The blooming of a cherry blossom tree

Chapter 8 : Her love

When she woke up again, she found herself on a hospital bed. Before opening her eyes, she quickly used her chakra to sense if one of her teammate or her sensei was anywhere around. Because she really didn’t have the strength to answers their questions right now.

Sensing only people she didn’t know reassured her a little, so she finally opened her eyes. She knew that what she had done was going to cause her great problem but she told herself that it was to save Sasuke, and that made it a little more bearable.

She put herself in a seated position on the bed and tried to look a little around herself. Apart from the bed she was on, the room also had a sofa placed on the bed right side. On the wall next to the sofa was an window half open. Looking at it, she finally noted that there was no light outside. Looking at the clock on the wall across from her bed she saw it was indeed one o’clock.

She was happy that she didn’t wake up during the day and instead did during the night. This way she would have more time to be alone in the room and think about what to say to her sensei and teammate. But then a realization hit her. Sasuke was also hurt during the fight so he was surely also in the hospital. She hopped for once he would not came to talk to her during the night.

But it seemed god was clearly not on her side today, in fact, the exact next second she had had this thought, she heard his footstep not far from her room. She knew it was him, she sensed his chakra after all. But it seemed that in her drained state she had failed to sense it the first time.

She started panicking, because she had no idea what she was going to tell him, and would surely not be the truth or at least not all of it. She needed time to think, so she did the stupidest think ever. Getting out of bed with some difficulty, she quickly looked through the window and saw she was only on the second floor.

Thanking the god for helping her at least a little, she climbed on the window and applied a little of chakra on the soil of her feet. Slowly, but fast enough not to be caught by Sasuke, she started marching on the hospital wall, approaching the floor more and more by the second.

She could feel that Sasuke wasn’t far away from her room door so she speed a little. The moment he would see she wasn’t on her bed anymore he would directly alert Kakashi sensei, and she had to get far away from the hospital before that. So the moment her feet touched the floor she started running, pumping her leg with chakra to go faster.

After running for about ten minute at great speed, she decided to stop. She found herself at the top of the hokage statue, and thinking that some air would do her great, she sat down with her feet suspended in the void. She knew she wouldn’t be able to hide for long. By now, Sasuke had surely already alerted Kakashi sensei and they were probably searching for her. So instead of stressing about it, she decided to think a little about all the past event.

During the past two month or so, a lot had changed for her and she also had changed a lot. Gone was the little girl that didn’t knew what being a ninja was. She had trained her ass off for a whole month and she had held her ground even if only for some time with Gaara. Damn, she had also countered the Itachi Uchiwa Sharingan, even thought it had took nearly all the chakra she had.

Now the only think left was to test her newly acquired skill, the ‘genjutsu reversal’ on the sharingan. Thought after seeing how hard it was to just counter a normal genjutsu done by the sharingan, she wasn’t about to try taking control of it any time soon if she could help it. Thought if she had to do it again to protect  Sasuke, she wouldn’t hesitate a second, even if she had to end up in the hospital again for chakra exhaustion.

Suddenly she heard a sound coming from behind her and she cursed herself for not being more attentive. Quickly scanning the zone with her sense made her relax ever so slightly. It was only Sasuke, no enemy. She didn’t turn around scared to see his expression, thought she had to say she was curious as to why he had come alone. Didn’t he alert Kakashi sensei?

She felt him stop only a few feet behind her and finally turned around to look at his face. He was looking at the floor and with the dark of the night, it wasn’t easy to say what expression was on his face. But with a little of effort, she could see his confused expression.

Before she was able to ask him if there was a problem, he suddenly lifted his face and looked right into her eyes. She felt her cheeks burning a little from the sudden eyes contact but what she saw in his eyes made her come back rather quickly.

He seemed really confuse but not only that, there was a hint of sadness, shock, rage and even a sort of proudness. But the most present one was the confusion. She understood that after all the events that happened in the past week he would have some problem accepting it or understanding it. But she didn’t expect it to affect him so much.

He was showing more emotion on his face that same night than she ever saw on him during the past years they had knew each other. She finally seemed to understand the gravity of the situation and it’s complexity for the boy.

In that exact moment, she decided what she was going to tell him. She didn’t want to lie to this broken boy and friend she had come to appreciate more than just as a crush. But she also understood he wasn’t ready for the truth or at least not for all of it.

So she would tell him only what he would ask of her and try to keep from him anything that could make him question her more. She knew that one day she would tell him all of the truth, but she was also sure that it wasn’t supposed to be today.

She turned around again and looked at the star and the moon above their head. Sighing, she patted the spot on her right and waited. At first, nothing happened but after some time, she heard his footstep again and he was seated on her right side.

She didn’t start the conversation, because she wanted him to take the necessary courage to ask her. She knew that the subject of his brother had always been a hard one to talk about and thus she had swore to herself to never talk about it.

She wasn’t going to break that promise, if he wanted to talk about it, he would have to start. And she would then respond at the best of her capacity. Ten more minute passed in complete silence before the Uchiwa boy finally talked.

- Why?

It was a simple question and she didn’t expect it. Sure she knew the boy wasn’t much of a talker but she still expected him to form a proper question she could understand. But for him to just ask her why suddenly.

At first, she didn’t knew what he was referring to. Why did she leave the hospital? Why did she save him? Or why didn’t she told him about her new skill? Damn, she was even thinking that maybe he was asking her why she had changed so much In the past month.

