It wasn't a question.

"..."

"Naruto and Ino probably don't know the meaning behind your gloves, but Kakashi probably figured it out. I know that Faker knows everything since he's on your team," he scowled towards the end.

Sakura sighed, and they both stared at each other.

"He spat some sort of acid on my hands before I gave him the finishing blow. We weren't fast enough to make it back and get it treated on time, so it damaged my hands significantly." A small white lie, she wasn't going to reveal such a big destructive secret to Sasuke, who knew Orochimaru; giving him something probable was for the best.