But one look at his face was all it took for her to understand he wasn’t talking about any of the think she was thinking. No, what he was asking her was why she had put herself in the middle of his battle with his brother. Why she had put herself in his way. 

Upon understanding the sense of his question, Sakura felt a little angry at the boy stubbornness to shut out every single person. She never understood why he never accepted any help anyone was giving him.

But then again, she had never had to live the massacre of all of her family and clan by the hand of her own older brother. Nor did she had to live alone and immerged in thought of vengeance for the past five years of her life.

Those where the reasons why she didn’t snap at him and instead decide to put away her anger and answers his question as honestly as she could.

- Because even if you may not like it, I care about you. And I was, sure as hell, not going to let you die.

He quickly turned his head in my direction and the expression on his face was one of repressed anger.

- You had no right to butt in the middle of my fight! You don’t understand how much I want to kill him! I have to kill him!

- I know, Sasuke. But that, for me, is not a reason good enough to let you die or get hurt. So don’t expect me to simply stand by and watch you die!

- You don’t understand! I don’t care If I die…

- Well I do! And the one that don’t understand is you!

By now, the both of them had gotten up and were facing each other. She knew that she really shouldn’t be screaming at his face like that. She had promised herself to be patient and not snap. But that was just too much. She was human too dammit! And she cared about her teammate so she would obviously help them if needed.

- You are my teammate and friend, Sasuke! You can’t just expect me too let you die. That’s not how it work! You don’t just get to put yourself in danger and tell us to stand back and watch you die!

- I wasn’t going to DIE!
 
- Yes, yes you were! If Shikamaru didn’t use his shadow technique to block that blue guy and if I didn’t rush to get you, you would be dead by now. Do you even have the slightest idea how bad it felt when I arrived there and saw you getting stabbed and then throw away. My heart stopped beating the moment I saw that Shark guy rush at you with his enormous blade ready to cut you in two. It fucking stopped beating for ten fucking second!

Stopping herself from saying anything else, she breathed quickly and in a rushed beat. Before her, stood Sasuke, a slightly shocked expression on his face. Guessing he clearly didn’t expect her out of every person he knew to scream at him, his shocked expression was understandable.

Calming her breathing, she finally felt the warm and wet sensation on her face. Putting her hand on her face, she felt the tear streaming down her own face. Internally, she cursed at herself for crying. All this beautiful speech just so she could start crying in front of him. Again!

She knew he hated when she cried and thought lowly of her because of that. So she quickly turned around and started rubbing her arm on her face to take away the tears. But not even a second later, she felt a hand on her arm. Turning her head, she saw Sasuke with his own head lowered.

- Sorry.

She looked at him for a moment because Sasuke Uchiwa never said sorry to her. She was so shocked that her whole body was paralyzed and she frankly thought that maybe she had actually stopped breathing.

He slowly retreated his hand and looked away from her eyes. Putting one hand behind his neck he started scratching it as if to say he was embarrassed. That gesture was so not like him, more the kind of thing Naruto would do, that she actually unfreeze and turned completely to stand in front of him again.

- I’m the one that should be sorry, Sasuke-kun. I shouldn’t have screamed at you like that. I’m really sorry.

Having finally calmed down, she finally felt embarrassed at screaming at her crush like that. He gave her a simple nod before they finally sited back on the ground. She knew he wasn’t finished with his questions, so she simply waited for him to talk.

- How did you counter his genjutsu?

She knew this question would come, after all it was already not normal to counter a high rank genjutsu. But she had literally, even if with great effort, countered a high rank genjutsu casted by a sharingan. Uchiwa Itachi sharingan.

- Let’s just say I’ve always had a good resistance and affinity whit genjutsu. And recently, I found out I was actually immune to most of them and could counter most of them. Thought, kike you saw, it take a lot of chakra from me and it’s clearly not a technique I should use during battle.

- Then why did you use it?
She scratched her cheek in embarrassment before continuing.

- Well you see, like I said, I only recently discovered I could do that and well, I guess I wanted to test it out. Even more on a sharingan since generally genjutsu casted with it are greater than normal genjutsu.

- That was reckless and dangerous. What would you have done if it didn’t worked.

- It did, that’s what matter.

- Hn.

He looked at her with a frown on his face and Sakura thought that that was the longest conversation they had ever had. It also was the most world she had ever heard the Uchiwa use.

- That technique, did you discover it during the month before the last phase of the chunin exam?

She nodded and the silence of the night came back. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence but it wasn’t very comfortable either. Slowly, the sky started showing the first light of the day and both adolescent decided to head back to the hospital.

She knew that it would not be an easy day, after all she still would have to confront her sensei. But she told herself that at least, Sasuke didn’t seems to hate her. And frankly, as much as she had more difficulty admitting it now that she had decided not to only think about Sasuke and instead concentrate a bit more on training, she was really happy he didn’t hate her. Because in the end, she knew that all she was going to do from now on would clearly be, at least partially, for Sasuke well being. After all, love was not something to be taken lightly even more when it came for a young girl like her who had nothing yet to stand for.

She had discovered a lot of think about her lately and she had found out she was stronger then she thought. But during these past month, she had yet to find what she wanted to use her newfound strength on. Obviously, her first thought had been protecting the village. But after the events of the past week, she had finally understood that even if her past self had died in the forest of Death. A part of her was still here and would never leave.

That part was her love for him. For the person she had learn to know and appreciate past her simple crush. And for the person she wanted to protect with all her might. Now, she had something to stand for, and it was him.